The Team House - Is the U.S. Navy About to Break? | EYES ON GEOPOLITICS

Episode Date: August 17, 2026

This episode breaks down the growing strain on the U.S. Navy, from conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln and America’s shipbuilding problems to what that could mean in a potential Taiwan crisis. The group also covers Israel’s campaign in southern Lebanon, Israeli politics, and reports of possible CIA covert activity tied to drug trafficking around Ecuador and the Galapagos.Mars Men ⬇️https://mengotomars.com/ for 50% Off AND 3 Free Gifts when you checkout.  After you purchase, they will ask you where you heard about them. PLEASE support our show and tell them our show sent you.Support the show on Patreon:⬇️https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouseSubscribe to our newsletter!!!!https://teamhousepodcast.kit.com/joinJack's news outlet:⬇️https://thehighside.substack.com/Find Jon Hackett here:⬇️Jon's Twitter:https://x.com/jonathanhackettJon's LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/thejonathanhackettJon's books:https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B0C5L659N5?ccs_id=e11a2062-f8d3-498e-bfd7-7d2f3869caf6Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thejonathanhackettTwitter: https://x.com/jonathanhackettCheck out Mick's new podcast here:⬇️Apple Podcasts:https://podcasts.apple.com/at/podcast/pub-and-porch-applied-stoicism/id1836955475Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/show/1k3QPmkAMwnGJxMLDwUSSd?si=n6piIu8XRcag1Z0K43A3bQYoutube:https://www.youtube.com/@UCd0Hq6QFk8CoTu5j-VU0Ong Find Mick Mulroy here: Fogbow ⬇️https://fogbow.com/Lobo Institute ⬇️https://www.loboinstitute.org/Twitter ⬇️https://x.com/mickmulroy?s=21&t=-Ze3F_Ix2vlJ18KFvORTCALinkedIn ⬇️https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-patrick-mulroy-31198b52/Whitefish security summit ⬇️https://whitefishsecuritysummit.comFind Marc P here:https://x.com/MpolymerFind Andy Milburn here: Twitter ⬇️https://twitter.com/i/flow/login?redirect_after_login=%2Fandymilburn8LinkedIn ⬇️https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewmilburn2023Substack ⬇️https://amilburn.substack.com/Andy’s book ⬇️https://www.amazon.com/When-Tempest-Gathers-Mogadishu-Operations"Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio"00:00 - Start00:46 - Crisis Aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln02:47 - What Life Is Really Like for Enlisted Sailors08:30 - Should Sailors Just “Suck It Up” During War?11:24 - The Navy’s Logistics and Resupply Problem14:23 - Pentagon Response and Congressional Oversight19:40 - Is the U.S. Navy Being Pushed to the Breaking Point?21:07 - What Happens If China Moves on Taiwan Right Now?21:59 - America’s Shipbuilding Crisis vs. China22:43 - Trump’s Plan to Bring Back Steam Catapults24:35 - The Air Force One Decoy Controversy28:37 - Israel’s Destruction of Villages in Southern Lebanon33:08 - Could Israel’s Election Change the Wars in Lebanon and Gaza?39:53 - Israeli Settlers and the West Bank Crisis41:22 - CIA Operations and the Galapagos Controversy44:48 - Why Current Covert Operations Should Stay Secret50:43 - CIA Legal Oversight and Questions About Drone Strikes54:20 - Why Covert Action Always Seems to Leak57:14 - Closing ThoughtsBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

Hey, everybody. Welcome to a new episode of Eyes on Geopolitics. I'm here with Mick Mowroy, Mark Polymeropolis, and Jonathan Hackett. I fired Jack Murphy. He upstaged me last week, and I'm not happy about it at all. So he's gone and we'll never see him again on the show. You better do so all your little magic he's doing. Jack.

Dude, yeah, he started sharing the screen and shit. No, I can't do that. I can't multitask like that. You usually take a nap after a while. Yeah, yeah, I just let you guys go. Yeah. So, yeah, a lot going on. Thanks, Jack, for covering.

I mean, Jack will always be on the show at some points. It was a good show. It's fun to actually listen to it rather than worry about hosting it. Like, it was good to just turn it on and listen. Pretty good podcast, I have to say. So a lot happening as usual. I mean, there's so many things happening all the time. It's ridiculous, to be honest.

Some stuff I want to cover today. Definitely the USS Abraham Lincoln and the controversy happening there. There was reports. early this week that up to six guys jumped off. I don't know how true that is. It wasn't confirmed. We know one guy jumped off for sure, right? And they scooped them up.

So supposedly the conditions are terrible on there. Obviously, it probably are because they've been out 250 days. I haven't seen Port and 200. They're heading back or they're waiting to get relieved by a new aircraft carrier that was already planned on coming in. This comes on the back of the Gerald Ard Ford that was out there for like some 300 days. and that had a big fire in it, and it's probably, like, out of commission for, like, 18 months,

and that's, like, our new shiny one, which is interesting. A lot of aircraft carrier news. I wish Andy was here, so I could trigger him a little bit, because I know it was hatred for aircraft carriers, but there was also a bit of news talking about how Trump wants to redesign the new catapult system to revert it back to the old one. It's like that would cost probably tens of billions of dollars and probably take 20 years because we have no shipbuilding capacity.

So a lot happening. obviously the Middle East of fucking disaster We all know that A little bit of like We're like kind of like a holding pattern When it comes to Iran Straight O Hermuz is not open Despite what everyone's saying

Like all like the Administrative administration officials are saying Um Lebanon seems to be getting really bad to I mean there's just videos out there Of them like basically controlled demolishing an entire village and stuff like that. So there's so many places to go.

Also, you know, the CIA getting busy and the Galapagos, that story out of Washington Post. Let's start with John Hackett. Where do you want to take it? You pick whatever you like. Yeah, so there's two interesting things behind me here. One is my enlisted rank, which you can see on one shoulder. And then you can see there's an image up there of me standing on an aircraft carrier when I was working at the U.S. embassy in Jordan and we were taking the U.S.

ambassador and the crown prince to go visit the flag mess on a Nimitz class aircraft carrier just like the Abraham Lincoln. And I was there as a diplomat, but there was a problem. I was enlisted. And I think what a lot of people don't understand is on a Navy ship, things are very different than the rest of the military for the officer enlisted divide. And I think that's what's kind of missing from all these stories about the conditions on the vessel is that it was already terrible for the enlisted. It's worse now, but it's not as bad for the officers. And a lot of times, it's the officers who are the ones that get to talk. I mean, the spokesman for the Navy is an officer, right? The SACDF is a retired or former officer, not retired, but a former reserve army officer,

right? There's a lot of officers, Hongkow, the Secretary of the Navy officer. Where are the enlisted members being able to talk about what it's like on a vessel? And I mentioned that because that day when I took the ambassador to the flag mess, I was stopped by a lieutenant who was about 20 years old, 22 years old. And he pointed out a wooden sign on the wall and it said, officer country. And he said, what are you doing here? You're a gunnery sergeant. You don't belong here. This is why I'm standing with the crown prince of Jordan and the U.S.

ambassador, right? There's no question that I should be there. But there was a problem. It's because I was enlisted. And if that is the culture on any Navy ship, you can imagine how at 250 days of that, it gets to grind on people, right? So there's probably a cultural morale degradation going on here, regardless of how many days at sea or what the exterior conditions are.

but you've got high humidity, high heat, high stress, high pressure. There's no mail getting to the vessel. They're not getting liberty. If you can see what the showers look like, they're terrible anyway. The beds are terrible anyway, right? Even if it's day one underway. These guys went out on this vessel thinking they'd be back in six months. It's month nine now.

