Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here
Speaker 1: and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of
Speaker 1: ways we can up our game for this critical election.
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Speaker 2: But enough with that, let's get to the show. Jocko,
Speaker 2: thank you so much for joining me.
Speaker 1: Us really appreciate it. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: Oh well, you're the one who thinks so gracious for reason,
Speaker 2: your studio, your setup, so won't ever forget it. The
Speaker 2: reason the genesis of all of this is I was
Speaker 2: listening to your podcast with Darryl Cooper on Jocko Unraveling.
Speaker 2: It was on October fifteenth, and you said something that
Speaker 2: really caught both my eye and actually a segment that
Speaker 2: we did that got quite a lot of attention. You
Speaker 2: said that Israel is losing the information operations in this war,
Speaker 2: that if you were the emperor of Israel, that you
Speaker 2: would stop bombing Gaza and you would shift towards a
Speaker 2: traditional counter insurgency campaign. So it's been more than a
Speaker 2: month since you made those comments. What are your thoughts
Speaker 2: generally on where the war is today?
Speaker 1: I would say that actually, after that podcast came out,
Speaker 1: it did seem like Israel started to shift some of
Speaker 1: its media and I think they've done a decent job
Speaker 1: of that. Not an outstanding job, but a decent job.
Speaker 1: And as I look at where the war is, I
Speaker 1: haven't actually looked at it today, but you can start
Speaker 1: to see what does look more like a traditional counterinsurgency campaign.
Speaker 1: Primarily what you're seeing is sort of the isolation of
Speaker 1: northern Gaza, which is an important move. And I think
Speaker 1: there's a there's a limitation that Hamas is going to
Speaker 1: run into What do you think that is? I think,
Speaker 1: you know, there's that quote at the beginning of the
Speaker 1: Civil War. I forget who set it off the top
Speaker 1: of my head, but he told the South, you have
Speaker 1: the will, but you don't have the means. And you know,
Speaker 1: in the South, what they were doing was making cotton,
Speaker 1: and once they'd made cotton, they had to send it
Speaker 1: over to France to get it turned into to get
Speaker 1: it woven into cloth, because they didn't have the capability
Speaker 1: of doing that in the south, so really all they
Speaker 1: could do is grow cotton and in the north. The
Speaker 1: North was making locomotives. It was just a completely different scenario.
Speaker 1: They could make weapons. The technology that they had, the
Speaker 1: manufacturing capability that they had was was not even comparable,
Speaker 1: not comparable in any way, shape or form. So I
Speaker 1: think Hamas is going to run into that problem where
Speaker 1: they have the will, but they don't have the means.
Speaker 1: I also, and I have not been to Gaza, but
Speaker 1: you see a lot of a unified front, or what
Speaker 1: appears to be sometimes a unified front in Gaza, meaning
Speaker 1: you see the right from October seventh, people cheering in
Speaker 1: the streets, celebrating that unified front. I believe in many
Speaker 1: cases is not true. It is people that are intimidated.
Speaker 1: It is people that are trying to live their lives
Speaker 1: and trying to When the mob moves into your neighborhood,
Speaker 1: you you know, when the cops come into town, you
Speaker 1: don't talk to the cops. Course, when you have the
Speaker 1: opportunity to support the mob in some way that's going
Speaker 1: to make your life and your family's life better and easier,
Speaker 1: you show support. And this is the situation that the
Speaker 1: Palestinians are in now. Is there a Is there a
Speaker 1: large group of Palestinians, especially younger Palestinians that have been
Speaker 1: brainwashed through the point and raised in that culture. Sure,
Speaker 1: and it's gonna be hard. It's gonna be a hard
Speaker 1: time to get them to come back. But I think
Speaker 1: that the unified front in Gaza isn't as unified as
Speaker 1: it appears to be on TV. And I think once
Speaker 1: the strain is imposed on Gaza, they're going to have problems.
Speaker 1: And this is again a very close comparison, or you
Speaker 1: could make a close comparison to the Battle of Ramadi,
Speaker 1: where when we showed up in Ramadi, it certainly appeared
Speaker 1: on the surface that the local populace was in support
Speaker 1: of the insurgency, But as soon as the insurgency started
Speaker 1: to break, the local populace was very thankful and they
Speaker 1: were allowed to they they took the opportunity to support
Speaker 1: the coalition forces. So I believe we might see that
Speaker 1: kind of thing in Gaza, and I think the Israelis
Speaker 1: are starting to It certainly appears that appears to be
Speaker 1: that they are treating this more like a counterinsurgency. I
Speaker 1: think they're making efforts to take care of the civilian populace,
Speaker 1: and I think they're moving in the right direction.
Speaker 2: Interesting because that was That's one of the main reasons
Speaker 2: I found you such an authoritative voice. Is with the
Speaker 2: Battle of Ramadi our. You know, our mission was to
Speaker 2: destroy al Qaeda in Iraq, the insurgency inside of the
Speaker 2: embedded inside the city. You participated into the height of
Speaker 2: that war in a similar like modern combat environment. And
Speaker 2: so given the similarity to where we are right now,
Speaker 2: how would you say the best what were the most
Speaker 2: strategic what were the most strategically important tactics and decisions
Speaker 2: that were made to actually achieve that victory In the
Speaker 2: interim period, well, we had some sort of security control
Speaker 2: over that city in Ramadi.
Speaker 1: Yes, the most important thing essentially was building relationships with
Speaker 1: the local populace. And when you build relationships with the
Speaker 1: local populace, the local populace starts to give you information
Speaker 1: that you need and then you build relationships with the
Speaker 1: power brokers inside the city. So there was shakes, the
Speaker 1: shakes that had stayed or the shakes that had come back.
Speaker 1: Once they what we did was we helped them because
Speaker 1: once we helped them, and by helping them. It meant
Speaker 1: hiring the shake to help us rebuild this section of
Speaker 1: the bridge. So then what does he do. He gets
Speaker 1: with his tribesmen. They were construction. He got three guys
Speaker 1: that were construction. They run this project, they rebuild this bridge.
Speaker 1: We pay them money. He has money. Now what does
Speaker 1: he do with that money? He reinvested in the local populace.
Speaker 1: He hired someone to start taking care of his yard
Speaker 1: and all the sud and you start rebuilding the economy
Speaker 1: and you're moving in the right direction. So that's I
Speaker 1: hate the expression hearts and minds, but hearts, minds and
Speaker 1: wallets very important, and that's where you make true progress
Speaker 1: in these situations.
Speaker 2: That's why it's interesting because, as I understand it, the
Speaker 2: most important thing that happened during the campaign against al
Speaker 2: Qaeda in Iraq was separating the Jihatas from the local population.
