The Team House - So Is It Just For Oil in Venezuela? | EYES ON GEOPOLITICS

Episode Date: December 22, 2025

In this episode of Eyes on Geopolitics, the hosts discuss various pressing global issues, including U.S. military posturing in Venezuela, the humanitarian crisis in Israel and Gaza, the implications of unlawful military orders, and the ongoing conflict in Ukraine and Russia. They explore the complexities of international relations, military strategy, and the legal ramifications of military actions, while also addressing the challenges faced by military leaders and the geopolitical landscape.GhostBed⬇️https://www.ghostbed.com/houseFOR 25% off! Support the show on Patreon:⬇️https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouseSubscribe to our new newsletter!!!!https://teamhousepodcast.kit.com/joinNew merch, patches, and stickers! ⬇️https://theteamhouse-shop.fourthwall.comCheck 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/Bluesky ⬇️https://bsky.app/profile/mickmulroy.bsky.socialMick’s publications ⬇️https://www.loboinstitute.org/publications/publications-of-michael-mick-patrick-mulroy/Find 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-OperationsBluesky ⬇️https://bsky.app/profile/andy-milburn.bsky.socialFind Jason Lyons here: LinkedIn ⬇️https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-lyons-666873316?uBluesky ⬇️https://bsky.app/profile/bgsilverback73.bsky.social"Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio"00:00 START01:29 U.S. Posturing Towards Venezuela's Oil08:01 Military Ethics and Unlawful Orders16:24 Humanitarian Crisis in Gaza and International Response24:38 Military Strategy and Resource Allocation31:40 Challenges in Peacekeeping and Governance35:42 The Role of National Guards in Foreign Operations37:39 The Ongoing Conflict in Ukraine and Russia44:14 The Future of Russian Aggression and European ResponseBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of Eyes on Geopolitics. I'm DeMitton Toccos. I'm here with my friends, Mick Mulroy, Jason Lyons. Christmas week, so Merry Christmas to everybody. We won't see you until next week, so enjoy that. Happy Hanukkah to our Jewish brothers and everything else. Quanzo, everything, all of them. Happy holidays.

You're welcome, Jason. And I'd just like to say, before anybody pointed out, this mermaid t-shirt, My granddaughter's fourth birthday. She made us all wear a mermaid stuff, so I have a mermaid security t-shirt on, so if anybody's questioning me. Then I'm not questioning you now. I don't think they would have to guess the question of the first place. Right. That's hilarious.

So what do we got? We got a couple things, some housekeeping. Mixed new podcast, pub and the porch, applied stoicism. That link is in the description. Check that out. New episodes every Monday. Great podcast. I listen to every episode and trying to figure out my life and be a little bit more stoic.

It's not working, but it's a work in progress. Jason Lyons, his links are down in the description to, and Andy Milburn. He's traveling. He's all over the place with those big muscles. Those links are down in the description as well. Okay. Now, a lot happening. Crazy stuff happening, but there's nothing like we haven't started bombing Venezuela yet,

even though we are positioning or posturing ourselves to do that. We have been for months. Let's just kick off with that. Another oil tanker was seized yesterday, I believe, in the Caribbean, a Venezuelan tanker that was Chinese-owned oil. So the U.S. is still going after the oil supply and stuff like that. There has been a lot of talk. I've seen the memes. I'm sure you guys have, too, where it's like, you know, at least back in 2003 or 2002 leading up to Iraq, we didn't really talk about, you know, going after this country for oil pertaining to Iraq.

now it just seems to be out right out there like yeah we're doing this for the oil like and the memes are there and it's it's you know it's hard not to notice that right we've talked about it before they have you know the most oil one of the most the high most oil reserves in the in the world um so yeah we're still this i feel like it's a holding pattern and they really want to get some nice you know videos of like operators and coasties job boarding ships and stuff like that. Mick, where are you, what are you hearing about this? Where are you at?

Yeah, so starting with your point on stolen oil. Looks like what the president's referring to is back in the 70s, you know, a lot of U.S. oil companies were the ones doing all the work, putting in all the infrastructure, we're getting all the oil, and it was a cooperative agreement with the government of Venezuela and then the government of Venezuela. Well, said, the heck with that. We're just going to take all this stuff, even though you. So, I mean, I'll leave it to some international lawyer to say if there's a case,

it seems like there would be for Exxon and Chevron and stuff like that. But I don't think that equates to it being the property of U.S. tax payers, right? The U.S. people. So I'm not quite sure. I don't know the legal theory of how the U.S. could claim the oil. And like you said, it's $14 trillion of oil reserves and it's owned, if you will, by the Venezuelan people, just like natural resources are owned by people, whatever countries are in. So I'm not sure about that. On the interdiction, it looks like, and, you know, people were wondering why do we have such a significant naval and marine presence in the Caribbean, right?

more so than any time in the last four or five decades, maybe more than any time, to be frank. And there's more assets apparently coming from Indo-Pacom to support it. It looks like it's to do this, right? So there's a 1,700-mile coastline of Venezuela. It would still be very difficult by comparison, 300 square miles, or not square miles, miles, miles of coastline for California, just in comparison. So it's pretty hard to do a full naval blockade. And if you did, the question then becomes the legality of it.

