The Team House - What Targeting Mexican Cartels w/ CIA & JSOC Would Look Like

Episode Date: January 26, 2025

Today we deep dive into what covert operations (CIA/JSOC) would look like in Mexico targeting the cartels and what the potential blowback could look like.Support the show on Patreon:⬇️https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouseFind Andy Milburn here: ⬇️https://twitter.com/i/flow/login?redirect_after_login=%2Fandymilburn8https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewmilburn2023https://amilburn.substack.com/https://www.amazon.com/When-Tempest-Gathers-Mogadishu-Operationshttps://bsky.app/profile/andy-milburn.bsky.socialhttps://open.substack.com/pub/amilburn/p/journal-of-a-plague-year?utm_source=app-post-stats-page&r=emo6q&utm_medium=iosFind Mick Mulroy here: ⬇️https://fogbow.com/https://www.loboinstitute.org/https://x.com/MickMulroy?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthorhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-patrick-mulroy-31198b52/https://bsky.app/profile/mickmulroy.bsky.socialFind Jason Lyons here: ⬇️https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-lyons-666873316?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_apphttps://bsky.app/profile/bgsilverback73.bsky.social#jsoc #cartels #ciaBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Eyeson. I'm here with Andy Milburn, Mick Mulroy, myself, Dmitri, Contacos. And when I talk about something specific today, you've seen in the news about the CIA and special operations taking more of a lead in Mexico battling the cartels. We saw that the cartels are designated as terrorist organizations. The new ambassador in Mexico is a former CIA paramilitary officer who makes a former CIA paramilitary officer who makes. knows. Is that okay to say? I will say whatever his bio says, but it does say he was in the CIA.

Yeah. Okay. So he's a close friend and I've worked for him many times. Yeah. Mick and him pass by in the hallways and said what's up to each other. No. He told me what to do. If that's what you mean by the best. This is why we don't do live shows because Dee would drop classified information day afterward. Hey, was that okay to say that? I mean, he's out that he's a CIA guy. He was a CIA.

Yeah, it's in his bio. Yeah. So he was the former ambassador to El Salvador. So he's got experience down in Central and South America. He's probably the right guy for this. I just want to know what it would look like. You know, if we unleash J-Soc and CIA grand paramilitary out there to go after cartels, because correct me if I'm wrong,

have we been doing a Fid mission with them forever? Like I'm assuming we have, right? Yeah. Oh, yeah. For sure. Yeah, just a standard bid mission, absolutely. So, I mean, I don't want it to become like a- You want me to kick it off?

Please, yeah, please. I mean, that would be, if you look at what's happening, right? So essentially the executive order did the equivalent of designate these cartels. as both foreign terrorist organization and a special designated foreign terrorist organization, which means several things. It does open up the potential to use direct military force. It doesn't necessarily give direct authorization, and there's debate about that between the White House and Congress.

That's one part of it. But in the past, the argument that this would open up direct military engagement is if you look at when the former Trump administration designated the IRGC Kud's force and then killed the leader of the IRGC Kuds Force, which I think we can all say is direct military action, right, which was a great thing, by the way. So the argument legally that this would do that would be that incident. I don't know if that's been tested or challenged. And then, of course, the CIA part of this is different, right? So if the president signs what's called a covert action finding and directs the CIA to do this, this is all open source information, by the way,

then they can. That's the authorization they need, and it specifies what they can and can't do in there. So if that's the case, and the article you're referring to indicates that we might be headed that direction, that could be essentially just like we go after al-Qaeda or ISIS with all the authorities. It really depends on what the president provides in there. And then if that happened, then I think we could all say that the war would be on. And then there's, there's, there's consequences we can discuss to that. Yeah. It's, and correct me if I'm wrong, COVID action would allow the use of J-Soc, of course, too,

if it's brought under those authorities, like when, you know, we went after bin Laden in Pakistan for the use of, for, of tier two soft, you know, I hate using these terms, but it would require an authorized use of military forms. correct, you know, designation of an FTO isn't enough to, for us to be involved in operations in another country without an AUMF. And that would, you know, that's an AUMF. Off-race use of military force. Now, I'm not borrowing. I mean, I don't think anyone can bar bar that out, given the Republican majority. But it's, but certainly COVID action allows plausible deniability, right? And I think that's probably more in line with what Trump has been saying

about operations overseas. You know, it seems to me, I'm not a Trump expert, but it seems to me it would align more with his theory of the world if the United States is doing things without confirming or denying that it is doing these things, you know, fentanyl lab blows up mysteriously or, you know, whatever it may be, and we may or may not be involved. And that way, we don't come into direct confrontation with Mexicans. And honestly, although Mexico, I think, would hate us doing that, regardless, it's easier for them, too, if we don't claim that we've done that and then put them on the spot. But I think it's worth saying, too, that there are, you know, with designation of an FTO, primarily, you know, it all starts with economic sanctions.