So when you think about what can I pack in a small sea bag, which is what they're allowed to bring with them, a small green sack, what can I pack in there? They're only thinking about six months of packing. They're not thinking about nine. months. They haven't gone into port except in Oman and then in Southeast Asia wants to to refuel not to go on liberty. So for nine months, these guys have not actually been able to go out on liberty anywhere. You can imagine the kind of things going on for the lower ranking folks down there. There's probably some would describe it as criminal activity most likely going on on the vessel just because of, you know, things break down over time when you're at sea, right?

I remember a few years ago when I was in Afghanistan, there was a story about a prostitution ring. someone was making a very high cash economy revenue off of this just because people are out at sea and like what else are they going to do they have no nothing to do they don't have Wi-Fi they don't have computers they don't have telephones this is the enlisted i'm talking about remember this not the officers so these enlisted people some of them are having their kids are being born while they're at sea they haven't even seen an image of them let alone talk to their wives one of the sailors that jumped off that was in the water for an hour his wife is in san diego and she gave birth on month six while they're at sea. They're at month nine now. He's not seen his child, not spoken to his wife.

She shared her text messages with a local newspaper in California, and that's how I know about this, where he was basically over a few months talking to her. And you could see the downward spiral in his communication with her over that time. There's only five people on that 3,000 to 5,000 person vessel that are qualified mental health professionals. Can you imagine how difficult it must be to get an appointment with one of those people? Not only that, they are also on the ship for nine too. They haven't had to break either. Right. So you're talking about every single person affected kind of in a global sense on that vessel. And I just want to put that context there because I think that's kind of missing from the understanding in, you know, the general public about I saw some people

saying, well, they're at war. Isn't that what's, you know, what they're supposed to deal with and blah, blah, blah, yes, that's true. But in places like Afghanistan, I was sharing a base ex tent with my team leader who was an officer. He and I slept on the same ground together. We had the same sleeping bags. We ate the same food. We suffered the same. We took the same. man. Absolutely. And that's the Marine Corps, right. That's the entire ethos of the great door right there. Right, exactly. Suffered together and leaders eat last. This is a really big thing. And on a Navy vessel, the flag mess, they're eating steak. They're having juice. They have E7, what the equivalent of a Marine Corps gunnery sergeant, which is a chief in the Navy,

pouring orange juice for them because the officers can't pour their own juice, right? And I witnessed this myself when I took the ambassador there, right? Very different than the question of, aren't they at war, can't they suck it up? That's not what it's like on the ship. That's not how it's designed. It's a series of traditions that are unshakable for the Navy at sea. Where did those traditions come from, really? Like the English? Right. These are hundreds and hundreds of years old. Exactly. Yes. These are ancient traditions. And even some of the things we do, like crossing over certain lines of latitude and getting hazed while doing so, we don't call it hazing anymore, but, you know, going through some ordeals.

those are all very, very ancient traditions that are still part of that culture on the vessel. And so is the criminal justice system on the vessel. There are separate laws for what a commander is able to do to another American citizen on that vessel that they cannot do while they're in the United States or even in a foreign country. There's a separate set of the Uniform Code of Military Justice that allows them to put certain extreme, what we would describe as extreme punishments. For example, restriction to bread and water for a number of days that they're only allowed to eat bread and water.

and the amount of evidence to prove that they should require that sentence is very low compared to what any sentencing would be in the United States. So it's a different world literally on a vessel. And I think that's important to point out. Can I ask you guys something? And this is really applicable. I did my kind of conflict zone time for several years and there was certainly some hardships. But I think both you guys are probably more qualified to respond to the notion of that you see in the media now, especially from the right, just be honest, where people are saying, you know, suck it up.

This is war. This is what happens. And it goes back to just my thinking, like, just because, let's say, collectively, we had it bad, does that mean that the next generation has to? Wouldn't it be smarter to have great conditions for the men and women who have to fight? I mean, that's the thing I don't understand. But you see this, and it's playing nonstop on Fox News, about they're trotting out veterans saying, hey, this sucked here, this sucked here, just these guys are a bunch of whining pussies. And that seems to me to be missing the point

that wouldn't we want to have our men and women in the armed forces have as best conditions possible to fight well? I mean, what do you, you know, when you see your, you know, veteran brethren, kind of some of them coming out and saying that kind of stuff, hey, we had a bad, everyone else should. Like, what is your response to that?

well unfortunately i think a lot of this is politics right so if it was you know they'd be outraged if it was a political opposition to them and they're sucking up buttercup if it's their guy so i mean i'm not saying that's everybody i'm sure that there's plenty of vets that are saying hey you know i ate morees for fucking six months you know try that dude uh and i slept in a ditch um but i i think the truth is somewhere in the So I agree with you, Mark. I mean, obviously, you should try to make it the best scenario, best conditions for all the troops, Army, Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, Space Force, I said. Because that's what you do as leaders, right? It's the mission and the men and women that carry out the mission. That should be the ethos. And I think it is of the military very large. I think Jonathan's right. There is a different culture of the Navy and, say, the Marine Corps and the Army. You know, I was both enlisted in, you know, an officer, but I remember when I was a Lance corporal, some captain was late for duty, asked to get in front of me. I was like, yeah, of course, sir, you know, whatever.

And some major had seen him but didn't see the end exchange and literally yanked him out of line. And I don't know what happened to him, but he went outside with him, right? So that's the ethos of the Marine Corps. Like, you don't, leaders he lasts. Anyway. That was the Marine Corps version of rendition To see you, bud

There's probably a lot of Marines that have a similar story But that's kind of like, you know, you're nothing as a Marine officer If it wasn't for your Marines, period. What about the idea of the logistics? I mean, so then you do a deep dive And I think I read in the Wall Street Journal.