If you blockade everything, it's an act of war, it's clearly defined. That's why they're talking about just sanctioned vessels and sanctioned oil. And there's questions about the centuries, I think is the name of this ship. It's not a sanctioned vessel, but because it was. carrying Venezuelan oil, that doesn't matter where it's going, I guess, but it's sanctioned oil. So the legal theory is you can interdict it. Now, why we haven't been doing this to say Russian oil to support Ukraine, I don't know, but either way, that's what we're doing.

So the legality is questioned. I don't know the answer. Leave it to some of our folks who might be that type of expert in our audience. But that's what it looks like it's going to do. 90% of the income for the regime comes from purchases of oil. I imagine some comes from illicit narcotics. And if you cut that off, it could challenge their ability to stay in place, just because people want to get paid to support a dictator.

And if they don't, they might turn against them because there's no... The question is whether the rest of the world is going to allow that, particularly that countries like China. I'm not sure what they'll do about it, but unless they want a confrontation with the U.S. Navy, there is some reporting that the Venezuelans are going to do that. They're going to escort these ships with their Navy, and then we'll have to see whether the U.S. is willing to have a confrontation.

We'd win, of course, but there's a much more questions than just whether you'd be militarily successful in interdicting it, whether it's worse the actual major escalation. So I think that's where we are with this. I've talked to people who have calculated, although they all told me there's really no way to calculate it. But even with this, it would take over a year to have a major potential impact on the regime.

I believe they knew that. I believe they were the people to ask, but they even told me like, but nobody really knows. Like they don't know how they could get around it. Russia, Iran, they immediately go into sanctions, you know, economics, you know, posture, and they figure out how to get around it. So there's a lot of ifs to that.

But it could take a while and it would be pretty expensive to maintain it. I was just going to say, like, how much is that going to fucking run us? A lot. Yeah. I mean, the Pentagon can't pass a fucking audit, which is another bit of news. I mean, it's like how many years in a row it's been. It's like incredible how consistent they are, really. outside of the year is one service the Marine Corps we know I was gonna say that I mean I know

I'm contractually obligated to say that I know which is incredible though like how about like let's let's borrow some accounts from the Marine Corps and put him into the rest of the fucking services because it's an absolute joke over 950 billion dollar was the latest NDAA right that's a lot of cash yeah that's a lot of money like where's that shit going I'm not saying don't fund obviously. I'm saying where's the money going? And are we getting, like, you know, are we getting our money's worth? What are we doing with that? Okay. Yeah, sorry, I'm back. I blacked out for a second. Oh, this also pertains to this is a bit more of a general question. Obviously, there's been more and more

report, obvious, like generals retiring, uh, because it hasn't been, I don't know if it's been reported, but they don't want to follow unlawful orders, right? They don't want, they don't feel comfortable with the strikes on drug trafficking, drug trafficking vessels in the Caribbean, uh, and, and in the Pacific as well.

Um, and we've seen a few generals retire. Um, and there was, I know, Mickey wanted to talk about this. Like, what point do you,

you, do you just retire or do you stand up and say, no, this is fucking bullshit and I don't want to do it. It's against the law. It's against the constitution. It's not my, it might,

in my purview as a general officer in the U.S. military. It's already enlisted. You have a duty to follow lawful orders. So just like we discussed, you know, when they were at Embo Bradley up there testifying at first, if it's deemed a lawful order, in my opinion, you don't really have an option. I mean, you might not like it. I mean, there's, I don't know, most people, people I know that went to the war in Iraq probably were against it, you know, like, I mean,

you know, policy-wise, but, you know, you don't join the military for everybody to have, you know, weigh in on policy. But then the question does come down to, well, if it's an unlawful order. And the question on that, and I don't know the facts of what happened, so I'm not talking about any specific. But the way the CNN report came out is, if it's true, that one of the senior judge advocate said, if it's an unlawful order, you should retire rather than resign because resigned looks like some political statement. And for me, it just was confounding because it's like, wait a minute, if it's an unlawful order, you don't do it. You don't have an obligation to do anything other than say no, right?

