The Team House - German Market Attack & Jolani Meets with U.S. Delegation w/ Marc Polymeropoulos | EYES ON PODCAST

Episode Date: December 22, 2024

Today we’re joined by Marc Polymeropoulos to talk about the German Christmas market attack, whether it’s the work of Isis or a far right winger. We also talk about Jolani the leader of HTS meeting with a U.S. delegation and how Turkey can shape Syria. We also touch on Ukraine at the very end.Subscribe to the new EYES ON YouTube channel.⬇️https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJytcQbSOEKLGyhNwkqpd3ASupport the show on Patreon:⬇️https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouseFind Marc Polymer here: ⬇️https://x.com/Mpolymer?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthorhttps://bsky.app/profile/mpolymer1.bsky.socialFind Andy Milburn here: ⬇️https://twitter.com/i/flow/login?redirect_after_login=%2Fandymilburn8https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewmilburn2023https://amilburn.substack.com/https://www.amazon.com/When-Tempest-Gathers-Mogadishu-Operationshttps://bsky.app/profile/andy-milburn.bsky.socialhttps://open.substack.com/pub/amilburn/p/journal-of-a-plague-year?utm_source=app-post-stats-page&r=emo6q&utm_medium=iosFind Mick Mulroy here: ⬇️https://fogbow.com/https://www.loboinstitute.org/https://x.com/MickMulroy?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthorhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-patrick-mulroy-31198b52/https://bsky.app/profile/mickmulroy.bsky.socialFind Jason Lyons here: ⬇️https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-lyons-666873316?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_apphttps://bsky.app/profile/bgsilverback73.bsky.social#germanmarket #syriaBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Aizan. We have a very special guest, and this is our Christmas special. So happy holidays, Merry Christmas to everybody. Mark Polymeropolis, of course, former senior CIA officer and friend, Andy Milburn, former Marine, Colonel, Mick Mulroy, former Marine and senior CIA officer. So today is two verse two, two Greeks versus two Marines. Yeah, I noticed the only one you introduced as a friend was Monk, that's what I noted up front. It's right. It would look like an interesting thin diagram. I mean, two Marines, two Greeks,

and then two CIA guys. So mix in the shaded area. Yeah. But he still didn't get called a friend. No, everyone's a friend in there. I appreciate all you guys. It's a very fun show to do and be a part of.

So what's happening today? I mean, the big news out of Germany was the guy that read, down. Last time I saw it was like 12 people dead and like 60 injured. I'm sure that's probably risen since then. And the initial like snap reaction was that he was like a jihadist, ISIS or whatever. And things have since changed in terms of what's going on with that. So I'll give it, Mark is our special guest today and my friend. Mark, what do you think about what's going on with in Germany? A fellow Greek, this is good. Let me just also say is a,

I think, do we have any video for this as well for folks? We do. No, it's part. So I'm wearing a hat from when I served as a base chief in Shkin, Afghanistan. I took over that base from Mick Mulroy, who of course is on the other side of this today. He was a much more mature and responsible leader. And I will say, as I was talking to everyone before and whatever you call the virtual green room, is that this is the hat I had in 2011.

I've never washed it. And I'm still wearing it right now. That's my intro to you all. No, Dee, in terms of the attack in Germany, obviously tragic at, you know, during the holiday season. Mick and I were talking before when, you know, when one is asked and we do some commentary in the media to come on breaking news, you got to be careful because a lot of the first impressions are often wrong. And it, while it looked like a typical ISIS inspired, you know, attack, which we call, you know, vehicle is a weapon or, you know, vehicle ramming attack, which is the MO. of ISIS and other groups as well over the years. Even, you know, the Palestinian terrorist groups have used it, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. I mean, Anwar Aalaki would talk about this in Inspire Magazine 15 years ago because it's effective because it doesn't take training, doesn't take, you know, an infill of cell structure, explosives, anything. But it turns out this guy who is a Saudi might actually have been, had some kind of strange turn of ideology and he espoused the far right of the German

political spectrum. And so, you know, motive is still a question now, but still a tragedy. I think probably a good point of discussion here is, you know, for the group is, you know, how do you prevent such things with vehicle barriers and stuff? Like if you know Europe, these Christmas markets are everywhere. And so I would think that in the time of heightened tensions now, probably security services are thinking about how to protect against this. Mick? Yeah. So I too have some show and tell. What would one get if one went to a Christmas party with the Secret Center in Montana? I got these two things.

First, of course, is a hatchet. I love it. All right. The second, I'm really proud of, it's like a two-gallon bottle of bourbon. Oh, Jesus. Travels. Merry Christmas. Yeah.

That's just for one part. What's the opposite of travel size? Yeah, I don't know. I mean, this, I mean, I don't know if it's actually two pounds, but it's cold. Can I be, can I be honest? Go ahead, sorry. Miller. I thought you were going to say you got an AR-15 for your Secret Santa in Montana.

That seat. Yeah, that would make sense. Yeah. I don't think it was actually, I think it was parts to it. It was the accoutrements to an air. Anyway, so to your question, like Mark, he referenced it, you know, you go on these breaking news and you're doing your best not to get too far down the rapid hole before you have the information because I mean if you look at yesterday it was easy to right this is a Saudi immigrant deliberately rides that drives a car

through a Christmas market so I think you can give people some much of a break considering the circumstances and you know how that could equate to a far right person killing a bunch of people at a Christmas market. I just, I don't, I mean, I guess you can't really understand somebody who's that mentally twisted to kill children like that. So, but what does it lead to? I guess is a question. I think, I think that we are seeing whether you control guns and that's a whole other discussion, but people can find other means to kill people. And cars are obviously ubiquitous everywhere. And you can't really, you can, you can restrict it as far as people having them, but you can restrict where they can go. And that's probably going to be the way the future

goes. When there somebody is doing a planned community, that's going to be taken. It's a sad commentary on the future of mankind, but they're going to try to mitigate as much as they can anything that one human can do to kill another. And that's going to be the case. And it's going to be expensive. The problem is it's very difficult to retrofit areas. And although they should, a lot of the big targets like Washington, D.C., New York City, et cetera, they're very hard targets, but they have resources and other places around the country don't. So it's tough. It's going to be what people are willing to spend to protect themselves, and some places will spend a lot. Yeah, it seems to be a theme in Europe, isn't it? I mean, that was the Islamic State attack in

