Speaker 1: Ah, beaut force. If it doesn't work, you're just not
Speaker 1: using enough. You're listening to software radio, special operations, military
Speaker 1: news and straight talk with the guys and the community. No,
Speaker 1: that's because we didn't have any Ah. Well, that's and
Speaker 1: that's what that makes a difference. You're on you're on
Speaker 1: three ship. So now I don't hear myself. There we go.
Speaker 1: You're weird, good folks. The other the other deal is
Speaker 1: be on the board of advisors. That's where the money
Speaker 1: for tell I want to I want to be on
Speaker 1: the board so I can do four telephonic interviews a year,
Speaker 1: make like a hundred and fifty just to basically sit
Speaker 1: in a commerce call and be like, yeah, that's right, Bob,
Speaker 1: good call. You know, so with this I could give
Speaker 1: it order. If you're on the board of advisors, master call,
Speaker 1: visa or something like that, you are. So there's so
Speaker 1: many jobs that people want to know, there's so many
Speaker 1: jobs that people make all this money and they don't
Speaker 1: do anything and they're totally replacing. That's what's so weird
Speaker 1: about the way the market works right now is like
Speaker 1: the people who actually create stuff get paid ship and
Speaker 1: the people who are like executives and they're just sitting
Speaker 1: up there making bad decisions and they get paid. What
Speaker 1: I really want to blow a little off of our
Speaker 1: the podcast that I know of that get very very
Speaker 1: very few downloads, So I don't I don't care. No,
Speaker 1: I'm not worrying. Please. I think the mics are always
Speaker 1: on that are sub five thousand downloads and are getting
Speaker 1: like mid six figures of AD dollars. There are a
Speaker 1: few that I know of, and it's just because they
Speaker 1: like the person or they like the friends, and you're
Speaker 1: just kind of like, how do you how do I
Speaker 1: get that gig? Let me just make sure I give
Speaker 1: bucket intro here to get into everything, because otherwise people
Speaker 1: were already already has already started. So let me just
Speaker 1: give an intro sprep dot com on time on target.
Speaker 1: Ian Scott o here at Jack Murphy and Buck Sexton,
Speaker 1: longtime friend of the site. In studio. Although we've never
Speaker 1: done like a full length interview, we had you on
Speaker 1: for like ten or twenty minutes here and there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so this is cool to do. I'm very excited to
Speaker 1: be here at the first time in studio, and I've
Speaker 1: also known Buck forever, like the first Dyan Radio gig
Speaker 1: was filming for Walking Well. Actually the first radio interview
Speaker 1: you I ever did that was an in person on
Speaker 1: the radio interview was for Andrew Wilcow. Andrews the man.
Speaker 1: He's just in here. Really, it's probably true for me too,
Speaker 1: now that I think about it. It's just I'm just
Speaker 1: so happy whenever like something good happens to will Cow,
Speaker 1: because as we're discussing on media, I'm like, there's just
Speaker 1: so many terrible, terrible, wormy, awful people in this business,
Speaker 1: and like wilk has a really good dude. So when
Speaker 1: he does well, it makes me happy. Yeah, it also
Speaker 1: gives me hope for the future. We had him as
Speaker 1: a guest on the show too, so happy to pay
Speaker 1: it back a little bit. Yeah, So I should give
Speaker 1: an intro. Buck his former CIA, the host of the
Speaker 1: Buck Sexton Show, which is gonna be on pretty much
Speaker 1: right after the six to nine pm East on iHeart
Speaker 1: Radio or anywhere you get your podcasts. But you're in
Speaker 1: here because you have a new podcast coming up on
Speaker 1: the Horizon Shields High Well, actually it's it's it's I
Speaker 1: was gonna say, you have like what five episodes out? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I don't know how many people listening are
Speaker 1: familiar with the movie for Getting Sarah Marshall. I found
Speaker 1: it very amused. You know what I remembers like a
Speaker 1: romantic comedy though, right, yeah, well this is nothing to
Speaker 1: do with the podcast, but one of the characters has
Speaker 1: a Dracula opera that's like his his life's passion is
Speaker 1: that he does. It's a Dracula opera with puppets. And
Speaker 1: so I do a h a sort of narrative storytelling
Speaker 1: history of the greatest Christian Muslim battles in history. That's
Speaker 1: what Shields High is. So I gotta tell you, I'm
Speaker 1: very pleased with the response so far. I think some
Speaker 1: people are like, wait, what is it. I'm just like,
Speaker 1: it's imagine someone sitting there and you know, we do
Speaker 1: a little bit of production and effects, but like the
Speaker 1: Fall of Constantinople was the last one. And you actually
Speaker 1: can understand the current problems of the Islamic world if
Speaker 1: you don't know the history of the conflicts. So there's that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I mean the Constantinople is an issue that is
Speaker 1: still very much alive and well in the minds of
Speaker 1: people in that region. Yeah. I mean, you know, when
Speaker 1: when I when I go through some of the history
Speaker 1: and and you know, people are like, wait a second,
Speaker 1: you mean that the entirety of what we think of
Speaker 1: as the Near East or the eastern Mediterranean basin of
Speaker 1: the Middle East was with the exception of what Israel now,
Speaker 1: But uh, was Christian territory for a long, long, long time.
Speaker 1: And the answer is yes, in fact, it was. And
Speaker 1: you even have a whole bunch of mosques that used
Speaker 1: to be churches. So it's good for people to know
Speaker 1: this history. There's a great story actually, you know who
Speaker 1: Sam Fattis told me this story about when he was
Speaker 1: in Greece and uh, some kid had spray painted across
Speaker 1: the street from him on the wall. Constantinople was Greece.
Speaker 1: And he's like, you know, if that's in the mind
Speaker 1: of some kid and whatever year it was, you know,
Speaker 1: in the last decade, and this is something that happened
Speaker 1: like a thousand years ago. I mean, probably things aren't
Speaker 1: going to change anytime soon. Yeah, it's it's interesting to
Speaker 1: see the rewriting of history. And one thing is I
Speaker 1: dealt with the Crusades, and they this is like a
Speaker 1: side project. This is not for people listening to. This
Speaker 1: is what this guy does, and yeah, I do a
Speaker 1: three hour a day. I do a three hour a
Speaker 1: day radio, three hours every day. That's why I'm tired
Speaker 1: all the time. You've got stamina. Yeah, it's it's so funny.
Speaker 1: People are like, oh, radio, like you just get to
Speaker 1: sit there. I was like, think about it. I think
Speaker 1: about when you've been a really long work hall, and
Speaker 1: then imagine that there's no one else talking and and
Speaker 1: people are rating whether you're being interesting or not. I
Speaker 1: feel like a lot of people think that about being
Speaker 1: a writer too. They have this romantic idea of like,
Speaker 1: I'd like to be a writer, but the second they
Speaker 1: have to sit down and write, they realize this is
Speaker 1: a job, Like you have to work. I feel like,
Speaker 1: I mean, I do a fair amount of writing. I've
Speaker 1: read columns for The Hill on politics and national security,
Speaker 1: and I've written for a bunch of places, and I
Speaker 1: always have that you know. Sometimes it's kinda like yeah,
Speaker 1: I know what I'm gonna do here, and you get going,
Speaker 1: But I do. I have to push through the fifteen minute,
Speaker 1: the fifteen minute panic of like oh wait, I don't
Speaker 1: this is gonna take twice as long as it always
Speaker 1: takes twice as long as I think it will. I
Speaker 1: don't know what I'm gonna say. It's not as good
Speaker 1: as I thought it would be the first time I
Speaker 1: wrote it down, you know, all that stuff. I feel
Speaker 1: like sometimes my wife thinks I don't do anything because
Speaker 1: she sees me staring at a blank computer screen. She's like,
Speaker 1: that's work for me, And sometimes that's work. But she
Speaker 1: does the same job as you. Um. Well, she worked
Speaker 1: as a as a journalist for newspaper and for many years,
Speaker 1: so she understands, um, and not just I mean she's
Speaker 1: written for the New York Times. If she's done, she fence.
Speaker 1: Didn't she get a piece in the Times? Now, I'm
Speaker 1: like spreading false information and Reuters? Um, she's written for
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of different people. I don't think she
Speaker 1: wrote for the Times. I thought she got a piece
Speaker 1: in in one of the additions at the Times, but
Speaker 1: it could be not not to my recollection, because I
Speaker 1: remember having her on will Cow and her talking about
Speaker 1: it idea maybe and maybe it was in Reuter's so
Speaker 1: I should like, I want to get into that show,
Speaker 1: of course, more in depth. But a lot of people
Speaker 1: don't know your full background with the CIA and then, so,
Speaker 1: you know, I think people like to hear about that. Yeah. Sure,
Speaker 1: I was an analyst. I started in the counter Terrorism
Speaker 1: Center and then I was in the Office of Iraq Analysis.
