Julian Dorey Podcast #299 – CIA Spy on Israel, Finding Jesus, Epstein & Worst Thing He Ever Saw | Andrew Bustamante

Date: May 6, 2025
Host: Julian Dorey
Guest: Andrew Bustamante (former CIA officer)
Notable Topics: Modern Geopolitics, Israel & Palestine, U.S. Foreign Policy, Faith & Espionage, Intelligence Operations, Government Incompetence vs. Conspiracy, Epstein, Human Nature, Personal Trauma

Episode Overview

In this deep-dive conversation, former CIA officer Andrew Bustamante returns to discuss current events, geopolitics, the nature of power, and the lessons he learned during his time in intelligence. The episode covers recent world conflicts (with a focus on Israel-Palestine, Ukraine-Russia, and China), the moral and psychological complexities of espionage, the intersection of faith and intelligence work, and first-hand insights into human nature, trauma, and government dysfunction. Julian and Andy also explore the Epstein case, the evolution and limits of soft power, and the structurally ingrained cycles of good and evil in society.

Major Discussion Themes & Insights

1. The Nature of Power: Authoritarianism vs. Democracy

• Rise of Authoritarianism: Andy points out a global trend away from liberal democracy toward strongman rule (03:16).

  "What we really started talking about three years ago was whether or not democracy will survive. That was really the core question. And now what we're seeing is the rise of authoritarianism... It's all about authority and power and the consolidation of power to make fast decisions. That's the world we live in right now."
  — Andy Bustamante (03:16)

• Leadership & Optics: Discussion of how even “weak” leaders practice behind-the-scenes authoritarianism for the sake of maintaining power—Obama cited as example of this duality (05:06).

2. Manipulation in Politics and Survival

• Nature of Human Beings:

  "Human beings are stupid. We're stupid fucking animals, right? We are smart in terms of building technology, but we're really fucking stupid in terms of survival."
  — Andy Bustamante (07:04)

• America as a Business: Andy frames the U.S.'s current leadership direction as an experiment in running the country like a business (15:16).

3. Soft Power, Hard Power, and Global Conflict

• Defining Soft Power:

  "Hard power is what we glorify in our movies... Soft power is the back end of influence. It's investing in schools, investing in, in hospitals, teaching people microfinance, helping them to develop their own economies."
  — Andy Bustamante (18:43)

• Soft Power Declining: USAID was effective when democracy was ascendant, but Andy argues soft power is less relevant in a world run by authoritarians (21:35, 113:21).

4. Tariffs, Economic Leverage, and the Middle Class

• Economics as a Tool:

  "The actual purpose of the tariffs is because now by inflating everybody's expenses, you have artificial leverage to get what you want. Because you can say, hey, if you, if you cooperate with me, I'll take your tariffs away."
  — Andy Bustamante (23:00)

• “Middle Class is Lost”: Andy argues the American middle class is structurally powerless—essentially, they've “already lost” both economic and real influence (28:10).

5. The CIA, Human Nature, and Personal Morality

• Recruitment & Ideology: Andy describes his own disillusionment with ideology and the process of learning, rejecting, and then accepting the objectivity and transactional nature of human interactions as taught at CIA (34:13):

  "You learn the technicalities of human recruitment... then you actually deploy and it becomes super real. And you're like, holy shit. This is really how it works."
  (36:28)

• Training Objectivity (and what it takes to “go to war with monsters”):

  "If you're going to go to war with monsters, you have to be a monster."
  (38:49)

6. Faith, Christianity, and Espionage

• Conversion & The Bible: Andy describes his shift to Christianity, influenced by watching stable, faithful people during his Air Force and CIA career (53:14–57:38).

• Intersection of Espionage and Bible:

  "The fundamentals of espionage are in Jesus's original teaching."
  — Andy Bustamante (47:39)

  He explains parallels between Jesus’s teachings (e.g., humility at the banquet) and undercover tradecraft—e.g., gaining trust and influence through humility.
  (47:44–49:20)

7. Evil, Humanity, and Psychological Trauma

• On Human Nature:

  "We live in a fallen world. It is an evil world. If you're going to use the terms good and evil, right, There are pockets, moments of good ... but we are predominantly fallen, we are predominantly evil, predominantly selfish, predominantly self interested, predominantly abusive, predominantly manipulative. That is what we do."
  — Andy Bustamante (68:09)

• Worst Thing Witnessed:

  • Timestamp [72:42–74:21]: Andy recounts his exposure to stories of horrific abuses against children in Africa (specifically, child soldiers being drugged, abused, and broken), underscoring the “fallen” nature of the world and the strain on his and others' psyches.

• Compartmentalization & Empathy: The necessity and darkness of compartmentalizing traumatic experiences in intelligence work; how empathy has to be learned and utilized tactically, not emotionally, in the field (92:44–94:46).