2016, I think it was in in south of France. They killed 13 people, wounded a bunch of others. There was a UK attack, the attack on the bridge. I want to say, I mean, there was a knifement involved, but I want to say there was one attack there that involved a vehicle too. That was a Islamic. There was one in Berlin, too. And one Berlin, yeah. Yeah, a few years ago. So certainly a silly a trend. Yeah, so as right now, they don't believe it's an ISIS guy. They think it's

just a guy who got radicalized who's more of a right wing kind of dude. Sorry, everybody who's right wing. I mean, obviously you guys aren't all lunatics. So is that confirmed like from what we're hearing or no,

that's still? No, I think the local government or a governor said something about it. But yeah, this is all preliminary. This is all, and they have them in custody. He's alive. So they're going to, I mean, they're going to get the motive. Not particularly difficult. Yeah, another interesting trend.

He said, we do know about him. He's a psychiatrist, right? It's not the first time that a shrink has gone crazy and killed a bunch of people. Yes. It's usually really stable people or really unstable people, right? probably going to get some hate for that. But yeah, and there was a lot of talk. Well, he's a doctor, so he couldn't be a terrorist. And I finally had to point out, you know, our buddy, Iman. That's how he regret.

There's no, there's no socioeconomic group that constrains you for being a terrorist. I think we should all accept that right now. Yeah. I mean, you can be an ophthalologist, ophthalmologist, and be a breathing. That's a, yes. Louis tyrants Mass murdering war criminal Yeah

Just right a critical case Um Yeah so we'll keep an eye on that See what what comes out It's gonna be interesting It is kind of wild to see You know somebody who's a psychiatrist Who like understand psychology

Kind of lose the thread Talking about Syria Uh State departments reached out and gone I think believe I think they've met with Jalani right Uh The bounty's gone, the $10 million bounty that we had on his head.

It looks like he's saying all the right things. Sorry, Mick's cut you off. And he's got a new name, too. He went from Jolani to back to his heart. Back to his original, Mr. Alshara. Yeah. Doesn't quite the re-fair. Yeah, it was.

Nothing like a rebrand. Barbara Leaf, right? She used to be an ambassador to, was it Jordan or somewhere? I forget now. She's ASD, nearest. And then Rubenstein, who's the hostage negotiator and Carstens, right? Those three were now. Carson's a hostage negotiation.

All right. Roger is. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. Rubenstein's the special advisor or something on Syria has got one of those titles. But anyway, those three. And Leith commented that, you know, when she was being thrilled about lifting the

bounty. You know, she commented that, that, you know, otherwise it would make the meeting very awkward. They, you know, they'd have to bring in the FBI, which is a, you know, fair point for a kind of a dumb question. But guys, you know more than about this from me. The, you know, the question of, of taking HTS off the, shut up, Ritchie, off, he's so tired of Syria. Taking HTS off the serialist is, I mean, it's easier said than done, right? It's not like a, it does. happen over the night? Well, let me say a couple things on this. You know, you know, I, many moons ago I served there in Damascus. The agency doesn't really like when you say this, but it's pretty stupid when I'm on the dip list. And so it's a place that is near and dear to my heart. I was there

before the Civil War. You know, I saw firsthand just, there's two things that the Syrian people, it was my favorite hosting, my favorite tour. Syrian people were extraordinary. Even though the bilateral relationship was terrible at the time, you know, they were, they were educated, they were relatively secular. They were pro-American in terms of their outlook on life. And so I think my first reaction to everything that happened is we should have some joy that someone like Bashar al-Assad who killed half a million of his citizens, who turns out to have run this secret prison network where there's over 100,000, you know, they're finding maybe 100,000 plus bodies and bones and all sorts of horrific crap. I mean, this is a truly historic, you know, criminal who is now

been deposed. That's a very good thing. But I think that, you know, one of the things that, and you all might have a, be surprised at my thought, I think it's a really good thing to engage with them. This is not the Taliban. HTS and Jalani, it's a group that has, you know, renounced ties to al-Qaeda a while ago. And you have some people kind of hysterical about this, you know, particularly on kind of the, I'm going to get in trouble for this. Now the pro-Israel right, who are saying, you know, here we are again, you know, now we're going to be negotiating with terrorists. Well, you know, we have to engage in Syria. It's too important a country. And it should be, you know, based on incentives. And, you know, the idea that the $10 million reward is ludicrous. We've had him in our sights. We could have killed him with a drone strike 1,500 times. So that's just stupid. It's good we drop that designation because we have to deal with them. And there should be kind of an incentivized measure of steps. If they write a constitution, if they respect the rights of all Syrians, if the school curriculum is going to be inclusive, the opposite of doing that, I think, would be pretty, pretty damaging because we have very strong interest there, not only for the

stability of the region, but because of the presence of ISIS. 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 in and check us out at patreon.com slash the team house. And so I actually like what the, I actually like what the Biden administration is doing. I think the Barbara Leaf level that this, you know, assistant secretary is the right one. You know, we didn't rush our foreign ministers out there like others are. but it should be an incentivized structure to bring them along.

