Inside the Insane F-15 WSO Rescue in Iran by U.S. SOF | EYES ON GEOPOLITICS

In the southern fields is good, a good location to have. Good prices and good in the forest. So how do we get to? Now we get to the farm and farm. Vegifal. Good fuzzitiat. Oh, goodest. Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode of eyes on geopolitics. Oh, my God. We're people are lining in. They're packing in the place. Andy, Millburns here. Hi, Andy. We just started recording Jack Murphy, Jonathan Hackett.

Oh, Mark Polymeropolis too. I saw this is this is unprecedented full full full full house here today. I mean, this is the first time it's happened.

John, I didn't finish my tea. They washed my face yet. Great job. The one that will give you a flight to a friend of us. Thank you. Appreciate it. I don't need a big spot either. I don't need a big slice either. Oh, that's the almost yellow pair of this thing. The crew jokes about why I didn't even say what they were about on signal. About Jack's pot pending only fans. No, okay. So great news for once. Great. Not about the only fans, but about the F15 weapon system officer being rescued by a special operations raid that I'm going to give Kudos to where they deserve that Jack Murphy broke first.

“And everyone doubted him, but let's get back to the story because that's the most important thing. Who doubted him?”

Come on, bro. Come on, bro. You saw the people chirping don't get me crazy, Mark. It's just a peanut hurry. Hey, deep before we turn to the jack show. And I want to say up front. Yeah, I'm I'm overjoyed and very happy that we rescued a Air Force curl from the hinterland of around as no there's no downside to that.

But I'm I am concerned that there's a there's kind of this incredible focus on this one very small event. I mean, it is a let human life's never small I understand.

It's good news. That's why we've all been a war and we know saving one dude is good news, but it's a very small piece of the whole and and in the long run. Yes, we do these things. I think this is one of you said. I think Mark said we do these things very well. We're expected to do very well. We have the world class organization that's dedicated to it. I don't want to diminish it.

“But what comes next and what else have we been doing or not doing I think should be.”

Focus of at least 5% of the show, but I don't want to take away from Jack's already walked out.

It's like how dare you. Sorry. This was awesome and I'm back and I'll shut up. Awesome. That would have been legendary.

Yeah, so I mean everybody knows the news. Now a major raid happened. Some hiccups on the way out as well, but everyone got back safe. We had a blow up a couple of sea one 30s and a little bird. But the all the Americans were were safely returned to like friendly airspace. So a good story and yeah, you're right Andy. Like the rest of it's a shit show. But you know, where do you guys want to start? I think we need to talk about this for sure a little bit. And then we'll talk about, you know, the impending, you know, bombing bridges and power plants day that's coming up on Tuesday.

But yeah, Jack, tell us, run it down for us and then we'll get into it and let the guys take over. Yeah, no sounds good. I'll try to keep it brief. To be clear too. I mean, I don't know everything and don't want to put myself up like I do. You know, this thing is still developing and the military itself. I'm sure is still doing all their after action reviews to try to figure out for themselves exactly what happened. But the broad pieces of it as know there was a F 15 pilot on the ground to the escaping and abating for about 24 hours inside a ran.

And from what we can tell about the effort to get him back, they did a lot of air strikes to keep the Iranians off of his back. The Iranians have flooded a lot of assets into the area where we're actually searching for him. And meanwhile, we have to get, you know, a ground theme helicopters and to actually extract the guy. And as we now know, they set up what's called a farmer forward arrow refueling point.

“So for like people who aren't familiar, when you have to fly helicopters, but also airplane sometimes especially long distances, you have to set up some sort of like a fuel depot.”

You know, I did this many months ago for little birds in Iraq, you know, just driving out somewhere and taking a fuel bullet out, leaving it in a field for a little bird pilot sometimes.

And this kind of plays into, you know, how the pilot was actually pulled out of there. So they occupied this improvised landing strip set up the far.

And the pilot was eventually pulled out by little birds. So those were of course, the smaller wider aircraft that 160 advised shorter range than a CH47 or a MH60.

“So that kind of explains why the refueling part was so important to this.”

And I don't know all the tactical decisions that were made and why they used this airframe, but perhaps part of it was because he was in these mountains reportedly. I don't know. I don't know how bad it was if you'd like hang in on the side of a cliff or something, but maybe he's difficult to get to. So they went in and extracted him, but then on the way out the C 130 got as I understand a wheel stuck in the sand, it like sunk into the dirt and the crew was trying to dig it out. And that resulted in some delays. It took them a while to get at off of that fork and the Delta Force element that was standing by as a quick reaction force was actually called in.

They came in and held the blow up the aircraft. I mean, I know it was C 130 was blown. Some media reports are saying two C 130's. It'll, I also believe at least one helicopter was blown up. And I guess they just determined that they could not recover them and get them home for whatever reason. And after that happened, you know, whichever new aircraft probably helicopters that they flew in, the QRF on, they got everybody on those and flew them back home, and they were, they were back over the Persian Gulf probably around the 1130.

Eastern Standard Time last night, and that was pretty much the end of the operation as far as that's concerned, but I'm near strikes are still ongoing. So that's like the, the, the nails sketch and we'll find out a lot more in the coming days and weeks, I'm sure. Where did they fly out of, Jen? I'm not, well, I know a couple places where Jay Sock has been pre-positioned, but yeah, I probably wouldn't get into that right now. But but don't worry, the Persian Gulf, you know, that's very helpful.

Yeah, that's, that's tracking with everything. Obviously, Jack is on the broke. It's so well done, Jack.

“I was tracking it all day yesterday as we all know, because we were changing tax all day, and I think that's spot on, at least from what I know.”

I would also agree just to start with with with Andy that this is this is incredible, you know, great news really does highlight the ethos of the US military.

We never leave somebody behind and we take extra ordinary method of measures to get them back.

I'd also, you know, point out and I know Mark's going to have something to say about this great job start with great job to say to say the agency. They are, they are telling people, essentially, they use a deception campaign and then found this individual and then vectored in a lot of these heroic operatives of J.S.O.C. to recover them. Great news, read really like to see people adhere to the, you know, silent professionals, because it does, it does compromise, I think, things in the future. So, we're talking about it because it's in every news outlet in the world right now.