And then we have people to make that determination. We have a whole cadre of both uniform and civilian lawyers that make these determinations. It isn't on the admiral or general to make their own determination. If the lawyer says, this is an lawful order, I don't know why they're being told, well, then you better retire. Because all that does is leave it to the deputy, right? Yeah. I mean, think about it.

How many people, I'm sure you guys have had, you know, subordinates. And so all you're doing is stepping out of the way going, well, good luck with that. And eventually, under this scenario, if it's true, they're going to get the people who can't retire. Right. Exactly. Somebody who's going to go, yeah. All right, we'll do it. I'll do it.

Yeah. Right. And then, but then it's like, well, though, because if the lawyer said it's unlawful, you don't have the option to do it. It's not your choice. So anyway. either it's and I know the journalists who put it out and she's a great reporter if that's the case and there should be a lot more inquiry about from the Senate Armed Services Committee and House Armed Services Committee getting to the question of just what our senior flag officers being

told about this because they don't really have an option you just don't follow on law forms that's clear in the UCMJ and the law of armed conflict not for nothing. That's a stupid tactical option anyway. What are they right there on the spot? I'm going to say, I retire. You know, when you're told, push the button, that's just dumb. So they have the choice to either do it or not do it on the spot.

And then later on, say, I didn't agree. I'm retiring, you know, or resigning. But tactically, you can't just retire on the spot. So that was a dumb option. You're right. Yeah, you can later, if you just didn't agree with the policy for whatever reason, I mean, it's a voluntary, military, you can step out. Maybe that, I mean, although I don't understand why they can tell you that you can't resign.

Yeah. You know what I mean? It's just optics, really. I think it's just objects. If you don't have any obligations to your, you know, on your contract. Anyway, not to get into details, but that seems to be something the oversight committees should follow up on. Because if true, there's a, they're missing the part of on-lawful. And, yeah.

Make, let me ask you, man, because you were in leadership positions everywhere you were, right? You were SIS and SIA. You were a deputy assistant secretary of defense. You know, these are leadership roles where you have people under you. And I know the CIA is a little bit more flexible when it comes to like unlawful stuff because that's their mandate is to break laws across, you know, outside of the U.S. Or part of their mandate. But let's say a CIA lawyer comes in and is like, yeah, this is kind of pushing to the part where this is very. gray or even unlawful in terms of what we can and can't do.

And you're running a program, right? Some, we don't need to mention any of that. But I'm just saying, this is a hypothetical. What do you do when it's like this is sketch and even the lawyers are saying this is kind of pushing it? Well, I mean, and I'll just say this in general. I think it does apply to the agency or the FBI or the military, right? We all have, even the agency has legal parameters, probably more than people know, but it really does come down to what the lawyers say. I mean, that's why we have them.

There's plenty of service, especially intel services that do not, you know. Like I've been told by several intel services, our lawyers write our wills. That's it, right? That's not the case in the U.S. So they have a very substantial operational impact. And if they say something's unlawful, it's unlawful. If they say it's, you know, it's close to the line, then just like anything, it's, you know, then I guess it comes down to the operator or the person that's in the command position to determine.

But close to the line is lawful. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, as long as it's close to the line on the right side of the line. But that's, I mean, that's a challenge that every commander of anything, especially if there's a lethal opponent to what you do, it's got a face, right? Whether some rankle or agency or, you know,

what's going on right now with interdicting boats in the Caribbean. It really does have to come down to a very objective cadre of legal professionals who have studied and know the law, and they have to be willing to say the right answer and stand by it. That's clear. I mean, that's been clear since that's why we have all the conventions governing armed conflict in the event. War sucks, but, you know, even with that, it should be fought by combatants, only combatants.

And there are rules that all those combatants want adhere to when it comes to them. So, you know, why not make war, you know, as acceptable as. possible. If not, it's just latent total war targeting civilians, firebombing cities. We've collectively decided we don't want to see that ever again after World War II. So maybe we've gotten too far away from actually like the actual knowledge of that, how bad that can get. Although we can see it in a lot of places now. Gaza. Yeah, and Ukraine.

I mean, Russians literally just target civilians every day. Yeah. I mean, they're shooting very precise weapons at nurseries, you know, in like maternal hospitals, paternity hospitals. I mean, it's like, it's not an accident that we've decided we don't want to fight war that way. If you're in the market for a new mattress, you've probably seen all the brands out there vying for your attention. And big names, splashy ads, all promising the same thing. But here's the only brand that does it right.