And what I hope, of course, the danger now is where I think we're going down the right path. I don't know what the next administration is going to do. But just this reflexive thing that this guy, Jolani and HTS or Al-Qaeda and terrorists, that's just fucking bullshit. And it annoys the crap out of me when people say that because they don't know shit about the region. And if we want to if we want to turn him into that, that's what we do. So obviously, I can agree more. I mean, it's amazing how real politics. is waived in people's faces by people, you know, again, taking a centrist approach by people on the far

right or on the right. And yet, when any administration takes a pragmatic view of stance like this, we have to be pragmatic. Right. And everything about that region, all the actors are pragmatic. Otherwise, they die. You know, there's, they're shifting back and forth of alliances. We look at it as being un-American. And then, you know, we, we talk about, hey, if they're connected with shedding American blood. I mean, no alliance, no ceasefire in history would have been arrived at if both sides took that stance. You know, sometimes you have to make peace with your former enemies. But, you know, and I think everything Lee said was right. It showed me rather than, rather than say, let's see, let's see how this pants out. And, you know, that, you know,

there are positive signs coming out of what HDS did in Idlib as well as some concerns and the concerns have already been voiced about, you know, Sharia law and making women wear the veil. But yeah, I couldn't agree more, Mark, and let's see how this pans out. I mean, the interim, the current government is supposed to be in place until March. And then we'll see how inclusive the next government is and how minorities are treated under. This is not the Taliban. This is not not 1970s in Iran. It just is not. You know, my friends in Damascus who are calling me, you know, bars are open there. You know, and so, you know, the, that's, that's a key indicator. I'm in. I mean, that's, right. There's that too. He can bring his bottle of bourbon that he just got. That's right.

This could go for all bar. But it is. It drives me, you know, there's a whole class of folks. I'm going to, again, it's, you know, I'm as pro-Israel as you get. But there's a, there's a class of kind of the academic intellectuals in D.C. who are now hysterical about this. And they're from kind of a lot of the more kind of right-wing pro-Israel think tanks. I'm going to get in so much trouble here now. But, and they're howling about this stuff. Meanwhile, the Jerusalem Post just sent Israeli journalists into Syria to meet with HTS. Like, the Israelis are sober about this.

But nonetheless, this kind of this notion that somehow Al Qaeda is back and we're discussing stuff. We're working with them. I mean, that drives me nuts. Anyway, I'll shut up before I get canceled. Well, I mean, to make it a equal. criticism to both sides is probably on the left to get upset when we talk to other countries, as if we can just not talk to Saudi Arabia, you know, that's which would be really not in our interest. I, you know, I guess we're going to have a three-way agreement session here,

but because I just got called out a lot of times when I do foreign media, I'm just the American guy, so I'm like, represent, I'm sure you've had similar experience, both of these. But, they were like hey you know u.s talks all this uh human rights and all that but you talk to all these tyrants and all that it's like i do think we should have it as part of our foreign policy to promote human rights and democracy i mean maybe i'm a bit antiquated but i think that's what we actually are and when we say we're the leader of the free world we should do that but the idea that we would just talk to you know Sweden is insane you know you know it's it's insane right and i looked up quickly as they were going between you know people that were talking

And it's like 90 out of 193 countries are really even democracies at all. So it just doesn't make any sense in that. And I'm including, you know, former or current jihadist in other armed groups, quite frankly, especially if they're about takeover country. So, I mean, it's a must. And I do think it's going to be a wait and see, you know. Barbara was right. she's by the way

the assistant secretary for Near East and a very experienced former ambassador to UAE American ambassador to UAE so I think she's taking the right approach they have to talk

they have to be part of the outcome here that's how we influence an outcome right we promote our beliefs in the process to the extent we can so that what comes out the other side is a you know a government that is selected by the people representing the people and inclusive to all or it's just going to be a

partitioned Syria forever. If it doesn't actually work, they're not going to change, right? Germany can call for disarming of Kurds. It'll never happen. They're not just going to put their weapons down, for example, and just become, you know, lambs to the slaughter. And Germany obviously isn't going to depend on. I bring that up because they just said the Kurd should be disarmed, which is ridiculous. If this is not an inclusive government, then it's going to stay the way it is. it's going to be a rough state, there's going to be multiple armed factions, and it's going to be continuous fight. So if the U.S. can affect that, and I think we can, we should be part of the diplomatic process. If it's really tricky diplomatic, then, you know, me and Mark's old

organization can step in there from time to time. But there has to be some dialogue and discussion, even with, you know, the worst. You know what I want to do? I want to go back there and go through Syrian intelligence files and see what they had on the embassy. This is like the most, the most meaningless thing of so many different, really important issues, but I would be fascinated to see the kind of the Syrian intelligence surveillance of the embassy, everyone we're talking to. I mean, it really was a police state. The problem is that for some unknown reason, the Israelis keep bombing all the Syrian intel sites. Yeah. Which is driving. That's a little weird, but it's a, it's certainly, I think that it is important to have some kind of accountability on what happened, just for the

Syrians overall because of just the horrific nature of the regime. You know, it came up, Mark, mutual friend of ours ping the other day and said he wondered if there was any records of many weapons transfers from Iraq to Syria back in the day. You know, chemical weapons. I'm not saying that they all went. That's where I mean, that's what some thought. And we know he had chemical weapons. So apparently, like a lot of the.

despotic regimes. They kept really good records. Yes. Yeah. Right? So I would like to see what happened between the two at the time. Maybe I had surveillance the whole time and I missed it and I'll look like I'll look like a total jacket. I better be careful. They're like, boom.

This is the worst person he's ever served. We have him. Very likely, by the way. You know, it'll also be interesting to see. I mean, those intelligence files would be disappointed if we haven't asked for them. It would be interesting to see. the, what they've said about US,

their engagement with US politicians. Oh, the years. In the last few years, right? Oh, that's all the way. With their targets and how successful they thought they were.

Hey, are you talking about as someone who might be designated for a senior level? I'm not mentioning names, yeah. But, um, I think they should show her, I think they should show her pictures of the Syrian prisons.

But, uh, but moving on nicely marked to your point about, uh, criticism, some of the, um, you know,

99% of, our audience are super intellectual. But we always take abuse, you know, on every single episode. And when we talk about Syria in particular, we have one listener in particular who is very upset with us kind of making excuses, as he points it for HTS. And his comment the other week was, you know, I'm watching you all sit in your, because he's writing from Israel. I'm watching you all, you know, sitting in your comfortable, peaceful lives, talking about this as though you know anything. And it's just a question, know your audience. You know, it's like, dude, we haven't always sat in these comfortable, peaceful lives.