And the way, although, yes, of course, right now under the Kingpin Act, there are the financial rules against supportive cartels. The FTO extends that to any other organizational person who provides money that benefits to cartels. And you may think, well, no shit. But the problem with that, potentially, is that there are a ton of businesses, legitimate businesses around Mexico. that pay protection money to the cartels to include avocado farms and companies that provide exports to the United States. So you see the ramifications even on the economics side are potentially far-reaching. That's right. And your first point, Andy, yes.

It really doesn't have to be J-Soc. It could be any military asset can be detailed under Title 50 to the agency. But then they're at the agency. They're not the military. It's usually J-Soc, obviously. So that can happen. But then they go under the laws under Title 50 of U.S. Code, which is that, among other things, you don't have to disclose it.

You don't have to answer questions. You don't have to, you can even, quite frankly, deny it, which is different than under Title X, the military's requirements. And to your point, that might be, and likely is what President Trump would want to do because it's much more in the back alleys in the dark spaces. and you don't have to talk about it, and you can be much more direct. So I don't know where this is going, and obviously the article didn't either, didn't claim to, referring to. It's essentially saying that he's, that President Trump is intimating that that might be the case.

But the consequences are substantial, including the economic ones. I'm not saying that we shouldn't do this, but you're going to balance all the facts here. The other issue that I know people are somewhat concerned about is there's like a million Americans that are working in Mexico. And the cartels have a substantial ability to access anywhere in the United States. So these are things that have to be considered. It's different than border security, right? That would impact the cartels.

But when you're going to hit them directly, that's when they might start acting like a full-fledged terrorist organization against the United States. And they have a lot of ability to get into the United States. So every decision in this arena has consequences. So that's some of the consequences that are being considered on. The two point earlier about Fed missions, yeah, those are, you know, I mean, those are open source. The fact that we are assisting Mexican, from, you know, from my personal experience, Mexican soft, I know that, you know, we at MArsoc were involved in training.

And I mean, we were partnered with, I think it's a Samara. and the scenario and we're sending teams down there to train with them. And that's, you know, that's not a secret. And in fact, and among those organized, their primary missions are domestic missions to go after the cartels. For instance, when Chapo Guzman was arrested, I believe it was way back in, it must be in 2013 or 2014, the unit that arrested him had been trained by US SOF.

And so we have been having, and aside from, and then you look at all the stuff that the DEA has been doing, the fact that they just arrested the head of the Mexican equivalent of the FBI, right, when he visited Texas because he was in the pay of the Sondolaola cartel. I mean, there is a ton of stuff that is already taking place, But the problem is it is not effective enough. And 70,000 Americans is a number that we've seen in the media. 70,000 Americans have died of fentanyl.

And so put in those terms, far more Americans have died because of badness coming out of Mexico. This is the argument than have died from terrorist attack in the last decade. And the last thing I'll say is, by the way, this is not a new idea. to designate cartels and FTOs. I mean, in the Obama administration, it was discussed. There was an appeal by Republican senators to Biden to do the same back in 2023. So, you know, it's not such a crazy notion. Where we get into the kind of the thin ice area is the level of involvement that this is going to.

You know, I think the real issue is this. Are we going to take action in Mexico without the agreement of the Mexican authorities, or even unwitting to the Mexican authorities? That's the controversial issue. And there's been an example of this in the past, right? So if you look at Plan Colombia when I think it was Clinton designated the FARC, foreign terrorist organization, we had military effort, military assets, search to help the Colombian government, but to Andy's point, that was in cooperation with

the Colombian government and, you know, allegedly, reportedly there was CIA, the significant CIA involvement. So we can see and, you know, all of these things have are a mixed bag when it comes to outcome. There's never going to be like a perfect solution. But I do think there's, there's, there's things to take from that that it can be successful if done correctly. the FARC is no longer, I think they disbanded in 2016. I'm sure there can be some criticism of the counterinsurgency, counterterrorism effort, as there always will be. But I think people will look to that as something that can be built off of for this.