Speaker 1: Spent some time in Iraq and Afghanistan doing doing agency
Speaker 1: analysts stuff, and then also did about a year and
Speaker 1: change at the NYPD counter Terrorism. Well it's actually the
Speaker 1: Intelligence Division, but we were doing counter terrorism work their
Speaker 1: ct D and Intel Division of the NYPD. And they
Speaker 1: like it to be really confusing because Intel Division sounds
Speaker 1: like where they're connecting computers and like working on algorithms,
Speaker 1: but that's actually where they do the running of you know,
Speaker 1: different informants and to try to break into cells and
Speaker 1: kind of Terrorism Division does mostly like blast radius assessments
Speaker 1: for buildings and things like that. I had one of
Speaker 1: these experiences with that, and there's he looked at this.
Speaker 1: He looked like this Harry Potter type kid, but he
Speaker 1: was in doing that for n y p D. He
Speaker 1: was an actual cop, but he'd never he'll never wear
Speaker 1: a uniform. Yeah, but that's the kind of guy you
Speaker 1: want to go and infiltrate cells, right, Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: you depends on what kind of cell. But sure, there's
Speaker 1: there's there's a whole bunch of I mean, the misconceptions
Speaker 1: I always think about undercover work are so funny. I mean, really,
Speaker 1: when you think about it, you don't want somebody doing
Speaker 1: undercover work who is who is suave, handsomen stands out
Speaker 1: by crowd, right, that's so start with that. So everything
Speaker 1: that we've seen in all the movies where it's I mean,
Speaker 1: I know people know, and it's particularly folks that are
Speaker 1: listening to your podcast. No, there's no like laser watches
Speaker 1: and all that stuff. But all so, I mean, if
Speaker 1: you're talking about in just the general world of intelligence,
Speaker 1: you want to blend, and that means being shlubby. Usually
Speaker 1: you usually want to you know, you gotta gotta get
Speaker 1: a good, good belly going and kind of wear whatever
Speaker 1: and look whatever and just be really sharp and savvy
Speaker 1: and on your game. There's that misconception that if like
Speaker 1: you're a special operations guy, like you're a good dude
Speaker 1: for undercover work, and like usually not like the dude
Speaker 1: that has tattoos and a guy who's like to I
Speaker 1: can bench three fifties, actually not who you want to
Speaker 1: try to like get into a cell in Mogadi shoot,
Speaker 1: ye know, that's the worst. That's actually like, wait a second,
Speaker 1: you Captain America, I don't know about this, So yeah,
Speaker 1: you need different kind of folks for that sort of work. Um,
Speaker 1: but you know, anytime they wanted somebody to, you know,
Speaker 1: if they were looking for somebody to infiltrate, like the
Speaker 1: college Republicans somewhere and case they were planning a coup
Speaker 1: or right here, I was your guy for that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's what crazy. That's what I've said on the
Speaker 1: podcast before. The only thing I'd be good for is like,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe like well maybe white supremacy. Uh, maybe
Speaker 1: the IRA. But even then, the second I opened my mouth,
Speaker 1: they're gonna be like, come with me. One of my
Speaker 1: one of my best bits of advice. You know. I
Speaker 1: remember the first time I went in again as as
Speaker 1: an analyst, so you know, I mean, I learned a
Speaker 1: lot of interesting stuff, and I was around some really
Speaker 1: fascinating people who are doing some really cool stuff. But
Speaker 1: I remember a guy who was just a real real
Speaker 1: veteran of the intelligence community was just sort of pulling
Speaker 1: me a sign. He's like, just don't show up and
Speaker 1: be like, oh, I've forgotten my razor and grow a
Speaker 1: beard right away, because like, you're an analyst where jeans
Speaker 1: act like you're showing up to an office. That's what
Speaker 1: you're going to be primarily doing. Don't be that guy
Speaker 1: who's like, I'm high speed, I've gotta I'm an analyst.
Speaker 1: I got a beard out everything else, Yeah, I go
Speaker 1: go all while. So no, I were like, I wore
Speaker 1: T shirts that I got off of you know, the internet,
Speaker 1: and like everyone else and Geane, so it was a
Speaker 1: good it was good advice and stayed clean shaven for me.
Speaker 1: So I was never because you know, door kicking when
Speaker 1: you're an analyst involves where is the latte machine? Interac
Speaker 1: No one really has a beard either. The mustache is
Speaker 1: a thing that's for all the Saddam must Yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: but the beard, yeah, I mean Afghanistan it's a different
Speaker 1: obviously a different because the guys there, if you don't
Speaker 1: have a beard, you're you're you're a little girl. There's
Speaker 1: a whole other conception of what's going on. So I
Speaker 1: remember them saying that about bo bergdah right, Uh, that's
Speaker 1: why he was clean shaven because he was almost there,
Speaker 1: bitch right. I really don't know what the heard speculation.
Speaker 1: Could I don't think that was in the official government.
Speaker 1: That probably wasn't the press release now, um, but so yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean it's uh, look, I I'm really
Speaker 1: pleased to see this, and you guys are a part
Speaker 1: of it as well. I was actually just talking to
Speaker 1: some folks I was I was at Fox earlier today
Speaker 1: and I've been running back and forth and everyone's I
Speaker 1: don't know, are you guys on Memo watch too? Like
Speaker 1: every fifteen minutes, I'm getting I've just see the headlines. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but you know you can imagine, right, I mean, it's
Speaker 1: it's reality TV. Is he gonna release it? Is he not? Well? Well,
Speaker 1: everything too. It's such a perfect way. And this is
Speaker 1: another indictment of I want to do a whole podcast
Speaker 1: where I'm like, Hi, I'm in the media and I
Speaker 1: just trashed the media all day. But it's another way
Speaker 1: to just you just drawn up attention and get followers
Speaker 1: and stuff by being like my was to say any
Speaker 1: minute now and you know, ten tho retweets and like
Speaker 1: everyone's going crazy, and then like an hour later you
Speaker 1: can be like, oh, psych like I guess I was wrong,
Speaker 1: and like two retweets, no one care like, but it's
Speaker 1: just a way to you know, you just got to
Speaker 1: be that guy who runs out there and you know,
Speaker 1: my sources tell me the outrage meter rises and falls
Speaker 1: so quickly. Yeah, and you can ride that thing into
Speaker 1: the winds of fate, into the big followings. Um. I Also,
Speaker 1: I'm hoping that Twitter actually starts really looking into fake
Speaker 1: followers because I mean, I I legitimately know people who
Speaker 1: have massive amounts of intentionally have massive amounts of fake
Speaker 1: followers and just blatantly fake profiles. And it would just
Speaker 1: be it would just be great to see like someone
Speaker 1: go from five thousand followers to like fifty and just
Speaker 1: be like, oh, look at that. So that'd be kind
Speaker 1: of fun. I would be perfectly happy if Twitter just
Speaker 1: dissolved entirely. I mean, I hate that outlet. I hate
Speaker 1: using it. I hate the people on it. I mean, okay,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of people on Twitter, but I hate
Speaker 1: the way it works, and I hate the way we
Speaker 1: have to interact with each other. It's it's really become
Speaker 1: balkanized now. I mean it's like everyone on it, you know,
Speaker 1: you're really just talking too. Like if I tweet something
Speaker 1: about Syria, I'm really talking to you and like the
Speaker 1: other twenty or thirty people that I know on Twitter
Speaker 1: who might have something interesting to say, or maybe I'm
Speaker 1: like showing something off about what I know or whatever.
Speaker 1: It is, right, but it's a small because they keep
Speaker 1: you in bubbles. Well there's liberal Twitter and there's Republican Twitter,
Speaker 1: and nevers, there's really not that much crossover between them.
Speaker 1: And I don't even know what Facebook like. Facebook to
Speaker 1: me is just Facebook is the same. I think they
Speaker 1: I think they put you into a bubble. I remember
Speaker 1: during the election, I had friends who were They were
Speaker 1: not trying to be dicks. They were seriously asking the question, like,
Speaker 1: is anyone on my friends list support Hillary? If so,
Speaker 1: can they explain to me why? Because they were Because
Speaker 1: I think social media puts us in these bubbles where
Speaker 1: we're just around like minded people and like, you don't
Speaker 1: get to see the other side at all. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: people don't really And you've got a few problems with
Speaker 1: the old debate show model, which I don't even think
Speaker 1: there really is that anymore. Even when there's debates on
Speaker 1: some of these shows, whether it's a policy issue that
Speaker 1: we all care about or it's something silly because if
Speaker 1: you're the person that's losing, it's brand damaging for you.
Speaker 1: For the most part, it's not always true. I remember
Speaker 1: I forget which show it was, but the he's actually
Speaker 1: in prison I think now Chowdery and Jim Chowdery is
Speaker 1: like this, uh sort of rings something. You know. He
Speaker 1: was like he was one of these guys Sharia for
Speaker 1: UK and he would go on different Fox shows. He's
Speaker 1: in jail, yeah, and he's like he had a very
Speaker 1: proper British accent. You know, the full United Kingdom is
Speaker 1: the only wiffle would you know? He had this whole
Speaker 1: thing and yeah, he's in jail. I forget what for,
Speaker 1: but he would go on Fox. I remember asking something.