And we all have had a little more direct experience of the Islamic State probably than you have. And so we are, our cautious optimism isn't born from naive ignorance, I hope. Andy, I got called. I just got back from South Sudan, man. I just got back. That's where you took your vacation. And I've been to Israel too, and I'm telling you, he's not, he's talking about comfort. There's a lot of places in the world that are not as comfortable as Israel.

I love Israel. I go there all the time. And I do understand the conflict, obviously. By the way, I was called once online. I wish, you know, often I get, I get so much hate mail. But I was called an Islamist communist. Just try to unpack it. Well, well, that does.

The acronym for that is IC. There you go. Well, I mean, you had a Saudi right-wing zealot that ran through a Christmas part. Right, yeah. You know? I guess if you get too far on either side, you start looking like each other. Yeah.

It's just fucking crazy. Right? That's what we try and get around. It's like instead of being here, you somehow get back to here. The, you know, before we get us Syria and, and again, I think, Mark's point about Assad in this, you know, as the search continues for Austin Tice, and I, you know, I don't know how hopeful they are. But actually, we were looking for two Americans, right? There was another one, a Syrian American who was also a psychiatrist,

but went out there to kind of treat people who were traumatized. Marjit, something rather, I can't remember his name, but he disappeared. And the State Department has said, so they must have conclusive evidence that, you know, that he's presumed dead, but Tice is not. But my point is, as they're looking, I think it was, I can't remember which of the three delegates, I think it was Kastin saying that, that, you know, as they uncover all these, they had no idea how many secret prisons Assad has, and they've already tracked Tice, has been taken through six of them. And, you know, so, you probably had a very rough time. I'm sure.

I would guess, you know, I don't want to comment on, I speculate on the chances of him still being alive. But in the same sentence, Carstance went on to say, we've heard there are as many as 40, or 40 or more of these facilities, which were massacring thousands to tens of thousands of people in most horrific ways.

You know, just another note for the Assad apologists who, because we have those. those two in our audience who are like, you know, at least he was keeping shit under control. Right, right. That's the, that's the double we know. Such a bullshit argument. Again, and I say this having lived there, this is a horrific regime. I mean, I was surprised by Roger's comments because it wasn't a surprise to me that there were 40 plus detention facilities. I mean, I like Roger Carson's, you know, obviously he does, you know, God's work in trying to recover Americans. But that statement was a little bit naive because Syria is a

horrendous repressive police state. People are disappeared there all the time. There's this kind of incredible pervasive fear amongst the population. And so I mean, I do think it's important to uncover all of this and to publicize it because there are a lot of people, and there's a lot of revisionism now and people scrubbing their Twitter accounts, but a lot of people were not only sympathetic towards Assad, but also disputed the whole chemical weapons claims in the past. Again, this is on kind of the hard right and the hard left weird bedfell. Tucker Carlson was just howling the other day. Why should I hate Assad? Well, how about, you know, half a million people being killed? They should show this, by the way, during Tulsi Gabbard's confirmation hearings. I'm sorry,

that's not being political. I mean, maybe she gets confirmed. She's got to explain herself why she chose to take a trip to Syria that was not sanctioned by the U.S. government. And so, you know, there are people have long memories and there are a lot of people who defended Assad. and they should be held accountable. Sorry. He was no friend of the United States. That's what drives me up the wall. So even if you don't care about all those lives lost,

even if you don't give a shit about human rights, the fact that he was funneling people into fighters in Anbar province and across Iraq for a number of years. I mean, that was no secret. He absolutely supported the insurgency in Iraq. When I was there, they were busing people. The Damascus bus station, the central bus station. getting on buses and going to fight against U.S. forces.

Wow. Yeah, I don't understand why. I mean, within a week before Aleppo fell, there was Western diplomats saying, hey, we got to just move on. Oh, yeah. I mean, they were throwing in the towel big time, right? Guess who else was?

The State Department was along with that. Yeah. Whoops. Yep. Yep. Was the agency? Somebody's probably going to point out, well, somebody's probably going to point out,

We started off talking about how you should talk to everybody and all that stuff. So somebody might point out that we're being, we're shifting a little bit. But we, there is a time to isolate a regime, right? I still think you should talk to it personally, but you have to isolate people that kill 500,000 citizens. We were talking to the Syrians about Tice only. That was it. That was the point. And was Assad ever even indicted by the ICC?

I don't think so. Good question. I think so. Not that it seems to matter. But yes, I think so. It seems to matter. Yeah. Unless you're an African warlord or an outer luck Serbian who's pissed off his drinking buddies.

The other question is going to be when to remove sanctions, right? Like the Caesar sanctions. Yes. That was a good question I got this week. I met Caesar, actually. you know, his name to Gore for the individual that smuggled out all those photos, right, and came to see me in cutting on and we went with him to testify. But those are about the Assad regime, right?

So, I mean, you have to come up with a way to start removing sanctions to a new government so that they're not crippled by the sins of the past, right? So that's another part of, it's not just about removing the $10 million bounty, and I get that. Obviously, Barbara was right about that. But we got to actually move expeditionary, you know, expediently to try to remove these sanctions that are very damaging. That's the intent. With the government that they were installed for is no longer there, right?

That's another issue. No, Mick, you're dead on because 90% of Syrians are living in poverty. The sanctions, you know, don't allow for any kind of money flows in. So if there's going to be any kind of massive aid and reconstruction, They have to be lifted. The U.S. has, the good thing is the U.S. has leverage. So go to Jalani and say, hey, you know, you're right. The correct constitution has to be written. You know, girls in schools, the school curriculum, all these things. Um, no kind of spate of revenge killing. Let us fight ISIS. You do all these things. And we will then incentivize you and drop the sanctions and we'll do it quickly. And I think, um, you'll have countries, certainly in the Gulf, certainly the Turks who seem to be the big winners in this. They'll, their construction companies will be rushing in there to rebuild. So they're going on average. So he's not indicted. Just an update.