Speaker 2: The worst critics of Israeli military strategy would say that
Speaker 2: hasn't happened at all. If anything, you've seen collective punishment,
Speaker 2: the denial of water, some of the general treatment, even
Speaker 2: some of the calls you know, just generally for making
Speaker 2: the Palestinians and all of them pay a price. From
Speaker 2: a military perspective, Why is that the wrong thing to do?
Speaker 2: Just from a conceptual level as opposed to tactics, Why
Speaker 2: is it the wrong thing to do to not try
Speaker 2: to separate the Gjihatas from the civilian population.
Speaker 1: Well, it's for what you just said. Yeah, it's for
Speaker 1: what you just said. If you treat everyone in Gaza
Speaker 1: as if they're then you're gonna end up inflicting harm
Speaker 1: on people that, as I said earlier, may on the
Speaker 1: surface support Hamas, but they live with Hamas, right, That's
Speaker 1: who they live with. That's who their government is. That's
Speaker 1: who is going to give them or not give them food,
Speaker 1: give them or not give them water, give them or
Speaker 1: not give them medical treatment. That's who's doing it. So
Speaker 1: if they don't build, if you're a local Palestinian and
Speaker 1: you live in Gaza and the government is Hamas, what
Speaker 1: are you gonna do? Are you gonna Are you gonna
Speaker 1: be the one that stands up and stages a rebellion?
Speaker 1: You can, but what's gonna happen to you? You're gonna
Speaker 1: get killed. So what do you do? You try and
Speaker 1: keep your family safe. You try and do what you
Speaker 1: can to get by and part of getting by is
Speaker 1: showing support to the government, so that's what they're doing.
Speaker 1: So now if we start treating or if the Israelis
Speaker 1: treat everyone there as if they're Hamas, they're gonna inflict
Speaker 1: harm on people that are not Hamas, and that is
Speaker 1: going to end up being problematic. Now, there are some
Speaker 1: people that make this reference to you know, if you
Speaker 1: kill one innocent person, you've just created five more terrorists.
Speaker 1: I have not found that to be true. Interesting, I've
Speaker 1: not found it to be untrue, but is not completely true.
Speaker 1: There are times that most of the time the local populace,
Speaker 1: they recognized the difficulty of the job that was happening,
Speaker 1: and so when an innocent civilian would be killed, of
Speaker 1: course they'd be heartbroken, But there was also the recognition that, oh,
Speaker 1: we know what you guys were trying to do. We
Speaker 1: know that my son was in the wrong place at
Speaker 1: the wrong time, and that's what happened. And of course,
Speaker 1: you know, we would pay them money to, you know,
Speaker 1: apologize for what had happened when civilians got killed. So
Speaker 1: and it would rarely would you see that kind of animosity.
Speaker 1: In fact, most of the time the was directed towards
Speaker 1: the insurgents and not towards the coalition forces, So I
Speaker 1: would my guess is that in Gaza you would find
Speaker 1: some of that as well. Again, I haven't been to Gaza,
Speaker 1: but my guess is, if you're a normal Palestinian and
Speaker 1: you're not a Hamas supporter and one of your family
Speaker 1: members gets wounded or gets killed, sure you might be
Speaker 1: mad at Israel, but I bet you're a lot more
Speaker 1: angry with Hamas for putting you in this situation in
Speaker 1: the first place. So I think that Israel's probably aware
Speaker 1: of that as well, and I think that Israel's weighing
Speaker 1: that to the best of their ability to try and
Speaker 1: keep the local populace safe. I mean, they're setting up
Speaker 1: these corridors. You can see people leaving through these corridors.
Speaker 1: They're doing the best they can. This is a terrible situation.
Speaker 1: This is a nightmare. This is a nightmare to try
Speaker 1: and solve. This is what's a problem that no one
Speaker 1: is going to come out of unscathed. It's not gonna happen.
Speaker 1: It's getting into a knife fight. When you get into
Speaker 1: a knife fight, you're gonna get stabbed and you're gonna bleed,
Speaker 1: and the other person's gonna bleed and die, and that's
Speaker 1: what's gonna happen. So thinking that we're gonna go into
Speaker 1: a knife fight and you're somehow gonna miraculously not get cut,
Speaker 1: not get wounded, it's not gonna happen. Yeah, So that's
Speaker 1: that's the situation that Israell's in right now.
Speaker 2: It's true I've described as a Gordian knot. I think
Speaker 2: that's really the best way I think, just to maybe
Speaker 2: parse a little bit what you're talking about here. It
Speaker 2: seems to me that there needs to be a baseline
Speaker 2: level of trust and so a lot of the early criticism,
Speaker 2: actually the early podcast you guys did, was really in
Speaker 2: the bombing phase of the campaign, and I was curious,
Speaker 2: you know, as somebody who operated in a similar type environment,
Speaker 2: what were the considerations that went in, Like, let's say,
Speaker 2: if you were calling in an air strike, what level
Speaker 2: of thought and consideration would you have to make when
Speaker 2: you're employing airpower? Because I think the critics that I've
Speaker 2: seen of the Israeli strategy would say, you know, the US,
Speaker 2: we went to pretty extraordinary links. I think we can
Speaker 2: get to this in a little bit to protect the
Speaker 2: civilian population then a civilian casualty number in Moseil, I
Speaker 2: think bears that out for the battle against Isis. So
Speaker 2: what were the thoughts and the decisions in your mind
Speaker 2: when you were trying to think about inflicting damage on
Speaker 2: an enemy target, weighing the possibilities of civilian casualties, and
Speaker 2: then also when not to call on an air striking
Speaker 2: instead put your troops in harms way, because you're a
Speaker 2: commander's actually had to make all these real time decisions.
Speaker 1: The effort that was made to not have civilian casualties
Speaker 1: in Ramadi was extraordinary. It was absolutely extraordinary. The amount
Speaker 1: of air support that was used was minimal. I'm talking
Speaker 1: a handful of times when I was there that buildings
Speaker 1: were hit with air support, were hit with bombs. In
Speaker 1: those situations, it would be because there was no other
Speaker 1: way to resolve a scenario that was happening and you
Speaker 1: had confirmed let's say a multiple sniper, multiple GI hottess
Speaker 1: sniper element in a building and they have now killed
Speaker 1: two three four coalition that's Americans and Iraqis. People have
Speaker 1: tried to maneuver on and can't get it done. In
Speaker 1: those few situations, you would get okay, they're gonna drop this,
Speaker 1: but we're gonna drop this building. We're gonna hit this
Speaker 1: building with some kind of air assets. We used occasionally
Speaker 1: a C one thirty, and do you know a AC
Speaker 1: one thirty is so AC one thirty is very precision
Speaker 1: and they also have very good target identification. So there
Speaker 1: was a couple times where AC one thirty was used
Speaker 1: to engage. But that's like I said, it's it's about
Speaker 1: as precise as you're gonna get from the air. But
Speaker 1: the vast majority of the time we didn't use any
Speaker 1: air support at all. Why because the chances of collateral
Speaker 1: damage in civilian civilian deaths was too high and so
Speaker 1: we probably used closer or support five times wow, in
Speaker 1: you know, a seven month deployment where we were troops
Speaker 1: in contact hundreds of times.
