The Team House - The U.S. Response to Tower 22 Attack | EYES ON | Ep. 2

Episode Date: February 4, 2024

Introducing a new podcast called Eyes On with Andy Milburn & Jason Lyons, where we talk about geopolitics and international news.Today we take a deep dive on the retaliatory strikes the US launched in Iraq & Syria on IRGC (Iranian republican guard) and Iranian backed militias in the region that attacked a US base in Jordan a few days prior.To help support the show and for all bonus content including:-AD FREE AUDIO-AD FREE VIDEO-Access to ALL bonus segments with our guestsSubscribe to our Patreon! ⬇️https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse#b1blancer #irgc #geopoliticsBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

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Welcome to another episode of Eyes On. weekly, reasonably well-informed discussion of geopolitical events and about the time it takes you to drive to work or PT, whatever else you get up to in about 30 minutes. I'm Andy Milburn, former Marine Infantry Special Operations Officer, former CEO of the Mozart Group, longtime student of modern war. Not here today is Jason Lyons, who is waiting back surgery. you know we should do a whole episode d on veterans problems with bags no actually on second thoughts let's not do that an entire series um but anyway does it delighted obviously to have d who is my uh who is our producer and my boss um d over over to you thanks andy uh i appreciate

your boss i don't know about that i don't think i'm anybody's boss to be honest uh i just Just wanted to make a lot. What do you have lined up for us today? I mean, it's the big news is the, you know, retaliatory strikes on the IRGC and their connected militias and stuff. It's been pretty busy. So, yeah, 100%. So to bring everyone up to speed in case, you know, for some reason, you got horrendously drunk around noon yesterday and slept through the whole thing, the United States conducted reportedly 85 strong. mics on four separate targets in Iraq and Syria.

And D, these figured out here how to, no, actually I figured this out how to share a screen. This is an ISW map, don't worry, guys. We're not gonna get very geeky and academic here, but it drives me up the wall when we talk about places and we don't have a map to point two. This is pretty good map of the Iraq, Syria, Iraq, Jordan border. These strikes that it shows here actually militia strikes on US bases as of late

January and they show they show strikes according to how many occur frequency and you'll see Alassad, if you remember Alassad was a great rocket magnet back in the day when we were there and continues that tradition of course that's a massive base but when you have much smaller bases there like Al Tenth and the little circle there marked Rookbine is actually Tower 22. Strikes have a much greater effect. Dee, I'm going to, you can see my cursor here. I see it, yeah, looks in good. Yeah, okay, perfect.

All right, so the strikes went in, there's a couple places that many of your listeners will be familiar with, right? And don't view me up if I'm not getting in exactly right. But Al-Kheim, roughly here. Then across the border in Syria, there's a place called Abu Kamal, both of which have been acting as kind of bases or depots for the Iranian-backed PMCs. Some of you will have seen on Twitter very dramatic secondary explosions here in Al-Kaim. I would offer this, I'm going to talk about it in a moment deep, But it would have to be very, very stupid people who were left in those depots or those areas.

You know, the U.S. said they hit command and control facilities there, but also in a weapon storage deeper. And that's where you saw the secondary explosions from. I would offer that whatever was in those warehouses was probably discarded or deliberately left, maybe because they didn't have time to move it or because they wanted to provide just a dramatic show. to the United States and hopefully assuaged some of the bloodlust that is influencing our domestic politics. Who knows? But unlikely that, oh yeah, so those are two of the strikes. There was another one up in Darazar. It's still in Darazar province in the Euphrates River. Again, you know,

I may get beaten up if this is off target, but it's somewhere around here. And then there's a place called Akashet in Iraq, very close to the, very close to the, you know, the tri-border region, roughly where I'm putting my cursor here, Akashad, that's been a long time. Iranian militia staging point. And interestingly enough, you know, this is the heavily Sunni area of Iraq, right? And, you know, so the PMC very deliberately have set up fortified areas. And that is what we have attacked. But I've got to read out this one quote.