But I'd also point out it isn't unique to this experience. If you remember a bot of odd, it was like a race to tell every possible thing that went in to that as well and it exposed a lot of things that we shouldn't have. So, I'd start with that. But the Kudos part, as usual when you compare, when you pair J.S.O.C. and the agency, super good things can happen. And then I would shift right now and say, now we've got to figure out what shot down the F-15. Is it a new weapon system that was introduced? If it was, who did it? I don't believe the Iranians that they somehow just developed it on their own in the middle of the war.

And whether that's going to have an impact. And then second, and I'll fold until we get to this point, the war goes on.

The war goes on. Like we're running out of deadline here. It looks like it's Tuesday now. We're talking about bomb infrastructure, which, of course, is going to have a legal connotation to it, bridges, which might indicate our job negotiations going to have a quick mechanism. If we now get to the world, it's a resolution that this is going to go beyond society. It's on a rate than one. It is, right? The day that the F-15 went down, there's a reaper stop down, and then yesterday another one got down.

“So, I think they are using, um, it's called like the tire surface to air missile. It's something that they make. That's what's suspected.”

But there are Russian S-300 S-400 systems out there. I don't know if we've destroyed all of them or not.

But I was just thinking back to, and again, with my background a little bit different than everybody else, I was not in the military before, but I was in the agency, obviously, and did a lot of stuff with with Mick and others. And I just remember going through the ice-upport protocols on the infill into the back of that. When I was at Task Force 160, and they're burned, and I was flying in there, and like, I forgot everything I was supposed to remember. And so, uh, and so I want to know from you guys, do you actually, and Mick, Mick was honest in the chat, he's like, yeah, kind of,

did you remember protocols for, you know, behind end of the meal, and stuff like, yeah, I just let everybody know what ice-upport means. It's, it's, it's whatever it's like, you shouldn't mean, we talk about it. It's just a protocol of, you know, with your, when you're, uh,

but the ice-up prep card is, isn't classified, you can find it online, uh, isolated. It's basically just information that you fill out, so that in case you become

a POW, during a war, um, that you can be identified, and there are some signals and stuff about your background. Right. You're, you're gonna, you get over a radio, and if someone's, if a, if a rescue force is coming at you, but I literally was like, I have no idea what I said. I'm totally screwed. So, I'm gonna go through everybody, Jack, did you remember your ice-up prep protocol?

“So, I think so, I think the questions were so blatantly obvious because the way I could get, like, like, like, what ice-pool did you go to, you know, things like that?”

Andy? Yeah. I know I'm with you. I, I don't think I could, I can't remember them. I, because when you imagine the Delta Force team comes in to rescue Andy Milburn, or Mark Polymerapolis, and they're like, Mark, what's your hometown? I don't remember, bro. I, oh, sorry. Sorry, you got to leave it here. What's wrong with you?

I had, I had more sophisticated ones than that. John, good, Jack. I think it's, I'm sorry, go ahead, more.

I just want to do Paul, John, I think to do remember him. So, I didn't remember it when I was going into country, but then when I was working on personal recovery planning, I realized how important actually all that stuff was, and I was like, I should probably start memory this stuff. And then you're already a minute, you've, my, yeah, right. I think Jonathan remembers everything.

“I thought I was right. Yeah, I have been in situations where I started thinking about him.”

But, Jack, I, like, I just put up some music. You know, what situation did you use? Yeah, I said prep, and I didn't really apply in this case, right, presumably. The pilot had a beacon for, and I'm, you know, for some reason, there was some delay, and pick either in picking up the signal, or they were located as signal, but it was in an unacceptable area, or maybe someone was telling me,

I actually have better ports here because I don't think this is classified, but there's different protocol for beacon activation when you're in combat from when you're training, and training it goes on automatically, but there may have been the delay, right, and that's normally how you, how you locate it down, pilot. This is going to happen.

Yeah, this is outside my area of expertise. I'm not really an aviation guy, but I had someone tell me that the beacon is supposed to activate when they eject from the aircraft, but it also has something to do with, like, the angle of the aircraft and how they come out, like the pitch of the aircrafts can affect that. I don't understand how that works, but apparently it does make a difference.

And, and as far as how they actually located him, I don't know. No one's, uh, told me, you know, for certain, this is how it happened, but I'm sure it was a beacon or a survival radio that they ended up picking him up on. There's also, let me just throw in here because Mick alluded to it, and it has been in the press. There's, there's some, uh, I guess, uh, reporting in multiple, uh, organizations,

actually basically everybody, that the agency had some role, um, in the recovery.

Not only there was a deception campaign, but also in the actual recovery, and Mick alluded to just kind of what bothered me, and I was, of course, you know, howling about it in our chat, just the notion of this is not something that should be for public consumption. And it's clear that, um, kind of the agency public relations folks were sending this out at about two o'clock in the morning to news organizations.

Um, talking about that the agency had something to do with it. And, you know, so we don't know what that means, how they were able to locate them. The quote, they said is that it was based on exquisite, um, capabilities. You know, you don't know if that's signals intelligence. If it's, uh, any kind of non-assisted recovery, you know, human intelligence network,

who the heck knows what it is, things that people do and train for and prepare for,

“but I think we all would have preferred that not be out.”

Um, uh, and, you know, it just goes to that notion of, uh, and Mick's right that, you know, this administration's going to do the same thing that other administrations did, you know, Obama came out and all the details of, uh, of the, of the about a by operation to kill Ben Laden, certainly filtered out, but it's better off if, if, if this is not, turns into a kind of who's bragging about it, you know, what's the, what's the old saying that,

you know, success has a success, a thousand fathers, you know, failure is an orphan. I can assure you that the agency would not have been emailing press organizations

Uh, you know, uh, it's much better. I would much prefer if that would not be in public because you don't know if, if they could potentially compromise stuff and it does go to the notion of, in this administration, everybody is really working for one individual and that's the president and everyone's got to try to impress them.

“And so, success is going to brag about this as is John Radcliffe.”