Speaker 2: So was there ever So obviously you had to justify
Speaker 2: that to your men when you're rolling into this combat environment,
Speaker 2: they're like, Hey, wouldn't it be easier to just drop
Speaker 2: a bomb? You know, we're putting our lives at risk
Speaker 2: every time we go outside the wire we can get
Speaker 2: blown up by an Ied. It seems to me that
Speaker 2: Israel has made a different calculus where they are trying
Speaker 2: to minimize their idea of casualty as much as possible.
Speaker 2: And it sounds like a stupid thing to say, because
Speaker 2: everyone said, well, isn't that obvious. Isn't that what every
Speaker 2: military should do? So how did you work through the calculus?
Speaker 2: I assume that there was also a strategic decision made
Speaker 2: at some point where like, no, we're not going to
Speaker 2: do this explicitly for the civilian mission. Was it because
Speaker 2: this overall strategic goal was we have to separate the
Speaker 2: Gihatis from the population. Was it because that there was
Speaker 2: you felt like you could still militarily accomplish the mission,
Speaker 2: and risk is just inherent whenever you're conducting these type
Speaker 2: of operations. I'm curious he can go into that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, you'd have to really trace it back
Speaker 1: to the fact that Maliki had been elected prime minister,
Speaker 1: right he was a Shia, The Iraqi Army itself was
Speaker 1: vast majority Shia, and they're now rolling into the city
Speaker 1: of Ramadi, which is vast majority Sunni. So you already
Speaker 1: have a very ten tenuous situation here where if the
Speaker 1: Shia army goes into the Sunni city and just starts
Speaker 1: wantonly killing it's going to be a problem. So they
Speaker 1: had done that in Fallujah, and or coalition forces had
Speaker 1: done that in Fallujah and really gone super kinetic and
Speaker 1: cleared the entire city and left no one living that
Speaker 1: were enemy. And they'd also gotten all the vast majority
Speaker 1: of the civilians out of there. When you when you
Speaker 1: stayed in Fallujah after there was you know, the fourteenth
Speaker 1: leaflet put on your doorstep, you knew what was coming.
Speaker 1: And those Gihannas didn't keep the civilian populace there either.
Speaker 1: Where it certainly seems that in Gaza they're being kept
Speaker 1: in areas where they're being told to leave. So because
Speaker 1: Maliki didn't want to start a civil war between the
Speaker 1: Shi and the Sunni, he knew that it had to
Speaker 1: be a more surgical operation, a slower, more methodical operation
Speaker 1: than it was in Fallujah. And therefore you can't go
Speaker 1: in and just start dropping buildings. And furthermore, for my guys,
Speaker 1: they're going out in operations and seeing a bunch of
Speaker 1: civilians and seeing a bunch of civilians with wives and
Speaker 1: kids and these normal people, and my guys are seeing
Speaker 1: them there. That's the best. There's four hundred thousand people
Speaker 1: in the city of Vermandi, there's estimated between somewhere around
Speaker 1: five thousand insurgents. Is what these kind of like what
Speaker 1: the average report? Sometimes they say three, sometimes they say seven.
Speaker 1: But you're talking about five thousand enemy combatants in a
Speaker 1: city of four hundred thousand. So it's not like it's
Speaker 1: hard to look in there and go, oh, yeah, these
Speaker 1: five houses that we just entered that had a bunch
Speaker 1: of normal Iraqis in them, we don't want to hurt
Speaker 1: these people. So it wasn't a hard conversation or it
Speaker 1: wasn't even that big of a deal. No one thought,
Speaker 1: no one, there was no there was no no one
Speaker 1: coming back to me saying, damn it, Jocko, we should
Speaker 1: be able to drop these buildings. Never had that conversation
Speaker 1: with any of my guys when a building like I said,
Speaker 1: if there was a building that was housing an active
Speaker 1: insurgent group that was doing actual damage to coalition forces, yep,
Speaker 1: that we'd attack that building or we possibly could drop
Speaker 1: that building. But most of the time it was, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's insurgents in that building right now, and now they're
Speaker 1: moving to another building. And the building that they were in,
Speaker 1: and the building that they're going to all have civilians
Speaker 1: in them, So for us to start dropping buildings is
Speaker 1: not what we're doing, and we didn't do it. Well.
Speaker 2: I'm curious because you know, again, if we think back
Speaker 2: to some of the early phases of the Israeli campaign,
Speaker 2: it was that all the conversation of ald around what
Speaker 2: we're talking about here, which is what are legitimate targets
Speaker 2: and what are not? What was the threshold that you
Speaker 2: in your experience that the US military would go into
Speaker 2: an area where collateral damage was not just was likely,
Speaker 2: and yet the military necessity of going into conducting that
Speaker 2: operation was such that the commanders were willing to send
Speaker 2: somebody out and put American troops in harm's way or
Speaker 2: even drop an air strike. Just in your overall experience, like,
Speaker 2: what was the calculations that were being run? And then
Speaker 2: do you think that Israel is employing the same one
Speaker 2: or is it a different threshold?
Speaker 1: I would say that their threshold right after October seventh
Speaker 1: was was pretty open. Yeah. Right, Hey, look, we've just
Speaker 1: suffered a significant attack, a horrendous attack, and we need
Speaker 1: to put some people in check right now. We don't
Speaker 1: know what they're planning next. There's three hundred miles worth
Speaker 1: of tunnels. We don't know what supplies. They just caught
Speaker 1: us off guard. What else are they going to do
Speaker 1: to us? We need to put them in check right now.
Speaker 1: And I think that's why they were very open to
Speaker 1: that immediately after the October seventh attacks. So I think
Speaker 1: that's the calculus that they ran. I think they wanted
Speaker 1: to I think that they wanted to regain their footing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it took them a couple of weeks to where
Speaker 1: they probably felt like they It probably took them a
Speaker 1: week to regain their footing and then another week of like, hey,
Speaker 1: we still don't know. I still don't feel comfortable. We
Speaker 1: need to get them, we need to put them, put
Speaker 1: the enemy off balance even more. And I think that's
Speaker 1: what they did. That's probably the calculus that they were running.