So how has this happened? And it happens seems to me logistics issues, right? What I was going to say, though. So let's just go to the nitty-gritty. You know, they're running out of supplies because, you know, the Bahrain is all fucked up

and the Navy base, you know, perhaps is not operating as effectively. And so there are legitimate logistics. It's not like the Navy wants to have this happen. Of course. Yeah. Right? To go back to the issue,

and I'll make everything about the Marine Corps. But to go back to the... First of all, this crew has done exceptional. They seem to kind of... I try to bring it up on the ABC and they don't ask the question. But they're fine with the answer, but it's like they have done 10,000 sorties.

They have been, it's not just that they have the longest sea deployment. It's in combat. And they're like the main target. Let's just set the stage. Like, how great would it be from the Iranian perspective if they actually hit, even if they didn't necessarily take it out of commission, but hit an aircraft carrier, right? So the main target, 10,000 sororities.

They're part of the naval blockade. They certainly were a huge part of, Epic Fury. So hats off to them for the effort they put in. And not just them, right? All the other sailors and Marines that are aboard these ships that are doing this great work out there. So let's start with that. Secondary, I think there is a part of this, the fact that they are in combat, right? They're having a hard time getting logistically resupplied because I think we still do most of our resupply the old-fashioned conventional way. Side by side, ship, shuttling stuff back and forth. Right. So not what the Ukrainians are doing with multi-drones, different stages, park, hide, not humans, right, that are delivering stuff to frontline troops. In this case, they happen to be on an aircraft carry. So there's an element of this that we need to get much smarter on how we do combat resupplies.

We don't put people at risk and it's continuous. Because every time you do, and I've seen it, so I obviously don't know the operation. to resupply an underway ship. I've seen it from a ship. But it looks super complicated to me. And if you're under constant threat, it'd be even more complicated. So there is an element, I think, that's fair, that the officers on the ship could be doing everything they possibly can to make sure that their troops are getting, their sailors and Marines are getting everything.

It's still having a hard time. So let's be fair about that. It's easy to sit in Montana talking about what's going on at the Gulf of Vermont. There's something good to say about congressional oversight, too. And this is the bipartisan issue because there was a whole bunch of Republican members of Congress saying, uh-uh, this ain't this ain't right. This is unacceptable. It deserves to be. Yeah.

In some ways, this is the congressional oversight finally working. Yes. And they, and this neat. So the other thing I would say, Mark, to your first question is it doesn't do the Pentagon any good to come out and declare that everything's fine. It just tells everybody, okay, you don't really care. because there's no way you could actually have done an assessment already, right? Isn't that exactly what the Secretary of Defense did? That's not helpful at all.

It just tells all the troops like, okay, so he doesn't really kick. I mean, some of the issues are probably going to be exaggerated. Some might even be fabricated, not saying they are, but maybe. And some are going to be real. And some are going to be real because it's a combat situation. And some maybe there is a logistical issue we need to change. But to do a real assessment shows that you care about the actual folks that are carrying out the mission. And it doesn't mean that necessarily anybody's done anything wrong,

but the one thing that makes the U.S. military the best, bias, but the best, is a continuous self-assessment to get better. An AAR, for example, is, yeah, yeah, and AAR is all about the negatives, man. You don't go in there and say, we're great next, right? You literally just focus on the negatives, even if the mission was successful, right? The best units, if you're, in their air, you're like, wow, you guys are hard on each other. It's like that's the point. Yeah, for sure. So I think we need, I think we need to do a full step. And I agree, Mark, at least to the point of the question is it needs to be bipartisan. And that's what the oversight committees do. And we've all seen them out on the front lines, you know, to give them some credit. And I know Mark has. And I imagine

Jonathan has too. But I know Mark has. We've seen like people on the House Armed Services Committee in forward operating bases during times of active conflict. I'm not saying that should be the ideal, but they can go out to ships that are underway currently in mission. They can't. I mean, there's a CNN reporter that was on there, right? So you guys would be impressed with me in a very rare occasion is that I actually did a trap landing on the, on the GW. It was the COD, so it was just their carry onboard delivery. And I think I was briefing the air wing on some surface-to-air missile threat. And we missed the arresting hook the first time, and I didn't really crap my pants. And we came around and landed again. I said, you guys

did that for me. They're like, now we fucking missed. Yeah. It's one of those times. I spent overnight, it was, I spent a night there, and briefed there wearing the captain. I remember. Officers are enlisted, though. Well, this was the F-18, it was a Marine. No, no, no, I'm saying, were you treated as an officer and an enlisted guy? You got stake?

I mean, look, when you're, if you're a civilian. Yeah, CIA people are an officer. I'm just, I'm being a prick. No, I mean, it was ridiculous, the treatment we got. But, yeah, and then it was, they were like, hey, man, you're from the C. you're pretty cool. I'm like, you're fucking F-18 pilot. You're cool.

We went back and forth and he's got the bigger cool factor. Cool factor. It was not me. But I think you guys input on this is huge too because this now has gotten totally political. And Mick, I did the same thing on MS now, just trying to have a nuanced conversation because it's outrage. And you're like, okay, this is a little more complicated here. Sure.

But when you have the SEC-Def saying things. like that and then like literally like there was like a spin program there were people going on on TV talking about spinning it and then you have the president saying not long enough it's very difficult for it not to be political unless you have a if you have working fucking brain cells you know what I mean like because if a democratic guy said that if Obama said that they'd be articles of impeachment yeah and if it's happened under democratic

administration the Hill GOP would be outraged and this is just the way it is I hope it things are, I mean, ultimately. Yeah, but the fact is, like, most presidents and their cabinet members would not be going out and spinning this as everything's fine in terms of like this specific part. And a president, Republican or Democrat would not go out and be like, you know what, no, it's not long enough. And like, what's the excuse for that kind of comment, right? What, he's old and doughty?

Like, that's not a great excuse because he's the president. Jonathan, I was in the counterterrorism center years ago, we used to, we have detailese, as you know, and we had an NCIS special agent, Detailee in CTC, and he had just come from six months on board a carrier. And he was the resident special agent for 5,000 sailors. He said it was, I mean, it was, this is like an urban city. There was crime, like there was prostitution, drugs, crime, fights, assaults, rapes. He said, it was nuts. Because I said, were you bored out there?