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check out Ghostbed. You can go to ghostbed.com slash house and get 25% off right now. Love you and love Ghostbed. Thanks, guys. All right, yeah. So, I mean, we'll see what happens. Obviously, this is still an active situation in Venezuela,

in and around Venezuela. All right, move on to Israel. Netanyahu's visiting the White House, talk phase two of the ceasefire, which they violated many, many, many, many, any time so I just want to editorialize that real quick also like AIDS not exactly flowing in there like it's a deluge of aid let's be honest there still over 100,000 people who are in a dire strait where who could really use aid there also I mean this is the same almost

it's in the same ballpark Israel's cabinet just approved more settlements in the West Bank illegal settlements illegal settlements sorry Where are we at with phase two? What's it looking like? Mick, what are you hearing? So I think you're right. There's been a, and the humanitarian situation has gotten worse, believe it or not, because of the deluge of rain and the winter.

So it's destroyed a lot of their temporary tent-type housing, and they're in a bad, I mean, they've been in a bad situation, and now it's getting worse. And to me, I mean, I track, because of what we do, track the aid going in doesn't seem to be up to the number they said it should be made 600 trucks in it i think the u.s should hold them accountable for that or at least push them to do what they agree to that's the whole point of having a 20-point plan uh but now i think the meeting with prime minister nanyahu and president trump's on 29 i think so i believe and you know

this is, I mean, there's a lot of, you know, criticism or comments, I should say, that are critical about the peace plan, but I'd say, well, they deserve credit for getting it to where it is, the administration that is. So, and it's not easy. Nobody thought it would be easy. And maybe sometimes the optimism's too much, but that was also the case to the last administration. But anyway, so the next phase, phase two, the primary component is the International Stabilization Force, which has been authorized by UN, I think it's 2803, to do. And they will have a hefty task ahead of them. So their main effort is provide security and demilitarization of Gaza, which obviously means destroying tunnels and

taking guns away from Hamas. It's to ensure the steady flow of things. aid. So it's not just getting into the strip, right? It's also got to get to the people. But so secure in those lines of transport. So they're all stolen by Hamas. And then the third main part of the ISF is to train Palestinians to take over their position. So that could take a long time. And now they've got to get, you know, countries to contribute. I think there was over 40 countries participated in the summit at Dohaa, but I've only really heard of like Indonesia, Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan. A few Gulf countries have said they are willing to contribute forces. In Italy, I think, is one of the European countries it might. But this is, you know, it's,

it's tough stuff. It's a, you've got a contributor force. It goes into Gaza and then ends up looking like an occupier. It'll, it'll look like an occupier almost immediately, right? Let's just face it. And then as soon as there's any kind of confrontation between the force itself and either Hamas or any of these other armed faction, then it's really going to look like it just replaced the IDF. Right. And defend themselves. Of course, they're going to defend themselves. They're soldiers. I mean, they're not there to get, you know, so it's, I mean, there's, I know the guy that was, they've got some good people that are, that are in charge of this from the, from the U.S. military side. And I think,

that's a good thing, but let's not be naive. This is going to be very difficult. It's a big decision by, and I think big decision by the countries that would contribute, and I think one of the things that the administration, the U.S. administration is doing, is using meetings between the president and prime minister as a forcing function. Like we're going into the second phase now, right?

Because Israel has been reluctant throughout, right? They're reluctant, you know, we have a potential for, war to start back up in Lebanon. We have a potential for direct, you know, full-on conflict back in Gaza. There's talking Syria. There's talking Iraq. It certainly hasn't stabilized the way we like it. But I would give credit to the effort, at least for the U.S. to... I have a question. Is this international force like mobilized ready? Who's paying for it? Are they, I mean, because I'm assuming it's going to take, you know, months, if not, longer several months from forced to mobilize that's big enough to make sense also to train who leads

it who commands it it's a good question and I don't I don't know the answers which means is likely either way behind the scenes or they haven't progressed that much I mean they got the UN authorization they had the summit maybe they can train in Egypt you know which is not such a there's facilities there who's going to pay that's a great thing I haven't even heard anybody talk about it's going to pay. I've heard people talking about who's going to pay for the reconstruction, which of course is all the countries you'd guess. Are they also going to pay, is a country like Indonesia and Azerbaijan going to contribute to forces but another country pay? Because it's going to be costly to equip them. They've got to be integrated. They've got

to be trained, right? Just being a soldier doesn't make you a peacekeeper. Just being a peacekeeper doesn't make you capable of being a peacekeeper in Gaza, especially for coming in from Indonesia, right so um yeah there's there's some Harkleyan task i think ahead of us on this but at the end of it if it gets through all the phases in line with the u.s. proposal it would be better off i think for israel and the people of Gaza how many people this is today yeah ballpark is there like any are there any military guys out there or military experts to think tanks that are like even saying how many people how many soldiers they would need to police this How much? What's that number?