Speaker 2: It's interesting too, because you know the initial talk and
Speaker 2: you guys touch on this about the three hundred miles
Speaker 2: of tunnels something like that, we don't know the exact number,
Speaker 2: and you were like, man, I'm going to take a
Speaker 2: lot of casualties if we start doing that. I've just
Speaker 2: been I find it odd looking at it because the
Speaker 2: number of IDF casualties as of today that you and
Speaker 2: I are talking, it's somewhere between fifty and sixty, I
Speaker 2: would say, relatively low. What does that indicate to you
Speaker 2: in terms of the way, So now we have actual
Speaker 2: operators on the ground, we have guys clearing the hospital.
Speaker 2: How do you achieve that? Is it through being very
Speaker 2: slow and methodical? Does it mean that they're not necessarily
Speaker 2: has a mosque given up? What do these things tell you?
Speaker 1: Yeah? So I believe. On one of those two podcasts
Speaker 1: that I do with Darryl I talked about siege warfare. Yes, right, Hey,
Speaker 1: if I'm looking at this city that has three hundred
Speaker 1: whatever miles and booby traps and a bunch of enemy fighters,
Speaker 1: I'm not looking forward to going in there. And yet
Speaker 1: I'm in Israel. I have all the time in the world.
Speaker 1: I have unlimited supplies. We can live forever. We have water,
Speaker 1: we have food, we have unlimited ammunition, we have power,
Speaker 1: we have energy. Why am I rushing in here? And
Speaker 1: I was sort of hoping that they would go into
Speaker 1: a siege warfare mentality, because when you go into a
Speaker 1: siege warfare mentality, you let time do the work instead
Speaker 1: of your men and so it appears, certainly appears that
Speaker 1: that's what they've done. They've they took some bold action
Speaker 1: in the beginning, regained their footing. Now they've the premiere.
Speaker 1: It looks like, again I'm not on the ground, and
Speaker 1: you know only I take everything that I read with
Speaker 1: a grain of salt. But when I see battle maps
Speaker 1: in the past few days, they have Northern Gaza enveloped,
Speaker 1: and you're gonna take casualties as you push in there,
Speaker 1: as you set up sort of containment around this area,
Speaker 1: which they took casualties. And now I think you go
Speaker 1: into siege warfare and listen, I look at a tunnel.
Speaker 1: I'll drop a microphone in that tunnel. Listen, listen to
Speaker 1: that tunnel for three days. Why am I going in there?
Speaker 1: I'll listen. Oh, put a camera down there, put dogs
Speaker 1: down there, put cut off the cut off the power.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do all kinds of things before I send
Speaker 1: my guys down there. So I think that's where And
Speaker 1: what's nice about that is that also provides us more
Speaker 1: opportunities to help the civilian populace. It gives us more
Speaker 1: opportunity for discretion between civilian populace and Hummas fighters. So
Speaker 1: I think Israel certainly appears that Israel has taken a
Speaker 1: has shifted their mentality, and they're now into a slower,
Speaker 1: more methodical phase of the war looks more like siege warfare.
Speaker 1: I think that's good, and I think they're moving in
Speaker 1: the right direction. And I also think they recognize that
Speaker 1: Hamas might have the will, but they don't have the means.
Speaker 1: And I also think they're probably they're on the ground
Speaker 1: talking to the locals, and as they talk to the Palestinians,
Speaker 1: what do you think those Palestinians are telling them? You
Speaker 1: think the Palestinians are saying, oh, we all support Hamas
Speaker 1: and we hate you. That you would probably see a
Speaker 1: different mentality from Israel if that's what they were hearing
Speaker 1: from the local populace. The local populace is probably saying, yeah,
Speaker 1: thank you for coming in. We hate these people. And
Speaker 1: look are like I said, are there some Hama supporters?
Speaker 1: I'm sure there are, of course there are. But once
Speaker 1: you're sitting there in a refugee camp and you've got
Speaker 1: some medical care for your kid, and the Israeli soldiers
Speaker 1: talking to you, and the Israeli intelligence officer is sitting
Speaker 1: down and wanting to know about what you've been going through,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden you're saying, these aren't the
Speaker 1: monsters that we were told they were. So that's that's
Speaker 1: my assessment. I think that Israel is probably making adjustments,
Speaker 1: and I bet and it certainly seems as their adjustments are, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: we can do this in a more methodical way. You know.
Speaker 1: I got asked I was on a panel recently and
Speaker 1: people were talking about war with China and what would
Speaker 1: you what would your what would your mindset be going?
Speaker 1: And if we were going to China invaded Taiwan and
Speaker 1: you were Jako, you were going to be leading troops
Speaker 1: into the battle, what would you be doing? What would
Speaker 1: you what would your strategy be? And you know, there
Speaker 1: was a couple other people on the panel and they
Speaker 1: all gave their kind of assessment of the technology and
Speaker 1: the peer to peer or near peer adversary and how
Speaker 1: this is different in these kind of things, And I said,
Speaker 1: my major mindset would be the mindset that I always have,
Speaker 1: especially when going into combat. And then is keeping an
Speaker 1: open mind because we don't know, and anybody that says
Speaker 1: they know is arrogant. Yes, you don't know. What's going
Speaker 1: to happen When you engage in combat. You don't know
Speaker 1: what's going to happen when you start it. You don't
Speaker 1: know what's going to happen twenty minutes into it. You
Speaker 1: don't know what the enemy. You don't how the enemy's
Speaker 1: going to react. You don't know how your troops are
Speaker 1: going to react. You don't know how the civilian populies
Speaker 1: are going to react. You don't know these things. Ensure
Speaker 1: you can have suspicions, but if you are too married
Speaker 1: to your suspicions, you're going to get caught in a
Speaker 1: situation where you're doing the wrong thing for the wrong reasons.
Speaker 1: So it certainly appears that Israel. Their initial assessment was
Speaker 1: probably like, oh my gosh, we just got caught off guard.
Speaker 1: God knows what they have in store for us next
Speaker 1: next three days. We need to get we need to
Speaker 1: establish our we need to re establish our footing. That's
Speaker 1: what they did. Then they said, well, it looks like
Speaker 1: we kind of got this under control, but I'm not
Speaker 1: sure yet. We need to put more control. Okay, they
Speaker 1: got that done. Now they're looking around going okay, we
Speaker 1: need to isolate, we need to isolate slow this thing down,
Speaker 1: and it certainly seems that that's what they've been doing.