But to Andy's point, and you were already seeing pushback by the president of Mexico, it doesn't look like there's going to be cooperation there. Maybe that's part of the diplomatic effort that overlaps this, is getting them to understand that these cartels are a threat to their very existence, right? The government and that they're better off having a partnership with the United States who's going to do it anyway than not. And I do think to the point you brought up earlier, Dee, that Ron Johnson, the publicly declared ambassador that should be the next U.S. ambassador, Mexico is the perfect person.

Not only is he got the background, Army Special Forces, CIA, again, on reference, I work for many times, and I can tell you he's a phenomenal leader. But he already was an ambassador. So he has an experience as a senior diplomat in Latin American country. And he has a personality that people, if you can't get along with RJ, you really can't get along with anybody, kind of, even though he can be as tough as anybody else. So I think he was chosen for that. And if we do go in this direction, we're in good hands there. But it's going to be, there's certainly going to be consequences. They could turn into the very terrorist organization against the United States

that we don't want to see that close to our border. So we've got to be prepared. But the other, the flip side of that is that they already are. Like they already are one of the most armed lethal elements that close to our border who's causing death and destruction in the United States. So anyway, that has to be part of the equation, but I think they got the right person and not. And a former ambassador, hopefully current ambassador,

Johnson going to Mexico City. It's a very, I mean, Mick, it's a very tricky, isn't it? It's a tricky problem set for a few factors. And I'll just throw these out, see what, you know, you think about them impossible solutions. But, you know, number one, you've got the fact that there is no doubt that the U.S. fuels the trade in fentanyl, first of all, with demand, right? That's, you know, that's the Mexican government's argument. Hey, cut down on demand, and this won't be an issue. And secondly, though, is supply of arms. I mean, the majority of the weapons used by cartels come from the

United States. And so, you know, it isn't, it has to be a holistic solution. And I don't think anyone would deny that. I don't think anyone in the administration is saying that it, you know, that isn't that anything other than that. So I think the Mexican government's response that, hey, you know, don't come after the car, focusing on the cartels is not enough. I think that's kind of irrelevant because I don't think anyone's suggesting that, but I think it's worth bearing in mind that it has to be accompanied by a holistic effort to cut off. I mean, demand is a tricky thing, but certainly the supply of weapons is going to be part of that. And the second thing that I was going to mention that makes this answer to the complexity. And we talked about

witting or unwitting involvement of the Mexican government. Well, when you're talking about the head of the Mexican FBI being in the pay of the Somaloa cartel, you got a scale. You got a scale, of the problem with sharing information, intelligence with the Mexican authorities. I mean, that's not a, that's not the feaming Mexican government. It's just a fact. You don't know who is in the pay. This sounds like a cliche, but the tentacles are the cartels go very high in the Mexican government. And not even, you know, the Mexican president will deny that. And one of the biggest things, the most powerful things that we can do is the collection of our ability to collect intelligence. But then it becomes, you know, who do we disseminate that too in order to take action?

And there are, as I pointed out, I hope the tremendous complexities with that. Absolutely. That might be the first thing that the intelligence community analyst try to do is decipher who. who is on the payroll of the cartel, right? We don't want to end up in a situation where we chase their equivalent of bin Laden for 20 years and find out he's sitting right next to the FBI headquarters. Yes, I'm including to Abadabon, and that we might have been talking to the enemy, you know, the entire time.

There are units. I mean, I'm very familiar with the efforts that are been going down there. There are units that are more trusted than the others. And maybe that is where we have to focus and there has to be continued vetting. And again, that's in the interest of the car. current or future political leadership of Mexico as well. I mean, it can't be just full-scale sharing or you're essentially giving critical intelligence to the cartel if you're giving it to somebody who's sharing it. And there are a lot of penetrages.

Mick, what do you think about, you know, the other end of the spectrum? What do you think about full-out military force? I mean, the likelihood of the likelihood of that, you know, Mark Esper recently commented that Trump had asked for kind of an assessment viability of going off of the, of hitting the fentanyl labs with missiles. Yeah, an artillery, right? So, I mean, it's a political decision as well as, you know, a strategic one. I think the American people are going to turn pretty quick if you send a bunch of, you know, Marines from San Diego or. troops from North Carolina or Kentucky, right? Because this is going to be a fight.

