Speaker 1: Find out what happened when, and you know what orders
Speaker 1: were given. I think all the all the particulars. You
Speaker 1: want to know what the facts are, and then you
Speaker 1: want to compare that with the relevant and figure out,
Speaker 1: you know, procedurally, you know, was the you know, the
Speaker 1: correct lawful way to do things, and determine whether or
Speaker 1: not that everything is followed.
Speaker 2: Of course, we're talking about the second strike on the boat.
Speaker 2: Turns out second, third, and fourth maybe strikes on the
Speaker 2: boat off the coast of Venezuela, and whether or not
Speaker 2: Pete Hegseth ordered it or not, and exactly what was ordered, when,
Speaker 2: by whom, and whether it was legal. It's worth noting
Speaker 2: that the voice you heard was Senator John Thune, the
Speaker 2: Republican leader of the Senate. The very last is from
Speaker 2: the New York Times, citing five US officials today that
Speaker 2: hegzth called for the original strike but did not specify
Speaker 2: what should happen if survivors remained. And then at Frank Bradley,
Speaker 2: who you've now heard his name a lot, ultimately signed
Speaker 2: off on the initial strike and several follow up strikes
Speaker 2: that killed eleven people.
Speaker 3: Okay, interesting to gain a little perspective, we have invited
Speaker 3: on the terrific Mike Lyons, military analyst who is also
Speaker 3: I was happy to see writing for Real Clear Defense,
Speaker 3: including a great piece about the possible Ukraine deal, which
Speaker 3: we'll touch on in a minute. But first, Mike, welcome,
Speaker 3: How are.
Speaker 4: You, hiy goo one of you guys. Thanks for having
Speaker 4: me back.
Speaker 3: Trust you and the family had a great Thanksgiving? Could
Speaker 3: do talk to you?
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was good.
Speaker 5: I didn't have my son home or my daughter home,
Speaker 5: but hopefully well get him a Christmas time at this point,
Speaker 5: so we locome forward to.
Speaker 3: Yeah, onto that part of life. Yeah, so, Mike, let's
Speaker 3: talk a little bit about your impressions of the you know,
Speaker 3: what is known thus far about the alleged targeting of survivors.
Speaker 3: What do you think?
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, so I've ordered this story for a
Speaker 5: while because I just a lot of it as one
Speaker 5: hundred percent politics. That video that was released, I guess
Speaker 5: you know ten days ago, almost two weeks ago by
Speaker 5: the Congressman and Senator is over you know, not fine,
Speaker 5: not not obeying legal audors.
Speaker 4: I thought that pierced this veil.
Speaker 5: Between the military and the civilians like I've never seen
Speaker 5: before and set this path on to where I think
Speaker 5: we are today, and the fact that this mission is
Speaker 5: being so scrutinized because I can give you multiple examples
Speaker 5: of previous missions that and people have testified in front
Speaker 5: of Congress about these kinds of double taps that we've
Speaker 5: done in the past. But for now it's now reached
Speaker 5: this hyperbolic boiling point over what's going on here.
Speaker 2: Well, let's let's make sure we understand what you're saying.
Speaker 4: There.
Speaker 2: Are you saying the sort of thing that is being
Speaker 2: alleged here happens regularly.
Speaker 5: Well, no, first of all, nobody in the military is
Speaker 5: committing war crimes, which is where this has gone to.
Speaker 5: It's gone to, you know, we're murdering people that are
Speaker 5: hanging off of you know, ship parts in the in
Speaker 5: the Caribbean, out of the Pacific, or whatever the mission was.
Speaker 5: I mean, you know, it's not like Robinson Caruso or
Speaker 5: Rose hanging off the side of the Titanic here. I mean,
Speaker 5: it's insane that we're having this conversation. And this is
Speaker 5: a military target that the initial target was approved legally,
Speaker 5: and the target is to be destroyed and destroyed means destroyed,
Speaker 5: and so if the first target hits and there are
Speaker 5: still survivors, and there's still a target in the water.
Speaker 4: Well, those survivors were.
Speaker 5: Still part of the original target to begin with, so
Speaker 5: they are legal targets as well.
Speaker 4: So but this is all about context.
Speaker 5: It's all about what, you know, what what people want
Speaker 5: to view and they want how they want to see this,
Speaker 5: And from from my perspective, it's it's a shame. Now
Speaker 5: we've seen the Secretary of Defense throw this over to
Speaker 5: the SOCOM commander and this addle now will testify in
Speaker 5: front of Congress. But these missions go on all the time.
Speaker 5: They're approved legal, and once they are approved legal and
Speaker 5: they start, it's pretty hard to bring that health fire
Speaker 5: missile back.
Speaker 3: So there's a pretty good history, including the Nuremberg Trials,
Speaker 3: of prosecutions for targeting survivors of an attack on a
Speaker 3: ship who no longer posed any threat. Are you saying
Speaker 3: this doesn't apply here or that's wrong or what?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't know enough about it. I have to
Speaker 4: see a lot more.