He said, are you kidding me? He said, there's a whole. city underneath there and there's a lot of crazy shit that happened. And so, and you know, go on top of that, you know, 20 hour days of, as Mick said, 10,000 stories of combat, you know, shit's going to go crazy sideways too. There are entire economies that develop on there. Like, they'll have like little chits that they use for money because there's no cash sometimes. So they use that to trade. They'll have gambling rings. I mean, there's a lot of creativity. It's actually very fascinating from an economics perspective to see like how do these things just organically

develop and what actually has value and doesn't have value and what can. be traded for as currency. It's fascinating. Hey guys. I'm Jack Murphy here at the team house. And today I want to tell you about the sponsor for tonight's show, Mars Men. This is a natural testosterone support supplement. I take it. I've been taking it for about the last five weeks now. And I'm starting to notice a difference. You take five of these pills each day. And each one of these cans lasts to you a month.

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And there's no end in sight. I mean, to kind of expand this and the policy thing is like the blockade ain't going anywhere. Yeah, that's right. I mean, this is, we got to fix it because it's not like, well, that was bad. Let's hope that doesn't happen again. Well, here's up for you guys. I saw something. I can't remember her name from AEI, American Enterprise Institute, who studies naval warfare.

And they said the Navy's about to break. They said, yeah, yeah, AI's product, and I can find it and send it to D to put out on our, on the site, is that the Navy, this is not sustainable for the Navy to do this. They, you know, when Trump says, you know, great, we'll do this forever. Hegg says that you can't. The Navy will break. That's kind of interesting and pretty scary. Yes. Particularly, we're not supposed to be in the Middle East.

It's supposed to be doing, you know, Asia, China. Right, right. Our national security strategy? I mean, a broken Navy, that doesn't help. And isn't it our side, too? Like the Western Hemisphere, wasn't that part of the defense strategy? And George Washington is coming from Indo-Paycom, right? Yeah, actually, that's the last one to leave Indo-Paycon.

There are no longer any nuclear-powered Nimitz-class vessels in the 7th Fleet AOR. So if China wanted to, this would be the moment. So, like, take our national security strategy. Woo! Zero. Zero. Zero. That's in...

I think they're in Vietnam. It's going to be about nine days. That's what I'm told to get to the Gulf of Laman and replace the mainland. If China wanted to take Taiwan right now or nine days when the George Washington shows up in the Middle East, what would we be able to do? Nothing? Strongly condemn it? Not much. They know they're kind of on their own.

I was just talking to somebody who got back from Taiwan who said their plan is to go. From being able to produce 10,000 drones a month to 100,000 drones a month by 2030. Their entire plan is to basically out Ukraine, China. Yeah, I was going to say, like, yeah, take something out of Ukraine's book, page on a Ukraine for it. 100%, man. And they got money. So how would you like to be the Chinese Marine on the amphibious ship trying to make that journey?

Yeah, 100 miles. Two million drones coming your way from. subsurface surface and aerial, Jesus, very gentle. And Mark, to talk a little bit about like where the Navy's at in terms of like its preparedness and stuff like that, our shipbuilding capacity is absolutely dog shit, especially compared to China's, right? I saw somewhere it said China's shipbuilding capacity is 232 times hours. Right.

Yeah. That is a big issue. Just saying that how, you know, basically it's like, okay, the Democrats are complaining. about the state of the Navy except that Democrats are blocking funding for increased and not consistently for increased shipbuilding. That's probably fair for the general to say. But

yeah, I mean, it's can you guys comment though? I mean, I'm not I'm like, I don't even want to pretend to do this and I pretend to do a lot of shit on TV and even here. But this idea of like, what is up with this catapult system that Trump has now seized on? We're going to go back and retry. Is this

going to, is this completely nonsense? I mean, you know, it's going to cost is billions and this is ridiculous or will this never happen after after 28? I mean, what is he talking about here? Well, the important thing is that he could say that, but it's a congressional involvement that would be required to actually do it because this is a different appropriation from what the original appropriation was for those vessels over their lifetime. Logistically, it would have to happen at the midlife period, like the refitting period that these vessels have, which is every few years. So that also would push it down the line. So there are a lot of

kind of spoilers that could jump in here to prevent this from ever coming to fruition in the first place. Why is the CETAbles better? Or is it not? Well, this is a person who said that their body was like a battery and that the battery runs out if you exercise. So he might have a different grasp of how things work. I'm no expert either. I've talked to plenty of Davil Aviators who just shrug and say it's never going to happen.

So to your last point, I mean, it's if we had a podcast and responded to every statement, you know, Like, that's all we do. We never were talking about substance. I'm not saying this isn't substance because, you know, if President says it, it has, but, you know, they just go, yeah, it ain't going to happen. There's a zero percent chance. It's not even, that's their opinion.

It's not going to happen. Is this a thing where he's obsessed with, like, wind turbines, like the little windmills you see every, hates those? I mean, someone's got something in his head that we have to go back to World War II era steam catapults in this. And I think, doesn't the Ford have this new system, which is actually working well? I understand it.

From talking to them, they're like the system's working fine. Yeah, it's weird. There's always going to be something that breaks on every system, right? You guys want to talk about that plane switcher-roo thing at all or no? Because it's kind of old news, but we didn't do a show until after that. That's a good point. What perplexes me, and maybe this is Monday morning quarterbacking, but why not have just switched the president to the DOD plane?

Let the DOD plane take off. just keep the Air Force One I mean how long would it take to be out of the threat area? 10 minutes. Right. Right? It's in Turkey.

It's been in terms. Yeah. And then just say, announce, hey, we have gotten the president out of Turkey by alternative means of Air Force One because of a threat. Because they know the threat's going to come out.

They know it's going to be. And then they could tell the people on Air Force One, hey, you can take off on Air Force One or you can get off. It's up to you. But the threat isn't toward the plane anymore because the president's not on it. Maybe I'm being over simplistic, but they've created a scenario where they actually did use a plane as a decoy. They didn't seem like he was on the plane.

I think there's a couple things on this. First is that I don't blame the Secret Service at all, you know, because, you know, there's threats that come in. They have to make a decision. They have a different criteria. You know, there's all this thing that was a low-confidence CI assessment. Well, that just means it's uncorroborated. It means nothing else. Yeah, probably one-source kind of thing.