You know, we do ourselves no favor, no favors at all globally. How do you think the world's population are going to react? Many of our audience were saying they don't give a shit. But, you know, when we talk about the information campaign, we've got this guy who run in rather uninspired morning. moment this morning said this is lieutenant general douglas a sims director of the military's joint staff all right that's a primary position the beauty of the american bomber is that we can strike anywhere in the world at the time of our choosing all right shades of dr strange love for right you know

it's like the beauty it's like he's having an epiphany strangely enough the world's population is probably not in rapture about the beauty of the American bomber, and we probably need to be a little more cognizant about how we betray that. You know, and it goes on the usual stuff, by airstrikes, targeting command and control, operations, intelligence centers, weapons, facilities, and bunkers, you know, the usual rundown. Think about those, right, a key thing, they didn't say key personnel, right? They didn't say, hey, we're going off to these guys.

Yeah. It's interesting. And, you know, because previously we did when we hit Soleimani. And by the way, when we hit Soleimani back in 2020, the guy who was killed with him was a guy named Mahandah, so it's kind of his war name. He was head of Qatar, Pazbalah. All right? So you see how all of this, you know, all of this comes together. And you will see in today's news, a couple of very, in Iran.

you know some couple of interesting points okay so first of all you know that their chart the head of their armed forces has come out and made a very very angry statement about the US violation what he sees is US violation of Iraqi sovereignty and so has the Prime Minister saying that the casualties reported casualties from 85 strikes which were a total of 16 people killed in 34 I've I believe wounded, who knows, you know. I think it's 36 wounded. 36, yeah.

In any case, he's saying the USO's compensation to these people. The US is saying that they were PMC militia. PMC militia are probably thinking, damn, what the hell are these guys doing that? Maybe they didn't get the word, you know? It's kind of collection. But so the Iraqi government is up in arms. But let's look at what's happened a little bit in the last few days. All right. On 20, the strike occurred on 28 January.

All right. Immediately, you know, there were comments from the administration. We're going to, you know, find out who did this. We're going to strike back. On 29 January, a guy named, sorry, that's my dog. That's okay. Yeah. 29 January, a guy named Brigadier General Garni, Ishmael Ghani,

who is head of Kud's force visits Baghdad. All right. All this is, you know, obviously, What I'm telling you is open source. I'm not going to... The day after, right? The day after the basis of. The day after, right?

And he meets with the head of Qatar, Hizbollah, all right? Who is also the chairman. He has an official Iraqi position as chairman of the PMC, okay? The popular militia. Working two jobs, man. It's not easy out there with inflation. All right? Yeah, of Hizbullah.

All right. Remember, he still had it. Katab Hasbullah man's three brigades in the Iraqi army. You see how this is all lent, right? It gets worse. So this guy, and I'll remember, you know, I'll remember his movement. Muhammad Ali is his last name. And he's called Al-Cal, right, Muhammad Ali. Remember that name?

2019, U.S. Embassy was attacked by popular militia members, PMF members. They actually overran the compound. And they left graffiti, all right? There's photographs of graffiti. Among the graffiti left there was this guy's name, Al-Kal. All right? They were doing it in his name. So now, you know, head of Qatar, Hasbullah, head of PMC, official position,

the Iraqi government, Iraqi armed. forces, actually under the M.O.I. Now, you know, he is meeting with Garni. And so speculating here, all right, Garni tells him, hey, knock this shit off, fellas, you're getting, you know, you're going to get us in trouble to pick Satan, you know, or tone it down or whatever. The next day, right, 30 January, Katab Hasbullah comes out and says, hey, you know, we're going to, we're not going to hit U.S. targets. It's very subtle. And, smooth geopolitical like maneuvering.

Right? So it's like here's a press release. We're not going to hit anything anymore. We promise. Yeah. That's exactly right. Oh, by the way, Jordanian F-16s participated in the strike yesterday. The Jordanian government is being non-committal about that. But yeah,

they did. You know, normally these strikes when the Jordanians revolved are more than symbolic. And, you know, they have struck before on Syria two or three times, right? Not, I mean, these are strikes going off the Iranian back smugglers.

So, you know, my point is that they're on board too. But of course, we weren't going to launch from Jordan and thus make Jordan an even more of a target than it already is. That's why the, you know, the B-1s took off from Lake and Heath.

Yes, I saw the two B-1Bs were in on it and a 10-fighter and attack aircraft. So there were a couple of Jordanian F-16s, but like, I saw that they were 8-10s too. Where are those where like the U.S. assets taken off from besides the bombers? Wait, did you say that were 8-10s?