Um, it would just be better if this was kept kept quiet. And again, a tremendous, um, uh, operation. I did have a list of someone sent me a list of, uh, things that were lost. Obviously, it was the F-15 in, in A-10, uh, two pay fox as well. Three little birds, two C-130s and at least three M-Q-9s.

And I don't know if that's accurate or not. The, the reverse sound threat, the, the, the ping hox. Uh, I don't think they were shot down, but they were shot up pretty presumed up. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, that's about a half billion dollars worth of, of airplanes there.

The pilots were hit substantially as I understand it. So, uh, again, it's a, it's a, it's so bringing in, and just the incredible, um, that this, this kernel gets to go home on Easter to his family. And I'm sure we'll hear a lot more about him because it once again. And this, this is, this is just the way it is.

We're going to see him at the White House. There's no doubt about that. Um, uh, uh, uh, uh, but last point on this exactly what, what Mick had said is, there's got to be now a discussion of what happens next because Trump put out the truth social post basically, um, with the little other lot far at the end,

which I don't know if it's weird or racist or whatever the hell it is. But basically, you know, promising all sorts of arm again and then the next 48 hours if Iran didn't open up the straight of our moves. We'd start hitting infrastructure targets. So, uh, interesting that the White House couldn't kind of bask in the victory of this.

They then put this out. And now the discussion does have to shift into what comes next. Um, uh, and, and so here we are. It's Sunday and that deadline, I guess, is on Tuesday. Yeah, let me get hack any hair.

John, what, what should take on all this?

“Well, when we talk about the non-standard assisted recovery, I think it's important”

to know that there are people in the region that would be there to help. Whether that whether we ask them to help or not. So in some cases, we would have set up some structures to have that. But in other cases, there are people there that are just like we want to help the American in the area because we don't support the regime.

And there were some video circulating yesterday evening in that village, a particular village that he was, uh, on the northwest corner of of vehicles, barricading the roads to prevent the Iranian security forces from actually affecting a search. And these people had their cars just kind of strewn all about. If you see the video, it's very interesting.

It's almost like a passive resistance. Because if you remember the regime's aircraft are all destroyed. Or obliterated mostly. So they can't be used for the searching rescue. They can't use helicopters.

They can't use any of these air assets except drones.

So they're basically on the ground trying to drive to the location.

And if you look on a map, this is like. Powdered area is really rough. Like when I heard the C130 got stuck there, I was not surprised. Because it's basically like that moon dust that you'd see in like helmet province.

For example, if anyone's been to Afghanistan, it's listening that you just get stuck in it. It's really tough. And that's the same problem. We have a desert one in 1980.

That landing site. That it was just this moon dust that just eats stuff when it lands on it. Um, so it was actually very nice to see that the locals there resisting the regime to try to help that American gain some time. Just a little bit of envelope with time to get up probably into that higher ground.

That could be rescued. That's interesting. That is a good report. And that area is a lower area that's a bit of a group that's been severely affected by the sea. So that's the same one.

That's the pilot was actually lucky. You have gone down in that area. It's right south of Shiraz. And these people, the Lori people are very tribal. Very like closely connected to each other.

And they've been, you know, trying to get rid of the regime at that area for a long time.

So probably the first one they heard about this.

They say, hey guys, let's go out and start doing something. Before we go on to perhaps more momentum. Discussion system. I was surprised. Yeah, I think it's the Wall Street Journal cover this story.

That you guys were just talking about the deception claimed by the agencies saying. And it gets back to, it does seem extraordinary. It doesn't, that an intelligence agency would, would announce that. Uh, because especially from, from Mac and Mark doesn't that. Potentially compromise a method, if they did use that method, it compromises using it again.

I mean, they're saying that they, they somehow planted a story. Uh, that game momentum that the MN had already been recovered. No, I don't know how they did that. I mean, if it was, but. But it's not, it, it just, I, I'm not commenting that it seems unseemly.

But it just seems extraordinary unless there was a, unless there's some motive other than just speaking. No, it's unseemly. It's, I think it's bragging. It's, it's, it's the notion of people try to take credit. And everyone's buying for their kind of supremacy and then national security pantheon.

“Uh, you know, that's why, you know, Rack Cliff and Tulsi Gabbard and Mark Rubio all of the offices at the White House.”

They spend a lot of time there. Um, I just, you know, so I think, you know, is it, is it going to compromise, you know, source of methods?

Um, and, and the problem is now that, that, that everyone kind of has the sniffing around on this.

I mean, you can't email reporters at two o'clock in the morning, which is which is what the agency did. Um, uh, uh, then the reporters were then using the quote, according to a senior administration official. But it's not. It was, it was, the agency public relations staff. So now they're going to start digging.

They wouldn't have been digging without this. And when, when reporters in Washington start digging, they're eventually going to get the story, and someone's going to say something. And so to me, that was kind of just unnecessary. Hey, what's up, guys? This is the, uh, clue is the favorite and check out our Patreon page.

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Uh, so we appreciate it. And we appreciate you guys listening. Thanks a bunch. And for for the agency guys here.

“I mean, we have represented this from all over here, right?”

You know, even the range of Richmond. Uh, equal opportunity. But for for me can marks specifically. Uh, and I think you made a comment about this mark actually in our chat. But there are, again, you know, not downplaying this.

But there are more important things in intelligent agency.

Should be focusing on running during this war.

You know, I'm, I hate to hold up Mossad as an example. But presumably, they know a fair amount about what's going on. Iranian intentions that they think of. They've clearly infiltrated. Uh, Iran's regime to quite an extent.

And they, you know, there's very been very little talk about what the Iranian students, we broadcast what we're doing. Presumably we're relying on the, on the Israelis to do this or. I mean, I do, do we? Are we too focused on my new share?

I guess in the intelligence community is where I'm heading. And we're in two reliant on on our upon us to do this. I want to make the answer because I'm going to raise something with them. This is where kind of mix-old world. And what he did in the paramilitary side is so good.

You know, there's 20 years of the GWAT and we perfected this. And it's, and I had, I dabbled in it when I was a base chief. And then I worked on some, some ISR stuff. But, you know, the kinetic part of it, man-hunting. Or, or personal recovery, or, you know, a kind of covert action.