Speaker 1: A lot of proofers are like, so, why does this
Speaker 1: guy go on there where? You know? Rightly you get
Speaker 1: like you know, Hannity or Tucker Wherever is like, um so,
Speaker 1: so basically you're a terrorist, right, I mean, I mean
Speaker 1: and and and the answer, and he's he's like absolutely,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean like pretty much he's saying that
Speaker 1: he's but what's what's when you go to that level
Speaker 1: or it's like when Alex Jones went on if which
Speaker 1: if anyone hasn't seen it. By the way, Alex Jones
Speaker 1: on Piers Morgan Show, is the best CNN and the
Speaker 1: only worthwhile CNN I can think about the top of
Speaker 1: my s is the best CNN I've ever seen. Definitely
Speaker 1: the only worthwhile Piers morgat, what about you and definite
Speaker 1: and rule a gibrawl and see it. I mean, that
Speaker 1: was okay, except they told me that we could return
Speaker 1: to it after the break, and then they're like, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: we have to move on, we have to move on,
Speaker 1: And I was furious. People. I don't know, Buck, if
Speaker 1: you speak Arabic and clearly you talk about terrors, but
Speaker 1: you need to understand the culture. You need to understand
Speaker 1: the language. You need to understand what what is appealing,
Speaker 1: what is the message that isis actually is selling in
Speaker 1: these prison cells and what they are selling online and
Speaker 1: in Afghanistan targeting people that were doing beheadings, that we're
Speaker 1: building suicide vest. I mean, so I was I was
Speaker 1: dealing with that in a very specifically level. I'm saying,
Speaker 1: And I also need to about this point about discrimination.
Speaker 1: By the way, it's discrimination. You mention distination very clear.
Speaker 1: Actually you said terrors inside communities made by the community.
Speaker 1: Go back to the trap with ulder respect white people
Speaker 1: like yourself, who doesn't understand the language, doesn't understand the culture,
Speaker 1: and doesn't even know I don't I want to understand
Speaker 1: what that has to do with trying to prevent people
Speaker 1: from blowing up buses and trying to annihilate that's already
Speaker 1: that was my job. That's what I'm speaking. You're also
Speaker 1: saying that are people who aren't able to assimilate properly.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of people who are disenfranchised, who
Speaker 1: don't strap on suicide vests, who don't decide that they're
Speaker 1: going to go join a foreign fight in foreign count
Speaker 1: imperial venture and kill as many insul visions in their
Speaker 1: home countries. Is exactly the argument that Ices wants people
Speaker 1: to have a sort of you know, gap are divide,
Speaker 1: that isis is looking for? That was I let it go? Eric? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I mean you know I would have. I would have
Speaker 1: verbally smacked her around a whole lot more if I
Speaker 1: had if they ran into commercial because I knew that,
Speaker 1: I was like, I'm sorry what yeah? For For those
Speaker 1: who don't remember, I've played it on the show before,
Speaker 1: but it was when one of these like, what would
Speaker 1: you call her an activist? She's like an activist who
Speaker 1: pretends to be a foreign policy pretty and she said,
Speaker 1: I think the quote was white men like yourself, Buck,
Speaker 1: don't know anything about Middle East culture. They don't know
Speaker 1: the mine and and and for the record, we were
Speaker 1: actually specifically talking about counter terrorism investigations in the context
Speaker 1: of European allies. So actually I do speak language, and
Speaker 1: we're talking about what the police in France are doing.
Speaker 1: I'm actually not sitting here telling you about yeah, like
Speaker 1: southern tribal disputes of Afghanistan and how you know they
Speaker 1: could fix it if only right, I mean, that's not
Speaker 1: so she she was just but that's what they do.
Speaker 1: They put people on and they set it up so
Speaker 1: that there's kind of an ambush sequence and then by
Speaker 1: the time you're like, wait, we're not even who you know?
Speaker 1: We're there, Like I gotta go to commercial, the one
Speaker 1: with a lot of those people. I think, like, you know,
Speaker 1: a former colleague of mine, Dinobidala, who's obsessed with every
Speaker 1: little thing that Trump does. Oh yeah, we we we
Speaker 1: Actually there's a there's a YouTube. You gif you YouTube
Speaker 1: Buck sex in Dinobidala. We um. We we had a
Speaker 1: little back and forth on terrorism, and I think any
Speaker 1: objective person would see that and be like, wow, Dean,
Speaker 1: stick to your you know, stick to what you know.
Speaker 1: He was not. He was out of his element with
Speaker 1: that one. Just the usual stuff like there's more terrorists
Speaker 1: who are white supremacists in America and I'm like, gosh,
Speaker 1: do I have to walk through this again. It's it's
Speaker 1: literally something that you could only believe if you've been
Speaker 1: brainwasher or moron. So we went through a bit of that.
Speaker 1: Um yeah, Ruler. Oh. The best one was probably Van Jones,
Speaker 1: where Van Jones and I were talking about this is
Speaker 1: right after one of those big mass one of those
Speaker 1: big mass shootings of cops, like it might have been
Speaker 1: after the Dallas one. I forget which one it was,
Speaker 1: you know, a little while ago. But he's just like
Speaker 1: to say, the rhetoric is overheated. He's like, you know,
Speaker 1: people are just making this up. And I was like, well, actually,
Speaker 1: Mr Jones, I was at a rally but a few
Speaker 1: weeks ago because it was in front of my apartment
Speaker 1: building and I was going to get like coffee in
Speaker 1: the morning and there are people walking around with signs
Speaker 1: like you know, cops are murdering racist pigs, like we
Speaker 1: need to send we need to send cops to the
Speaker 1: you know, cops need to be the one sent to
Speaker 1: prison for being racist murderers. And then there was the
Speaker 1: you know what do we want dead cops? When do
Speaker 1: we want it now? And I'm just like I was
Speaker 1: on video, yeah, and I'm just like, dude, this is
Speaker 1: not you can just a lot of people because as
Speaker 1: you think it's gonna resonate with your audience, but that's
Speaker 1: just nonsense. So anyway you can, you can imagine that
Speaker 1: the better you do and debates over there is a
Speaker 1: not even just as a conservative, just as somebody who's
Speaker 1: not part of whatever the dominant intellectual or ideological I
Speaker 1: should say paradigm is over there that you know, the
Speaker 1: moment you step out of that, they're just they got
Speaker 1: no real use for it except to be a punching back.
Speaker 1: So that's why I left. I was like, Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a weird world in the media kind of keeps that
Speaker 1: hype and that hysteria go in and go in, and
Speaker 1: we can see it. It's getting worse and worse and worse. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: I also think that there's been a big change, and
Speaker 1: this is one of the I would say, one of
Speaker 1: the good things about social media. It's like there's people
Speaker 1: like what you guys do here who have those who
Speaker 1: have actually walked the walk, who are involved in the
Speaker 1: media discussion in a way that was much more unusual
Speaker 1: I think ten, fifteen, twenty years ago. You know they're
Speaker 1: there now when they're gonna have somebody talking about whether
Speaker 1: special operations kind of chairs and know there are some
Speaker 1: people that I'm like, why do they put this person?
Speaker 1: I'm going to be on there, stupid idiot. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: better you know that they've actually got people sometimes who
Speaker 1: know stuff. I mean, there's a fair amount of of
Speaker 1: seals who are making the rounds at the different networks.
Speaker 1: There's a you know, there's people who are former rangers. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, there's some some Air Force officers. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know there's some people here and there who are
Speaker 1: making the rounds. Yeah. In the past, it was interesting
Speaker 1: because all the only people you really saw in the
Speaker 1: news was these retired generals who had set themselves up
Speaker 1: with a nice cushki being a consultant on one of
Speaker 1: the you know, the NBC's ABC's, uh, those sorts of
Speaker 1: networks and they would get on there and they'd have
Speaker 1: like the most pedantic things to say, like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: a soldier wears a helmet and boots and combat. Yeah. What.
Speaker 1: One of my one of my uh, one of my
Speaker 1: great moments for in media was I was sitting in
Speaker 1: a sitting in a green room of what was a
Speaker 1: very big show at the time, and they actually had
Speaker 1: a And now the people on the show knew me
Speaker 1: and had had some idea of my resume. They started
Speaker 1: talking about the uh surveillance of the ny the surveillance
Speaker 1: the NYPD was doing of would are essentially extremist mosques,
Speaker 1: and I just couldn't help myself because they had some
Speaker 1: you know, a guy that left the Air Force in
Speaker 1: and this was a few years ago, who's up there, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: surveillance of Muslims in New York City, blah blah NYP.