or third sourcing. And when this threat comes in, the secret service, and also the secret service, they will take input from the agency, from agency analysts, but they have their own analytic shop that has to make decisions on threat based on their unique role, and then it goes to the kind of the protective division there. So, I mean, you know, I don't blame them for what they did. I mean, it's a zero-fail mission. The other part that this is going to drive D crazy, everyone is kind of shitting all over the Israelis on this. Well, the Israelis collected information. Let's just say, and they say they legitimately collected a threat report. They didn't, they didn't make it up. I don't think they would make it up either because they would get caught doing it. But it may be

it's sketchy. They have to pass it. Any liaison service that is a threat to the United States, with zero exception, has to pass it to the U.S. because if they don't and something happens, that's the end of the bilateral relationship. And so, not just against a president. Just period. Period. It's just, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's part it's baked into the intelligence community, baked into relationships, and then, you know, and then you do go, you know, forward with the process of assessing the validity of the threat. But, you know, they had to have passed this. And so, you know, and I think it also, there, you know, the, the key part of this, of course, that we kind of forget is that stupid

cuttery plane is totally incapable of transporting the president or anybody else safely. And so that kind of massive. But I think this story is going to go away. a little bit. It just certainly there's distrust, even more distrust between the White House and the press corps. And just to kind of bookend this all, you know, this has happened in the past and then Clinton in a trip to Pakistan and the Clinton administration, they did switch planes. The press was told the press pool is small. I think it's only, there's less than 15 or 20 members of the press. And they can be trusted and they have been in the past. But I think this is just a reflection of the complete lack of transparency and the kind of failure right now, this administration and how they

But in that case, there wasn't a threat to the plane, right? It was just him trying to get into... It wasn't, yeah, it was just for general purposes of safety flying into Pakistan during the, you know. But, you know, it's a what a... I think this could have been handled in a much better fashion, but I don't blame the Secret Service. And I don't blame the Israelis. I don't blame... Anyway, Israelis are always going to try to, you know, influence the U.S. winning.

Yeah, I don't either. I just think they do a very good job of it. They could have done a slight modification and avoided all this, right? I mean, yeah, he would have let Marco Rubio take the fucking hit. He didn't give his shit. He was still on Air Force One. There's so much good stuff like Saturday Night Live could do here or South Park. I mean, it's just so good.

But, hey, you know, a lot of TV hits based on this. Yeah. Let's switch gears a little bit to actually not really much. We're talking about Israel and what's going on in Lebanon specifically. A lot of images coming out of southern Lebanon now. They're like wholesale demolishing entire village. villages that are empty. And there seems to be no really end in sight in terms of like the Israeli occupation there. What do you guys tracking on that, John? You go first.

Well, it's important to remember that Israel occupied South Lebanon for 18 years previously. This is not the first time they've been there. And we've talked about this on the show before as well. There are symbolic locations there in South Lebanon where there were a lot of battles during that 18 year period that soldiers now are returning to those positions up to the Latani River. and the Latani River has been that kind of last line of cover and concealment for the Israelis back during the 18-year period previously. And it seems to be again the kind of terrain feature that they're choosing as the northern limit, although they are penetrating out through that occasionally. But to your point, D, about the villages being destroyed, these villages are empty because the people were told they had to depart the villages. The IDF told them you have to leave or you will be killed.

This is the message. So these people listened, I mean, men, women, and children, some of them probably with Hezbo. Some of them would not with Hezbollah. Some of them Christian. Some of them completely unaffiliated with any political party left. They're displaced. There's over a million people displaced now. Those places are empty, like literally empty of humans.

So that means the IDF is going in there and destroying empty homes. The reason why would you destroy an empty home is so that people can't return to them. What they're trying to do is make a military zone in the south that is a de facto border or buffer zone. That was supposed to be created with UNSCR 1701, which was the disingenable, which was the disingen the disengagement United Nations Security Council resolution that had a component of Hezbollah would disarm. The Lebanese armed forces would come in. The blue line, which is the line that is the actual border of Israel, Lebanon now on the ground, would go away eventually because the Lebanese military would have sovereignty down to that border area, which never occurred. Hesbola control that

area. If you've ever been to South Lebanon in the last several years, you would see before Nassarola was assassinated. There was pictures of Nassarola and Ayatollah Khomeini, thousands of pictures. is all up and down the highway, the sea coast highway up down into Nabatia and these other areas. And it was absolutely 100% controlled by Hezbollah governance in addition to their militia wing, but it was not really Lebanon governing South Lebanon. And you had other groups like Amal, which is Nabi Berry leads Amal. He's the Speaker of Parliament in Lebanon, but he was a war fighter back during the 80s. And he also has a controlled area that Amal controls.

Amal was the parent organization of Hezbollah before Hezbollah became a group. this is all going on in South Lebanon. And what Israel's trying to do is destroy or delete that truth, that reality down there and create a new status quo. The problem is that the Lebanese government is not being allowed to participate in that change. So that means there will be new conflict in the future because the actual country that owns that land is not being brought into the consulting process. And you see a lot of diplomatic activity back between President Aoun in Lebanon and the United States right now trying to get the Lebanese armed. forces somehow down there. There are these pilot areas and some other things being floated right now. They may work. They may not. It's hard to say because Lebanon has never actually had sovereignty

in the south. It's always been a different armed group, whether that's the IDF, Hezbollah, Amal, the Syrian armed forces, which people forget Syria was also down there during the 80s, controlling a lot of this stuff. So what they're trying to do now is something new. And when I say they, I don't mean just the IDF. I also mean the Lebanese government and the United States. So this is kind of a new moment, and it depends on who sustains longest. And if Israel is the one that has the most sustained presence there, that's who's going to have the buffer zone. If the Lebanese armed forces can somehow convince the United States to help, it will be the Lebanese armed forces. And it should be the Lebanese armed forces.

It is Lebanon. It should be the country's military. And there's also the internal security forces, the intervention regiments or the IRs. The six intervention regiment is the one that's down in the south. I actually trained them when I was there. their mission is to actually secure the border area and make it so that Hasbola doesn't have a place to operate. But these intervedent regiments have been kicked out by the IDF. So even those groups are not down there.

So all you have is the IDF down there. So I'll leave it at that so you guys can talk about it. But that's kind of the context leading up to what we're dealing with right now. Which is the annexation of southern Lebanon. Okay, let's just make sure we get that headline up there. Yeah. So this is, I mean, from the Middle Eastern outlets that I do, during a week. Lebanon's been the biggest discussion so you know we're not talking about as

much but they are. I don't know that I could add much for what Jonathan just said it was excellent description of what's going on. I guess what I could add to that is so we're looking at an election in Israel I think it's October 27th this obviously has a huge impact on what's going on now and what could go on in the future so from talking to my Israeli friends even if I wasn't asking them they're telling me. It's it's looking like Gadi Issenkot. And to be fair, the people I'm talking to are Gotti Isankot fans and actual friends. And if you're not familiar with Israel, everybody knows everybody, especially if you're in the military. He's very well respected. He is, you know, obviously he was a chief of the IDF. And he has a very practical. And he has a very practical

practical view of things, although he certainly is hawkish, as you'd expect. But anyway, for their take on what's going on right now is that his coalition, Yashar, I think, will get his coalition, so not just his party, which also includes Bennett and others, would get 56, whereas Net Yahoo's coalition to get 51 seats in parliament. You need 61 to basically be controlling. And there's about 11 that the Arab political parties will get. So it's not determined yet what the outcome will be. But I think Eisenkott's coalitions favored.