I mean, anybody that's been down there, and I'm sure a lot of our audience is familiar with the efforts, they're very violent, very capable and very disciplined. So I put all three those together, and you've got a formidable enemy. This isn't going to be easy. There's going to be, if we went directly against them, we'd win, but we'd also lose a lot of soldiers and Marines for sure. So that's something to be considered.

Is this going to be more of a covert in the background? CIA led, you know, supplemented by JSOC and potentially other elements of SOCOM. And that's a different story. If we're going to send, you know, the 101st and, you know, first Mardiv, that's a big decision. That's a big decision. And there's consequences to that. And if you think about it, if you saw either of those divisions come in your way, wouldn't you just melt into the background and wait until they decided not to be there anymore?

I mean, there's all sorts of things that have to be considered. it's operational, it's tactical, it's also political. And to your point, before, Andy, it needs to be holistic. They need to have an economic, diplomatic, some form of over-military direct assistance, potentially to Mexican-trusted military, and then that covert, which hopefully we won't hear about, but we'll be supplementing the rest so that we can get this to a point where they're not a threat to the United States in the process, not a threat to the elected government of Mexico, which is also an interest

to the United States. So we should view Mexico as neighbors, because they are, and try to get them to a place where they don't have to deal with this alternative, you know, narco-terrorist leadership of their own inside their own country scenario. Yeah, I was thinking, too, if, you know, involvement of special operations forces, you know, maybe if you're looking at a feasible solution, you know, the book, Killing Pablo, I mean, open source. I mean, that, and you talked about Planned Columbia, and of course the difference there was winning, but killing Pablo was a book by Mark Bowden who wrote Black Hawk Down. And it's actually, it's a great book about the operation to go after Pablo Eska.

and it shows, you know, the U.S. SOF and other agencies support for Colombian special forces in that particular mission, very niche, very exquisite type support, which back then, you know, now we're all very used to discussions of signals, intelligence, and targeting and everything. But back then, it was kind of cutting edge. We're talking about the 90s. And there is conceivably a, you know, a road ahead that does involve, as you point out, bringing in, selected Mexican units collaborating with them, obviously with the say-so of the Mexican government to assist them in going after key figures within the Cartel Network. Yep. And we have examples, right, to follow both what to do and not to do in Afghanistan. So we've worked very closely all the interagencies that are part of this in the past to great

effect in many cases. And we can again. So I think we can get. the tactical part of this with the consequences of these folks have a ability to reach into the United States and actually conduct terrorist attack. But with that caveat, I think we can get there. The question is how is this going to work with the Mexican government? That's going to require a lot of diplomacy. It's not just going to be forcing it. But they should see that this is in their own interest.

Because if they become like an apologist for the cartels, then they essentially become the propaganda wing of the cartels. and not looking out for what's in interest of the Mexican people who are terrorized by these groups all the time. So it is going to be super complicated. And if this goes the way it looks like it's heading, something we're going to be talking about a lot, I believe, on this program. Yeah, Mexico has got a lot to lose, too, I suppose. I mean, first of all, admitting that it has ungoverned spaces. You know, I think this is one of the reasons why the Mexican government doesn't talk a lot externally about the problem from the cartels and how much of a problem it is.

Because, you know, they're having to admit to the fact that they really don't have a firm hold on their own backyard. There are on governance spaces where Mexican government doesn't have authority. And secondly, you know, the impact of that on another drug trade, the tourist trade, which is, a massive, a massive source of income for Mexico. I don't know where it lists up there in the hierarchy, but it's certainly, it's a major. Tourism is a big deal. Hey, guys, it's Jack.

I just wanted to talk to you today about a way that you can help support the podcast if you're not already. To support the channel is to become a Patreon member. So we have Patreon memberships that start at just $5 a month. And when you sign up, you get access. to all of our episodes ad-free. That's the big bonus for that. I mean, we also do some Patreon bonus episodes for our subscribers.

But this is the biggest and best way that you can support the Teamhouse channel and podcast if you'd like to. And we really appreciate that. So go in and check us out at patreon.com slash the team house. Yeah. And my understanding is essentially the cartel could get anywhere, but they've made it. So it's not in their financial interest to go some places. In other words, the Mexican government will turn to blind eye in many of the cases if they just keep within these parameters. And one of those parameters is not killing Americans.