Speaker 1: And I was like, you know, I was actually a
Speaker 1: part of that unit. If you really want to I mean,
Speaker 1: obviously wasn't a guy going into the mosque, but if
Speaker 1: you really want to talk to somebody who understands it,
Speaker 1: like I'm actually sitting in your green room as you
Speaker 1: have the old dude from whatever talking about something he
Speaker 1: has no idea about, and they're like, wow, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe we should just have you talked about it next time.
Speaker 1: I thought to myself, this is slow progress. Might be
Speaker 1: a good idea. This is like slow progress. We're getting there.
Speaker 1: We're getting there. So more more doers sharing their opinions,
Speaker 1: I think than ever before. And it's also just a
Speaker 1: function of social media because people get people get get
Speaker 1: shamed much more cooking now for being you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: inflating resumes like crazy and all that stuff. It wasn't
Speaker 1: me that made this correction is actually a young woman
Speaker 1: I can't remember her name, I'm sorry to say. When
Speaker 1: Rachel Maddow came out, she said, you know, we pulled
Speaker 1: US Special Forces out of or we moved them around
Speaker 1: Niger and Chad pulled out and made all of these
Speaker 1: claims about why those SF guys were ambushed in Niger
Speaker 1: um and she said it was because these guys had
Speaker 1: been pulled off. They weren't confronting ISIS and the and
Speaker 1: if you look at where they were deployed, they were
Speaker 1: actually deployed there to fight Boco Haram, not ISIS and
Speaker 1: the stuff that the narrative she was spinning was wildly
Speaker 1: incorrect and uh and yeah, because of the environment we
Speaker 1: live in the past, you just have to take whatever
Speaker 1: you see on television at face value. Um. But this
Speaker 1: young woman who was an actual expert in Niger and
Speaker 1: had done a lot of work over there, wrote this
Speaker 1: article like stopped trying to blame. Yeah, I mean that
Speaker 1: that ambush took place I think eight hundred miles away
Speaker 1: from where the yeah, which is a long way, even
Speaker 1: in the desert with not much of a speed limit.
Speaker 1: So yeah, so yeah, I can't take credit for that one.
Speaker 1: But it's just an example of Williams happens. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: in the in the pre in the pre Internet age,
Speaker 1: Ryan Williams gets a run like there are I want,
Speaker 1: you know, delta on both sides, kicking in doors. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the whole thing, you know, like the whole thing. And
Speaker 1: that was surreal. Yah. Yeah, I mean and they just realized,
Speaker 1: you know what I think it was with him too,
Speaker 1: was that he did the whole like well, like it
Speaker 1: was kind of true. That always makes it so worse.
Speaker 1: Just gonna be like I got way over my skis
Speaker 1: my bad and like put yourself to the mercy up.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean, yeah, just be like my bad.
Speaker 1: I can't the moment you do the whole like wow,
Speaker 1: I mean I was. I was kind of there with Delta,
Speaker 1: like no, there's no kind of it. I always felt
Speaker 1: like I was in the army. Yeah exactly. So it's
Speaker 1: it's a it's a changed world with all that. And
Speaker 1: I also think now from the from the intel side
Speaker 1: of it specifically, it's just such a culture change when
Speaker 1: I mean, wow, I'm gonna bash CNN a lot during
Speaker 1: this this interview. I'm gonna get bad. I did it
Speaker 1: on air on CNA. Did you good for you? But
Speaker 1: you know now, I mean the former d N I
Speaker 1: just runs over to CNN, and so that's all the
Speaker 1: Mike Morrell all end clap and all these like the
Speaker 1: quiet professionals thing. But that's just let's stop. It used
Speaker 1: to be that the directors would like, well, like, I
Speaker 1: have to write a book because it's going to be
Speaker 1: you know, the story exactly. It's the history needs to
Speaker 1: be down. And now I'm just like, well, everybody's getting
Speaker 1: in on this game, you know what I mean, And
Speaker 1: like people pop up and they're like, oh, like I
Speaker 1: was like a top you know, analyst or whatever at
Speaker 1: Homeland and I'm kind of like, well that unit is guy,
Speaker 1: you know, like it's not really that impressive. Well, we
Speaker 1: we have our our drama in the military with that
Speaker 1: sort of thing. I know, in the agency there's also
Speaker 1: a lot of bickering and fighting about who gets to
Speaker 1: publish what and who gets to tell the story. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I try to I like, literally just stay I'm like,
Speaker 1: you guys, do whatever you can fight over all that stuff.
Speaker 1: I have no interest. I mean, I try to stay
Speaker 1: as far away from all that as I can. I am.
Speaker 1: I will say a little surprise sometimes a little bit
Speaker 1: when I hear some people from within the Special Operations
Speaker 1: community that I come across in my media travels who
Speaker 1: were like, yeah, that other guy total punk. I'm like,
Speaker 1: I thought you guys, I thought it was the trust tree.
Speaker 1: I thought, you know about the brotherhood. Yeah exactly. I've
Speaker 1: gotten very cynical about the notion of brotherhood. The way,
Speaker 1: you know, we dime each other out and we eat
Speaker 1: each other alive. A lot of that that that I
Speaker 1: see as an outsider. I'm just saying, you know, not
Speaker 1: not part of the brotherhood. But I'm like, where's all
Speaker 1: the there are obviously some people who are really tired,
Speaker 1: who are in the media, who are former military, but
Speaker 1: out there hot dog and you you also see some
Speaker 1: people or you talk some people and be like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I know you know so and so didn't he did
Speaker 1: you know him when you were in and funk that guy?
Speaker 1: He didn't do anything. You'll hear stuff like that. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's actually pretty much the that's actually pretty much the
Speaker 1: line like he didn't do anything is usually the like
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, oh, well, my my, yeah, that's the line.
Speaker 1: I'm like, thank you for your service. I'll keep moving.
Speaker 1: I was telling I was telling Ian I was having
Speaker 1: lunch with my book agent one time, and I was
Speaker 1: having this conversation with him. I was like, you know,
Speaker 1: if I'm compare my time in the military with you know,
Speaker 1: our predecessors, with the guys who fought in World War Two,
Speaker 1: even the guys who fought in Vietnam, they were fighting Nazism,
Speaker 1: they were fighting Communism, and by comparison, our war just
Speaker 1: wasn't that important, you know. I mean, it was a important,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't as important as the guys who came
Speaker 1: before the world literally held in the book right in
Speaker 1: the balance and the scales, and my agent starts laughing.
Speaker 1: He's like, that's hilarious. He's like, you know, every Navy
Speaker 1: seal I've ever talked to, it's like America wouldn't be
Speaker 1: here if not for me. I'm like, wow, that's uh,
Speaker 1: that's amarrogance, you know, I know you have to go
Speaker 1: hang out with them. You don't say it's uh, it's interesting.
Speaker 1: I think to see also that there's this generation I
Speaker 1: was gonna say, the media bias for old dudes who
Speaker 1: don't know anything that are going on TV talking about this.
Speaker 1: I'm like, what why is it that they see how well? Naskbody,
Speaker 1: what do you say? You look at your mind? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll just turn thirty six, so we're roughly the same
Speaker 1: age they see mid thirties, and they're kind of like, well,
Speaker 1: you know, can you really know as much as like,
Speaker 1: you know, you know lieutenant or you know, retired lieutenant
Speaker 1: General such and such or whatever, because he was you know,
Speaker 1: chief of staff for the Armies Logistics Division or something.
Speaker 1: And you're like, well, first of all, he's been out
Speaker 1: for fifteen or twenty years, and second of all, yes, actually,
Speaker 1: like if you're gonna talk about specific subject matter like
Speaker 1: Afghanistan and Rocks Area, places that I know you've been.
Speaker 1: It's like that should matter more. But just people think
Speaker 1: the visual old gravity toss is gray. That's just the
Speaker 1: way they think about it still, and they have that
Speaker 1: that rank in front of them that says general um
Speaker 1: you know. But it depends what you're talking about too.
Speaker 1: You know, we had um on our last episode. We
Speaker 1: have Sergeant Major vinding On who he served in Vietnam
Speaker 1: and he was one of the original Delta Force members.