Speaker 1: So I think we're going to see continued modification from Israel.
Speaker 1: I think they're going to continue to adjust. I think
Speaker 1: that we are all going to learn, and I think
Speaker 1: the world will learn about what Hamas is like as
Speaker 1: a government and what it's like to live under Hamas.
Speaker 1: It certainly appears from the outside that that is not
Speaker 1: a great place to live. And the chances that people
Speaker 1: Palestinians that lived in Gaza, who had lived in Israel,
Speaker 1: who had lived in other parts of the world, who
Speaker 1: had lived in in Gaza during different times that remember
Speaker 1: that are looking around saying, wait a second, this doesn't
Speaker 1: make sense. This doesn't have to be this bad. So
Speaker 1: I think that will come to light, and I think
Speaker 1: Hamas will come out over time as looking like a
Speaker 1: really bad group of people.
Speaker 2: It seems like everything you're saying is that there has
Speaker 2: to be a real baseline of trust for the people
Speaker 2: who have been now been hopefully liberated by Hamas will
Speaker 2: see that something better will come. And last time, when
Speaker 2: you had talked about with the podcast on Jocko Unraveling,
Speaker 2: was the necessity of immediately showing Palestinians that a better
Speaker 2: way as possible. So you were like, well, we should
Speaker 2: give work visas. We've got to get these people in Israel, like,
Speaker 2: we got to make sure that there is not only
Speaker 2: a commingling, but a light at the end of the tunnel.
Speaker 2: It's something that the US obviously did quite well, I think,
Speaker 2: at least during the surge years in Iraq and during
Speaker 2: that period while you were operating there as well. It
Speaker 2: seems though that you have to do that simultaneously, and
Speaker 2: I'm curious. You know, you talked about the work visa
Speaker 2: and all of that at the same time. These really
Speaker 2: have got to manage their own domestic politics, which is
Speaker 2: they don't want any of those people coming in there.
Speaker 2: If anything, they want to build a wall ten feet higher,
Speaker 2: they want to include a security zone and all that.
Speaker 2: It seems to me that's probably the more likely scenario.
Speaker 2: So if we do end up with that, which is,
Speaker 2: you know, you come in, you blow everything up, you
Speaker 2: or you know, you envelop Gaza City, you clear out
Speaker 2: the Al Shifa Hospital, and then you include some let's
Speaker 2: say fifty kilometer zone or something that's been floated by
Speaker 2: the population. You have no commingling. Is that is that
Speaker 2: just setting up the fight for another day or is
Speaker 2: it an acceptable thing from a military perspective.
Speaker 1: The first, some kind of peace has to be established, right,
Speaker 1: So you talked about there has to be some kind
Speaker 1: of trust. Well, in order to get some kind of trust,
Speaker 1: there has to be some kind of piece. You know
Speaker 1: what I used to say in Iraq, one of the
Speaker 1: best things we could do is like, oh, let's bring
Speaker 1: in Walmarts Starbucks and because when people see, like, oh wait,
Speaker 1: I'll go work for that place. They pay me seven
Speaker 1: dollars an hour and I'm going to get you know,
Speaker 1: a ten percent discount, and it's this huge place and
Speaker 1: we can get food and we can get water, and
Speaker 1: we can get clothing and all these things are there.
Speaker 1: So when people start to see, oh, this way of
Speaker 1: life is possible for me and for my family, there's
Speaker 1: that's that's what people want essentially, a hey, look are
Speaker 1: there extremists that don't want that and they see that
Speaker 1: as Western and evil and satan? Yep, absolutely there are.
Speaker 1: But that's not normal. That's not the normal person. The
Speaker 1: normal person wants to take care of their family, they
Speaker 1: want to have a good job, they want have an income.
Speaker 1: They want their kids to have more opportunity than they did.
Speaker 1: They want to own a house. This is I'm talking
Speaker 1: when when you would talk to an Iraqi family, that's
Speaker 1: what they would talk about. Oh you know, I used
Speaker 1: to have this. I used to I used to sell tires,
Speaker 1: and right now there's no cars driving through here, so
Speaker 1: I can't sell any tires. And you know, I'm just
Speaker 1: waiting for I've got look come back and they can
Speaker 1: go back in their garage and they've got some big
Speaker 1: stacks of tires, some tires for our little tractors and
Speaker 1: some tires for cars, and they just want to get
Speaker 1: back to that life. That's what they're concerned about. They
Speaker 1: don't care about al Qaeda, they don't want them there,
Speaker 1: And so giving people some kind of stability seems like
Speaker 1: a that's sort of a precursor to any kind of
Speaker 1: co mingling. And then I think you just have to
Speaker 1: be really really strict about the co mingling, Like here's
Speaker 1: the protocol that you've got if you want to work
Speaker 1: in Israel. Here's the protocol that you've got to go
Speaker 1: through on a daily basis until you get to your
Speaker 1: What we have down here in California for Mexico is
Speaker 1: like a century pass. Like, Okay, if you're this person,
Speaker 1: if you've been cleared and you've had this, and you
Speaker 1: have had that, then then you're gonna get some kind
Speaker 1: of a expedited protocol. But again, when you talk about
Speaker 1: Israel separating Hamas from the populace, I would hope that
Speaker 1: the world can do that as well, because I think
Speaker 1: that the world, much of the world is looking at
Speaker 1: Gaza as if everyone is hardcore anti Israel and borderline
Speaker 1: if not full support of Hamas. And I don't believe
Speaker 1: that to be the case, and I think it'll I
Speaker 1: think it'll play out that way in the long run.
Speaker 1: But you do have to give the opportunity for prosperity
Speaker 1: and growth and peace before people, before people accept that.
Speaker 1: And if you're a Hamas and you want a population
Speaker 1: that hates Israel, what do you do. You keep them poor,
Speaker 1: you keep them uneducated, you keep them suffering. And the
Speaker 1: more that they're uneducated, poor, suffering, the more they're gonna
Speaker 1: hate Israel.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the satsquo is good for them. That's why I
Speaker 2: think a lot of people also didn't understand is that no,
Speaker 2: they liked it they actually really enjoyed the way everything
Speaker 2: is going. And you know you said previously Hamas doesn't
Speaker 2: have the means, Well they don't really. I mean the
Speaker 2: Jihatas never had the means to destroy or defeat the
Speaker 2: US military. They did have a capacity to just outlast them,
Speaker 2: which in the end they work on it, right at
Speaker 2: least whenever it came to Isis and all that I
Speaker 2: came to a whole in their military pop operation that
Speaker 2: was required. Is this then a battle of wills or
Speaker 2: is it a battle of means?