Ballpark. So it goes up as Israel withdraws. Okay. Because there's more terrain to. I mean, look at how many troops Israel has in there right now. Right. It's just look. It would be in Hamasas, control some of the areas.

Sorry, guys for the dead air. I'll cut this out. It surges because of their. Yeah, it goes up and down, right? You got to assume it's going to be a couple divisions, right? Like 50,000, 40,000? And that's just my dumb math. Yeah, no, it's just.

I'm reading here, it says, no country's fully committed troops yet, and the U.S. official acknowledged may take most of 2026 to reach a goal of 10,000 troops. Yeah, that's crazy. What's 10,000? I misspelled troops. That's right.

I misspelled everything. thing on there, too. So you... How fast you get mad at AI for not... Yeah. So you got to assume it's got to be at least 40,000, right? Yeah. Ballpark.

Because if you have like 3, 4,000 militants still still there, you probably want a 10x ratio, I would assume. I would assume. I mean, I don't know. I don't know anything. Yeah. So it really does not want to tell me how many it's even guessed. It's over 100,000.

I saw that, the initial... after the thing was 100,000. So, like, that's the high end. Luxurates pretty dramatically because if they're going to go after Gaza City, they have to, they have to surge. And then once they actually occupy and basically take and hold, you don't need as many troops. Yeah.

So I just didn't know what the, but it's going to take at least as much as they would use. Yeah. To stabilize the whole 25 mile long. Yeah, that's, how much does it cost to even keep 50,000 troops? They're supplied, ready to go. And it's not cheap. You're talking tens of billions of dollars a year or more.

Who pays for that? Like, seriously, I mean, it should be Israel, but who pays for that? I bet you ain't going to be Israel. No shit. I would guess the, I would guess a conglomeration of donors that want to see this happen. I don't want to be cynical, Mick, but I don't see this happening. I want to believe. There's a lot of challenges to it.

There's a lot of challenges to it. But I don't know how you would get from the IDF to a trusted, fetid, Palestinian. Maybe that's the other alternative is they just keep training Palestinians from there. But that's obviously either not acceptable to Israel, which is why we're even talking about the ISF. And with it also becomes a governing council that starts with the peace council, and transitions to, you know, technocratic is the term I like to use, government, made up of Palestinian folks that are good at every area of the society,

education, transportation, all that stuff. So, again, it's easy to criticize. I do a lot of foreign, you know, in addition to ABC, I do a lot of foreign stuff. And, you know, it's everybody likes to get out and say how screwed up the peace plan is, but I don't know. When they ask them, like, well, what's it an alternative? It's like crickets.

I think they got a better idea. What about, yeah, what about Israel? What about Israel pulling out and picking off Hamas guys as they reconstitute and stuff like that and letting the Palestinian people self-determine? But I think that's part of the plan. Isn't that a 20-point plan ends with a full withdrawal of the IDF and Palestinian governance? system. So,

yeah. Yeah. What part of the, I mean, yeah, I don't want to be, I'm going to, I don't want to keep shitting on it. I want to keep shitting on it. Yeah, I just don't, I think the culprit of this, obviously is Hamas and they need to get their pee-wax, which

means fucking smoked. But the way Israel's gone about it is pretty fucking crazy. I think we, I can, I mean, some people can agree with me. Some people don't have to. Yeah, I think pulling out getting aid there uh some dialogue would be smart i think um and you know if you don't want to

pay for it fine but like put together a coalition of the arab countries and stuff like that that are willing to um i think actual meaningful dialogue not not showing up to the signing of it which was happened by both sides um you know and kind of frankly placating the american administration because that's what it feels like because this deal was on the table a year and a half ago and Netanyahu didn't do it because he thought he could make a better deal with the way if Trump came in and that's just the politics of it that's the reality of it I think willing partners good faith actors in the negotiations would take this a lot longer and I don't think either side Hamas or Netanyahu's government are good faith actors whatsoever I think something else it needs

it be, oh, I'm sorry, Mike. No, go ahead, Jay. Something else that I was just thinking about that should be clarified, too, as far as the ISF is concerned is, is their role peacekeeping versus peace enforcement? Because there is a difference. Peacekeeping is there is a peace plan in place and it's being, it's being maintained, whereas peace enforcement, and I should go back and clarify, I looked into this because I kept seeing both.