Speaker 1: So you want to talk about like Operation Eagle Claw,
Speaker 1: the early years of counter terrorism. He was a great
Speaker 1: person to talk to. Um So, but we we also
Speaker 1: had that conversation with a journalist and Rock I believe
Speaker 1: it was with him, wasn't it, And he was talking
Speaker 1: about how you know, the problem the media makes is
Speaker 1: they want to find a guy and use him as
Speaker 1: like the source, the spokesperson for everything, instead of finding
Speaker 1: people are actually experts in their chosen field. Oh. I
Speaker 1: come across as when people say, well, Buck, like what
Speaker 1: about so and so who was assistant deputy whatever at
Speaker 1: the FBI who disagrees with you like this what I've
Speaker 1: been seen it? And I'm like, guys, a schmuck. I
Speaker 1: don't know anything. I don't care assistant deputy deputy to
Speaker 1: the assistant who gives a crap Like people think this
Speaker 1: is meaningful. It's most government bureaucrat jobs are not exactly
Speaker 1: It's a little uh yeah. It's a little disappointing when
Speaker 1: I like write an article and I quote like C
Speaker 1: I A case officers who had like extensive experience, and
Speaker 1: then I see someone in foreign policy like basically trying
Speaker 1: to rewrite my article the same topic, but they're using
Speaker 1: like the assistant secretary deputy of the uh you know,
Speaker 1: D D N I or whatever, something like some weird office,
Speaker 1: some bureaucrats somewhere. It's like, dude, really like that guy
Speaker 1: has no idea what he's talking about. I'm always amazed
Speaker 1: also that there's still a there's almost a it feels
Speaker 1: to me like an aversion to finding the guy that
Speaker 1: really can bring you the ground truth. Sometimes. I mean,
Speaker 1: I have a this is just an interest of mine,
Speaker 1: so let me. I'll tell you the thesis. Mexico had
Speaker 1: more murders last year than in any year since they've
Speaker 1: been counting murders. It was just shy of thirty thousand
Speaker 1: which is insane. That's that's that's a war, right, I
Speaker 1: mean that's like and it's not getting coverage here at all.
Speaker 1: People are not talking about it. You also had sixty
Speaker 1: sixty four thousand I think people die of drug overdoses
Speaker 1: last year. Mexican cartels have completely shifted their production, uh,
Speaker 1: their their transport schedules, everything to help feed the opioid epidemic.
Speaker 1: A lot of the heroine. Now, it used to be
Speaker 1: the heroine was kind of grown in South America, but
Speaker 1: a fair amount was grown in Afghanistan. Have to make
Speaker 1: it all the way. But now heroin has become such
Speaker 1: a more marketable drug, much higher demand, that the cartels
Speaker 1: are growing it, you know in and around si loins.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, they're just throwing See this is like I've
Speaker 1: just been looking at this recent I'm like, wait a second.
Speaker 1: I always thought for a I didn't even know that
Speaker 1: you could grow poppies in Mexico. Oh yeah, Sinaloa actually
Speaker 1: has a long standing and off in the highlands. There's
Speaker 1: a long standing poppy cultivation, like back going back hunter. Now,
Speaker 1: when I say a long standing, I mean it's been
Speaker 1: there in very small numbers and um and actually some
Speaker 1: of the first sin loan Mexican drug lords were China,
Speaker 1: where Chinese affiliated and they had come and had an
Speaker 1: understanding of opium and they with the rail. The Chinese
Speaker 1: connection is the precursor chemicals for some of the other Well,
Speaker 1: then you when you look at fentanyl and what they're
Speaker 1: doing with that, which for people who don't know about fentanyl,
Speaker 1: it's one of those things where you read about, you know,
Speaker 1: for me it's sometimes you know, you'll you'll read about
Speaker 1: something like weird diseases that are out there. You're just like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, like that's crazy. It's almost hard to
Speaker 1: believe fentanyl is in that category as a drug. I
Speaker 1: mean the notion that you can overdose and die from
Speaker 1: touching something and having it be absorbed through your skin.
Speaker 1: And also say that that you can, uh, they can't
Speaker 1: tell you what really what what the overdose level would
Speaker 1: be based on body weight and stuff, because it has
Speaker 1: to do with very specific neurotransmitters in the brain. I
Speaker 1: mean by this because I'm so interested in the subject
Speaker 1: that I had this woman who is like chief chief
Speaker 1: epidemiological epidemiologist and microbiologist at Harvard's Laboratory for the Study
Speaker 1: of Drug something or other. I forget she had a
Speaker 1: really long title that I was like, well, she's smart.
Speaker 1: She came on my radio show a few times. I
Speaker 1: was talking about this, and this is why now they
Speaker 1: actually have special kits for people at the scene of
Speaker 1: a fentanyl overdose because they're roried that people literally trying
Speaker 1: to help. How are they taking fentanyl? Uh? Fentanyl is
Speaker 1: it can be in pill form um it's it's so
Speaker 1: it's a chemical company. I mean, I remember we had
Speaker 1: fentanyl lollipops that you could give someone if they got
Speaker 1: hurt overseas. It's an opious it's just a highly highly
Speaker 1: posted as a controlled drug. But the the four it's
Speaker 1: a four step process and they're making it in Mexican
Speaker 1: and Chinese super laboratory. So think breaking bad and they
Speaker 1: it's just like that. I mean, they're literally hiring guys
Speaker 1: with chemistry degrees and being like, oh, you work at
Speaker 1: like La Pharmacia in Mexico City, Like how about your
Speaker 1: or actually a much bigger one is Guadalajara. Uh. They're like,
Speaker 1: why don't you come and work for us and literally
Speaker 1: quadruple your salary And that's compelling for some folks who
Speaker 1: don't really care about the you know, the social implications
Speaker 1: of it. Anyway, So I've been trying to run for
Speaker 1: a while with the I've been looking into this more
Speaker 1: and more because i just find I'm like, this isn't
Speaker 1: really a story that's getting He's gotta go down there, man,
Speaker 1: you gotta send him down check it out. I don't know,
Speaker 1: it's crazy. So but I've been looking at this. I'm like,
Speaker 1: because you just don't hear opioid overdose. The drug companies
Speaker 1: are the bad guys in this, right, I think that's
Speaker 1: fair to say. Generally, usually hear that they're the pharmaceutical
Speaker 1: That's what I mean, like the pharmaceutical companies versus the
Speaker 1: drug cartels. But the cartels are in on this, and
Speaker 1: it's now I think there are a big part of
Speaker 1: what we're seeing in the country. And they're so slick
Speaker 1: and so well financed in terms of the way they're
Speaker 1: getting it into the country. It's massive. The d A
Speaker 1: estimates for this year it's gonna be one of the
Speaker 1: worst years ever for drugs. Anyway, I'm looking at all
Speaker 1: this stuff and I just found this this British dude
Speaker 1: who had written a book on all that US and
Speaker 1: he's been living in Mexic City for twenty years, going
Speaker 1: all over the country, which it's called El Narco. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I read it. Yeah, you and Grillo's books. So I
Speaker 1: had you on on on radio and I'm just like,
Speaker 1: what's going on. He's like, Yeah, there's about five states
Speaker 1: in Mexico right now that are in in a narco insurgency,
Speaker 1: like straight up, and just so people get a sense
Speaker 1: of what that is. Black hawk helicopters full of federal
Speaker 1: police who are all you know, well mphors and all
Speaker 1: the all the gear and kit that you'd expect, uh,
Speaker 1: and they're getting taken out by thirty guys and a
Speaker 1: coordinated maneuver with RPGs and machine guns like I like
Speaker 1: heavy machine guns, heavy weapon rates. A friend of mine
Speaker 1: went down there and um, he was rolling through some
Speaker 1: of the checkpoints and things like that. You know, they'd
Speaker 1: be like, you know, I'm not humpies, but big trucks
Speaker 1: like technicals, machine guns mounted on the back and they
Speaker 1: check their papers waiting through the checkpoint. My buddy gets
Speaker 1: where he's going and he's like, damn, this place is
Speaker 1: like they're keeping it long lockdown. And went through that
Speaker 1: government checkpoint out there and a guy was like, nobody,
Speaker 1: that wasn't a government checkpoint, that was a cartel checkpoint. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's all supplying demand though, I mean, if if we
Speaker 1: didn't have the demand for these drugs, it would be
Speaker 1: coming over. I mean, there's there's that element of it
Speaker 1: as well. Look at and he's like the guy on
Speaker 1: Saturday Night Live with the bag of glass. He's like,
Speaker 1: it's just a supply market, the hand man. You know,
Speaker 1: people want their drugs, We give them the drugs. That's
Speaker 1: the problem. But the demand in America for all these
Speaker 1: illegal drugs and pharmaceutical prescription drugs is so high. If
Speaker 1: there was you know, this wouldn't be as big a problem.
Speaker 1: If we weren't such a big it wouldn't be a
Speaker 1: problem at all if there wasn't a demand. But it's
Speaker 1: really interesting is that the cartels are so sophisticated with billions.
Speaker 1: And by the way, it's so funny I talked about
Speaker 1: I'll talk about like al Qaeda and investigations they did,
Speaker 1: the NYPD and like I don't talk about the CIA
Speaker 1: stuff much because you know, I can't. But like, you know,
Speaker 1: no one's ever worried about you know, because they actually
Speaker 1: some of those some of those chi groups will put
Speaker 1: out like we're gonna kill these people, and they'll put
Speaker 1: out a list. It's it's really telling because people in
Speaker 1: this business, they'll you start talking about cartels and going below,
Speaker 1: they start to get nervous. It's a really well it's different.