If you look at like the prediction markets, if those are valid, he's higher than Netanyahu. There's a lot of issues there. I don't know if we want to get into Italy politics about you know, ultra-orthodox being required to serve, et cetera. But for what I'm being told by people, and I will use their name, obviously, but people who know him. So what, so for relevance for us, well, what's going to be the difference? Well, he, they think, is going to be much more inclined to do a phased,

withdraw, disarmament plan, both in Gaza and in southern Lebanon. Because right now, basically, Nanyahu's like, I'm not just withdrawing anybody until they're completely disarmed, which is just a recipe for whatever happening, never happening, right? Like, obviously we don't like Hezbollah, we don't like Hamas, but we're in their shoes. We're not going to completely disarm and then hope the IDF withdraws. It's just illogical. So that's why in the Trump peace plan for Gaza, for example, it does have a fate.

Like you partially disarm, you partially withdraw. It's about trust, right? So according to them, he's much more inclined. as long as it can be validated to do that. He's also much more inclined to have very specific, stated objectives for the war in Iran with a clear exit strategy. So maybe they're talking to me, so they're talking to their audience, but this is what, and I've had multiple conversations with people, not in the same conversation.

They think Eisenkott's stance would be definitely a hawk, but in my opinion a good way, but a very pragmatic one, who would work hand and glove with the U.S. to try to end these conflicts in a way that's obviously acceptable to Israel's national security, but not a maximalist. And the far, far right, the smoltrits and Ben-Gavirs would probably not be in that coalition. so that factor would be somewhat mitigated. Just to add on what Jonathan said, this other factor.

Marco? I mean, these are great summaries. I'm not going to, I don't want to rehash any stuff. And Eisencont, you know, I think you can consider him as, you know, it's a centrist security hawk. It certainly is going to be wildly more acceptable to the United States, most of the U.S. think, as well as Arab States as well, too. You know, and, you know, my only kind of, and look, when I say concern, you know, Netanyahu has pulled rabbits out of his hat for his whole career. You just never know. Sure does.

So, so who the heck knows? But I think the polls, in mixed right, the polls are looking like his coalition, that his, you know, sure party is, you know, is going to do well. I think just to kind of a quick sum of his strategy, which is the right one, again, is a centrist security hawk is, you know, fight hard, but don't fight without a political end state. Don't fight without strategic goals. Netanyahu has none of those. And so, you know, in some ways that certainly would be, would be welcome. You're not getting someone from peace now. You're not getting a, you know, a peacnik here because that person couldn't survive, you know, in an Israeli political election. But I think this opens a lot more possibilities. the only thing I would add is on Lebanon in particular, there's got to be a political solution.

It just can't be military only. And the final, final piece on this is when you think about the missed opportunities with the Abraham Accords and any kind of expansion of it, it was simply because Netanyahu couldn't get himself to say, yes, in the year 2001 billion, we'll have a Palestinian state. He couldn't even do that because of the members of his coalition, the extreme, right? And so Eisenkhov will not have that. And so you can make an argument. There is more possibilities down the line of the Saudis joining something if a new Israeli government would at least say things that would be politically more palable. It's just going to make things a lot easier for everyone.

So it'll be interesting to see. And October is a, it's a relatively big deal. But don't count Netanyahu out. And this guy is. Yeah, you're right. He's been. People have said he's dead politically so many times. It's just unbelievable.

And here's the other thing, too. There's a big question on how much is Trump going to campaign for him? Donald Trump is wildly. He hasn't weighed in yet. He hasn't weighed in at all yet. And so, you know, and Trump, I think, also knows this and is just kind of, and likes fucking with BB a little bit too. But you haven't seen kind of the, and, you know, Netanyahu is taking, you know, more than half a dozen trips here. You know, don't be surprised if he tries another, does this again to come to the U.S.

to get this Trump endorsement, which Trump has not done. And one on that now you get me going on geeking out in Israeli politics. What's interesting is the mess in the West Bank with these crazy settlers. That's also a big issue right now. Even even even. That are being protected by the IDF, not just the settlers. But even Ambassador Huckabee is called them, Ambassador Huckabee, who has is as right wing and American in terms of out of his fucking mind. Yeah, we could say it.

But Huckabee is called them, you know, terrorists. These are the settlers who are, you know, going after the Palestinians there. And being protected by the idea. Yeah. And so even the U.S. government done like this now. So interesting times. Well, settlers actually going against a lot of what the IDF's asking them to do, too. This is really complicated.

Like, this is the plane you're not supposed to be here, and they're going, F you. Yeah. Yeah. And then they protect them anyway. Well, I mean, in places where they, I guess, they are authorizing settlers to be, then yes. But there's also places where they are not that settlers are going, and they're telling the IDF to get them out of there. Yeah, they're trying. in houses and the IDF is protecting them.

And there's also units within the IDF who are more ideologically, you know, close to the settlers. So it gets really complicated. And I think that, and I'm going to get the wrong, it's the central command. It's where the idea of general in charge of this was removed recently. So it's the whole thing is very, it's very politically messy inside Israel. But poor Lebanon, as usual. Yeah.

And poor Palestinians, as usual. All right. last bit, let's talk about Mark and Mick's old firms, escapades in and around Ecuador, in the Galapagos. There was a report, an article by Washington Post saying that supposedly CIA or CIA contractors smoked a bunch of fishermen. John, give us more context. You're very smart.

Well, one thing to point out about Ecuador, that is. That is insinuation. It gets hard, Nick. We need somebody to say something smart. Mark. Let's turn to Jonathan. We'll be distract away from the covert action discussion and talk about the facts in the ground in Ecuador, which is that Iranians can get into Ecuador without a visa. There are very few countries on earth where that's true.

And if you think about cocaine. Yeah. If you could think about cocaine shipments outside of America. I'm about to bite back at John, even though I love John. Yeah, like, okay, it gives a shit. Were they Iranian fishermen? This connects in because. Please, let me see that.

This is a place where these guys can go without a visa. So there's obviously a reason for that. The cocaine going out of Latin America mostly goes to Dakar, Senegal, going into Europe and into Asia, which is a port controlled by Hezbollah. This is just something to kind of think about globally about why is Ecuador important, why, you know, obviously the drug trade into the United States is a big issue, but there is an international drug trade. And there are parts of Latin America that are not focused on the United States.