Peacekeeping, it's with the consent of both parties, both belligerent parties. Peace enforcement, you don't need consent, and that is enforcing and actually implementing peace where there is none. So I think that's something that needs to be clarified and agreed to by the ISF participants. Right. That's a big issue. Because I could put them in direct conflict. If it's peace enforcement, you could put them in direct conflict with IDF or, you know, Hamas or both. Yes, both really bad.

Isn't the idea of known for hitting, you know, shooting sometimes at UN peacekeepers? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. On occasion. It's serious coordination. That's why the U.S. set up that civilian military coordination center. It's in Israel. They got to, they just got to be coordinated even, even if they're peacekeepers, to Jay's point, meaning that both sides agree for them to be there.

I mean, fog of war is a real thing, right? you got to have we have to have coordination. And there's always going to be some jackass with AK. It's going to, even if both sides fully agree, who's going to just shoot at somebody. I mean, we know the deal, right? It'll be some splinter element, didn't agree with Hamas's leadership or what have you. It's going to kick it off. It's, yeah, it's, again, I'm not saying it's perfect.

And the criticism of it, I think, is valid to a point. that it's like people that are criticized and also are coming out with a better plan. And at the end of this, it does end up with a place, at least in the 20-point plan, that people say they want to see, which is an autonomous palace. I don't think it says, and I don't have to go read it again, but like a Palestinian state, but essentially it's like there. And right now we're going to the other direction. I mean, you just talked about 19 new settlements in the West Bank. And like 60 plus over a few years, too, they approved.

Yeah. Yeah. So we're going further and further away from that even being a viable option if we don't, if this doesn't get implemented. Yeah. So we'll see what goes down. I want to talk a bit about what happened in Syria, where we lost three servicemen to an ISIS attack. And then we've subsequently hit about 70 targets in Syria, striking back.

I have a question. Why are the, like, we have a small footprint in Syria, right? You know, it's special operations, it's agency and stuff like that. Why do we need guardsmen there, national guardsmen? I'm glad you asked at D. I think people would be surprised at where guardsmen actually are. They're deployed all the time around. I've visited there.

I've been to Syria many times, as you would guess, but my last job, I visited the place where these soldiers were, I think they were at on top. They was National Guard's folks said. They do a lot. Yes, you're right. We got the J-Soc, we got the agency folks doing their stuff, but a lot of these bases are staffed by National Guard infantry types soldiers and, of course, active duty infantry. And it's common. It just started now. It's been going on for years and years and years they sign up for the deployment and they get deployed. And I think there's been a guard component in Syria for decades. Yeah.

Yeah. My question is this. I understand if we're filling like, you know, we're about to go into, we're surging in Iraq or resurging in Afghanistan where we need reserves and guardsmen. Totally. I understand that. But when you have a small, you know, a couple thousand, you know, total, why can't that be filled by active duty?

Fair question. I don't know exactly why we use so many of the Guard forces and a continuous active operation. I would say the Guard actually

is housing most of the Army's combat power for the reserves. You see what I mean? Yeah. So traditionally think, okay, National Guard response to hurricanes such they now have a very direct mission that they have most of the uh combat component of the reserve forces which also includes the army reserve i mean they're like special forces

has right 19th group and the 20th group um so it is it is a very active reserve component if you will but i don't i don't know i don't know why they're they're always is that just a a a byproduct of Iraq and Afghanistan over the years. Okay. Probably. Yeah. Yeah, because I was just wondering, I was like, yeah, it's such a small, such a small, like, footprint.

You know, I get maybe in Ramstein, we have guardsmen and stuff or Okinawa or wherever, you know, we have big, big footprints, but like, for like a real, like, this is clearly a special operations, uh, heavy area of operations. Like, I don't know why we have guardsmen there. I'm not saying they can't get shit done. Obviously, they can, you know what I mean? Like our guy, Dave Park, has told us about the Arkansas National Guard and, like the havoc they've, you know, wreaked, you know,

in helping our guys out in Iraq and stuff. So it's just, that's my, I was just really wondering that. Like, I didn't understand that when I read, like, who got killed and stuff, they were guardsmen. I'm just, like, interesting. Yeah, Iowa, yeah. What do you think? We have a limited presence there.

We are there predominantly for the enduring defeat of ISIS mission. It also, of course, pushes back against Iran just because of our presence. And we work really closely. We have for a long time with the SDF, which is, it's both Kurd and Arab, but it's predominantly Kurdish and the leadership. To successfully beat the caliphate, you know, the so-called caliphate of ISIS in Iraq and Syria, predominantly Syria, of course, for the SDF. So it's a long-enduring relationship. Now we're working with the regime, not the regime,

the interim government in Damascus, so that's a change. But they're inherently dangerous, right? You know, I've heard people ask, well, he's got some questions. Doesn't this mean ISIS is back? Look, I mean, one guy who is a insider threat, that's what this guy was. Yeah. wants to open up on a patrol.