Speaker 1: You don't see that with any of the Ghati terris.
Speaker 1: I think part of it is also there's a mythology
Speaker 1: around cartels that comes out of the movies and the
Speaker 1: television shows as well. I mean, they're they're ruthless, but
Speaker 1: we haven't really seen the cartels doing too many like
Speaker 1: state side assassinations of like whitey guys like me or you.
Speaker 1: Maybe if you go down there and you start if
Speaker 1: you go down to Mexico and you start interfering with
Speaker 1: their business, yeah you're gonna get smoked. But I mean
Speaker 1: I can't think of too many. Like no, I don't
Speaker 1: think assassinating judges in America, like we haven't really seen.
Speaker 1: I think they just know that would bring that would
Speaker 1: bring beat on the mountain, mountains of heat. It's it's
Speaker 1: a bit making money's hand over fist, right, But but
Speaker 1: but people still get they get nervous. You know, and
Speaker 1: if you get too close down to the border. I
Speaker 1: mean I do know that, like if you were to
Speaker 1: show up all of a sudden and some of these
Speaker 1: uh in warez, I don't think they care. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: I don't think I don't think they care. If you're
Speaker 1: if you're you know, your uncle is a secretary of state,
Speaker 1: like you're if you crossed them in a bad Yeah,
Speaker 1: we were talking before, you know, not in depth yet
Speaker 1: about Shields High, the battles that saved Western civilization. It's
Speaker 1: going to be on I Heart Radio. It is on
Speaker 1: IR iTunes. Actually that's the best place iTunes tell people
Speaker 1: subscribe on, which is free. It's just there. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I know that you gave the basis for the show,
Speaker 1: but like, what stuff are you gonna be covering in
Speaker 1: future episode? So I'm kind of walking through because I
Speaker 1: think this is there's a whole historical narrative that people
Speaker 1: even when they study it in school or if they
Speaker 1: kind of rely and when you pick up through the
Speaker 1: you know, the the osmosis of of watching things in
Speaker 1: pop culture that you know that the Islamic world, in
Speaker 1: the Christian world, we're kind of everything was cool and
Speaker 1: then all of a sudden, it was colonialism, and we
Speaker 1: started doing bad things and we ruined the Middle East,
Speaker 1: and you just jump right to the twentieth century when
Speaker 1: in reality, I mean, there were a bunch of close calls,
Speaker 1: and so I kind of for the Western world as
Speaker 1: we know it, Europe in America. Uh there, I start
Speaker 1: with the Battle of Tour, so it's Charles Martel the Hammer,
Speaker 1: and then I just work through singular battles or single battles,
Speaker 1: or a lot of them are sieges. Casiege warfare in
Speaker 1: this period was such an important you know, if you
Speaker 1: control the right geographic location and fortress, I mean, you
Speaker 1: could project a lot of a lot of force because
Speaker 1: you couldn't really put a field army out for longer
Speaker 1: than the growing season because everybody had to go home
Speaker 1: otherwise they'd starve and they'd take out the wives and
Speaker 1: kids and stuff. So you had a limited campaigning season.
Speaker 1: So fortresses and fortified positions are really important. Anyway, I
Speaker 1: just walked through the battles where you know things have
Speaker 1: gone the other way. Basically, all the people listening this
Speaker 1: would be speaking either Turkish or Arabic, depending on which
Speaker 1: one we're talking about, and I think that for a
Speaker 1: lot of people, you know, this is this is background
Speaker 1: that it's good for them to know, especially when we
Speaker 1: hear things like, you know, jihad is internal struggling. It's like, nope,
Speaker 1: Jihad has been conquest for over eight thousand years. So
Speaker 1: it's good for people to know what that really means
Speaker 1: and what that looks like. Yeah, the original the conception
Speaker 1: was there's the land of peace in the land of war,
Speaker 1: are Al Harbor and ore Al Islam, yep. And that's
Speaker 1: from the very origins of the faith. And when you
Speaker 1: start to look into what happened also with the you know,
Speaker 1: the some of the earlier um earlier Islamic campaigns, it
Speaker 1: is amazing how quickly they conquered so much territory. But
Speaker 1: I just think that people there's this like we apologize
Speaker 1: for the Crusades a few years ago or something, and
Speaker 1: we're apologizing for that now to yeah, yeah, like that
Speaker 1: actually has happened. I think maybe the pope apologist for
Speaker 1: the Crusades. I look, the Crusades were a response to
Speaker 1: centuries of Islamic aggression and conquest, and they tell you
Speaker 1: all this stuff. They were so far separated from one
Speaker 1: another that you can't really draw direct correlation between the
Speaker 1: Crusades and Islamic expansion. There's like, what nine hundred years
Speaker 1: or something with the expansion, how and when? Right, like,
Speaker 1: we're starting the timeline, so you you have the prophet
Speaker 1: Mohammad dies what four. So by the early seven hundreds,
Speaker 1: they're in Spain and making their way into the middle
Speaker 1: of France. They've also taken Portugal, Jerusalem. You know, they've
Speaker 1: taken all, basically most not most, of the Iberian Peninsula
Speaker 1: and made it as far as central France, about a
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty miles from Paris. And that was in gosh,
Speaker 1: Martell was seventh thirty four, seven thirty two. I'm forgetting now,
Speaker 1: but they stopped them there. But then you had this
Speaker 1: series of multiple sieges and assaults on Constants and Opal.
Speaker 1: In fact, the real impetus for the first Crusade was
Speaker 1: the Emperor of constants and Ople reaching out to Pope
Speaker 1: Urban the second and saying, if we go, you guys
Speaker 1: are next. So Bat's often and this is this is
Speaker 1: the Council of Claremont in ten seven. So I think
Speaker 1: you know, that's a part of the story that people
Speaker 1: either don't know or aren't really told. And then also
Speaker 1: just somebody like you is actually you know, served in war.
Speaker 1: This is a fascinating period of warfare. And now I'm
Speaker 1: talking really about sort of Middle Ages into into the
Speaker 1: Renaissance that period, and most of the of the podcast
Speaker 1: that I'll be doing are like fourteen hundreds, fifteen hundred,
Speaker 1: sixteen hundreds. You have a little bit of gunpowder adoption,
Speaker 1: but still mostly like the old school slashing, hammering, clubbing, temporary. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you got body armor and we're not body armor armor. See,
Speaker 1: I'm still doing armor and uh. And it's as I
Speaker 1: got to take people through like the real Dracula for example,
Speaker 1: very important historical character in the with the whole Islamic conquest. Anyway,
Speaker 1: this is see, I I like this stuff, but it's
Speaker 1: a little some people maybe like, why are you spending
Speaker 1: your time doing is I'll probably do ten or fifteen episodes,
Speaker 1: put it on hold and come back to it, and
Speaker 1: then I'll do Ancient Greece. I think for your history,
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff, I mean that all leads. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you have a strong historical understanding, I mean, it'll
Speaker 1: do so much to enlighten you about how we got
Speaker 1: to where we are today. And I mean the past
Speaker 1: is in the past in a lot of ways. But
Speaker 1: at the same time, there are parts of the world
Speaker 1: where the past isn't in the past the way it
Speaker 1: is for you and I. You know, like when I
Speaker 1: went um, when I was in Damascus over a year ago. Now,
Speaker 1: it's interesting to listen to people talk because when they
Speaker 1: talk about like, that's like talking about yesterday for us,
Speaker 1: and then the time compression is very different. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I know from from Iraq, a lot of the a
Speaker 1: lot of the cities and the names correspond to big
Speaker 1: battles from the early days of the prophet and the
Speaker 1: Caliphate and everything. So there's there's this whole other other
Speaker 1: narrative around what history is important, especially when you get
Speaker 1: into into that part of the world. But you know,
Speaker 1: even I'm sure you've got people listening right now who
Speaker 1: served in one capacity or the other in the Balkans,
Speaker 1: and you flatly cannot understand the Balkans unless you understand
Speaker 1: the Attoman Empire, Greek Turkish Greek Turkish fighting. It's extremely
Speaker 1: well and yeah, and you know the reason you've got
Speaker 1: Muslims and Christians side by side in the former Yugoslavia
Speaker 1: goes all the way back to uh. Suleiman the Magnificent
Speaker 1: was like, I need to take the fortress at Belgrade.
Speaker 1: I need to get on Danube. The Danube is the
Speaker 1: artery for the rest of Europe. If I control the Danube,
Speaker 1: I can make my way just right through the center
Speaker 1: of Europe all the way up into I was. I
Speaker 1: was there. I was in Belgrade at that fortress for
Speaker 1: the TV and UH. I was told by actually a
Speaker 1: historian that that fortress had changed hands about forty times
Speaker 1: throughout history and just incredibly valuable real estate. And that's
Speaker 1: that's the thing with Constant and Nople too. I mean
Speaker 1: when I was talking about that on the podcast, not
Speaker 1: only was an incredible, incredibly valuable real estate. And this
Speaker 1: is also a pitch for the importance of of having
Speaker 1: a concept of geography whenever we talked about any of
Speaker 1: these issues. I think there's a great book actually called
Speaker 1: The Revenge of Geography by Robert Kaplan. I think, um,
Speaker 1: I haven't read it. I've heard that one highly recommend
Speaker 1: because he walks through some of the UH some of
Speaker 1: like the mckinder and people that have been I think
Speaker 1: they're sometimes referred to as like geography determinus or something.