“That's what Mick and his, SAC colleagues did.”

And we're really good at it. What I do question now is are we good at penetrating the Iranian regime in terms of, you know, an asset in the spring leaders office. You know, plans and intentions. This is strategic intelligence that can formulate decision-making.

And I wonder if the agency kind of got drunk on its own success in. GWAT stuff. And I'm guilty of it. And, you know, and we wouldn't even say guilty. That's what we're tasked to do.

But are we good at kind of hard target foreign intelligence operations, where we can help the president and his national security team say, "What's the Iranians going to do next?" And Mick, that's tean it up for you. Yeah, thanks, Mark.

I mean, you know, we just had this sum out here. And on the intel side, it was all different components of the agency. It wasn't just, you know, the PM dudes. Um, I think sometimes we, to be frank, we get too much credit. Not credit, but like, it's just so much attention because of the,

Um, it plays well, put it that way. When a lot of what the agency does is behind the scenes and nobody talks about it. And, um, they do incredibly work. So I actually, yes, we're very good at finding people. That's why I was pointing out.

You put Jay Sock in the CIA together. We can do a lot of this stuff. And it's, it's the most significant operations that we all talk about. And we should still be able to do that. And we should be able to do all of this, by the way.

It's not, it's like a DC thing to say it's either or. Like, oh, either you do paramilitary stuff or you penetrate the criminal. I like, let's do both.

“Um, I think we do actually have really good human assets.”

If you look at like, before the war and Ukraine, how much information we actually had. I think there's a lot of examples that where I think it actually breaks down. And I get a lot of this from my last job is to people listen to it. Right? Because it, you know, if, if even if we have the best penetration,

the best analyst, you know, analyst and the analytical product, it still has to be listened to by the policymakers. If they all go on their own presumptions, as if they're just thoughts or just as important as, you know, the agencies analytical piece on what Putin intends to do is equal.

Then it's, it just doesn't necessarily work. So a part of it is, is whether it's used correctly.

So as much as the agency, of course, that should be what sets the facts. If you, if they don't set the facts, then it's just personal presumptions and agendas that sets effects. Then we go from there on discussing, you know, what we should do based on that.

“Uh, and I think that's where, and I'm not just in, you know,”

this administration, but other administrations, where they just, they treated us just another data point. And I, I think we need to get back to like, no, that's the entire 18. One thing I'm not making. Don't see that in the title.

Here you are. And everyone knows the president. He probably doesn't want his text. You know, Marco Rubio still gets the PDB. The president's daily brief.

So does Dan Kane, the chairman. So does Pete Heggseth.

Um, basically the entire national security cabinet gets the PDB.

So with that argument, that, that would then say that, okay, the, the intelligence, the analysis, everything was there. And then the entire national security team ignored it as did the president. And so to me, that's where I kind of, and that's where I think, the congressional oversight's got to come in.

Where's Hipsie and Sissy saying, what was in the PDB? Um, and what was briefed to people? And what did you XYZ cabinet members say to the president? Because the argument that everything was there and everything was solid and good. Fine, the president doesn't listen, but then, you know,

if this raccliffe, not brief him, what about tells he gathered, what about Dan Kane, what about Pete Heggseth, what about Marco Rubio? And so then the process really is falling down. What are they scared of telling the president the truth? There is he just not listening.

So that's where I think there needs to be some more kind of certainly media attention. Yeah, so just quickly on that.

“I mean, I think you spot on and I think we're going to find out, right?”

So with the eminent threat, was it wasn't it? Um, you know, all regime change? What are the intelligence communities say collectively about the possibilities? About the possibility of that happening? If it's in there that said, it's not going to happen.

And then we went out and said he was, I mean, that's a choice. It's not a crime, of course. It's just a difference with opinion. But we'll find out how accurate the intelligence community was on. It's really a good thing.

It's going to come out eventually. In the offensive way, seven or six works. Of course. You know, everyone asks the question. How does Israel with one of the most technically competent intelligence communities in the world,

or miss all the pointers and pointers? There were a plenty.

And the answer is they didn't miss them.

But no one was listening because they were so programed into thinking that Hamas was not a threat. But the reports were being made and the briefs were being made. But I just want to follow on question few guys because I mean,

“isn't it fair to say is kind of rhetoric question, right?”

But isn't it fair to say? I mean, the US intelligence community is held most accountable, probably among all Western intelligence communities, right? I mean, since, you know, things like the church commission, the requirement to share certain intel with the committees.

And so isn't it the case that where there are failures, at least there is accountability and follow-up and a reckoning? What do you think? It's interesting. Um, hipsy and sissy kind of like high Congress into the intelligence community in a way that I don't think really exists, even in other Western countries.

It's like a Congress, you're culpable for this as well. Yeah, I mean, most other services. And my big, like close to what are with us.

They have to near the same amount of oversight.

I mean, I've talked to our, I mean, I've talked to these rallies that say, like, hey, all our lawyers do is right our wills. That's it, right? You know, like, we obviously, I mean, it's with different country. I'm not, I'm not complaining or saying it's a change.

Well, again, I'm serious. We get what the idea will be now. I mean, like, this is a rogue. It's an interesting kind of like, 90. You know, we have, like, this is what we were.

How are all this? I mean, but at the same time, like, I mean, just the, the teamhouse podcast that we do tell me what country would clear its intelligence officer's former intelligence officers to coming, like, talk about the profession and have some sort of interface with the public.

So I America's in a very, like, kind of unique position in that sense. Not only that, but drink hot alcohol when I'm living room setting. That's, that's totally you, Milburn. That's why I'm so close. That wasn't your close.

That's right. Yeah. We're very proud of it. Jack, I just got a note from someone. And you'll like this because it's very high brow.

I'm not going to tell you it is from the Atlantic though. So Atlantic. Oh, whoa. Reputable place. And let me, let me find this.

Hold on, here it goes. He wrote, he, he, you sent something. He goes, Jack's takes, smiley face. He said, he has very good sources. There you go.

My ears are coming. You're going to tell them that you don't have the sight.

I've been on the last stage.