  "Empathy was not natural for me. And I would argue that for ... many CIA field operators, empathy is not natural. ... They teach us how to understand, how to comprehend ... because it's useful, right? ... When you don’t carry the feelings ... but you can recognize that there are feelings ... you can control yourself in the situation better."
  — Andy Bustamante (92:44)

8. Geopolitics: Israel, Gaza, Syria, and Proxy Wars

• Cycle of Violence: On Israeli policy and Palestinian radicalization:

  "All he's doing is guaranteeing more generations of Hamas."
  — Andy Bustamante (99:19)

• Proxy Wars: Detailed breakdown of present proxy conflicts in Syria involving Israel, Turkey, and Iran; the systematic undermining of soft power and rise of hard power solutions in those regions (99:49–105:38).

• Economics Underlying Geopolitics:

  "At the core, geopolitics is just economics."
  — Andy Bustamante (109:44)

9. Conspiracy vs. Incompetence

• Incompetence Wins: Andy repeatedly argues government actions most often stem from incompetence or laziness, not grand conspiracy (123:07–125:37):

  "You can believe in conspiracies if you're a dumbass, or you can just subscribe to the fact that the government is a broken, fat thing."
  — Andy Bustamante (08:57)

• On “The 1%” of Real Conspiracies: Those that are real are often lost in the noise because resources and attention are wasted chasing the 99% that aren't (123:42).

10. U.S.-Israel Intelligence Relationship

• Israel as Top Counterintelligence Risk:

  "Israel's been a major intelligence risk to the United States for a long time. That's why they're on the list of countries that we have to limit our fraternization with, our friendships with."
  — Andy Bustamante (142:24)

• Explains U.S. reluctance to cross-train with foreign agencies except for the Five Eyes, which limits learning, while adversaries collect methods from all sides (138:54–141:12).

11. Epstein Case & Intelligence

• Highly Probable Asset:

  "The probabilities are just too high to reject. The chances of him never having actually been approached by a foreign intelligence officer, ... is almost nil."
  — Andy Bustamante (175:47)

• Records Will Never Be Revealed: Any real evidence of intelligence links would be classified separately or destroyed:

  "If he had an intelligence role, then it's going to be classified in a completely different system..."
  (176:59)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Faith and Pragmatism:

  "Reading the Bible after CIA is a mindboggling experience."
  — Andy Bustamante (46:06)

• On Child Soldiers (Africa):

  "Child soldiers are fed this concoction of gunpowder and cocaine to energize them and to focus them.... they're subjected to sexual abuses by senior ranking officers to humiliate and break their spirit and make them loyal to the senior officer in a very similar way of Munchausen syndrome..."
  — Andy Bustamante (73:38)

• On Evil and Empathy:

  "The world can't be broken into this definition of good and evil because it is in a predominantly evil world..."
  (69:06)

• On Israel Lobby & U.S. Policy:

  "I wouldn't call it the Israel lobby as much as I would say Jewish Diaspora... There's an inequally large amount of influence that comes from the Israel lobby..."
  — Andy Bustamante (126:55)

• On U.S. Soft Power’s Decline:

  "Soft power takes time. It's hearts and minds. It's slow. ... That's not the world that we live in anymore."
  (114:02)

• On Trump’s Approach to Tariffs:

  "He's just inflating the prices everywhere to get everyone to, to acquiesce to his demands to lower the tariffs. ... It's basic economics based on Porter's five principles of power. He's just executing it as a government."
  (23:00)

Key Timestamps for Reference

| Time | Subject/Quote | |--------------|---------------| | 00:05 | Worst thing witnessed as a CIA operator—child soldiers in Africa | | 03:16 | The theme of the global shift to authoritarianism | | 07:04 | "Human beings are stupid..." | | 18:43 | Explanation of soft vs. hard power in geopolitics | | 28:10 | "If you are trying to be part of the middle class, you've already lost." | | 36:28 | "You learn the technicalities of human recruitment..." | | 47:39 | "The fundamentals of espionage are in Jesus's original teaching." | | 68:09 | "We are predominantly fallen, predominantly evil..." | | 72:42-74:21| Details witnessing stories of child soldier abuse | | 99:19 | "All he's doing is guaranteeing more generations of Hamas." | | 109:44 | "At the core, geopolitics is just economics." | | 126:55 | On the influence of the Israel lobby/Jewish diaspora | | 142:24 | Israel as a top U.S. intelligence risk | | 175:47 | "It's highly likely that Epstein was a intel target..." | | 176:59 | "If he had an intelligence role, then it's going to be classified in a completely different system..." |

Closing & Guest’s Future

Andy describes his intention to “disappear” from the public eye by age 47, moving abroad with his family, and focusing on raising his children and managing his business passively (181:46–184:47).

OVERALL TONE & STYLE

Andy maintains a blunt, often darkly humorous, pragmatic, and hyper-logical tone—regularly calling out human delusions, incompetence, and the transactional nature of systems and people. The episode is candid, occasionally expletive, peppered with ironic asides and references to the absurdity and tragedy of the modern world.

This summary is intended as a comprehensive guide for listeners who want an in-depth yet structured insight into the episode’s flow, arguments, and highlights.