And, you know, they've been cases where they have in the past, not sure it was intentional or not. But if we've already declared, you know, the legal framework for declaring direct conflict with the cartels, when that becomes a reality, then this is going to have to be something that's also travel restrictions, severe travel restrictions, because Americans would be completely vulnerable. If the cartel wanted to get to them there, it's not that they're being held at bay now. It's physically. It's that they're being held at bay economically. If they then think it's not in their economic interest and they're at war with the United States and CIA's down there with our J-Soc friends doing what we do, it's going to be a different scenario on Mexico. There shouldn't people should not be traveling.

I mean, the scale of the problem is huge, too. I mean, if you're just, even if you're just looking at the Mexican cartels, the question of targeting, right? It dwarfs, I would guess, that it dwarfs our previous problem sets, you know, the Taliban, Hacani network or AQIM, which were relatively simple, right, to do a link analysis and then go after key figures. is, but if what I'm reading and hearing is correct, the cartels are, you know, such a

sprawling enterprise and the way they operate is so complex. It's, it's really, it's going to be a massive task to start, whether we're knocking people off or feeding intelligence to the Mexicans authorities so that they can, they can arrest people. It's, it's going to be a huge task and that's you know we're just talking about mexico but mc have we has there been any discussion of you know ms 13 and el salvador or i forget the name of the the organization in venezuela you know i mean there are and of course yes lumbia yes multiple different narco terrorist group or whatever we're calling them internet transnational cartels um what if they join right what if they join together right you know as custer's intel officers said they'll leverage

join those Indians and then, you know, we all know what happened next. So if it becomes in their own interest, we could see some kind of allied effort by these cartels. So you can talk yourself out of any action. So I'm not, I'm not trying to do that. I'm just trying to say that all this has to be taken into account when you decide to kind of crack this beehive because this is something that's, it's going to come. There's no doubt about it. And we just need to be ready and and think five steps ahead of them, quite frankly, both for security inside the United States, security for Americans that may think it's still cool to go to Cancun after we're, you know, at fully have war with the cartel.

These things have to be addressed. I mean, we know they will. We know they will. I mean, we, you know, we just found that an American that decided to go, what, hiking in Syria or something that we didn't even know was there. Americans do those things and it's going to have to be restricted or we're going to lose, we're going to lose Americans. I mean, that's just part of it, but we're going to lose Americans. You think that still Cancun is Cancun and not Mexico after this is kicked off into an actual conflict. Yeah, I mean, the blowback is very scared to think about, not even just in Mexico, but like, there's a lot of like Mexicans that are on the country, right?

you know and if they really have their you know if we barely put the screws to them where they get desperate enough to do you know terrorist style attacks in new york l a texas and any major city in the country i mean we're looking at a really different situation here where it gets to the point where it's out of control yeah the cartels yeah those cartels are all all over the i mean that's that's where they make their money oh yeah like yeah absolutely i'm sure sure they're in Montana. Yeah. Every once in a while you hear about it.

So, which is obviously on the northern border. So they're probably, if they're here, everywhere. So they have a, they have a, I mean,

if, can imagine if Al Qaeda had that level of that? That's what I was going to say. Yeah. I mean, it's scarier than having. Code red. Yeah.

ISIS or Al Qaeda. Imagine they're, we're neighbors. Right. Because people could give travel advisories to Syria or Iraq or wherever. It's halfway across the world.

Mexico, like, yeah, people go to all the time. So it's definitely a different animal for sure. And they're extremely well funded. Right. And this could be a snowball effect, right? So we designate them as a foreign terrorist organization. There's a presidential finding. We start going directly against them. They can tuck some kind of attack in the United States.

Then we're going to go, then we could see a scenario where there's U.S. troops across the border. So all these things, again, the point isn't just to talk, you know, you could talk your way out of any conflict. Maybe sometimes we should. But this is something that has to be taken to account before this is kicked off. And I imagine they are. I imagine the Pentagon, the agency, and certainly the White House is, and the State Department

who's going to be leading a diplomatic effort to get the government of Mexico on board in a helpful manner. But this could be a substantial. This isn't just one part of many. This could be a really substantial aspect of our military efforts. and intelligence efforts. Yeah, it's a fascinating problem set. We haven't even mentioned that Canadian cartels.