That's what I saw on Twitter yesterday, yeah, that there were 8-10s involved in it. I would be, well, that's, okay, let's get that out. Listeners, maybe we can hear an update on that. Correctness if I'm wrong, but I did see it that 8-10s were in it. But where would U.S. fighters

or attack aircraft launch from? well the UK oh the okay I don't know you know I'm not my my sources here are I have to be open source and I don't know but I was tracking

usint intel you know on on Twitter when they took off from Lakin Heath and I didn't Yeah but wasn't that just the B1s I think it might have been just a B1s Yeah yeah so anyway It doesn't, yeah, anyway, it doesn't matter. I'm more interested in what happens at the pointy end, not where the fuck they took off from.

Yeah. And what happened in the point in the point in, you know, we've got to say looks, looks, I don't want to say symbolic, but again, you know, 85 strikes sounds very, it sounds like a really concerted effort. but when you look at all the telegraphing that took place before that, it would be absolutely amazing if that delta blow to the Iranian militia's capability. And this is the point here, D, is, you know, if we're not doing something that is really undermining our adversary's capability, remember we talked about this, and I said a comprehensive strike, not in Iran, but Iraq and Syria taking out, okay, that middle to upper level tier, Coons Force guys who are operating

outside country. You know, there's all kinds of reasons why that would be a good move. I'm surprised we didn't do that. I'm surprised that we telegraphed this, okay? The same day, all right, back to the timeline. The same day, you know, we're talking about when Garnie visits Baghdad, the same day again, Kirby talks to the press. He says that, you know, we're going to, we're going to definitely strike Iran.

It's going to be, I forget the term he used, but a multi-led, something along that attack. It's, but it's not going to be. He didn't say, come out and say it's not going to be Iran itself. Although, by the way, you owe me $20. He has. No, you owe me $20. No, mind. We'll get back to this.

Okay. Okay. put a pin in that no they have not yeah anyway the point is the very clearly messaging by omission that they were not going to strike Iran itself okay and so when you think about it and when you're saying hey I'm going to come after you I'm going to come after you I'm going to you know really hit your IRGC dudes and you keep saying that and there's only certain number of locations and you know the Iranians know that we know blah blah blah so it's very hard to avoid the perception that this is pantomime. I'm not saying it was pantomime. I'm saying that sadly the perception is. Right. And that is not what I'm sure the administration wants the American public to think. So I think, you know, there's a little bit of strategic communication that has to follow this. And, you know, in other areas too, you may have seen the report today. Remember the last time you asked me about the

attack, right? And the reason why I'm talking about this is because it's not to get some poor bastard punished who's now struggling with his conscience and, you know, in a mission and seeing it result in the loss of US life. By no means I'm trying to haul that guy in front of a firing squad. But it is important, obviously, to

close any gaps and drone and counter drone warfare is so dynamic that you've constantly got to be closing these gaps. And so that's why this comment that the attack drone came in on the heels of a US drone, it deserves being dug into. Yeah. Ostensibly, I'll tell you, it doesn't make sense to me. And again, please correct me, guys. but all our type 3 and above drones have our U.S.

have what's called an IFF transponder, all right, that's identification friend or foe. Andy, let me ask you real quick, type 3 or 4, is that like a military grade or like CIA? No, no, it's all on size, all right? Okay, got it. Type 1 or 2, I kind of think of them as more very tactical drones. used by tactical units, right?

This drone, by all accounts, was a longer range, loythering munition, a one-way drone. You know, because it was rocket-boasted, that's, you know, one of the few things we know about it. It's likely to have been a Shahyad 136, but there are other things that could have been, too. It doesn't matter. It's definitely an Iranian manufacturer.

And that, I say that because only the Iranians, the only such loitering munitions in the hands of militias, whether they're Houthis or whether they're PMF in Iraq, the only ones of Iranian manufacture that gets back to my point of intent is almost irrelevant when it comes to Iran in this case, because Iran has enabled these groups to be able to strike the United States. And so, but interestingly, and Nafti, and this points again to the U.S. middle some keenness not to escalate, there's been very little released about the drone.

