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Are Iranian Sleeper Cells Already in the U.S.? | EYES ON GEOPOLITICS
01:05:58
We break down the growing fears of Iranian sleeper cells in the U.S. and whether the threat is real or overblown. The conversation covers how Iran and Hezbollah actually operate, the difference between lone wolves and organized networks, and what...
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- [00:00]
Ryan Seacrest
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- [00:31]
Howie Mandel
Hey, it's Howie Mandela. I am inviting you to witness history as me and my How We do it gaming team take on Gilly the King and wallow two six seven's million dollars gaming in an epic global gaming league video game showdown. Four rounds, multiple games, one winner, plus a halftime performance by multi platinum artist Travy McCoy. Watch all the action and see who wins and advances to the championship match against Neo right now@globalgamingleague.com that's globalgamingleague.com everybody games.
- [01:01]
Podcast Host (Teamhouse/Eyes on Geopolitics)
Hey, what's up guys? This is D. Do us a favor and check out our patreon page. It's patreon.com the teamhouse. You get both Teamhouse episodes and Eyes on Geopolitics episodes completely ad free. You get them early too. You can ask us questions. You can also watch the team ass episodes live as we shoot them. So and you help support the show and support what we're doing here. It's patreon.com theteamhouse those links are in the description or if you're listening it's in the show notes down below so you can click it real quick and easy and it helps us keep the lights on. So we appreciate it and we appreciate you guys listening. Thanks a bunch. Hey everybody. Welcome to another episode of Eyes on Geopolitics. A midweek episode. It's been busy around here so might as well do an extra episode a week. We have Jack Murphy for our resident Irishman. So happy St Patrick's Day to everybody who celebrates Jonathan Hackin and Andy Milburn. A lot going on as usual. We just saw yes, just like update like terms of news. We saw the the defense ministry get smoked in Iran yesterday or last night. I guess they they confirmed it. We have a bunch of news actually that happened and we didn't talk about this beforehand but we just saw Joe Kent, the he's like head of ct resign and say because of the Iran war and that Israel Basically dog walked us in. I really wanted to talk about because I've seen it like popping up in the press and like actually talking to like regular people. They're like all. A lot of people are worried about like a possible like Iranian sleeper cell attack or. Or Hezbollah sleeper cell attack. And I wanted to talk to the experts to see like, what the actual. Like, is it actually possible? Is there a real threat? We've seen a couple, three actually attacks. One in a synagogue that was a Lebanese person who's. Whose family died. He rammed into the synagogue and killed a few people. We also saw the tech, the Austin shooter and the. What was. What fort was he at? What. There's another guy too, that shot up a bunch of people and then the cadets stabbed them in university. There you go. So we've seen like these lone wolfs. As far as we know, it's a lone wolf attack. Not like these organized, where they could trace it back to like a sleeper cell, you know, Iranian intelligence or Hezbollah. So I have the experts here. So you guys tell me how. How much. How at risk are we in the United States?
- [03:41]
John (Counterintelligence Expert)
I can go first if you want. So I was a counterintelligence agent. This is exactly the kind of stuff we looked at, both inside the US and against our allies and partners as well. And counterintelligence always looks through the eyes of the adversary, which we call red, to understand the red's perception of blue, which is the friendly forces. So in this situation, I'm looking through the eyes of Hezbollah to think about how do they want to do stuff inside this country. And they have people here, they have ideas, they have goals that they want to achieve, but there's a missing ingredient for any threat, and that is capability. So they could have content all day long. They can dream about these big plans, but if they don't have the capability to do it, it's very low threat. Right? So that's what we're always looking for from the exploitation side, the neutralization side. As far as counterintelligence is concerned, that's what the FBI is going to be looking at right now is, okay, they have the intent. Not much we can do about that. You can't kill an idea. But we can reduce capability on their side, or we can look at the things they might be interested in and get ahead of them so that when they go try to use those capabilities, they don't work out the way they expected them to. This is kind of a basic level to look at this picture. When we talk about sleeper cells, it's important to define what does that mean because like you mentioned D, there might be an inspired lone wolf that just doesn't attack. That's not a sleeper cell. Sleeper cell, like definitionally is a much deeper long term thing where the person was sent there way ahead of time with a very simple mission statement. And they remain quiet and integrated into the community, working in that community like a normal person for a long time until they receive some form of activation to do whatever it is the task was that they were sent there to do. That means that years, many years in some cases that they have to be doing this. The mission has to be very simple because things will change over time. And if you give them too detailed of a mission, that mission might not even exist. That capability might not exist in the future when they're activated. And that's important to think about now because this is kind of a black swan situation where the way the US and Israel are attacking Iran, that's very difficult to predict when and how that would have happened. It could have just been something like if there is a war in Iran, do X, it might be something this, this simple. And the individual that is a sleeper would not be sent there alone. They wouldn't know the others in the network, but they would, they would not be alone. And this means there's compartmentalization that has to happen and there has to be a handler overhead that's actually helping to coordinate the