It's horrible. God bless these forces, these two soldiers and interpreter who gave the ultimate sacrifice for their country. It's very difficult to combat against, right? One, you trust that the person's not going to shoot at. They all have guns. It's this quick if you're an insider threat, right? So I don't think this means that, like, ISIS is. Yeah, no, I don't think so.

I'm assuming just because of this horrible event. Like you said, the U.S. came back hard. I wanted to send a message that, you know, bad idea. And they wanted to take the opportunity to plead every possible connected, you know, support position in person for ISIS. I think they probably did in this. I think they called it the Hawkeye name, you know. Yeah.

Operation Hawkeye or something. Yeah. Operation Hawkeye. something there's an extra bit to it um yeah i mean it's just it's terrible to see and like you said i don't think ice is going to be rolling over like parts of syria and iraq like they did back in uh 10 years ago or so or longer um at all i think you know thankfully we have a good good uh grip on that and you know i'm all in for our guys being around there and doing what we need to do I'm all in, too, with Alshara helping us out.

I think, you know, and like there was a New York Times report that he's been helping us out since 2016. So it's out there. So thanks, Alshara. We'll see if you actually hold elections, fingers crossed. Moving on to Ukraine and Russia. We saw over the last week, Eloklas sub got smoked in port. incredible um and a few i think a handful of russian fighters you know i think it was s u i think it was s u 29 like a myriad they have a ton of fighters

gotten uh you know sabotaged and blown up also you've been seeing the refineries continuously being under attack um and then you have a guy like uh putin who comes out it was interesting he had some speech or something going he had some like it was like look like a town hall where he's like, you know, we wouldn't have done this if we weren't attacked first. And I saw that, and I'm paraphrasing, but that was his basic measles scent of what he was trying to say. And I'm like, how can a man, is he fucking delusional?

Is he doddy because he's in his 70s? Or is he like seriously believe this bullshit that he's trying to spin and put out there? I don't think he seriously believes that he was at the time of hers. I believe that. I think he just thinks that a lot of people in Russia simply listen to what he says and don't challenge it. So if he says it, it happened. And yeah, the question is whether Europe is really going to step up.

And there are some leaders, like Merck's Chancellor of Germany, who are saying the right stuff. Like they're basically saying, we need to find a way legally to release these funds of Russia to Ukraine now. not bring our hands about it for the next and we need to prepare for war like it's going to happen which is only thing that Putin understands like if he looks across and he sees like the German war machine is like full on again like who the hell is going to want to attack you know what I mean it's not going to be a choice of any nation and it's not going to just be that right it's Poland it's Ukraine itself Ukraine is the largest army in Europe but if they start getting like fully backed not just financially, but an opportunity to actually intervene.

When does Europe, the rest of Europe say no-fly zone, Ukraine? We'll shoot everything down. I mean, it's Russia being the aggression. It is Ukraine, right? So they don't need permission to defend Ukraine. Russia could simply stop attacking its neighbor. Now, I mean, that's risked confrontation between Europe and Russia, and I don't think anybody should want to see it.

but you know you just keep letting them do what they want to do uh you know it's like one of those things your house your neighbor's house is burning down you're going to really wait till it's yours uh so i know they've been working on trying to figure out a way to like leverage the 300 plus billion that are sitting in belgian accounts or most of them sitting in belgian accounts have they worked out that loan or however it was going to work they was like a 90 billion dollar loan or something to be sent to ukraine can you explain a little bit about that i think the idea is they loan the money based on the holdings, right? So it's secured in the legal sense by the frozen accounts.

And then they expect when there is an adjudication of restitution, that Russia will be responsible for everything they cause Ukraine to have to spend to defend themselves, which is way more than what's in the holdings, right? I mean, hell, I mean, maybe other countries, even the United States could sue Russia for all the contributions we had to do because they attacked. You can see the increase and take the difference, right, are all the European countries. So it's going to be way beyond what's frozen. So they should be able to repay the loan. You see what I mean?

Right. Based on Russia's restitution for unlawfully attacking them and destroying how many, you know, buildings, all that stuff. So that's the theory of why they could do it. I don't know why they're waiting, but it's that would be the first step and many that would change Putin's perspective on this being a good idea. Also, the guy Krill Demetriov is down in Miami now. I don't know, talking to the boys, like, you know, the...

I don't know if Wickev's likely down there, I'm assuming. I don't know if Kushner is. Yeah. God knows what comes out of that. Zelensky did come out and say, yeah, we could do elections. Like, he's calling him out. Like, yeah, we can amend our Constitution and do elections right now. So he, yeah, he's, you know what I mean?