You know. Well, I, something to be said. I mean, you know, and just not to, not to, to your horn too much. But, you know, the, you know, the, the, the, the importance of kind of independent journalism is huge.

“And, and one of the things, and I think it's worth talking to a little bit.”

Is that, you know, what bothers me as, as both, you know, much just like Mick, you know, we work for established organizations. There's a lot of the reporting is just re-gurgitation of some senior administration official calling someone a reporter and, you know, giving them their spin. And then it turns out to, you know, and then they just kind of spew it out. And that drives me crazy. That's not deep dive reporting.

That's not actually getting to the facts. And, you know, there's, you know, everybody kind of follows Axios religiously because they have a direct line into the administration on stuff. But it literally is a propaganda arm. And I know if you folks, and I know them, if you understand that, it's fine. I do want to hear what, you know, what Axios reports on the Middle East.

But I also know that, you know, it's coming from Jared Kushner and Steve, Steve Whitcroft directly. It's interesting, but it's not news. And so, you know, what, what you do in some others is actually really important because it's deep dives. A lot of times it's long kind of hard, you know, several investigations. But you do get people to talk to you and talk to you not as a, you know, an administration official spewing the line.

It's actually what actually is happening. So Kudos on that. I appreciate that Mark. And, you know, I just point out, you know, I write a lot of this sort of investigative stuff with Sean Naylor on the high side. We have a couple J. Sock pieces we're working on now that I can't get into at the moment.

But one of them will be coming out probably, you know, in the coming weeks. And then the other depending on how things shape up in the Middle East, how that went on that when it if that will ever see the light of day. But yeah, thanks for that Mark, appreciate it.

“Hey Jonathan, I got a question for you because I think where we should, should we shift, sorry D.”

I'm still in your thunder on one thing. I want to make sure we get this in here is. So we just saw this really extraordinary ground up. It was a ground operation. There's a pilot or an aviator down, sorry, it was down. The clearly U.S. special forces on the ground.

We lost maybe a half a billion dollars worth of aircraft of firefight.

All the stuff that happened, thank God, everything's okay. Now Jonathan, we're talking about, you know, the 82nd Airborne's there, the 70th range arrangement. There's, you know, the, the, the, the mu is now on station. What does the events of the last several, several days mean for U.S. forces on the ground in Iran? It seemed to me the Iranians put up a bit of a fight.

And, and so, you know, is it something American people should get, okay, better get prepared. Because, you know, we're not going to get lucky again. That just doesn't happen time after time. And so, you know, what are your thoughts on now future ground operations, especially with Trump, you know, threatening Armageddon? It's interesting you asked that because actually right before this, I was on with BBC and they asked me to exact same thing.

There you go. And I'll tell him, I'll tell you what I said to them.

Basically, that the personal recovery mission is a contingency operation that's bolted on to the main operation.

And it's not going to shift the direction of flow of what's happening in the decision space, both with Admiral Cooper, and with President all the way between the two of them. So we executed that well successfully, but it doesn't change really like the momentum of the larger operation going on. And still, I think the President's trying to decide, do I do a ground invasion or not? Do I take hard out or not? Do I do I do your aim or not? And I think, you know, there's a lot in the administration pushing him toward the infrastructure option, which would be a disastrous choice for variety of reasons,

not just from the international law perspective, but also like if you want the will, the people in Iran to remain on your side. Don't take out their electricity, their water, their food, their safety, what remains of it. And we've talked about this in the show before that in 2003, we had a very successful invasion in the first few months. And we made some strategic mistakes in how we handled the people in the country, and that turned out very badly for every person involved on every side. And I think that we're nearing that kind of led right now, as far as decision which direction do we move.

And I think hitting the infrastructure, which certainly takes us toward that bad outcome.

“And I think that's what is probably the pressure going on right now, and where do we go?”

But that personal recovery mission, I think, is kind of a nicely packaged success. That's not exactly connected to that main effort that we're seeing moving forward. Lots of, as a lot of you guys, someone has something to say. Yeah, so Andy or Jack, I was somewhat, you know, in terms of, all right, ground ops next. What is this, what does this call us? Yeah, I mean John, John actually, John, John, John, John's like the darling of the BBC.

But because he's because he's tired sometimes, they're being opposed to boy, the British public. He forms out in a little way, he's like, yeah, you know, I've got a friend who can probably answer those questions better. And so I appeared on the telegraph podcast with olefand, right, Roland olefand, which is a real name, talking about potential ground operations.

Or the way through to the uranium mission, which we can now discard, by the way, because the president said the uranium is not important.

“So that narrows it down to four potential ground operations.”

And I'll, I'll list them just for the sake of if I've missed anything, let me know. So number one lowest risk targeted rates.

By the way, when I talk about rates, and I talk about marine sping involved, and this is for argument among you guys, whether you're marine or not.

You, we're not talking about AAVs and amphibious shipping in the streets of Hormuz. That would be insane beyond, you know, even, even my battalion commanders, a previous battalion commander's perception of risk.

“You know, we're probably talking long range and search and using the 22's with a massive aviation stack overhead. So it's a, it really is a limited, you can, it's just like the mission that just took place.”

You can't sustain that indefinitely, right? So anyway, targeted rates going after two things, you know, things that that we, that could not be destroyed from the air radar.

And storage facilities, missile launchers, been missile launchers, by the way, are notoriously difficult to hit from the air, right? Because BDA, I think one of you said, and I couldn't agree more. BDA is always bullshit, unless you put boots on the ground to verify BDA. So you've got a kind of a, you've got the destruction element and then you've got the confirmation element and putting boots on the ground to do that. And the rates can train to do that. And it's feasible. I didn't say it's a good idea. All right, it's still high risk. And you don't really get a strategic game because even if you knock out all these threats on the street, in the streets of all moves on those half a dozen islands.

You're having a limited of a threat because you've got a 30 mile coastline, just of the north. And even if you by the way, even if you secure that coastline, Iranians can lob things over the head of troops on the ground from the Iranian hinterland as we know, and still hit shipping. So it's a difficult problem. So number two, there's carguerland, why we would want to seize carguerland. I don't know, but let's just save the sake of argument. We're doing it to seize the export infrastructure so that we have leverage and driving Iran to the negotiations table. It's a couple of problems with that.