Speaker 1: If that makes sense? All wars are a battle of wills,
Speaker 1: for sure. But here here's the one big difference between
Speaker 1: Iraq and Gaza. Israel is in like America, Well, you
Speaker 1: can out you can outweigh us, you can outweigh us.
Speaker 1: In Afghanistan, you can outwait us. In Vietnam you can outwaite,
Speaker 1: you can kill us with a death of a thousand cuts.
Speaker 1: In Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam, yep are populous will eventually say
Speaker 1: what are we doing? We don't care about this anymore,
Speaker 1: and we'll go home. But Israel's got no place else
Speaker 1: to go, and so they're they're not going anywhere, and
Speaker 1: that's why it'll be it'll be a test of wills,
Speaker 1: but there's also the test of means, and I think
Speaker 1: that's what I think, that's what Israel's focus is. I
Speaker 1: think they see Hamas as a finite group of people.
Speaker 1: And what's the number being flowed around thirty thousand.
Speaker 2: Thirty it's thirty to fifty is PIJ plus Hamaska PIJ
Speaker 2: is like probably ten k of that if we're thinking
Speaker 2: on the high end. Yeah, when we think about those numbers.
Speaker 2: Last I checked, I went back the Battle of Mosl
Speaker 2: was I think eight thousand is As fighters. It took
Speaker 2: about one to one civilian casualties, and it also took
Speaker 2: a ton of Iraqi casualties. That's something that a lot
Speaker 2: of people have forgotten, how literal heroes fought in that war.
Speaker 2: It doesn't seem to be tracking at all like that though.
Speaker 2: Right now the civilian casualty number, we don't know what
Speaker 2: it is, somewhere between twenty ten to twenty thousand. It'll
Speaker 2: probably drop as they move away from bombing towards the
Speaker 2: more ground operations they're pursuing. But as they go south
Speaker 2: into communists, are they going to go back to air
Speaker 2: power like we'll see. But with the thirty to fifty thousand,
Speaker 2: do you think it's militarily feasible that they could accomplish
Speaker 2: that within the embedded population of two million because you
Speaker 2: had what five thousand? I think And yeah, as I
Speaker 2: said too, with this, it's a bit different.
Speaker 1: It depends on the strategy that Hamas takes. It depends
Speaker 1: on the strategy that Hamas takes. If Hamas, if Amas
Speaker 1: stands up in fights, it's feasible. Yeah, if a mosque
Speaker 1: goes to ground, it's going to be long gorilla insurgency
Speaker 1: and a terrible nightmare. So that's what that's that's the
Speaker 1: way it'll go down. That makes sense. And what is
Speaker 1: Hamas going to do? They're going to do what Hamas does.
Speaker 1: They're gonna They're gonna go and go to ground and
Speaker 1: go into a long insurgency of terrorism and then it'll
Speaker 1: go back to sustained kind of intel operation. But I
Speaker 1: think one of the best things that Israel could do
Speaker 1: is the more they can prop up the economy and
Speaker 1: the the general life way of life in Palestine, the
Speaker 1: more local Palestinians will be like, Hey, we don't want
Speaker 1: this anymore. We want we want to we want normalcy,
Speaker 1: we want prosperity. That's what we want, and they'll root
Speaker 1: their own problems out.
Speaker 2: There was something I want to come back to about.
Speaker 2: There's a pretty decent chunk of Israeli society, and to
Speaker 2: a lesser extent, some Americans who are like, look, these
Speaker 2: people voted them in, they're all the same, We shouldn't
Speaker 2: care about them. You're right in that. You know, many
Speaker 2: Iraqis didn't nest, they don't like al Qaida, but they
Speaker 2: many of them were probably observant Sunni Muslims who believed
Speaker 2: in very similar values. That are a couple of different,
Speaker 2: you know, places away from and ISIS is extremist interpretation.
Speaker 2: I'm please disagree with you feel free?
Speaker 1: Yeah, not so m much, Okay, I mean really not
Speaker 1: so much.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: There's a there's some very small number of like hardcore
Speaker 1: gy hottists that were Iraqi, but the normal hierarchies, the
Speaker 1: normal Iraqi populous, they were not supportive of al Qaeda.
Speaker 1: And you know, there was a great piece that WEIS
Speaker 1: did and it was as it was, I forget what
Speaker 1: year it was, but basically ISIS was starting to surround
Speaker 1: Ramadi and the governor of Ramadi or the mayor of
Speaker 1: Ramadi was he's talking. He's like, please get me on
Speaker 1: the call. We need American we want the Americans back.
Speaker 1: Like that's what you was saying, and that's how that's
Speaker 1: how they felt.
Speaker 2: I think I meanted more. The reason I was framing
Speaker 2: that way is more so like they're not the same
Speaker 2: as us, and I think that that's an easy way
Speaker 2: to other them and then to put them together. And
Speaker 2: so there's a desire for collective punishment, and I think
Speaker 2: I just want to return, not even just from a
Speaker 2: military perspective, but as somebody who actually had to see
Speaker 2: some of this and kind of parse it together. You
Speaker 2: probably heard similar things, at least from people around especially
Speaker 2: after nine eleven.
Speaker 1: I remember this.
Speaker 2: The only thing I ever needed about Islam was, you know,
Speaker 2: I found on nine to eleven, just bomb the crap
Speaker 2: out of Afghanistan and that that'll solve the problem. And
Speaker 2: obviously you know it's I guess, but it's not necessarily feasible.
Speaker 2: How did you work through that? Then, whenever you're talking
Speaker 2: and having a conversation with somebody who would have that
Speaker 2: type of mindset and wanted to employ it in a
Speaker 2: military in a military setting as somebod who actually would
Speaker 2: have had to carry out such things.
Speaker 1: No one said that, Yeah, but there is there's no
Speaker 1: one that was saying, oh, well, we should just kill
Speaker 1: everyone and you know, destroy all the buildings and bomb everything.
Speaker 1: No one said that. No one said that, Wow.
Speaker 2: Well yeah, I mean it's interesting because I'm watching. I'm
Speaker 2: I guess I don't know the mind of the individual
Speaker 2: israelly soldier, but we've seen some cabinet officials and other
Speaker 2: people with security governments similar ish type thing. Is part
Speaker 2: of why I'm asking is just to say, I guess
Speaker 2: what I'm really learning is that there was profound lessons
Speaker 2: that were learned from the US military inside of Iraq
Speaker 2: to eventually get to the high level of capabilities that
Speaker 2: we reached, you know, at the peak of like the
Speaker 2: operational tempo against against al Qaeda, against ISIS and with
Speaker 2: all that, what what were the what was the learning
Speaker 2: curve like as somebody who had to go through and.