It was, again, one-way drone. You know, I mean, when we when we have, you know, I've seen Kamikaze drone wreckage from, you know, big ones like Shahat's all the way down to, you know, switchplate type ones. And they leave wreckage, right? They leave traceable material in the United States. state, there's no country in the world that can trace that stuff better than the United States. And yet, very little has been released about this drone. My speculation here is that it is indeed Iranian, but the U.S. is being circumspect about

releasing that information because it kind of paints both countries into a box. Right. Does that make sense? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So getting back anyway to this thing about the, you know, a drone coming in. by the Shahat coming in behind a US drone doesn't make sense necessarily. Because, you know, I said type 1, most type 1, I think type 2 drones now have some kind of

IFF transponder, but I may be wrong. And it could be that this was a primitive security drone. You know, a quadcopter, you know, the US 1, there is a task force, task force 99 that repurposes repurposes commercial drones for U.S. military use. You know, again, this is open source. There's been interviews done with these guys. They're based in Al-Aid, and they have something around 100 drones, none of which have IFF transponders.

And it could, maybe it was one of these drones. My point is this, Dita, this is an important issue. It's a chink in our armor, and we need to fix it. And we're not going to fix it if, you know, unless we really dig into it. And I'm sure that the military is on to it. Well, I mean, if it is indeed the case that it followed in from a friendly drone, they have to fix it. I mean, we lost guys and girls. You know, and what we're talking about here.

There's got to be some nerd somewhere doing this, like figuring it out. Yeah, so, and the other interesting thing is, and again, I mean, I'm not being on the other side of the fence here. So I'm not laying, I'm not deriving pleasure into pulling all this out in the open. It is painful. But the other thing is that we've got to be, we've got to look hard at our drone defenses, obviously, at these bases. Right now, typically,

our drone defenses consist of, you know, a mix of Stingers are either man-packed. Stinger is a, you know, it's an 80s technology surface-to-air man-packed missile made famous by U.S. supply of these missiles to the Mujahideen in Afghanistan. back in the 80s. Okay. It's a, you know, in its day, it was a very effective weapon, but, you know, bear in mind, it's like 40 something, it's 40 years old now. When it's mounted on a Humvee,

several of them mounted a Humvee with, you know, fire control system and radar. It's called an Avenger system, all right, and that is typically often what is used in these bases. and combined with something that most former, most Iraq and Afghanistan vets would be familiar with, which is called a C-RAM. No, I'm not going to embarrass myself for for I remember what C-RAM stands for. But it's essentially a canon, right?

Now, neither the C-RAM, the Stinger, or the Avenger have ever shot down a drone in combat on operations. In fact, the Avenger hasn't even shot down a drone in, you know, in laboratory conditions. Andy, I'm not an expert at all, and I'll never claim to be, but that doesn't seem good. No, it's not good. Okay. You know, so my point is that, you know, we are, we're still playing catch-up on short-range air defense. And we do have the coyote system, which I mentioned, B, we know.

We've got EW systems that are, you know, I mean, I'm going to get into it, but they are, they're hitting this effect here, but the problem is that they're easy to adapt against, all right? Right. A system called the coyote, which uses drones as counter drone, you know, little non-man systems. And that is, you know, again, I'd be interested to hear from the audience what their opinion is of these things. But, again, short range air defense, anti-drone air defense. is a huge issue for the United States and we're behind. And we have been since 2015 when the Islamic State first started using unmanned systems. And everyone predated at the time was a matter of time before we started losing people.

All right. And so the attack in Jordan, of course, the first time U.S. soldiers had been killed by aviation attacks since April 15th, 1953. Yeah. So it was a watershed moment. But it was predictable and it was long time in coming and we've got to fix this, you know, this short-range air defense problem. The radar that we have there, typically, you know, the problem is visual acquisition is really tough with drones, as we know, especially when you think about it. That, you know, the drone came in from the east and launched from Iraq. It was early in the morning, so it's coming in from behind the sun.

You know, I mean, you're talking about a unit that is not on a base that is not on combat footing. You've probably got dudes gathered around outside the channel hall. It's just fortunate that more people weren't killed. And certainly that's, you know, that I'm sure that that has changed. So visual acquisitions, difficult. They did have a radar there. It's an A N-TPS-75. It's a phased array radar, okay.