They're talking about how he should be indicted now. Yeah. This is Civil War's been going on for 13 years. Okay. I think that shows a pretty significant bias if you want to talk about the biases of the I can see, right? Yeah. They still have another.

That's true. Yeah, I mean, we talked about this before, right? you know, we talk about the Germans asking, saying, hey, all the Kurds should be disarmed. It's not that the Germans think they have tremendous leverage with the Kurds. They're just trying to sidle up to Erdogan because Erdogan is again front and center, right? He's the man of the moment and wields power and how we engage with him. Again, it may be, you know, regardless of our feelings about Erdogan, I know he, I mean, I know Mick knows very, for your first hand, and I do too, having served in northern Iraq with Turkish troops,

how much of a pain he is to the U.S. is not necessarily, you know, on a house line. Mick's got to tell the story of the drunk Turkish SF guy at our base. Which one? That was a lot. That was a lot. We kicked them out. We kicked them out. Yeah. What we did is what we basically gave them, was a Nintendo or Xbox? or something. And then they didn't want to go out with this anymore. They were like spies at first, but then we gave them our,

it was Xbox, I guess. And they started playing that. They didn't want to go anymore. That's how we, that's how we dished them. There's a lot of Turkish porn, though, we could get, I remember, on satellite. Yes.

Turkish porn. We had to keep them off our open before the headquarters. I don't even want to go in. This is the value of Lawrence of Arabia. But anyway. Turkey's great, but those guys were. Yeah, Turkey is great.

Wonderful people. Okay, easy. D and I are here. Easy, easy. D and I are here. Oh, yeah. It's difficult. I can,

I do side with the Greeks. There you go. Come on. That's where it's. I do. I'm still trying to get honorary season. Still an honorary Greek. Oh, yeah.

I'll give you that. Actually, that's, that's a. Didn't Tom Hanks get one? Didn't Tom? Yes, yes, citizenship. He's married to the right woman. I was just at his, I just drove by his house and in Tiparos this summer. He's got a nice little house in the Greek island.

Yeah, I'm sure it's very cozy and quaint. Yeah. But the Turk thing, on modern day, Turkey. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, and the Armenians, of course, of good reason not to love the Turks,

as to the Kurds. But Odoin has positioned himself well. And as potentially has Qatar with, you know, Qatar's proposal, or the proposal for a pipeline into Europe, now crossing Syria, would be good news for everyone, actually,

because it makes, I mean, to Bulgaria, I think is the plan, but it would make European countries that much less reliant on Russian gas, which is a good thing. Which is the awesome with that came out of this. One thing on Turkey, this is important, if you look at kind of geostrategically there,

are the massive winners here. You know, they certainly supported HTS. I think HTS almost had catastrophic success. But, you know, you saw, you know, Turkish foreign minister Fadon, who's their former intel chief, you know, he was in Damascus being driven around by Jalani. It was hilarious. So the Turks are a massive winner in this, and really a whole kind of geostrategic shakeup. And I think one of the really interesting stories is, you know, is how is Israel going to view this? Israel did, did see Bashar as the devil they knew. You know, I think one of the things that, one of the reasons Israel did not support Ukraine early on is because they had this tacit agreement with Russia so Israeli Air Force could do what

they wanted in Syria. But the Israeli-Turkish relationship in the region is something that's really going to be interesting to see because the very strained ties, sometimes they cooperate. Erdogan is, you know, openly supports Hamas. But there is intelligence cooperation. But just, you know, how Israel and Turkey deal. with each other. I think that's going to be the 2025 story. Question about Turkey. Are you guys at all,

are the U.S. at all worried about them kind of going after and spinning up to go after the SDF? Yes, absolutely. Because there was like a ceasefire, right? Like they were spinning up and they had a cease, a bit of like a hold. Kobani is the, might be a really big flashpoint.

And I think there's some movement in the Senate to sanctions? I mean, it has to do with protecting our Kurdish partners out there. The SDF that has, of course, the YPG as a core leadership component. I hope the U.S. protects our relationship with them, period. There's really nothing to say past that. I understand balancing. The relationship, believe me, I had to do it for two years when it came to the same issue with the Turks. I believe the U.S. presence with the SDF actually should help ensure that there's

not going to be any conflict. I mean, it's the opposite of what they're saying. Like, if the U.S. wasn't there, how would that actually help mitigate any kind of threat that they either have or perceived to have? I think we have solid information that people that we deal with are not involved in actions against them. And I think they know that we have that. We can prove it. And, you know, quite frankly, we would still have ISIS if it wasn't for our relationship with them and them doing 99% of the fighting. So we do really have to be good partners in the long run, or people are going to really be challenged to partner with us. And here's the question, though, is what's President Trump going to do? Because remember,

in a phone call with Erdogan during the Trump administration, he just decided to say, hey, fuck it. pull out all of our forces from Syria because Erdogan somehow convinced him in a 20-minute phone call to do so. Mick probably remembers this with PTS. And so the Trump administration's view towards our, the soft presence, 900, now up to 2000, we just learned the other day in that in that pocket of Syria. You know, what are they going to do about that? And there's one is the counter-Isses fight, but the second, and everyone here understands this, and this is something that's kind of traumatized me in my career, you know, are near incredible, almost, you know, perfect ability to betray our allies at the end of the day. And so that's, you know, the SDF helped us in the counter ISIS campaign

tremendously. Are we going to abandon them at the end? That to me is a big concern. Andy? And yeah, an interesting thing, though, about, and I remember that, that decision and actually I wrote about it at the time, having, you know, it's just come out of Iraq. I was horrified to were coming out of Syria. But in practice, I don't know whether, you know, in practice, we didn't really, we didn't. Mattis didn't do it. So, you know, so we said we were it and we didn't, which was, you know, I thought was good. And, I mean, to just follow up on mixed point, absolutely, where we're restraining influence

on both sides are partnership with the SDF. I mean, anyone who has worked with them understands the hatred of the Turks. I mean, it works both ways, but we have, you know, we've consistently been the ones who, you know, have whispered in their ear and so no, you can't, you can't go after them and even tone down their desire to annihilate the SNA, who are, you know, another Turkish prodigy in the region. It's disappointing that Maslun, Maslun is the head of the SDF for the audience. I know, not for, you know, not explaining it to you guys. But it's disappointing that he came out publicly and said that the U.S. had betrayed him again in getting him to move out of Mandibich, because actually that was the agreement with the Turks from Mikai Kaka, I think, 2016 or 2017, that we would stay, we would keep the SDF east of the Euphrates there. We weren't supposed, they weren't supposed to be in Manbiz, technically, but they are, you're right about Kobani. You know, Kibani was always, and we've never suggested that that should go back to the Turks, and yet now the Turks are talking about taking it.