Speaker 5: But sure we're not going to target sole survivors waving
Speaker 5: their hands in the water, let's say, right, especially with
Speaker 5: the health fire missile. And again I don't know what
Speaker 5: visual is on them, and we're with seal Teams six
Speaker 5: close to them. I mean, there's just so much information
Speaker 5: that needs to come out that would figure out whether
Speaker 5: or not. I mean, I saw this one report that
Speaker 5: said maybe they thought that there was another boat in
Speaker 5: the area and this boat could have came and picked
Speaker 5: up some of the cargo of this ship.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 5: Again, I haven't seen the battle damage assessment or anything,
Speaker 5: but all I know is that so many different opinions
Speaker 5: are being layered into this contextually that is now clouded
Speaker 5: it to the point of we don't it's going to
Speaker 5: get this mission accomplished, of stopping what they're trying to do.
Speaker 5: I think it's a pure political situation that Democrats don't
Speaker 5: want anything to do with what Trump is doing in
Speaker 5: the Caribbean. I think he needs to say what that
Speaker 5: strategy is. I still don't know what that is as well.
Speaker 5: But this is not the way to do it, to
Speaker 5: use the military, because basically, if he's going to accuse
Speaker 5: hext of a war crime, if you're going to accuse
Speaker 5: him of war crime, you're accusing everybody.
Speaker 4: To pull the trailer all the way down to who
Speaker 4: fired that missile.
Speaker 3: Okay, just for the record, obviously, you know, we're not
Speaker 3: engaging in hyperbole or trying to cloud new waters. In fact,
Speaker 3: we're trying to do just the opposite and help people
Speaker 3: understand what are the actual issues going on here.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so, yeah, no, I don't think you are. This
Speaker 5: is again I avoided this just for this reason. I
Speaker 5: think it's more political. I think it's a shame that
Speaker 5: we're at this place that now the military is going
Speaker 5: to be questioned about this going forward, We're going to
Speaker 5: drag this admiral and into this political hearing and this
Speaker 5: is all about getting Secretary heccess frankly from my perspective
Speaker 5: and interesting. So it just seems too close to the
Speaker 5: video that was released ten days ago to have this
Speaker 5: situation come up right now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we wondered about that yesterday. The timing seems pretty
Speaker 2: sis vicious exactly.
Speaker 5: And then the initial Washington Post article now has proven wrong.
Speaker 5: When the New York Times is throwing the Washington Post
Speaker 5: off under the bus over there, then you know something
Speaker 5: is up.
Speaker 2: So is your take? And I just want to make
Speaker 2: sure I completely understand what you're saying is that we
Speaker 2: are entering into getting way too loyally on this sort
Speaker 2: of thing, or much more lawyerly than we usually are
Speaker 2: in reality, you know, in a war situation.
Speaker 5: Well, my take is that I think they decided that
Speaker 5: these are legal targets, and they are their military targets
Speaker 5: as they've been declared narco terrorists and enemies of the state,
Speaker 5: and each one is evaluated separately with regard to how
Speaker 5: they're going to take it out and what they want
Speaker 5: to do, and what the definition of destroyed means. And
Speaker 5: I think that once the initial shot was fired then
Speaker 5: and if that was determined legal, then any shot fired
Speaker 5: after it is determined legal as well. Again, I got
Speaker 5: to think there's not a video and audio of haig
Speaker 5: Sets standing up saying kill them all and all these
Speaker 5: other things that are coming out of this. I mean,
Speaker 5: it's just not the case the people, you know. I
Speaker 5: had a chance to talk to some of the former
Speaker 5: JASCK commanders the last few days, and they wanted me
Speaker 5: to reiterate to everybody that the people that are on
Speaker 5: these missions are professionals and they're doing things exactly by
Speaker 5: the book. And if they thought for one second so
Speaker 5: that was an illegal target or they were there were survivors,
Speaker 5: and the fact that they thought that the target wasn't destroyed,
Speaker 5: they wouldn't have fired. Again, why did in a couple
Speaker 5: of weeks later we turned two people back over to
Speaker 5: this to the host country.
Speaker 4: Why did that happen?
Speaker 5: Well, they must have thought that situation was different from this.
Speaker 5: I'm sure that would be explained in the Senate Armed
Speaker 5: Services Committee. But the professionals in the military are looking
Speaker 5: at every single aspect and there's just no way they
Speaker 5: were going to fire on a target that wasn't legal.
Speaker 3: All right, well said, we will wait for more facts
Speaker 3: to come out. Now to your piece about the still
Speaker 3: taking shape Ukraine deal, I thought the way you framed
Speaker 3: it was so interesting that it's not exactly a peace treaty.
Speaker 3: It's more a Korean style armistice or freeze. Tell us
Speaker 3: about that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's a freeze, and you know the you know,
Speaker 5: it's a classic trading land for some kind of freedom
Speaker 5: or immediate relief from stopping the war. We all want
Speaker 5: the war to stop, but there's no guarantees of what's
Speaker 5: specifically what that means without NATO being involved, for example,
Speaker 5: I still don't believe Russia will accept anything, any peace
Speaker 5: agreement or any agreement that they come to right now anyway.