I'm not a techie, but a phased array means. you know, it can shift focus very quickly. It's a very flexible system and it's very capable system. Again, no explanation out there why it didn't pick up on this drone. And again, maybe it did and was a mistaken for a friendly. One thing, of course, you know, I've read in the papers about, you know, Jordan's requested patriots, which it has. And, you know, there's the insinuation there that if we had had patriots there, then it, or, you know, if this was in patriotate range, it wouldn't have happened. Well, maybe, maybe not. You know, the patriots are a very effective system, but they also cost three to four million dollars. A project, right? And you got a drone that

cost a few thousand dollars. Not exactly. It's not a good, it's not a good match. Also, it kind of seems like this base was, uh, more of a staging base. So, I mean, I feel like the security is probably way tighter at bases that, like, J-Soc launches out of or CIA launches out, like, places like that compared to, like, a staging base that helps, like, support. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly.

And, and my, it gets my comment last time, I think, about the fact that, yes, going ahead, we are probably going to see these patterns of small special operations-based units. You know, we used to call them SOT forwards. But the vulnerability is that these small groups who are light and flexible and highly trained and well-equipped have to rely on a larger conventional force, all right, a larger conventional footprint. can figure a way around that, we're going to have this vulnerability. And we need to focus on that because these guys are going to be the primary target. Why would our enemies go over after the, you know, the hard targets, right?

Right. Getting back to, you know, the signaling, though, I mean, you know, 29 January, John Kirby talks about the tiered approach and multiple operations and types of targets. And then one February, CBS comes out. and talks about, yeah, it's going to be attacked on Iranian-backed militias in Syria and Iraq. So, I mean, we just couldn't have been. I mean, we did everything but give them, you know, give them the coordinates, right? Yeah. So my question for that was, did we do that on purpose to see where these IRGC assets went and, like, tracked them there?

we spoke about this before we started recording I feel like was it like on purpose or was it like just to like have them safe face avoid escalation avoid a lot of human casualties I mean it's a great point so I yeah definitely on purpose

I would say rather than you know I think it's rather political reasons I think there are unstated red lines implicit red lines I hate to use that term but on both sides here and both sides are trying to calibrate their reactions to to deter or coerce the other side without tripping those red lines all right so it's this kind of govuki dance

right yeah um but i i i don't think it was for intelligence reasons i think and you know if we if we want to trace these guys and follow the ants back to the nest. It's best not to hit them and have them execute a contingency plan. It's best just to follow them, keep an eye on them, establish pattern of life across the board, be more circumspect, and then hit them when it's really going to hit them and make it such that we are taking a capability off the board here. Right. it does surprise me that we telegraphed it because because it would have been within the rules

within the unspoken rules of the game that's he suspects our landscapers have been Russian yeah but I mean it would have been within the unspoken rules of the game of the game to kill Kuzfors' guys in Iraq and Syria, as long as it wasn't in Iran itself, right? Right. That would have been legitimate. So why warn them? You know, indeed, on, you know, over

two or three days at the end of January, the Iranians very publicly pulled out they are IRGC operatives from Syria and Iraq to include a prominent guy in Syria. You know, they even named him or he was named

and the Iranians allowed him to be named. I mean, that's unprecedented, you know, to announce it that way and pull them out. And essentially, you know, that was to avoid the Iranian strikes. Iranians have, I mean, I'm sorry, Israelis. The Israelis have killed IRGC dudes on at least two occasions in Syria in the last two weeks. So, you know, essentially it was, hey, this is happening.

I think we're going to pull our guys back, but I can't help wondering if there wasn't another audience, maybe the United States. Hey, guys, we're all clear. Yeah, yeah, go ahead. We're out, yeah. The next thing, you know. It is kind of this weird dance. Yeah. That kind of makes no sense to a lot of people.

And I understand not trying to escalate it to like where it's a full-fledged regional war. But, you know, it's this weird dance that like a layman person just just like, what, why? That doesn't even make sense to like let them know what's going. Like, what's the point? It's just like a show. Well, and here's the challenge now, Dee. I, you know, the strikes against the PMCE and the kinetic side of this is, is almost not worth watching, right? one hopes, I believe, that there is a comprehensive campaign being launched, and the kinetic part is the,

kind of the least effective, but most visible tip of the iceberg. Right, right. And that campaign involves a lot of stuff in the cyber dimension, cyber domain. We saw some kind of throwaway comments by the Pentagon that they are doing cyber stuff. Yeah. And I would imagine that what they're doing. doing the cyber domain is hurting Iran far more than Canada. I hope so because that's a little bit.