I mean, that's a real possibility, right? If these tariffs go through, then we're really screwed. The one thing you could definitely put your money on. Kill us with their niceness. Yeah, with their maple syrup. It's like money and commerce will find the way. And the demand in the U.S. for drugs is pretty healthy, I would say. So that all, I mean, we can have a debate in terms of like decriminal,

decriminalizing drugs or even legalizing drugs, which, you know, probably goes a little bit of it out there and people can't wrap their heads around. But, I mean, that will take the legs out from under any cartel, really. Because when there's money to be made, people will find the way. Like, it's just the way of the world. They still will even if we can go directly against them. I mean, we have to have clear,

objectives that are realistic. You know, you're never going to end the war on crime, right? So you're still going to be you still got to fight the criminals. So this will be substantial. Just to kind of emphasize that. This isn't just one of many things that could be happening in the world.

This is right next to war and it's a very capable enemy that has the ability to strike back at Americans. So this could be an all-in effort. It really comes down to whether it's worth it. And I think that's what they're assessing right now. Do you guys think it's worth it? I'd have to see all the information, you know, but I do, I do think that something needs to be done. Yeah, yeah. So it could, it could be some version of everything we've discussed today. Maybe it isn't,

you know, the full enchilada, pardon, the expression. But this is, this is, this is something that needs to be done. I agree with Andy. Something has to be done, right? And it's whether it's full on, or some version of it or just covert. I do think we need to do more. The issues have been identified and they're a serious problem. And I think the new administration's right in taking a different tack. And this looks like it's a different tax. I'll take a different angle too and just say this is going to really help military recruitment.

I mean, one of the problems, you know, we can blame the slump in recruiting on a number of things. But I think a big deal was the fact that we're no longer involved in wars. You know, I mean, there isn't a, I mean, no one really wants to join the military just to train for the rest of their lives. And now, you know, here's a mission that's important that really is domestically important. I mean, I, you know, I'm only half being tongue in cheek here. But, you know, seriously, the, the, the, the, the, one of the other toughest things is going to be the amount of interagency cooperation. You know, as Mick was describing it, I was sitting here trying to think of. of a comparison in the past and I can't because Plan Colombia was focused on Colombia.

And yes, there was interagency cooperation, but it was, the parameters were pretty clearly defined. But when you think about everything that has to be done domestically as well as whatever we're doing in or to Mexico, I mean, for instance, the Washington Post published an article this week, pointing out that most. most people arrested for smoking fentanyl into the United States have been U.S. citizens, right? So, you know, the collaboration there between domestic law enforcement agencies and intelligence and the things that we plan to do across the border have to be working very closely to preempt that

and perhaps get them before they even go down there. All things we learned after 9-11. Oh, yeah. These are, we're going to put them to the test. for sure test times like 10 i feel like it's going to be i mean because they have like cells in america ready to go right like it's it's very scary and i think we'll be okay because tulsie gabbert's going to be our dna so i i just don't you know i i and i'm not being polyanarish about this but i just don't see that the cartels have anything to gain by conducting just terrorist attacks within

the United States because they've got to realize that they're not going to dissuade U.S. You know, if the plan is intended to go after them, the worst thing they can do to that cause is start attacking U.S. citizens within the U.S. because, I mean, 9-11 is a good example of the fact that if you want to rally the American population behind any cause, you can a domestic strike and and all kinds of things will be justified after that. I think that that would really be signing their own death warrant. I just worry about like, I was a big step.

Yeah. No, I was just saying it would be a big step. It just depends on how successful we are against them. Yeah. We'll go into their factor of that. But you're right. I agree with Andy. I mean, that's how Americans learn geography, right?

It's who attacks us and then we spend the globe around. We're not going to have to do that this time. It's like right there. Yeah. So, yeah, these are all big decisions on both sides of this equation, for sure. Big consequences. Yeah. Yeah, let's keep it covert.

Let's title 50. You know what I mean? Let's just do that. Which makes the most say. Everything to talk about on the guy. And it's like, no, I don't know how those guys got schwacked. You know what I mean? Like, I don't know.

And I'm going to, I don't know. I mean, Mick, you were quoted in Jack's article, right, about the Omega teams. Well, I didn't, I didn't talk about the. He wrote about the Omega Teams. Right. Okay. So publicly available. Between the, you know, the military and the agency.