And I think it's going to be a real test of our loyalty and our policy to walk that fine line, keep the Turks from expanding further east of the Euphrates, and at the same time, Ebertoe one on board, which we need to do probably to some extent if we're going to have influence in Syria. I mean, it's going to take some tough. Blumacy. Absolutely true. And then the next phase, and what the German foreign minister is really talking about,

the disarming part was you shouldn't start it with that. The other part is how are they going to integrate the militaries into Syrian military, right? Which should happen, but it has to be done in a way that doesn't make any particular group completely vulnerable during the transition, right? Like disarming and then re-arming, which would never work. And then the other question, of course, is, and to Martin. brought it up. In the discussion with President Trump and Erdogan, one of the things he promises that Turkey was going to fight ISIS. And that never happens in large amounts. So we're going to need

a force out there that's armed and equipped and ready to fight to make sure ISIS doesn't come back because I think most people would say they're looking at this as an opportunity right now. Yeah. Absolutely. Right. So it's to everybody. I'll go back, Mick, one more thing. I'm going to turn into D now. I'm asking the questions. Sorry, Dee. No, but go back to that notion of our, you know, the weird jobs that we had where you, under, if you want to call it, you know, UW or whatever it is, where you, you know, we have these incredible alliances you spend a long time with. You have these personal relationships and then we end up at times betraying them. I mean, what was that like for you and Andy, too? What was that like for you guys? Because I know that to me, I have a lot of regrets about that over the years. We made a lot of promises we don't keep. Yes. And this has been going on for a while. I'm Unfortunately, right? If you go to, if you go to Arlington, there's a memorial to the mom. Right. Right. And it was because the guys that felt that we betrayed them when we decided our war fund was over with, wanted that and pushed it. And it finally got approved. Here in Montana, there's a whole bunch of Hmong, especially down in Missoula. Right. And it all came from a lot of them, agencies. folks who didn't want to leave them behind.

And so they literally, I talked, we talked to one of them because we've done a, we haven't put the documentary out, but we've done a documentary on it. And he got brought by one individual, the guy paid for a trailer, put him in his wife up in the trailer, got him a job, and eventually, now if you go to the farmer's market, not to keep going on about this, but it's to Mark's point, they're all mom. If you go to the farmer's market and it's like it didn't show that in Yellowstone. I just want to tell you.

I was watching Yellowstone. They should have. Not show it in that. Great farmers. I mean, anyway. But unfortunately, that was a collective effort by a lot of people that served in Vietnam and Laos

that we now see again with Afghanistan specifically and of course now in Syria. I mean, it's an emotional attachment from, especially in the military. side of the policy equation when it comes to the Kurds. And, of course, the CIA, we just have strong interpersonal relationships. And it would really damage not just the relationship going forward between any partner that we could have in the U.S., but internally, that we are really people

that keep our word and that the next time, the next generation, who says, yes, if you do this, you're with us and we'll take care of you and knowing that we haven't done it in the past. there's going to be a lot of internal. Andy, did you have experiences like that, too? Yeah, actually, the only, this was a big decision for me, and it was right after retiring, and when the decision was made to pull out of Syria, I went on NBC to, you know, to say why it was not a good idea.

And I got a lot of, you know, I heard from a lot of guys in soft saying, hey, thanks to doing that, the guys who worked with the SDF and, you know, who was still active duty and couldn't say anything. But I got lambasted, too, by, to include a lot of military guys, not soft, you know, conventional guys accused of being overly emotional over and over again. So, you know, I wasn't like I was breaking down in tears. I was saying, hey, this is a bad idea and here's why. And I think, you know, it really opened my eyes to what a huge gulf there is, certainly between soft forces and conventional forces. and perhaps mainstream America and how we view this. You know, for us and soft and the agency, we understand, yes, there's an emotional attachment.

You don't serve side by side and risk your life with someone and depend on them for your life. And, you know, there's a point where nationality ceases to be important at that time, right? And you feel that loyalty and it is important. But you can extrapolate that to a national level, too. You don't, you know, you can't. I mean, I've spoken about real politics. politic doesn't mean betraying people or it shouldn't mean betraying people. And if you consistently do that, you've used up all your credit of trust. And we've, you know, that,

that was my point. It was from a pragmatic point of view. For me, yes, it was hugely emotional to do that. And I felt, but it was nothing that I felt to when Afghanistan fell, as I'm sure both of you understand the, I don't think that, I'm going to use the term mainstream America. I don't think they understand the sense of betrayal among Afghan veterans, and particularly among soft guys, they say particularly among soft guys, because it was soft who fought the war from 2014 onwards, and it was soft who were truly embedded with the Afghans.

And just a note of explanation, you know, when we talk about tours in Afghanistan and Iraq, and don't worry, this isn't going to be a criticism of pogs and forbids. But it is true that you can be a conventional, certainly army guy, And, you know, I've spoken to an army guy who deployed, you know, he keeps telling me five times to Iraq. And my response is always, and how many Iraqis did you actually know? You know, the interaction with the locals was minimal. But if you're with soft or the agency, that is your security.