Speaker 1: But the point is they've got these broad conceptions of
Speaker 1: how geography affects all of human history, and there's some
Speaker 1: really cool stuff. And I'm sure some of your audience
Speaker 1: that's from parts of the I know it's true of
Speaker 1: my audience from some parts of the country, was finding
Speaker 1: interesting when I say, all right, you guys, are you
Speaker 1: know if you maybe maybe self described as a hillbilly
Speaker 1: or you know, help people, thank you exactly, But if
Speaker 1: you happen to be hillbilly, you should know that wherever
Speaker 1: you there are literally hillbillies all over the world because
Speaker 1: the original, the original way, and the original means of
Speaker 1: um fighting back against or separating yourself from centralized states, mountains,
Speaker 1: the highlands. And then you start to look around, You're like, wait,
Speaker 1: where is this true? Well, Scots, it's true of Vietnam,
Speaker 1: that's true of the Mong people. It's true. I mean
Speaker 1: literally go anywhere in the world and they have hill
Speaker 1: abilities who are like, don't tell me what to do,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter. We're also how many countries have a
Speaker 1: north south divide the United States, Egypt, Italy, u Um, Nigeria.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it's a religious divide too. You see it
Speaker 1: again and again well, and it's also reversed. The South
Speaker 1: is the rich industrial base in Nigeria. The North is
Speaker 1: the impoverished Nigeria, the Niger Delta. Remember they were they're
Speaker 1: they're really for a while. We're two insurgencies going on
Speaker 1: in that country. I think it's pretty like you know,
Speaker 1: there's there are two insurgencies in Nigeria. One of them
Speaker 1: is men. Yeah, that's right. Uh, this guy, you know,
Speaker 1: others Boco Haram Islamists, and then there's and then just
Speaker 1: guys who want resources and to basically hold up the
Speaker 1: government old school banditry. A lot of it depends on
Speaker 1: who's in power in the central government at that time.
Speaker 1: So you'll see like the pipeline worst ramp up when
Speaker 1: someone from the North is in power. And then when
Speaker 1: that's flipped, you see Boco Haram come getting strong. It was.
Speaker 1: It was partically bad. When Obasanjo, alright, we gotta get off.
Speaker 1: You know, I was gonna say, I like, wrap it up, bro, Yeah,
Speaker 1: wrapping up. I got a few minutes making sure, checking
Speaker 1: to make sure. I'm making sure for Buck more than anything,
Speaker 1: because I probably start we want to start to have
Speaker 1: too much fun. Now I got another five or ten minutes,
Speaker 1: so okay, cool, So yeah, then then let's keep it going.
Speaker 1: That's all a shameless plug. Your for second one is
Speaker 1: that you can always listen to my radio show on
Speaker 1: the I Heart apps. You don't need to have I'm
Speaker 1: on a hundred and twenty terrestrial channels across you filled
Speaker 1: in the country. How many channels. That's like six hundred stations.
Speaker 1: That's pretty that's yeah, and major markets. That's always fun
Speaker 1: because sometimes I'll be in some random sity in the
Speaker 1: US and I'll like hop into a cab or and
Speaker 1: uber or whatever and someone be like, I have heard
Speaker 1: your voice before, and I get to go. They don't
Speaker 1: know my face, but they know the voice. That's exactly
Speaker 1: what happens to me in Vegas is so not on
Speaker 1: bucks level. But people don't know what I look like
Speaker 1: when they know your voice, right, it's kind of a
Speaker 1: weird thing because when they see you, they know that,
Speaker 1: like they like they process they figure out if it's
Speaker 1: just your voice. They're like, are you from the past,
Speaker 1: Like I've gotten out of the studio before I've told you,
Speaker 1: and like I've been on the phone with my dad
Speaker 1: and someone across the street like you're Ian from Softwarepper video.
Speaker 1: You don't look like I expected you to look. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but no, So if those listen, because like, because your audience,
Speaker 1: I would love to have some crossover and check out
Speaker 1: the radio show, and which we've had before. I've seen
Speaker 1: people tweet us and say like, hey heard Buck on
Speaker 1: Software Radio. Now I listen to you every day. Thank you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I do a different kind of show than than all
Speaker 1: the other folks out there, and uh, I think that
Speaker 1: especially for those who have an interest in in real
Speaker 1: research and information going into a show, I don't show
Speaker 1: up and I'm just like yeah, like today I'm made
Speaker 1: pancakes and I was wearing a role and like, let's
Speaker 1: take some calls like look, that's great if you have
Speaker 1: that kind of relationship with the audience. But I I
Speaker 1: read for five to seven hours every day in preparation
Speaker 1: for every show, and I do a lot of the
Speaker 1: same way, which is you know why working with him,
Speaker 1: because there are those guys you are more fluent on
Speaker 1: national security issues than any on air analyst I've come
Speaker 1: across at I'll just say all the non Fox because
Speaker 1: I love Fox, and I just always be like Fox
Speaker 1: is amazing, but all the other channels, I'm just leaving
Speaker 1: Fox out of By the way, I'm not comparing anyone Fox,
Speaker 1: but MSNBC and CNN. You're you can see. Can I
Speaker 1: get the Kush six figure gig? Can we do it? Oh? Man?
Speaker 1: I would love that. I want the remote camera in
Speaker 1: my house to you know, I just the media thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're setting that up for more and more people now
Speaker 1: because they realize car services. That's a whole thing. But
Speaker 1: are you gonna get that? Uh? I do have a
Speaker 1: radio rig set up in my in my apartment, which
Speaker 1: is which is life changing. It's amazing. Like if you're
Speaker 1: going to be in this business to basically have what
Speaker 1: we have here, basically have what you have really except
Speaker 1: on a little desk. I mean technically, Look, this is
Speaker 1: not a studios. Is an office space for microphones. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm incredibly lucky. I mean I work from home mostly
Speaker 1: that I only come in to do the podcast. Really
Speaker 1: say him here, so I can't complain. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: but did you guys listen to any history podcasts? I don't,
Speaker 1: but I know, like hardcore history for example. It is
Speaker 1: a huge body he does. He gets millions of downloads. Look,
Speaker 1: I mean, here's here's what I'd say about it. It's
Speaker 1: one of these mediums where I've been listening to history
Speaker 1: podcast for years because there are these people out there
Speaker 1: who are they're really more like hobbyists, right, and they're
Speaker 1: just like wow. I mean, I've written like fifteen books
Speaker 1: on ancient Rome, so I might as well like talk
Speaker 1: about ancient Rome on a podcast. So there's great information,
Speaker 1: but they kind of go and then this happened, and
Speaker 1: then there's other thing they're there's no yeah, there's exactly
Speaker 1: there's no narration, and so that's what really separates h Carlin.
Speaker 1: I think I've listened to I haven't listened to all
Speaker 1: of his because they're like four hours long, which is
Speaker 1: just honestly a really big commitment. I mean I'm reading
Speaker 1: all the time, and on four hours usually listen to
Speaker 1: to a one topic show that he doesn't. He does
Speaker 1: an amazing job. I mean he's like the godfather of
Speaker 1: narrative history. He's the hard core history. Yeah, he's the
Speaker 1: hardware history guy, Dan carl and he does that people
Speaker 1: are getting interested in. But I mean I actually used
Speaker 1: to listen to this guy who did a history on
Speaker 1: the Byzantine Empire a long time ago, who was just like,
Speaker 1: I think, a history professor somewhere and he was shocked
Speaker 1: to find out that they were doing. By the end
Speaker 1: of it, he did like ad he did a ton
Speaker 1: of episodes just if you want to know everything that
Speaker 1: ever happened in that part of the world, like and
Speaker 1: for whatever reason, it just kind of blew up. But
Speaker 1: no one's really doing it in a way that it is.
Speaker 1: It is narrative, and I mean I limit mind a
Speaker 1: thirty or forty minutes. Some people complain, they're like, you
Speaker 1: should do three hours, and I'm like, so I break
Speaker 1: them up and we do a little it's like some music,
Speaker 1: and I try to make it a little more of
Speaker 1: a flow. But you know, people either love it or
Speaker 1: they're like, this is kind of like your nerdy Dracula opera,
Speaker 1: but that everybody listening should check it out and tell
Speaker 1: me what they think. So, yes, which one something mat
Speaker 1: or is awesome? Now that's probably good. I mean, I
Speaker 1: feel tie the battles that say, the Western civilization, they
Speaker 1: just want to make sure. Just just type Shields High
Speaker 1: into iTunes and then click subscribe. But also, you guys,
Speaker 1: you have to subscribe to the Buck Sexton Show. I've
Speaker 1: got great down moods on the radio show, but it's
Speaker 1: been kind of like leveled off for a few months here.