Speaker 5: And I'll kind of put this out preemptively because it's
Speaker 5: going to forest United States to try to create more
Speaker 5: leverage at some point. But if they did, if they
Speaker 5: did accept what what's currently on their table right now,
Speaker 5: all it does is going to set up round two
Speaker 5: at some point. I mean, it's it's appeasement to try
Speaker 5: to stop a world we're you know that nineteen thirty eight.
Speaker 5: Let's say that was kind of appeasement to try to
Speaker 5: keep a war from happening. This is the flips it
Speaker 5: on it's head. It's Korea nineteen fifty three in the
Speaker 5: same regard. That will create a DMZ, and we'll create
Speaker 5: this line, but it can always be restarted. And I
Speaker 5: just don't believe this is good for the long term
Speaker 5: of Eastern Europe, and I don't think it's in the
Speaker 5: long term interest in the United States.
Speaker 2: We were wondering yesterday, why would Putin quit If you're Russia,
Speaker 2: with Russia's goals, would you keep prosecuting the war?
Speaker 4: Exactly?
Speaker 5: Not for one second would I quit. So that's the thing.
Speaker 5: And there's the battlefield math has not changed. There's nothing
Speaker 5: differently on the battlefield. In fact, the Russians have caught
Speaker 5: up with the Ukrainians when it comes to their drone technology.
Speaker 5: It's incredible the five or optic drones that are being
Speaker 5: used right now, and they're tethered and there, they're ubicuous
Speaker 5: to the weather and and they're not impervious to electronic warfare.
Speaker 5: You know, we need to be paying close attention. I
Speaker 5: know we are at the military academy this because we've
Speaker 5: got a leaf fraud this technology. We can't be satisfied
Speaker 5: with what's good enough on the battlefield right now. We've
Speaker 5: got to be looking over the horizon and figuring out
Speaker 5: what it's going to take, what the drone technology looks
Speaker 5: like on the next battlefield, because because right now it's
Speaker 5: very very advanced right now, and the Russians have caught
Speaker 5: right up with the Ukrainians it right.
Speaker 3: And final point on the comparison with Korea, the thing
Speaker 3: that bothers me is somebody who's been standing up for
Speaker 3: Ukraine is that unlike the Korean deal where you got
Speaker 3: your demilitarized zone, but then everybody's armed to the teeth
Speaker 3: on both sides of it. Yeah, this is calling for
Speaker 3: Ukraine to more or less disarmed to weaken their own
Speaker 3: military and become a just It wouldn't take ten minutes
Speaker 3: for Putin to violate the agreement and beat the hell
Speaker 3: out of Ukraine, take even more land a year or
Speaker 3: two hence, so exactly.
Speaker 5: They would have interior lines. They would take land that
Speaker 5: they haven't conquered yet. You know, in Korea we poured
Speaker 5: in forty five thousand troops. There's ten thousand artillery rounds,
Speaker 5: you know, targeting each other right now, that's a tinderbox
Speaker 5: on some level, and we've talked about that and before,
Speaker 5: but this in particular would be it would clearly lead
Speaker 5: to a round two at some point unless NATO, for example,
Speaker 5: provided an air defense umbrella over Ukraine that guaranteed all
Speaker 5: missiles coming from Russia would be shot down, perhaps a
Speaker 5: no fly zone, although a no fly zone is technically
Speaker 5: an active.
Speaker 4: And what are the troops? Where do the troops come from?
Speaker 5: So NATO has to be in the game or the
Speaker 5: or NATO countries have got to be in the game
Speaker 5: from a security perspective, or to execut your point, they
Speaker 5: would roll right through Ukraine once this they were disarmed.
Speaker 3: Military analyst Mike Lyons will post his piece for from
Speaker 3: real clear defense at Armstrong and Getty dot com. Mike,
Speaker 3: really interesting perspective. Thanks so much for the time.
Speaker 5: Yeah, great guys, thanks for having Thanks for having this
Speaker 5: kind of conversation. I'm not sure other people are having it,
Speaker 5: and I think it's important to recognize that our military
Speaker 5: is professional and not murdering people in the water. I
Speaker 5: just think I just want to make that point clear.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we'd probably be better off pandering, but we're too
Speaker 3: stubborn to do it. So anyway, Thanks Mike, great to
Speaker 3: talk to you.
Speaker 4: Great guys, great out here.
Speaker 2: So do these two things go together, though, that our
Speaker 2: military is professional and we're not in the business of
Speaker 2: murdering people in the water, and things aren't quite as
Speaker 2: delineated as you think they are in TV shows or
Speaker 2: whatever around these issues.
Speaker 3: Well, and to what extent is a drug cartel an
Speaker 3: enemy force? In to what extent we're are we at war?
Speaker 3: Because that's there's an underlying set of questions before we
Speaker 3: even get to the specifics.
Speaker 4: Armstrong and Getty