That is your bread and butter. You know, it isn't the weight of forces behind you or the ability for the QRF to reach you. It is that trust, that bond you build with them. And sometimes that trust is betrayed by them. A lot of times, most times it's betrayed. by us and that undercuts everything that we stand for it undercuts not just our values but it undercuts our ability to do our job in the future and that is that should be important to everyone amen so yeah great question mark do you want to host the show no i'm good you go back no man and and

and by the way you know it does seem i've got to say this although i'm i'm kind of falling into this 4-bit versus everyone else. It does seem that the guys who are most bellicose about topics like this were the ones who were not in combat arms, MLSs, or if they were, were in units that didn't tend to stray outside the wire that much. But even among conventional marine units who work hand-in-hand with Iraqi police in Anbar province, you get the same kind of feeling. It's just the nature. And as we go ahead, that's how we're going to conduct operations by. with and through. And the guys who can't do that don't belong in the military. The guys who lack that emotional intelligence and that understanding are really just useless to us. I would say the same thing

applies in Ukraine, by the way. Obviously, Andy, a lot of experience there. But for the, and not to, I will refer to Washington Post reporting and New York Times reporting, but the robust agency presence there, certainly what's kind of been born out of that are some very strong feelings towards supporting our Ukrainian partners by individuals, my friends, our friends who've been there for years. And there is concern now what we're going to do. Because as you sit there, wherever you are in Ukraine, you know, essentially, as you noted side by side, you hear policy discussions of us kind of withdrawing our support. That's tough.

It just is. And to me, that's as righteous as cause as you can find, which I think why a lot of people involved in the Afghan campaigns kind of were such drawn into the whole Ukraine situation because of that. To me, there was a much more kind of, you know, good versus evil component of this. But it's the same thing. I mean, you know, abandon our Ukrainian allies. That's going to be tough. I hope we don't do that. We better not. And, you know, I was asked this on like a vet podcast this week, why I thought we should get a lot of veterans involved in policymaking and in some cases politics.

I don't want to have anything to politics, but somebody's got to do it, right? Because yes, I mean, yes, there are emotional connections, like Andy said, and for the good reasons, but we still make the argument, right? We still have the facts behind us of why it's important not to do this. It's not just, you know, honor, although that should be something even in geopolitics. it's also consequences to not honoring agreements. I mean, it's just think about it from just a flat out business perspective. I mean, do you want to business somebody that just doesn't keep their work?

So that's part of it. And having that knowledge that you all, for example, clearly do is important when people are making decisions in Washington. Because if it's just isolated Washington, D.C., like everybody says, they don't really know the consequences of these really substantial policy decisions. right and a lot of them you know don't think about the next turn all right so they're not even thinking about the damage that they could do to the reputation of the u.s. when we have to do this again or something so I do think not that everybody there should be a former you know soldier or CIA person but having people that from our tribes uh in there I think is really

helpful and hopefully we'll see more people willing to do that even politics right and politics obviously have a place a part in this and the hill um but i think we'd be all better off we got let me ask you a question d i'm i'm going to ask one more question i promise this the last one launch bro car plunge bro here's what i don't understand uh and i've talked about this with with your compatriot jack murphy who i love but i've talked about this with him like on just numerous kind of signal chats i don't understand this weird kind of a world of kind of the vet bros and the fascination towards the Russian military. I just don't get it.

And it's something that, you know, I was not in the military. Obviously, I was in the CIA, worked very closely. But, you know, to me, just this kind of this nonstop notion of this, you know, the Russian military is, you know, is not woke. And Ukraine is not necessarily the right fight. I don't get it. Someone, with you all, between you guys here, explain this to me. Yeah, I mean, I scratched me ahead of that.

I mean, I was, I ran into considerable problems after a team house interview in which I did criticize the Ukraine, but the guys who criticized me were all pro-Russian. You know, look, and they were like, look, this guy, who they called a mercenary, by the way, incorrectly. Even a, even a mercenary has turned against the Ukrainians. And I've come across again and again, Russians are not our real enemy, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I mean, how, who, in whose world are they not a real enemy? I mean, where had they shown us to promote U.S. interests around the globe, you know, number one. Number two, I don't understand the argument about Ukraine being a big money sum for the United States. Sure, it's a money sum, but it's a drop in the

bucket in the defense budget, number one. Number two, we haven't lost a single active duty soldier there, not a single one. And Russia is on the ropes. Economically, they've lost, you know, by most conservative estimates, 100,000 guys, you know, and half a million. badly wounded. They've had, who knows what the percentages of their equipment destroyed. They are isolated. They're a pariah. NATO has been reinforced beyond anyone's previous imagination. We've got Finland and Sweden finally to join the alliance, which we tried diplomatically to do for decades and were unable to. Russia did that for us. All the things have been accomplished at the cost of several billion dollars. And I, I can't.

can't understand either people and members of the U.S. public or politicians who think that is a high price. Mike, I can agree more, man. I couldn't agree more. I mean, strength is relative, right? So,

you know, we talk about needing a strong national defense and I am 100% on board with that, but it's relative to our adversaries, right? So everything Andy just said, they have, they have, how many casualties that they take it a week? Andy,

you think you said it one of questions. Well, it was the, see, the M. British M. M. Estimates

1200 a day, right? 1,200 casualties that's not dead. And that has been consistent between. I mean, think about it. That is higher than the Allied forces we're taking in the, well, actually, it's not higher. It is roughly the same as the British and the British 21st Army group and the, and all U.S. forces in Normandy in June of 1944.

Wow. taking roughly around a thousand casualties a day. And it's a war they started. With a smaller military. I mean. But why is it like, why is it that the kind of the hard right and including a lot of a lot of the kind of the vet row culture sympathizes with the Russian military? I don't, you know, maybe they are sucked up into the whole MAGA world of Ted Cruz,

like sending out tweets with, you know, the non-woke Russian military. That's Tucker Carlson and others. but I just it doesn't doesn't make sense to me. Shit, the Waffen SS was non-woke. I mean, does that mean that they were good guys? You guys help me.