They're focused on Asia. They're focused on Europe and Africa. And some of that, a large amount of it goes out of Ecuador over through the land or out of the water, over eastward toward Africa so that it can be further sold or processed or moved to make more money, especially in the European Union where these drugs are very expensive. So I just want to put that there because there's a lot more to it than just the U.S., Latin America drug stuff we've been seeing with the current Trump administration. This is a very deep economic, multi-billion dollar economy that goes out of Ecuador and Brazil and Colombia, not just to the United States, but to the world. world. And there are also a lot of precursors coming out of India and China for methamphetamine that come into Ecuador and other countries in the western part of Latin America. And during my time, when I was working on this issue about more than a decade ago, there were three factories in the

world that produced the precursor for methamphetamine. Two of them were in China and one was in India. The one in India agreed with the United States to not transship it without certain requirements so that it wouldn't get put into the precursor process for meth. But the two Chinese factories didn't agree to that, and they sent those precursors out to places like Ecuador and Mexico, and that's part of the reason we saw the increase of methamphetamine into the United States in the last 15 years because of this route that we're describing here that you guys are about to talk about in great detail about why the U.S. might be interested in covert action in that area. Thank you for bringing it back, yeah, because I was going to ask, I was like thinking of a question

to like kind of like knock off. Like, yeah, Europe and Asia love drugs, right, just as much as America does, but we're definitely the lion's share in terms of market share from central and South America in terms of where the drugs are coming from. And there's a reason why the CIA is operating and the U.S. government is operating in the Pacific in the Gulf and in Mexico, as we've clearly seen reports, you know, that ground branch guys have been on the ground there. So, yeah. Yeah.

So, guys, tell us about it. Mick, tell us about every, you know, how do they plan these things? You know, you already know from what our private discussion, what I think about talking about covert programs even if they're he did not listen to you did he he did not so i'll repeat it for everybody else i don't think we should be talking about covert operations that are current uh i mean i understand why the media does i mean that's the way the media does but you know uh and i'm not even blame it i'm just saying that i'm here and maybe i'm drawing an odd connection but i just did a you know our regular stoic podcast we did it on the odyssey well what kicks

off the odyssey. What makes the Odyssey the Odyssey? It's Odysseus's incapability of doing something without freaking taking credit for it. Right? Polythemas. You guys know the story. He gets out of the cave. He wounds the monster, the Cyclops. The Cyclops thinks his name is nobody to substitute nobody for covert action. And he's sailing away. And he has to turn around and say, you know what, F it. My name's Odysseus, the Sacker of Cities, and that is why it took them 10 years to get back to Ithaca. Right? So I know it may be an odd connection,

but what I'm saying is somebody who knows about this program, I'm sure it's not the actual people executing it, that knows about this program, if it exists, and all these programs, is talking during the program. Shouldn't do it. So I'll stop there, but I just think that needs to be reinforced with, because I'm speaking primarily to policy people because policy people, in my opinion,

are the ones that leak the most because they're not on the ground, doing covert programs, they don't see the consequences, it's all about, and this is both sides, this isn't a partisan thing. It's about taking credit sometimes. when the whole point of covert action is not to take credit.

It's to disassociate the U.S. government from the action itself. Over to, brother. Love it. Okay, so I'm going to throw, just like Mick Woe, all sorts of cool shit into here. I went to see in Philly. I went to see Camden, New Jersey, Avenge Sevenfold the other night. This is my crazy love of heavy metal music. And the bartender at this little VIP thing, I get very fancy boogey,

I got the VIP. Of course you do. And so the POS Pitchie. Hold on. This is all going to be tied in. Had a Marcus Aurelius tattoo. Okay. Did your tattoo, dude.

And he's former military. He loves stoicism. So we're chatting about stuff and Mick, all the stuff you're doing and stuff and stuff that was pretty wild. So that's actually, I had to throw that in there because we're doing Odyssey Stain. Plus, actually, I watched Troy last night. I went back to watch that Brad Pitt movie. Classic.

That's good. It's certainly not as intellectual as the Odyssey, but still kind of. More of the Illy. It's more of the story before the others. Yeah, kind of good stuff. On this thing, so just, Dee, so just have some fun with this, and I did this on a TV hit, you know, basically

if you said CIA Galapagos covert action in a sentence, you know, that's not on anyone's bingo card. And in fact, about a week ago, my wife and I were talking, she's like, hey, let's go with the Galapagos. We get all this shit from National Geographic. There's a trip there. I'll check it out. And she's like,

you think it's safe with all this stuff that's going on? I said, sure. And then this happens. she's like, see, we're not going to Galapagos. We're going to drone by the old outfit's going to fuck us up. No, but so, but I think the way to do this safely in discussing this is it's not as crazy. U.S. government interest in waters around the Galapagos is not crazy because, as Jonathan mentioned, of all the drug champ, the drugs that move off the orders of Ecuador, but also, and I went back and I did some research on this because I was curious, knowing that we'd have to talk about it is,

you know, I think it was a British publication. It might have been the Times of London. But basically, fishermen in Ecuador are paid a shitload of money to take gas canisters out to meet the drugboats. And so the, okay, so, you know, is the U.S. killing innocent fishermen if they are, whatever it is. But, okay, but the fishermen actually have a big part of this story. So we should smoke them? That's what we're saying here. The article is unclear.

Some fishermen seem to have been missing. Others were captured and then released. So I'm not saying we should do it. but I'm just saying the substance of this is not as outlandish as, you know, CIA covert action programs in the Galapagos. And I will say this goes back just to the overall theme. How in the world did all of us get stuck in the sandbox for 20 years when all the other people who conceivably could be having fun are doing it in the freaking Caribbean or all these nice warm areas. Oh, ships. I mean, shit.

Whether it's Venezuela or Cuba or Mexico. I mean. Yeah, let's do drone. Let's have drone programs for everything. No, I was saying let's do TDIs in nicer location. Yeah, I know, but I'm talking about what actually is happening, and it's like people getting bombed on fishermen. Okay, so you're trying to be serious.

I am. Yeah, I am trying to be serious a little bit. Yeah, I know you guys are trying to, like, you know, misdirect and stuff. And I get they teach you that at the forum and shit, but like, Polythemas, man, polythemas. Yeah, this is my show and I'm going to bring it back. So I would say that probably there's, there's a lot of, you know, questions from Congress from the oversight committee is going on about this.

I mean, question from Congress. Are we serious? Congress isn't question a fucking thing, Mark? I think the intelligence committees are going to be questioned a lot of this. 100%. Have they been since we started drone striking? Even if there are narcos, even if they are narco boats. Like, have they been?

Well, it wouldn't be public if they were because they would be classified briefings. Yeah, you don't think they're going to leak at least that it's happening? Or that the oversight committee is giving some, giving them a little bit of guff? The thing is, the gang of eight is usually pretty close-lipped. They're very disciplined. So at the higher level, they wouldn't be leaking that stuff. they're pretty serious about it. Also, I want to ask a question, two CIA guys here and another intelligence officer.