Speaker 1: So I'm hoping the soft Rep and the soft Rep
Speaker 1: Mafia soft Rep model come on soft sexton dot com
Speaker 1: and also at buck Sexton on Twitter. Um do you want?
Speaker 1: I want to make sure that you know, because I
Speaker 1: know you got your out. Is there anything else before
Speaker 1: I do our usual? Uh? Nothing off hand. You gotta
Speaker 1: let me know when you're doing some important softwarep stuff.
Speaker 1: Those we get you on radio and get the softwarep
Speaker 1: board out the whole country or I can do it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm just absolutely I gotta so when you go undercover
Speaker 1: with the cartels and it's got like a kind of
Speaker 1: that's like the craziest idea. I would not let him
Speaker 1: do that. You'll be getting a picture back and holding
Speaker 1: the newspaper Truth of life. Man. They do like the
Speaker 1: live stream too. It's terrible. I want for a green
Speaker 1: go Jack Murphy. Oh my gosh, it would be um.
Speaker 1: But anyway, you guys should definitely let me know what's
Speaker 1: going on here. And uh yeah, so there's there's that
Speaker 1: awesome I'll appreciate you guys tuning in. I know we didn't,
Speaker 1: you know, take any questions this time. I I will
Speaker 1: be more interactive. Next we do. We have a couple
Speaker 1: of questions. There's always quiet questions, questions, and then I'm
Speaker 1: just I'm just gonna be late for my radio show.
Speaker 1: A man, give me three, will do three questions that
Speaker 1: I got about. Let's see here there's just a lot
Speaker 1: of people watching them. Okay, that's all right. I don't
Speaker 1: know because I mean these questions like how are you
Speaker 1: both doing? That's not really a question. What I mean,
Speaker 1: thank you. Here we go. This is a Jack question. Jack.
Speaker 1: Do you think Major Jim Gant got thrown under the bus?
Speaker 1: I don't know about that. Yeah, he did get thrown
Speaker 1: under the bus. He was Jim Gant was a Special
Speaker 1: Forces uh you know dude who was over in Afghanistan
Speaker 1: and he kind of contradicted the official policy that we
Speaker 1: need to create an Afghan state. And Umdant was like, well, look,
Speaker 1: it's a tribal society, but we have to engage with
Speaker 1: each individual tribe and treat them as individual tribes rather
Speaker 1: than trying to force some sort of like federated system
Speaker 1: on this country that's never gonna take hold and um, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think he got thrown under the bus by army orthodoxy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this one is is also you know nothing that we're
Speaker 1: talking about, and I you know, I don't want to
Speaker 1: shoot a random question you guys might not know about here,
Speaker 1: but um awareness with Chris asked, can you speak to
Speaker 1: title ten and title fifty please? Oh boy, that's a
Speaker 1: huge topic. It would be Wait, I think I think
Speaker 1: this is my cue. This is the point where title
Speaker 1: ten is just military action. Title fifty is covert action,
Speaker 1: that the CIA is the only ones that have Title
Speaker 1: fifty authority. Yeah, all right, that's when I really need
Speaker 1: to bounce. So with that, you know, and people once
Speaker 1: again are saying about the camera issue, which I will
Speaker 1: get fixed. Um, you know, I just need to get
Speaker 1: another monitor, and kind of like we're not got cartel hostage. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, people are saying that you just need to
Speaker 1: adjust that, you know, the brightness and all that. You can't.
Speaker 1: I need to get another monitor there that's the issue. Um,
Speaker 1: the screen is really dark. Book you do about that?
Speaker 1: So last thing, as a reminder for all of those
Speaker 1: who are listening for a limited time, you can receive
Speaker 1: a fifth percent discounted membership to soft rep TV, our
Speaker 1: channel that offers the most exclusive shows, documentaries and interviews
Speaker 1: covering the most exciting military content today. Softwrep TVs premier
Speaker 1: show Training Cell follows former Special Operations forces as they
Speaker 1: participate in the most advanced training in the country, everything
Speaker 1: from shooting school's, defensive driving jungle and winter warfare, climbing
Speaker 1: and much more. I saw the latest one horseback riding
Speaker 1: up in the mountains. Nice looks, really good, acts awesome.
Speaker 1: So again. You can watch this content by subscribing to
Speaker 1: softwarep TV at softwarep TV dot us and take advantage
Speaker 1: of a limited time off for a fifty off your
Speaker 1: membership only four a month, which also of another inside
Speaker 1: the team room Snipers that's gonna be up soon. Um
Speaker 1: and if you haven't gotten a chance to check out
Speaker 1: the softwarep Crate Club, you're definitely gonna want to do
Speaker 1: that asap. It's a subscription get a box of badass
Speaker 1: tactical and survival gear delivered to your door every month.
Speaker 1: Here's the kicker. All of the gears handpicked and tested
Speaker 1: by former Special Ops guys, so you know you're gonna
Speaker 1: get quality gear. That's gonna work when you need it to.
Speaker 1: Creates we've set in the past have included gear like
Speaker 1: custom knives, multi tools, fire starters, a d C med kits,
Speaker 1: and other kick ass stuff. You don't just get great
Speaker 1: gear with your subscription, you're also supporting a veteran owned
Speaker 1: and run company. To subscribe and start getting your gear,
Speaker 1: visit great Club dot us. We also have gift options available.
Speaker 1: That's great Club dot us. As always, follow buck Sexton
Speaker 1: on Twitter at buck Sexton buck Sexton dot com. Go
Speaker 1: check out the new podcast, which is Shields High and
Speaker 1: The Buck Sexton Show is what you do three hours
Speaker 1: every day. You tune in live from six to nine
Speaker 1: pm East. As always, follow us on Twitter, Instagram at
Speaker 1: Software Radio. A lot of feedback from the Mike Vining picture.
Speaker 1: Hopefully those people tune into the actual episode and hear
Speaker 1: the interview and don't just see him as the guy
Speaker 1: of the meme, meet the man behind the meme. That's
Speaker 1: what everybody, Yeah, everybody knows him as this. I don't
Speaker 1: know if you've seen the picture of Mike Vining. So
Speaker 1: Mike Vining someone someone took his picture off a website
Speaker 1: is like d O D photo his d A photo
Speaker 1: and made this mean because Mike does not like if
Speaker 1: you look at him as a person, he doesn't he
Speaker 1: doesn't look like the Captain America type. Person's highly decorated,
Speaker 1: one of the first guys. He's a serious, badass guy,
Speaker 1: but very much he's very a very nice guy, very
Speaker 1: normal person, you know, and people memed him. Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: comments on our Instagram like this guy can't be serious
Speaker 1: and very very serious. So you know, I mean the
Speaker 1: stories he tells. If you listen back to the last
Speaker 1: episode of his friend, you know, passing away trying to
Speaker 1: defuse a bomb at a rally for then vice presidential
Speaker 1: candidate Bob Dole, Like these are amazing serious. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: listen to that that one. I hope. I hope it also
Speaker 1: informs people against the Captain America's stereotype, Like these guys
Speaker 1: come in all shapes and sizes. They don't they don't
Speaker 1: look like um movie stars or you know from what
Speaker 1: I hear. Sometimes the guys who do look like the
Speaker 1: movie star are the ones who don't make it through
Speaker 1: the pipe. I've seen that. Yeah, this is like within
Speaker 1: the within the analyst cadre at the agency. I'm like
Speaker 1: at the at the higher end of like rough and touff.
Speaker 1: It's not that I'm rough and tough. I'm just trying
Speaker 1: to tell you guys, there's a lot of like, oh,
Speaker 1: like I want to write a memo. Yeah, I know,
Speaker 1: you gotta. This is funny because this is the same
Speaker 1: thing that happened with will Cow. People sit down here,
Speaker 1: they have a great time, and it was like, I
Speaker 1: gotta go to Conservative do your thing. Great seeing you
Speaker 1: And with that, I guess we'll end the live streams
Speaker 1: will Real, least formally say by the buck and appreciate
Speaker 1: you guys checking us out. You've been listening to Self
Speaker 1: Rep Radio. New episodes up every Wednesday and Friday for
Speaker 1: all of the great content from our veteran journalists. Joining
Speaker 1: us and become a team new member today at soft
Speaker 1: red dot com. Follow the show on Instagram and Twitter
Speaker 1: at solt Rep Radio, and be sure to also check
Speaker 1: out the Power of Thought podcast, hosted by Hurricane Group
Speaker 1: CEO and Navy Seal sniper instructor Brandon Webb M