I feel like that's probably a program that would make sense for down there, you know, where you use a task force of, you know, whether it's CIA Ground Branch and J. Saka Rangers and, you know, 500 or so of the trusted Mexican military to go after these guys in that way. I mean, it's like FID Plus, like, fit with like, balls, fit with a little bit of DA injected into it, you know? A lot of DA. Yeah, no, that's what I'm talking about as far as the lessons we've learned in the global war and terror, right, last 20 years.

And I'm sure some people who support this, which I think we're part of the group that generally supports it, would say, we've been doing this all over the world. Why can't we do it right next to the United States? You know, if we're willing to send troops over to Yemen or Afghanistan or Syria to fight terrorist groups, some of which are fueled by the drug trade. I mean, we're not willing to do that in Mexico. So, yeah, I think we'll take a lot of the lessons learned, D. And the combination, I would say, generally speaking, so I don't get trouble,

between the agency and J-Soc has been one of the highlights of, you know, the wars around the world for the last 20 years. It's almost a seamless integration right now. And if you take, you know, the collection capabilities and the authorities and the in some of the, you know, covert assets the agency have combined with just the capability and the power of DeSoc. I mean, it's a very small group that can do a lot of stuff in a short amount of time. So it's not the answer to everything, but it certainly is going to be something I think that's considered for how we do this. Yeah, we've been conducting operations costing tens of trillions of dollars,

let alone thousands of U.S. lives under an enduring AUMF, you know, that, you know, and let's be frank, that is based on a very kind of nebulous chain of rationale for threat to the United States. Here we have a very, to quote Tom Clancy, clear and present danger to the population of the United States, and that's what I meant. Something needs to be done. So I don't understand any ethical arguments against this. I really don't. And I don't really understand the escalatory fear.

But yeah, to a mixed point again, it's, you know, how it is done. It has to be, it has to be a very, very sophisticated approach. And I'm, you know, I'd love to see how this works out. Yikes, it's going to be, it's going to be interesting for sure. I'm definitely not going to Acapulco if this goes down. Do you no longer? Yeah, never mind that, Dee. I mean, you're less faith than most of your trips across the border used to be to the donkey shows down in Taiwan.

I don't want to talk about that. That does count as Mexico too. I know. I don't talk about that. Those high class bachelor parties you've been organizing. There's one more little thing I want to talk about in terms of like, because like over the last decade or so, you've seen like this cartels kind of fragment a bit. there's no real like centrally you had el chap on amayo and their families and stuff like that but those guys are off the board for the most part and you even seen the scinaloa cartel get get fractured there because there's been like a chasm there and they've been fighting in fighting in fighting are we worried about there isn't like this one group that we can really go after and there's a central committee and it's like extremely fragmented in Mexico uh in terms of how the cartels work now that's what i guess i guess i just adds to the complexity of like what what we're trying to do. Yep. And we're used to it.

I mean, that's, I mean, look at what we did against al-Qaeda in Iraq or ISIS and Iraq or or al-Qaeda or the Taliban and Afghanistan. That's, that's one of the skills that I think the combination of the agency and J-Soc has really perfected. If anybody has, they have. Not that they're not that we're perfect. So that's, that's, that's a, that's a problem set of which we'll be

familiar with, for sure. I know it's going to be easy, but it's, it's something that I think we have to figure it out. I do want to give you guys heads up because I'm going to have to go. Okay.

Up on that ABC soon and talk about the hostage release today. Yeah, so there was a bit of a hiccup in the hostage release with the, with the Gaza ceasefire deal. A couple of them are missing and you know, assumed that they possibly might be deceased because they can't locate them?

Yeah. So, well, the issue was for the agreement, all civilians were supposed to come out before IDF. It was great that these four IDF soldiers, female soldiers came out today. Obviously, that's phenomenal news. They should be released. But the concern is there's two female civilians that were not released. And that's what I got to jump on right now. because it's ringing in here.

So I will talk to you guys. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, fellas. All right. Bye, everyone. Hold on. Hold on.

Let me, I'll kick you out, Mick. So guys, do us a favor. Like and subscribe. Follow us on all the socials. Andy Milburn, his book, When the Tempest gathers. The link is in the description. It's a great book. Mick's links,

Fogbo, Longball, the great stuff he's doing humanitarian-wise. Jason Lyons, his stuff is in the description. as well. Best way to support is patreon.com slash team house. And again, don't forget to like and subscribe. If you're listening to us on audio, rated five stars, or make sure you subscribe there too because that helps as well. And thank you. This is a great combo.

Thanks, Andy. And thanks to Mick.