That anyone can talk about that Iran has other ports that can export oil from, not to the great same degree. But also, if we, if we close down Iran's ability to export oil, we remove their incentive for keeping the streets open at all. So, and plus, now you've got to keep, you're only doing that. You only have that leverage as long as you have troops on the ground. And entry is easy, for support, entry is relative easy, sustainment, force protection are going to be a real challenge. And it gets exponentially worse day by day that you have troops hanging out on carguerland.

And so, you know, you've got a third type of raid where you're seizing the islands in the Gulf, same problems with that, even worse. Now you don't have a plan withdrawal. They're not really raids. Now you are a sitting target, a galware, again well within range. So you see when I'm heading on this, where is the strategic effect that you are having as you ramp up the risk for your own forces, very limited. So the last one would be a landing, this report, a banter of jask, right? It's right at the mouth of the straight opposite Oman would be a suitable landing site. Again, it would be long range, healer born in search. And I say that that's probably a particular, you know, that would be a good beach head to use.

“But, and then secure key terrain up and down the coast. So you'd have to push north and west, you'd have to push inland a little bit to protect your, your beach head. You're not talking about two mues now.”

You're talking about a division-sized element. So two mues might move in and seize terrain. But then you're going to have to put in army guys, right? That's, you know, the, I can bring myself to say that word to, and again, you're a fixed target. And now, and now you've got the raining ground forces maneuvering against you on interior lines. And you've got all the problems of sustainment. You're going to have to fly shit in from Oman and your risk ramps up and up. So I'll pause there and just say, it's really difficult for me to see a strategic game from any ground operations that would be worth the risk.

And Andy, if I could elaborate on that a little bit. So we're talking about the inside of the straits of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf with all those scenarios. But that excludes the 500 kilometers of shoreline that's outside the strait of Hormuz that also belongs to Iran that also has sports at it.

Yep, you would need tens and tens of thousands of troops. They would be a full-scale invasion. I think, you know, you hadn't got to mean your spot on the street with all the marine port packets and probably stuff works and why it's probably not a good idea. But I just wanted to chime in about, you know, okay, that's probably, you know, your point of view is probably the correct one, but which one is going to be the prevailing point of view on this topic. And I think that, you know, perhaps what last night proved to some people, was that actually we can do ground operations in Iran after all.

So I think we may be going down a different route and, you know, since the Meduro raid may be learning some of the wrong weapons, as some of you guys pointed out, like your luck is going to hold out for it's a long before something really bad happens. And maybe we're making a mistake here and seeing J. Sock is this easy button that you can mash to resolve some of these problems. And I think we are moving down the road to special operations raids and maybe other more conventional stuff to.

But this is, then we've talked about this on the team house before too, but this is where, you know, we treat forced our generals like vice-roys. They're treated like kings and the US military.

“And that's why so many of them ceased to believe that they're even human beings. But the downside of that, the downside of that is this is the time to really dig in your heels and say, hey boss, that's the risk isn't worth the game.”

Right. And there is such a thing as an obligation to the constitution, which can be translated as an obligation to what you do know is right for, well, it's just not just the rank and file, but what is or is not an American interest. I'm on thin ice here because people are going to say I'm challenging civil and control the military. I'm not. I'm just saying best military advice means more than, hey, he didn't take my advice. So we just went ahead and did it. Right. I've been through a way a thousand lives because I didn't want to say that's, yeah, yeah, but I said it was in a good idea, but hey man.

Anyway, I got an argument last week about this.

Well, but let me talk about Andy's point first.

What I agree with at all, and I haven't seen that level description quite frankly, out there, and it needs to be. We need you to actually talk about this, what this was actually entailed because people just say, "Hello, we got Marines in the Mew and it's a very small element, right? It's going to have to be much more than the current capability we have in the region." So, and I would say is yes, if you tell Marines and Rangers to take the objective, they will freakin take the objective, like they're very similar species and they don't, they don't not accomplish the mission.

But the question is necessarily, can we? It's should we? And if we, if we think we should, we have to think about the consequences, because there's a chance that we take carguerland and we will take casualties,

but the Marines and Rangers or whoever assigned to that and all these other objectives, they'll take it.

“But what if it doesn't have this strategic impact we would like to see? What if the Iranian say, okay, you see a carguer island?”

We're just going to target you now until you withdraw. What if we get on the actual mainland of Iran and you just describe it? And then it's all about being able to stay there. And what if we leave and then they close the streets down immediately? We have to have a long-term plan, we have to be thinking that way. It isn't just, you know, the military can do it, so let's do it. That isn't necessarily strategic thinking. That's essentially civilian's trying to do tactical and operational thinking. So we should have several steps ahead.

How is this going to advance our strategic objectives? And it's start looking, and I know that we are, I think we are, for a diplomatic resolution, because this just keeps getting escalated and escalated. And it's important to point out, and somebody actually went on that just pointed this out to me this week, you know, the ground operations and Vietnam started with sending in the Marines to take the airport in the time. And they said it was going to be a limited duration, a limited amount of forces, and we all know what happened from there.

“I'm not saying that's what's going to happen here, but we got to think, this can't just be incremental. You have to think beyond the next, you know, the next phase of the campaign.”

Why are we doing this? And how would we get out of it if it doesn't work? And, you know, you know, egos sometimes make us stay places much longer than we should, which when it's already gone past any kind of advantage that we would have. >> And it's a question for you guys, because now I think we're getting to the discussion, I just just before, Mick, we had a bit of a tussle last week about about this issue, just in terms of how much senior US military leadership should be kind of telling truth to power.

Do you all, with your experience and your contacts, have faith in, well, it's just the civilian leadership at DOD, but also that there are the right people in place on even on the uniform side.

I mean, so when the Army Chief of Staff who even Fox News came out, you know, General King came out and said, it was not happy about this. You know, what is the climate there in terms of, and descent is the wrong word, it's just, you know, telling truth to power, hey, we should not do this. You know, what are your thoughts on that? Because I mean, everybody I talked to and this is a great expert panel here is of the same mindset, like what are we doing in terms of introducing ground forces, this is crazy.