Yeah, he would take away that talking point. Right. How about Putin all in elections, right? Yeah, right. Where he doesn't win 87% of the vote. Yeah. It's actually freed, fair, and gets observed by an international. and his main political opponent isn't in a Siberian prison.

Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, we'll see what happens with this comes out of. There was some more talk about, like, there being a trilateral talk between Ukraine, Russia, and the United States to continue these talks. I mean, it's clear as fucking day that Russia is not interested in this. I know their economy is based on war now. Right. So if there was a sudden halt to, like, fighting, you have to assume between the time, the same. sanctions get lifting and everything happens where their economy comes back to normal there's

going to be a serious fucking dip in terms of i suppose there's like like old school towns in the so from the soviet era that have been like dead towns that have come back to life to basically continue to like feed the russian war machine you know so like how are those people going to feel now when you know war's over we don't need any more shells or any more anything like you know your factories are now shut down um So there's an interesting thing going on here. I mean, I don't know how it plays out. I hope there's a ceasefire sooner rather than later,

and I hope we don't bend over completely fucking Russia. Yeah, and it ultimately comes down to Ukraine. They're going to keep fighting. And Europe has all the, you know, not only moral reasons to support them, but like, actually, you know, like, it could be next. There's other countries that are, you know, in Europe that aren't protected by NATO. And people are questioning whether Nate, the Article 5 is Ironclad isn't what it was believed to be, hopefully it is. But it's time to, it's past time for European leaders to step up and start being completely a lockstep with Ukraine.

Like, get ready. I think they should start mobilizing forces to get ready to go in if they have to. Maybe they leave it as a strategic ambiguity of whether when and, you know, when the line is. but have like a solid amount of guys ready to go like mobilized yeah like why would you not do that not do exactly oh you're an antagonize come on man i mean if you haven't figured out that yes it's anything you do they're going to threaten nuclear war and blah on the list right so it's it's literally everything you don't do to confront a bully right don't just sit in your chair waiting with your buddy getting his head bashed in with a lunch bucket, right?

I mean, you got out like, it's all in. Or they just, the bill just keeps guilt. Just picks you off one at a time. Yeah. I don't know if that analogy worked, but I think you guys get it. No, it totally makes sense. I mean, Russia's got to get pee-p-wacked. And now, frankly, they have been pee-wacked, right?

We were talking about this closing in on four years ago that they were going to take over Ukraine in a couple weeks or five days. It fluctuates, but it was relatively short. and it's four years down the road, you know, Russia isn't exactly the fucking superpower. Everyone talked about them being. So, and also, just to say, like, also all the talk about them, like, attacking a European country,

there's no way they can sustain a double-fronted war. I mean, unless they completely mobilize, and God knows what that makes the Russian actual populace do, right? like where they're plucking kids out of Moscow and St. Petersburg, I don't really think like the elite of Russia are going to be really cool with that. They're cool with like the people in the East getting sent over and the poor people getting sent over. That's all good. And let's bring in some prisoners anyway.

It costs money to keep him in jail anyway, send them to the front. But once like the, you know, upper middle class kids from St. Pete and Moscow, so again, sent to the front line to the meat grinder. there. Let's see how much regime security Uncle Vlad's got. Yeah. All right. I'm red hot, guys. I'm red hot on this Sunday morning. It's your full. I want everyone to do me a favor. Unless you guys, is there anything else? Tell me. Okay. Um, Mixed podcast, Pub and the porch applied stoicism, it's a great pod. I listen to it right after I do this show because I get so heated up and I need to chill out.

Yeah, it comes out every Monday. Check that out. The links are in the description. Jason Lyons, his links are in description, Andy Melbourne, links are in the description. Best way to support the show is patreon.com slash the teamhouse. You get both eyes on and team house episodes, ad free and early.

You get them right away. You can ask us questions. You can do all that. And you can support the show. So again, guys, thank you. Merry Christmas to everybody. And we'll see you next week. Take care, buddy.

Take care of Janice. Hey, guys. I want to tell all of you today about a new newsletter that we're launching that encompasses both the Team House podcast, the AizOn podcast, and the High Side News Outlet, which I run with Sean Naylor. The newsletter is going to be once a week. It's going to come into your inbox and you're going to get the most current podcasts on Aizon and the Team House and whatever's topical or current on the Highest. side. So it's another way for us to get the information out to you as social media algorithms are pretty iffy and you never really know what you're going to get. So this is a once a week email. It'll slide into your inbox and it will have, you know, the greatest hits of that week.

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