But I mean, there is that. There are, you know, they'll be going after proxy operatives, tracking them with the view, probably too, taking them off the playing board. Dowellus, doubtless, they are, you know, gathering intel targeting data on Kuzforsk guys. So there's a lot of, you know, a lot of things going on. financial, we're not just talking sanctions to talking about the Treasury Department really going after a kind of forensic financial analysis of these groups to take them out. Things that the U.S. can do, you know, very well and hopes that all of this is indeed happening behind the scenes.

Yeah. But there is another, it doesn't really make for a good headline. No, it doesn't, exactly. And there is another, but there's also, you know, there's another wild card here, that I know everyone's worried about the U.S. side and the Iranians too. And that is that those are these militia, all right? Primarily, we're talking about the Iranian backed or not, I should stop saying that, just the Shia militia in Iraq, many of which are Iranian backed. But the point is Iranian back does not secure. loyalty in return, you know,

Garney himself, the head of Kuzfors has said this, and I don't think, he's not being completely disingenuous. Sure. You know, these guys, they don't even, they're not even, a lot of them aligned, great assent religiously with the Islamic Republic of Iran. That's the thing too. It's like a dangerous game they're playing, right?

It's a very dangerous game. They'll send them money and weapons, but like, yeah. They're not under the, they're not under the command of control for the, most part. So like these guys are basically independent operators that can do whatever they want and inflame tensions in a region that's already like on fire. Yeah. You know, absolutely. And and and so although Katav Hasbullah and Iran are kind of doing a disinformation campaign or launching

disinformation campaign or information campaign to distance themselves from the attack, other militias in Iraq are being very bellicose. And there's one, and I'll remember its name in a moment, but it's got Hezbollah rolled up in its title too. But it's a large Kuzfors-backed militia, doesn't have the same headlines as Qatar-Bahla, and has every, all the capability to strike and hurt U.S. forces in the release. So I am concerned about that.

I'm concerned that, yes, We may be relying on Iran to be a rational actor, and that may be Iran's intention. But within Iran, first of all, we can't treat Iran as being homogenous. You know, there may be some Iranian parts of the administration are worried about U.S. response. Some aren't, and one this to escalate. That's kind of crazy, because you would think, like, these guys, at the end of the day, their main goal is, like, regime security, right? Like you would think, like, I want to stay in power.

I want to still be the, you know, whether it's the bureaucracy as a whole. The thing is, I don't think that I don't, it's a long jump from the, from the type of resistance we've seen in Iran to an actual overthrow of the regime. Sure. And, you know, honestly, the stuff like this going on and the United States banging its drums and it is, tending to unite the Iranian population behind the regime, you know, like I commented last time. But of big its concern, of greatest concern, are, you know, what these militia groups do next. And, you know, we can be confident that the U.S. will have a calibrated response, but it's going to make things dicey for U.S. troops overseas for some period of time.

And I haven't even mentioned what's happening in the Red Sea. So this morning Yeah, I was just going to mention that too. Yeah, so, you know, I mean, the U.S. Navy is fighting a, you know, I mean, not nearly as casualty intensive

on our side, but it's fighting a almost a Guadalcanal type scenario, I mean, not quite a canal Okinawa. Tug back scenario, you know, where the U.S. fleet was during the first part

of that campaign more under attack from the Japanese than the Marines who were ashore. Yeah. And the U.S. Navy is certainly doing sterling work out there. But here's an interesting point, all right? The to this, the ships like the USS Carney have become, I'm not saying household names, but, you know, awarded combat action ribbon, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, this is like every sailor's dream. But in all seriousness, the concern is this, that previously the Houthis have very clearly been attacking merchant ships under the thin disguise that these ships were heading for Israel.