But you claim this smarter than the CIA guys. Do we know this? We're keeping record. Yeah, that's okay. It's being recorded. So, you know, probably six months ago or sorry, I remember we spoke about it where like the CIA General Counsel right before they designated or right after they designated cartels terrorist organizations resigned, right?

And the deputy director took over the job as general counsel. That's correct. You're telling me a CIA general counsel, you know, the general counsel of the CIA, who, you know, usually you want to get a blessing from your own internal lawyers about whether it's a covert operation or anything you're trying to do, fucks off, resigns. And then they don't pick a new guy, the guy that probably came up with the idea for doing this stuff, takes over the position. That's, you're, you're flirting with things that are fucking possibly maybe illegal. There isn't a general counsel, though, who has been considered. Okay. Well, congratulations on him.

in the job or her. But, you know, what's going on? Let's win the House. All of this is going to be, there's going to be investigations on this. I mean, there's legitimate questions. There's oversight that should be done on these kinds of things. It's not just the agency. It's also the U.S. military strikes.

I completely agree with you. I'm not saying it's just the agency. I think there'll be more kind of robust oversight. There's nothing wrong with that. You know, that's just. And just remember when that happens that the CIA responds to hoarders as given by the president. That's correct.

So for some reason, we always end up with, like it's our idea. Rogue. Right? It's like, I didn't know. So, I mean, it doesn't happen to the military, right? You don't blame the military for going to Vietnam, right? But somehow when they, when they see I was tasked with something by the president,

although it's brief to, you know, both committees, it somehow ends up like it was our idea and that we were like exclusively responsible for it. But at some point, the question's got to be asked is illegal or not, right? Of course. Well, that's going to be asked while it's happened. He has been asked. I mean, there's been a lot of congressional scrutiny, but the Democrats don't control the Senate or the House.

And so I think if they do, they will have subpoena power. You'll see a lot more, you know, oversight over foreign policy. That's just the way it is. It's nothing wrong with that. It's just, you know. But not to mention the White House General Counsel, one of the things they do is they write memos that justify these policy activities. Looking back to 2008, the torture memos and all the stuff that, you know, came out.

That's what those documents were for was to cover the guys, below the policy level so that they could go out and do those things, even if it was a veneer that was later taken down. It was so that those lower ranking guys would not be prosecuted as individuals committing crimes alone. Instead, it was that, hey, there was actually a policy cover for this. Got to get your PLI, everyone, professional library insurance. Yeah, we got it after that.

Most of that stuff was just Sears School, by the way. Design. It was legal to do to us. Right. Anything else, guys? I think we covered a lot. Yeah? Did we?

Are we missing something? I feel like, no, maybe not. I feel like I had something in my brain that I wanted to attack the CIA guys about, but we'll leave it for next week. They distracted you successfully. But such bullshit. I mean, I know. It's like, love stoicism, and I respect that.

I know I love it. And then Mark with the other one, it's like, guys, it's so obvious what you're doing. I mean, I know it was kind of... The analogy. But you did sort of make sense. Like, I'm not disagreeing with you, that analogy. Don't take credit for your actions. Right.

It's supposed to be covert out. I agree. I agree with you. Silent professionals. Yeah. There's a point on this that actually, it's a whole separate debate, but covert action usually does get leaked in every administration. Basically, every one of our programs.

And so, and that's when, when people tell me there's the CIA out there that you don't know about, they're doing all sorts of shit. I'm like, actually, that's really not true. Everything ends up coming out. It should be. It should be true. But maybe covert action should be eventually because, you know, people need to know, but not while it's happening. Well, remember what covert action is, Mick.

Covert action is the thing. I mean, it's not clandestine. It's covert in the sense of an event occurs and we don't take credit for it. Right. It can be covert and clandestine. Those are better. Something happens. Yeah.

Yeah. So it's harder to keep that secret. You just don't brag about it. But this is just don't say who did it. Can't do that. Yeah. Like smoking fishermen in Ecuador. I just, I don't even think they care.

Did you see the movie The Odyssey? Yeah. How many times? I've seen The Odyssey twice. How many times have you seen it, Mick? I've seen it once. Just once? And my stoic buddy, he went and saw it on the theater that Nolan watched it.

It's like the original IMAX theater with lasers and stuff up in Canada. Oh, wow. Yeah. Jonathan, have you seen it? No, because I don't want to spoil my feelings about Troy, which I love. Okay. I'll watch it eventually. A lot of the classicist in Montereuxian classes.

So he's, you know, there's even even the historical stuff to argue, I think is, is cool. Like the boating, right? Or, but maybe you'll get all uptight about it. I'm like, no, that's cool, man. If you're a historian, then you want it to be historical. Doesn't mean it. The controversy over this is so stud.

In fact, the Greek prime minister actually called Chris Nolan thank them. Because now there's this huge interest in the classics. There's obviously tourism's going to go up more. And it's, but yeah. Also, it's a fake story. It's a myth. everybody who's freaking the fuck out. It's based on truth.

It's just based on truth. It's just for a fuck. It's also a movie. Just go enjoy the movie. By the way, if you go and see Troy, Troy is historically incorrect as well. Yeah. So it's a gladiator, but gladiator's awesome. Yeah.

It is. But at least it gets you back interested in the classics. Yeah, totally. I thought it was very well. Yeah, so if people watch the Odyssey, that's great. But also look up that, that, that article about, and watch the, imposed about the Ecuadorian fishermen. Galapagos.

Why don't you join the CIA? You can be chiefest station Galapagos. I would never pass the polygraph. They have the oldest tortoise that's alive there. It's 150-year-old tortoise in the Galapagos. Hormuz is part of the Chinese. Hormuz is part of the U.S. territory. I'm excited to visit there in the summer.

What did you say, John? We spoke about it. There's a 150-year-old tortoise in the Galapagos. It's the oldest tortoise on the planet. I was planning and going and seeing it. Now my wife won't let me go. She said help. Because of the CIA covert action program down there.

They're fucking throwing. Look up everywhere. Kind of looking around. All right, boys, a pleasure. I want everyone to check out mixed podcasts, applied stoicism. The pub and the porch, applied stoicism. That link is in the description. Mark P.

He's got a book. He's got a Twitter account. Follow him there if you want to rage out of him over there on Twitter. John Hackett has got two incredible books Iran's shadow weapons in the theory of a regular war All those links are in the description We got the White Fish Security Summit coming up In February of 2027

Check it out that link is in the description as well Guys a pleasure as always We'll see you next week That's a fun one Absolutely Hello everyone if you're hearing this You are not a member of the Patreon You can get your hands on

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