“Where's the uniform senior leadership on this and what about the civilian leadership of the Pentagon?”

>> I'll be quick because I got a jump back on what's his wrong word. I think we've seen 24, I mean, Jack make or correct me if I'm wrong, 24 senior, like flag officers be, you know, retired early.

To me, that indicates that what you're saying they should be doing, they're doing.

They are saying, and they're getting fired. So my concern is we're going to get down to people who A can't even retire yet, but also are the people who aren't going to push back. But I do think the fact that we've seen that level, which has got to be unprecedented in such a short period of time, that they are doing what you say they should be doing. That they are saying, this is a bad idea, I disagree. When you relieve the Chief of Staff of the Army, so a four-star general who went from a private to a general, in the middle of a war, that indicates that he was doing what you're saying that he should be doing.

I don't have any direct knowledge of that, but he's just one of many. We've seen a lot of things that's made in the future that in terms of decision-making, I mean, so in some ways I hear what you're saying, but, you know, that means we might be in decision. They're not accepting to send. Yeah, that's a problem. Andy Woodmanter was also booted right before the Maduro rate as well, because he opposed the lead up to that.

What do your thoughts? I mean, you're the most senior former, you know, big wig, full bird. What are your thoughts?

“Well, I think, you know, I mean, you know, my thoughts, right? I mean, we talked about this on the team house and on the team.”

Of course, there's an obligation. Everyone knows that there is an obligation to give best military advice. What people differ on is what happens when that advice is turned down, right? It's very interesting, you know, I mean, I can, I can all pine about it. But it's very interesting to hear four star generals talk about this and, and there is no agreement.

You know, I've talked to General Votel about, I've talked to Admiral's, the readers about it, and they both, they have a different view. So it's, so my point is, it's kind of interesting that we don't nurture our officers as they go up the chain. We teach them a lot of things. We teach them all this joint operation shit. But they don't, we don't teach them what are the proper actions at that nexus between at the strategic leadership, nexus between the civilian leadership and the military.

And so they all prepared for it and they're trying to make their own decisions. There's only been, until this point, there's only been one general who has resided on a question, a principle, because his advice wasn't taken, and that was a marine free star by the name of Greg New Bolt. In 2003, over going to the war in Iraq, and it didn't make big news.

He, he was, he was the, what's the, basically, the joint, the joint staff operations officer for Rumsfeld.

And, and kept saying, hey, this is a bad idea, bad idea, and then in the end, resigned and wrote an article about it for time magazine.

“And was, was vilified, I mean, remember that we were rock wall and it kicked off.”

Everyone noted it, and then subsequently, everyone disowned it. But at the time, he was vilified for what he did, but I, you know, I happened to be a fan of, I, I happened to be a fan of, he was my view commander, and I, and it was the only principle decision of resignation that I have seen among senior officer. And that's disturbing. That's all I'll say is that we, you know, the officers at that rank should understand the procedure, what does happen?

What does happen if I think this is going to result in a catastrophic or just massive loss of life for no gain? I mean, and this and I'll last thing I'll say is, you know, I've been shown the face for talking about this before.

because everyone's afraid of being seen to challenge civilian leadership, which it's not, and it is the cause, absolutely the cause of disasters like Afghanistan.

Because Congress, as we've seen, you know, the war powers act as, is shaped, no one wants to debate the war.

“And so what's the next line of defense with the next line of defense or the senior military officers, right?”

And again, I, I don't think that there, duty is simply to give their best military advice, and then mechanically accept whatever comes in the aftermath. And I'm not talking about this administration, I'm talking about generally speaking, as a, as a, as a profession of arms. It's a massive gap in our, in our collective education.

Do you always have your resignation letter in your, you know, top drawer?

Yeah, like Eisenhower right before the day supposedly.

“So he said, I think he wrote it off the day when it was a success, but there you go.”

I think I think it was Chris Miller who told me, there's like some sort of standing rule about you don't have more personal Momentos in your office than you can carry in like one box because it can. Hey Jack, I got a quick question for you before before we go and that's to do with, you know, this, this threat from Trump in terms of infrastructure attacks and there's, you know, and you know, I'm certainly not a lawyer. But there is some question on, you know, there was two things, one is to the degree of which these are valid military targets or potentially war crimes and I'm not arguing for that, but that's out there.

There's a lot of questioning say, well, wait a second, if we start hitting civilian targets, is that the, is that the right thing to do legally, and then the other part is, you know, is actually as we're trying to win the hearts and minds of the Iranians at some point doesn't this shift to punishing the Iranian people, is that a good idea there, but it does look like we're, you know, only several days or hours, even away from doing this, if we haven't started to be doing it already, so I just wanted to know kind of from your perspective on, on what seems to be the next phase.

I mean, I think it's a terrible idea, and we're talking about power plants, desalination plants, things like this.

There is, like, legally, an argument to me made if they're like dual use facilities, so like maybe you're producing a, a, physio material for a nuclear reactor, but you can also use that to produce nuclear weapons. Now, you get into a kind of a debate about, like, how much of this is civilian and how much of it is, is military, is the same thing like the conversation has come up recently about data centers and are these data centers that are being hit, lawful targets. Some data centers are dual use, and our, our jigs have looked at this issue in the past, including data centers in America, where DOD contracts space out inside them for its own stuff.

They determine that those data centers would be lawful targets in a war. But so if Iranians were to blow up a data center in the United States, that the DOD share space with, that would be probably a lawful target. Again, I'm not a lawyer, but as I understand it, it would be considered legal. So those are some of the questions you get into, but then when you're talking about like a desalination plant, that's there to produce, you know, potable water for people, or electrical power plant, I mean, this is like, yeah, you're depriving the Iranian civilian population of the things they need to survive.

And it's absolutely going to drive them towards the regime and away from us. Well, we're there, we're almost there.

“Yeah, I think they're running out of military targets as part of it, you know, so this is sort of the frustration that's being vented.”

You know, it's in a, in my opinion, an emotional decision being made. Also, I want to just mention like if we did go after the Yusufan facility for the uranium, you know, and we, we set up shop for, you know, a couple of week, two to three weeks, right? While we're digging this up, and we have a Ranger or 82nd Airborne security position setting a perimeter. While our guys are going in their digging, and we have stacked up on stack of stack of air power bomb in the shit out of whoever comes close to them.