I mean, I don't know, I need help. I don't get it. Actually, they weren't non-woke. They brought in all kinds of people into that. This is kind of where like the lefty,

tanky people and the alt-right, like hardcore right people kind of meet us. Yeah. It's like an anti-American kind of, it's like an anti-American kind of whatever it is. That's anti-American. We're for that. Yeah.

That's kind of one. Unless they're looking at some of the places. That is true. Because on the left, you've got the gray zone, you've got the intercept. Yeah. Oh, right, right. Doing the same things. I was a victim of them, too.

Not a victim, but I was a target of theirs, too. Yeah. Yeah. Also, that's not act like the $60 billion that we're sending, or whether it's equipment or whatever it is to Ukraine, is going to come into the American people's pockets anyway. It's not going to be earmark for, like, health care or things that we need. By the way, it's made in America.

This is helping the U.S. economy. Sure. Yeah. It's all our stuff. It actually woke us in a good way. It woke us to the fact that we're not producing enough ammunition. Right. It woke us to the fact that despite our high-end defense industry,

we're totally, totally unprepared for a major conventional war when it comes to manufacturing something as simple as 155 millimeter artillery rounds. So that's the problem, too. We've learned a lot from this. Ammunition is usually made in countries that could potentially, be at war with us, right? They have cheap labor. They don't have any labor standards,

and a lot of the material is already there. You're right. If anything, we need to address that. If there's an issue that we need to address with national security, it's just what Andy said. We need to rebuild the manufacturing capability when it comes to arming ourselves should we get

into a worldwide conflict because we are not there right now, nor are able to sign of that out. We could do a whole episode on the defense industrial complex and how broke it is, the, you know, the flash to bang on acquisition to fielding is hopelessly inadequate for this time in the 21st century. And yet we cling to it because we're very platform-centric because, you know, I mean, and things are changing. I understand, and I left the military a few years ago, but most of our senior officers became senior officers

based on platforms. They are pilots or they are submariners or they are whatever the Navy has. Ships, ship drivers. You can tell us part of the Department of the Navy, right? Andy, did you want to mention what was going on in that

Ukrainian town with the drones? Yeah, I mean, I know we're coming to a close, but Pokrovsk, who I spent a lot of time in, and so I do feel entitled in calling the place a shit hall. But it's a, if you look, it's kind of, it's the next stop in Russian invasion of Dombas. If you look at the map, they've got to take Pachrovsk, and the next stop is Krematosk.

And then they've essentially rolled up Dombas, and they want to do that before the ceasefire talks. And so they're investing Pockroov. They're closing in on it. The Ukrainians are preparing for a siege. And they have saturated the town with drones. So it's a town of about 60,000 people. I don't know how many are left now, but listening to news reports, most of them are left because they're unable to leave. The streets on no-go areas because there are just drones everywhere.

And it's kind of a, you know, we hear about this. The Russians can't do this all across the line, but it's interesting that they have picked certain areas. Before this, it was a place called Severesk or Seversk, also in Dombas. and literally if you pop your head out of the door, you're likely to get whacked. I mean, it's with these FPV drones are everywhere. You can see a little bit of this on YouTube. I mean, they're hovering above bus stations,

outside grocery stores. I mean, it's like a dystopian nightmare. And so when we talk about things that we're learning from the Ukraine conflict, FPVs, yes, I get it. They're use in the Pacific is it's unlikely that any, any force can smash them in a Pacific campaign. But in a European campaign or a land campaign, they are playing a,

it's a highly effective role and a terrifying role. You know, you talk to anyone. I mean, previously, I think most infantrymen will tell you that being in an artillery barrage is most frightening thing because it's far more frightening than being shot at. But there's a randomness about that, right? You know, you don't get feeling someone personally tried to kill you,

It feels like it. But here, someone is personally trying to kill you. And with a certainty that is, you know, above, certainly above anything other than a sniper. So it is truly a psychologically terrifying weapon. And it would be interesting to see what happens to Park Rovsk in the days, weeks to come. Mark, you got anything? Two last things. One is a great, speaking about drones and FPV drones.

A fascinating report. I don't know if it's true. It seems that it likely is that Budanov, the head of Ukrainian military intelligence, had sent not only drone operators, but these FPV drones to HTS in Syria that were then used by HTS against the Syrian regime. This is just kind of Ukrainian soft with an expanded footprint. We've seen them in Africa now in Syria. I thought that's pretty wild. And this is probably against my interest and mixed interests, since it's not MSNBC or ABC, but but 60. minutes tomorrow night has interviews with some of the Mossad officers who were involved in that

pay drop. I mean, how Mossad gave them approval to do this, I don't know, but I'm certainly going to be watching because that was one of, in my view, I think I might have talked about it before with you guys. That's one of the kind of a historic intelligence operations of our generation. So I'm definitely going to be watching that. That's probably why they're giving the okay. But generally they don't. That's not really intelligent MO, but that was an operation for the ages, which had an incredible effect on the. the campaign. So I'll be, I'll be tuning in. Mick, got anything? Me too. Me too. Yeah, I guess if I have one last thing to say, and partly because we're involved in it, but the humanitarian situation in

Sudan, you know, it is, it is as catastrophic as it could be. It's literally Ethiopia 1984. It's not getting the attention. I think it should by the international community. There's still countries, I think, that are doing things that exacerbate the problem. And either way, you know, conflict or not, they shouldn't restrict the flow of humanitarian aid into needy populations. It's something that needs to be addressed immediately. And if not, we could see tens of thousands, if not 100,000 or more die of starvation. So, yeah.

Yeah, to help out, Mick's doing a great job with Fogbo. check it out the links will be in the description Mark of course Polymeropolis Above Average Intelligence Podcast You can find them The links will be in the description for Mark Andy Milburn Our fearless leader

Former Marine His book when the tempest gathers Link is in the description His substack everything you need to know If you guys want to communicate with these guys In some way of shape or form or follow them The links are in the description Stop asking me where the links are

please. And the best way to support the show is Patreon.com slash the team house. Thank you very much and happy holidays to everybody. Merry Christmas. I'll cut it right there. Thanks guys.

This is awesome.