Speaker 1: Experience that, Yeah, well the learning curve was definitely steep.
Speaker 1: And you know, luckily for me, I deployed in two
Speaker 1: thousand three, two thousand and four, two thousand and six,
Speaker 1: and you know, this was this was us failing to
Speaker 1: recognize what was happening. And there's a whole series, you know,
Speaker 1: Darryl and I did a whole series of podcasts about
Speaker 1: the Iraq War and about how that thing kicked off
Speaker 1: and what we did with the Bathist and how we
Speaker 1: we fired all the people from the from the military,
Speaker 1: and we made all kinds of mistakes there, and we
Speaker 1: took us a while to recognize that we were fighting
Speaker 1: an insurgency and that we needed to employ people and
Speaker 1: take care of them. So we made all kinds of mistakes.
Speaker 1: And once we figured that out, we did a pretty
Speaker 1: good job. It just took us too long to figure
Speaker 1: it out, so the learning curve was very steep. And
Speaker 1: then unfortunately, once once we figured it out, we left.
Speaker 1: And you know, I've seen Darryl defend the sort of
Speaker 1: counterinsurgency that took place in Ramadi a couple times online
Speaker 1: because people say, well, look, it didn't work because you
Speaker 1: had ISIS and all this other stuff. But we had
Speaker 1: ISIS because we left, and if if we stayed, there
Speaker 1: would have been embers of extremists that would have pomped
Speaker 1: up and US forces in direct conjunction led or actually
Speaker 1: we would support. We would have supported Iraqi forces as
Speaker 1: they went in and as they took out these last
Speaker 1: remnants of extremist whether it was ISIS or al Qaeda,
Speaker 1: they would have taken them out, and it would have
Speaker 1: been we would have moved in a really good direction. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: we left, and that's that's where you got the You know,
Speaker 1: I always describe it as if you had a fire
Speaker 1: in your kitchen and you kind of put out the
Speaker 1: fire real quick, and then you said, all right, well
Speaker 1: I'm going to the movies and you left. Well, you're
Speaker 1: gonna come back in your house is gonna be burned down,
Speaker 1: cause there's still little embers that you didn't take care of.
Speaker 1: So that's what we did in Iraq. We left and
Speaker 1: we let that let those embers start to burn again.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, yea, it was mismanaging all kinds of ways.
Speaker 2: Even if you defend the withdrawal, there are certain things
Speaker 2: that we could look back.
Speaker 1: But I'm not sure I answered your your original questions.
Speaker 1: Sure of you know what's going to happen here, I'm
Speaker 1: not sure yet. Yeah, Yeah, I know we'd be a
Speaker 1: lot better off.
Speaker 2: We would be very lucky if we were able to
Speaker 2: be clairvoyant, and to kind of look at it, I
Speaker 2: guess from a counter insurgercy perspective, Israel is almost in
Speaker 2: the in a situation where as you said, they have
Speaker 2: a border with these people, they don't have a choice,
Speaker 2: I think, at least to eventually learn these lessons and
Speaker 2: get to the point where this is going to happen.
Speaker 2: That's the only type of sustainable solution. Whereas as you said,
Speaker 2: you know with the US, you can outweight at the
Speaker 2: US in Afghanistan, you can outwait, and they did successfully
Speaker 2: in Afghanistan, they did successfully in Vietnam, they did successfully
Speaker 2: to a certain extent in Iraq, requiring the US to
Speaker 2: go back in. They're almost in an ideal scenario for
Speaker 2: having to eventually arrive at this to get to a
Speaker 2: peaceful resolution, simply because they really don't have another choice
Speaker 2: in the long run. At least that's how I see it.
Speaker 2: There are a lot of people wh would disagree with me.
Speaker 1: Though, Yeah, and so that's what when I think about
Speaker 1: Israel's situation, israel situation. If I was Israel, I wouldn't
Speaker 1: want to be on defense for the next thousand years.
Speaker 1: And the only way you're not on defense is if
Speaker 1: you start making friends with your neighbors. Otherwise you got
Speaker 1: to protect your borders to an extreme level. Look, are
Speaker 1: they always going to have to be wary, Yes, they're
Speaker 1: always gonna have to be wary. But I would want
Speaker 1: to have to be less wary. And how are you
Speaker 1: going to have to be less wary? It's by having
Speaker 1: better relationships with the people that are around you. And look,
Speaker 1: Israel's tried that. They've also done things that have cost them,
Speaker 1: you know, many many more years of attacks. So but essentially,
Speaker 1: what I'm saying is the best solution for Israel is
Speaker 1: some kind of normalized relations with the people that are
Speaker 1: their neighbors, right, And I think that they understand that.
Speaker 1: Are there extremists that think, well, nope, we would rather
Speaker 1: just build a like you said, build a fifty foot
Speaker 1: wall and put a no man's land for twenty kilometers
Speaker 1: around that, and we'll just be Israel here. That's tough.
Speaker 1: Whether it's even feasible, I'm not sure, but I think
Speaker 1: most people would rather have some sort of normalized relationship
Speaker 1: with our neighbors and have a lower level of security
Speaker 1: and live a more normalized existence.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I totally agree. I want to zoom out even
Speaker 2: from just Israel Gaza, which I know it's tedious to
Speaker 2: talk about, I totally understand, is to just think about
Speaker 2: employing use of force and negotiation. So you guys have
Speaker 2: talked previously about Ukraine, and this is something we focused
Speaker 2: on quite a bit where I live in Washington. It's
Speaker 2: basically anathema. To float the idea of negotiation. You get
Speaker 2: immediately tarred as like either pro Russian activist or oh
Speaker 2: or are you saying that that's Russian propaganda? Are you
Speaker 2: saying that Ukraine doesn't have an absolute right to defend
Speaker 2: all of its territory. It's like, well, no one is
Speaker 2: saying that. What we're saying is that it's simply not feasible.
Speaker 2: I've heard you talk a little bit about this in
Speaker 2: the past, but I've often heard it as an idea
Speaker 2: of caving, whereas to me it just seems like a
Speaker 2: level of feasibility about a test of arms means. As
Speaker 2: you said, so, as somebody who was in the fight,
Speaker 2: how do you think about negotiation and diplomacy and peaceful resolution?
Speaker 2: How do we separate those two even when we're thinking
Speaker 2: of both the Ukrainian fighting man on the ground and
Speaker 2: then also the big strategic perspective.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the people that are always anti compromise, and there's
Speaker 1: usually a lot of them, they're not the ones that
Speaker 1: are on the front line getting killed, and of course
Speaker 1: they don't want to compromise, right, So that's what happens.