You're talking three weeks of like sustained operations where like yesterday, you know, Twitter and the internet was ablaze with like videos and things like that. And like while this is like just, I try to picture what it would look like if we actually went through, we're trying to snatch the uranium. And like just in the world we live it now, things are going to get out and we're going to be able to see this in HD, right? Like geolocated, I just wonder what that would do with like just, I don't know, people's thoughts on this war and even our own, the guys who fight the war.

Yeah, it is, I'm not going to say too much about it, but I think at this stage, at this stage in the game, at some point, we're going to have to go in and get that enriched uranium in some manner.

Now that could happen, that there's a ceasefire and we go in under those pretexts or maybe we go in unarmed under those pretexts after a ceasefire and get it out of there. You know, peaceful it or we go in there in a denied environment and we do it by force. But leaving, you know, it's reported something like 400 kilograms of enriched uranium under the desert, you can't just leave it there. Because sooner or later, some asshole is going to go and dig it up and you don't need 400 kilograms, you just need a couple milligrams of it to cause a really big problem to create a dirty bomb or something like that and detonate that in, you know, in the Middle East or Europe or whatever.

So we can't just leave that fizzile material out there in the desert, like at some point in some manner, we're going to have to get it.

“And Jack, don't forget, that was the war objective. That's the, that is the key objective of this entire campaign is that data.”

You cannot, I don't care, like I tried to make a stupid analogy to the other day, like all right. So we've sunk the entire Iranian navy and beaten the crap out of their, you know, their land forces. Well, that's like, you know, the Los Angeles Dodgers beating the Vienna Little League baseball team, like that's not, I mean, that's, of course we should be doing that. The key objective is the HAU is, is this, is they're on a nuclear program. If that, if that is not action properly, whether it's militarily diplomatically both, we have failed.

And so to me, that would, you know, that's why I actually agree with you. And again, it goes to the whole signal versus noise thing, like, you know, there's a lot of noise out there, but the signal is that this is going to have to be taking the care of in some fashion. Quick question for you. Here, there's, I don't know how we do this. You have tremendous, there's tremendous listeners here in this, whether it's an eyes on or the team house. But it's this, it's an, it's a really unique network of, you know, national security, folks, farmers, current, special operations, and tell, I wonder what a poll would be.

“If you took a poll of all the listeners of both shows, of all your shows, do they support this war or not?”

And I say that only because I keep running into people in this world and this ecosystem who are really against it.

And, and that's not always the case, but I think it was based on the fact Trump ran on not doing this, but also everyone still has a lot of trauma from Iraq and Afghanistan.

But it would be really interesting to know is your listeners, which are in a, which have a massive, you know, there's an massive number of them. What would be the percentages who are in favor of this or not? So, indeed, this is your, uh, task to find out how we do this. I'll be really, uh, yeah, freaking homework. It's unbelievable. Yeah, it would be extremely interesting. Yeah, I mean, if I had a bet, I would say most people are against it. I, I, I think, yeah, probably one third in support and two thirds against it would be my experience.

Yeah, I think it reflects the country, frankly, like I, I really do. Because, I mean, you've talked about it last week, Mark, like, you know, the vet, bro, industrial, complex, you see them more and more, like, they're not down with what's going on. I went that in event recently, um, you know, a special forces event, uh, and met up with a guy who, I know is a big time Trump supporter. Very nice guy. Um, but it was interesting that he had apparently, you know, fallen out of love with Trump over this Iran war. He was not pleased at all.

So, I mean, but that's just a little, a little anecdote. I was with, you know, I was with the family member last night, big, big Trump guy, big magga guy. Um, uh, not happy about this. I'm, I was really surprised. It's not there is no rally around the flag piece of it. So, um, you know, we'll see, but I'll be cool if we could find out. I mean, uh, out of that. Yeah, I'll try to figure out how to do it. Maybe on our YouTube page or something like that. We could set up a room, uh, pole.

Yeah. Um, yeah. Anything else, Jack? What else do you track in before we take off? Um, yeah, I, I thought I can't really get too much into it. Working on a couple pieces for the high side that, um, hopefully it will be out in the near future. Cool. Um, I want everyone to go check out the high side. That link is into the description. That's Jack's news outlet with Sean Naylor, who, uh, Army Times reporter wrote the actual book on J. Sock. Uh, J. Sock was freaking out when it, it was released. I've heard. And now it's like required reading. Um, really gives you like a, uh, real look at what J. Sock's about how it's structured and stuff like that.

It's an incredible book. Um, so that's the high side. The link is in the description. So grab it there.

Mark P, of course, all the links are down there as well. All the boys that were on, they had all the jump off because they had other media obligations.

“And they big time does. It's fine. We're never, we'll never forget, but it's fine.”

Check their, check their links out in the description down below.

So next year, I think the eyes on a teamhouse boy is going to be there. So it's going to be excited.

They, uh, check that out. So they're durable locker, I. Yes, very bunch of teamhouse guests were, uh, were up there for that. Yeah. Yeah. It's set up from all things that I've heard. It sounded like a great event.

“Um, so if you guys are around the area for, uh, take a look. That link is in everything you need to know guys. If you want to find these guys, the links are down in the description.”

And the best place you can go to support to show is patreon dot com slash the teamhouse. You get both teamhouse episodes and eyes on episodes add free and early. You can actually watch the teamhouse episodes live as we shoot them.

Um, and you support to show. So as always, guys, most likely I wouldn't be shocked if like I had some of the guys that at some point this week doing something because I'm sure.

“Something something chaotic is going to happen at some point that we should talk about. So thanks again. Nice.”

I'm going to talk by the way. After you're, uh, oh, me. That's a, that's an amazing book. Um, yeah, we had him on the show Chris Copping.

No, yeah, that's a, you guys, you guys get your head, so I was like, man, I want to read the book first and then I'll listen to the show.

Yeah, yeah, let me know what you think.

“All right. Thanks, guys. All right. Take care.”

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