In fact, they've attacked 40 ships since 7 October, and not one of those was heading for Israel. Not one was Israeli-owned. So, you know, it's obviously a very thin veneer of an excuse. But these latest attacks, the SINCOM hasn't come out and said this, may have been aimed at U.S. ships, the drone attacks. So that's a concern because, you know, as much as we may try and de-escalate, you watch the U.S. Navy ship be hit by, you know, a drone. And, I mean, we definitely are on the conveyor belt then to war. And that's, you know, that's not inconceivable, all right? Ships, you know, defenses fail.

There's the possibility of a swarm attack. But in any case, you know, this morning, this is from Sincom, Twitter, February 2nd approximately blah, blah, blah, blah, U.S. Kearney and Gaye shot down, one unmanned aerial victory, aerial vehicle over the Gulf of Aden. This is the one that, that I think, CENTCOM is suspecting was aimed actually at the Kanoe.

Kahn has been a big time name and shooting these things down. So, and those attacks in the red seat continue. And haven't, you know, and we hit a couple targets? You know, three weeks of U.S. and British attacks into

Yemen. I mean, you can see. I was just going to say that, like, didn't we hit them recently, like yesterday? We had a couple's... But it's such a game of whack-em-all there. Yeah. You know what I think that we've, we did it, We did it specifically yesterday after we hit targets in Syria and Iraq. It's just like, hey, we could hit you anywhere, anytime. Doesn't matter.

We could do it multiple times, you know. Richie, okay. Richie wants it in on yourself. This is, you can take a dog out of Ukraine, but you can't take the Ukraine out of the dog. Yeah, absolutely. So, wait. something else

I wanted to talk about before we got off no I have to save it for oh yeah yeah here's a thing so very interestingly Iran Iran seems to be if you look behind the scenes

Iran and Jordan seem to be trying to de-escalate each other okay there isn't a lot of chest banging Jordan has struck targets that are Iranian, mostly linked with smugglers. Iran now has struck into Jordan. There's no love lost, obviously, between the two countries. But Iran, for one, we see, Iran is having some problems in the West Bank, by all accounts, okay,

as far as getting just getting resistance up and running. there in the same way that Hamas was in Gaza. Iran's access to the West Bank would have to rely on Jordanian territory. They would never get official Jordanian permission. But my point is they don't,

they probably don't want to bring attention to smuggling routes right. Out of Jordan or ratchet up the tension there because it's going to interfere with our operations going ahead. I think that's pretty much it for... I got one more question.

question. For now. My, my, my doggan is, is acting as I got, I have one more

question. Yeah. Uh, would we or any other modern military be able to move assets without the all centers finding out?

Like, yeah, the answer, I think very much, uh, unlikely. Yeah. Even when we move,

um, now, you know, we move the national mission force. It's, it, uh, thanks you know i mean and i know jack's very yeah yeah you've got things like uh yeah you've got

usint and jack right i mean yes so in in all seriousness so you know tactically operationally strategically um it's a transparent battlefield that includes all routes to and from the fit of operation yes we have to rely that everything that we do every move is seen and that might have been D, part of the rationale behind us telegraphing this so openly the fact that we're not going to be able to disguise where they're going. Let's cut out the ambiguity. So Iran doesn't think we're going after Iran. Right, right.

So what's, one more call. What's next? How long will these strikes last? Ooh, hey, great. You already owe me 20 bucks. I don't want to take more of your money. So let's not bet on it. You know, I mean, so we'll see strikes from days to,

weeks, all right, typically, and then kind of a leveling off, ratchet down, and then they'll spike whenever there is another, you know, another act of provocation. But I said, but the connecting file under the scenes out of, you know, the media is not seeing a lot of this is a bunch of stuff happening in a campaign plan below the level of armed conflict. Right. That will include cyber, include some special operations stuff. Covert stuff like intelligence. Yeah, a lot of the stuff that I mentioned. So that is what I imagine is going on. Again, this is all speculation.

All my sources are open source. Yeah. Yeah, Andy doesn't spill the tea in public. He tells me in private. No, I'm very, I'm kidding. I'm kidding. God, my security clearance. Oh, shit.

Yeah, I'm totally joking. Sorry, we'll cut that out. No, it's fine. Don't worry about it. All right, man. I'm good. You want to sign this off? Yeah, yeah.

You want me to? Yeah, I'll do it. You go ahead because... All right. That was Eyes On. Don't forget to like and subscribe. If you're listening on audio, don't forget to rate and review it.

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