Speaker 1: They don't want to compromise because they're not out there
Speaker 1: having drones drop grenades on them. That's what's going on.
Speaker 1: And if the leadership better understood what the people on
Speaker 1: the front lines were going through, they'd be a hell
Speaker 1: of a lot more open to compromise than they are.
Speaker 1: So it kind of discussed me when the people that are,
Speaker 1: you know, shaking the sword, are shaking the sword from
Speaker 1: one thousand miles away, and they're shaking the sword and
Speaker 1: it's the young guys on the front line that are
Speaker 1: suffering and dying. Yeah, it's horrifying.
Speaker 2: I mean, the level of prosthetics has now reached like
Speaker 2: World War One levels inside of Ukraine, which I didn't
Speaker 2: even think you would ever see again. In twenty twenty three.
Speaker 2: We're talking about the average age I believe of the
Speaker 2: Ukrainian fighting soldier right now is like forty three. I mean,
Speaker 2: even an entire generation of young men, which is valiantly
Speaker 2: you know, wants to defend their territory and God bless me,
Speaker 2: you can't think anything otherwise. But then when you look
Speaker 2: at the long term strategic picture and you realize where
Speaker 2: it's heading and can continue to put arms into the country,
Speaker 2: and then you know, dispel any idea of negotiation. It
Speaker 2: just feels, as you said, as if it's like saber
Speaker 2: rattling from thousands of miles away looking at these guys
Speaker 2: as pawns, and that is just dehumanizing to them at
Speaker 2: a very real level.
Speaker 1: One percent. Yeah, that's what it is.
Speaker 2: It's watching I often find and this was actually I
Speaker 2: was curious too, is because I'm you know, around Washington politics,
Speaker 2: and you know everything everything is talked about at a fifty.
Speaker 1: Thousand foot level.
Speaker 2: I think got a necessity actually, because they have so
Speaker 2: many different decisions and things that they had to deal
Speaker 2: with when you were actually fighting on the ground, to
Speaker 2: what extent was it even important or are you paying
Speaker 2: attention to big level discussions about should we go petray
Speaker 2: Us his way, should we go Joe Biden's way, like
Speaker 2: the bigger strategic conversation? How much did that even factor whenever.
Speaker 1: You were operating, you're definitely paying attention to it. Are
Speaker 1: you paying attention to it while you're receiving machine gun fire? No, nope,
Speaker 1: you're not thinking about it then. But when you're you know,
Speaker 1: you're when you're planning for an operation, when you're in
Speaker 1: between operations, you're definitely paying attention to what's going on
Speaker 1: and how we're conducting this thing, because it's affecting, it's
Speaker 1: impacting how you're conducting your miss I think I told
Speaker 1: a story with Daryl where there was a there was
Speaker 1: a battalion sized operation that was going to take place,
Speaker 1: and my guys we were supporting it. So we were
Speaker 1: going out with the big Army battalion and as we
Speaker 1: pushed this plan up the chain of command, the army
Speaker 1: battalion was told, hey, we're not doing any battalion sized
Speaker 1: operations in Ramadi. And the reason was because a battalion
Speaker 1: sized operation is like a flex of Oh we're doing
Speaker 1: a big battalion sized operation with seven hundred soldiers. We're
Speaker 1: not doing that when you guys are not allowed to
Speaker 1: do that. Okay, well why not? Okay, Well it's because
Speaker 1: we don't want to. We want to show that the
Speaker 1: iraqis are taking the lead. We want to show that
Speaker 1: we don't. We're not engaging in battalion sized missions in
Speaker 1: the war anymore. That's not what we're doing. Okay, Roger
Speaker 1: that And you know the operation got changed to a
Speaker 1: two company plus operation, which is almost a battalion but
Speaker 1: but that's what we were doing. So we're all thinking
Speaker 1: about this and yeah, so those things have an impact
Speaker 1: for sure.
Speaker 2: If you had a message, I think to people who
Speaker 2: are cavalier in there. Just so in Washington is very
Speaker 2: in vogue to call for war with Iran, it's very
Speaker 2: in vogue to call really for war with Russia. With anyone.
Speaker 2: Everything starts to become pieces on a chess board. It's like, oh, well,
Speaker 2: if they do this, and we'll do this. What would
Speaker 2: your message be to people who are very cavalier in
Speaker 2: their discussion of the use of force in the US military.
Speaker 1: From everybody, from the people in Washington, DC that are
Speaker 1: cheering for war to the people in the streets that
Speaker 1: are cheering for war on either side, I would say,
Speaker 1: get your shit on, get your gear on, and go
Speaker 1: lock and load a weapon and go fight, because you
Speaker 1: have no idea what you're doing. You have no idea
Speaker 1: what you're talking about. And you're sending young, brave people
Speaker 1: to fight, and you have no idea what it's like.
Speaker 1: So I'd say, if you want war, go get your
Speaker 1: kid on.
Speaker 2: Well, I think that's a great place to end it.
Speaker 2: But I do have one last question for you. This
Speaker 2: is somebody who works up at four thirty am. This
Speaker 2: may seem random. As a personal pet thing of mine.
Speaker 2: Are you pro standard time or pro daylight savings time?
Speaker 2: Would you rather the sunrise earlier or would you rather
Speaker 2: have more sunlight in the afternoon.
Speaker 1: I would rather have more sunlight, sunlight in the afternoon.
Speaker 1: And because by the like right now in California, it's
Speaker 1: getting dark, like at four thirty eight in the evening,
Speaker 1: so that that's not cool. And in the morning, I
Speaker 1: can do the stuff I do in the morning, I
Speaker 1: don't need light for right I'm in the gym, I
Speaker 1: can go for a run and it can be like
Speaker 1: dark outside is not that big of a deal. But
Speaker 1: you know, you can't surf. You can't surf in the
Speaker 1: afternoon and it's dark outside. So I and California had
Speaker 1: some weird thing happen where we voted to it to
Speaker 1: stay on permanent daylight savings time. But then it somehow
Speaker 1: didn't pass. It needs to get approved through the federal government,
Speaker 1: so it's one more, one more reason for everyone to
Speaker 1: be mad at the federal government.
Speaker 2: Well, you just put you put a knife in my
Speaker 2: heart as someone who's pro standard time. But it's okay, Jocko.
Speaker 2: I really appre huge you doing this and taking the
Speaker 2: time out of your schedule for all. That was a
Speaker 2: great discussion and we thank you very much thanks for
Speaker 2: having me appreciate it.