activities of these individuals. So that introduces another layer of complexity. And we have seen how Iran has done things in the United States in the past. And also compared to other countries, it's very different than how they operate in the United States. I can get into official and non official activities they've done, especially using business cover for commercial activity cover for what they're doing in the United States. But on the whole they've been pretty amateur in the United States. It's not because they just suck. It's because their capability level, like I mentioned earlier, is low for a variety of reasons, not least of which is it's difficult for a handler to get to the United States, which means they typically have to communicate over distance through phones or other electronic means or through non, non personal communications like leaving notes somewhere or something like this. That's a limitation on their capability. It's a limitation on what they can actually achieve when they're here. The other problem is money. They're not part of the swift banking system they have invented since 2018. So they either have to use a hawala or some kind of other activity to conceal the origin of the money they're using to pay for these activities. There is an example in 2011 where it was around $250,000 they were trying to pay to a cartel member to give a weapon to a gentleman in Texas who was supposed to go assassinate the Saudi Arabia ambassador in Washington D.C. the cartel member said, hey, I'm a cartel guy. I'm going to go tell the DEA that this is going on because I don't want to be involved in Iran. And that's actually how the US found out about that. Just kind of interesting. And that was a very expensive operation that just evaporated because the capability was so low. I'll stop there at that kind of functional level and we can talk more about it. But that's how I would kind of like set the frame around this discussion.
- [07:27]
Andy Milburn
Yeah, I think that's a great frame too, John. The question of capability is so important. And another example I would make the people that demonstrate where there was a capability, a surprising capability even, was when the Russians began the full scale invasion of Ukraine and these sabotage cells suddenly activated across Russia. You saw military infrastructure, oil infrastructure, really across the breadth of the country going up in flames. So there was an intelligence or intelligent entity or entities that absolutely had a capability. I mean, they had the people in place, but they had the capability, meaning there was planned targets, targeting packets were done up and there were cachet site locations full of explosives. And those cells were activated through some sort of COVID communications method or covcom. So that's one example of, you know, where, where you see a capability doesn't come out of nowhere. So when you see a bunch of strikes like that happening, it lends itself to the safe assumption that there is an intelligent entity behind this. It's not lone wolves. It's not, you know, it's not just dissident groups. I mean, dissident groups don't come out of nowhere with a capability like that. It takes them time to evolve and find their way with those things. So that's one interesting example to look at. The other I was mentioning to John before the show was the. And we get into a little bit in detail, but the book Burn Bomb Destroy about the German sleeper cells that were here during World War I conducting acts of sabotage, also quite amateurish, but it evolved over time. And they used incendiary devices, probably not that different than the stuff that the cells in Russia used, you know, 100 years later to destroy ships, you know, ships that were on their way to Europe. And when it really got effective. Again, this question of capability was when you're using sleepers, you're using a surrogate force or something of this nature. I've had a CIA officer describe it to me because he tried to, he did do this in Afghanistan. He's like, imagine trying to play pool and you're sitting on top of overturned trash can 10ft away from the pool table and you got like three cues that are like duct taped together and you're like trying to like hit the, hit the ball and knock the eight ball in the corner pocket. It's like that's kind of what you're trying to do. The further away from it you are, the harder it becomes to control those operations. With the German case, you know, they became effective once they got a no shit German intelligence officer into the country to start coordinating and running some of that stuff. And then that brings us to a more current situation with Iran. And are there sleeper cells in the United States? Just a couple things to tag on to what John already illuminated there. There's one case back in the 1990s, I just had to look it up to get the name right. It was Captain Will Rogers 3, the skipper of the USS Vincennes in San Diego. There was a bomb found in his van. And to this day I don't think it's ever been fully explained what that was about. There's thoughts in the intelligence community or there has been over the years that that was an Iranian plot. But the Iranians also whack people globally. I mean, they're not like cautious about that. There is an Iranian op and just say in Europe that the bomb didn't go off. But when they deconstructed it, it was a very advanced bomb. It shocked a lot of people in the security community in Europe. So the Iranians don't have a lot of hesitation with this sort of stuff. But now, you know, are these cells in the United States? And I think, I think we have some pretty good proof that they aren't, that those cells just don't exist. After the Soleimani strike, you would have expected something to have cooked off. And now we're, you know, bombing the hell out of Iran and fixing to do potentially a ground invasion. I mean, if the Iranians are not activating those cells now, then explain to me what the trigger is, because they're already in an existential crisis right now. I mean, they're not going to topple easily. But if not now, then when? That's. That would be my question. And I think that's sort of the counterfactual. You could look at this to try to determine if these cells even exist. I would say they probably don't. However, there are people in this country, they could be lone wolves. They could be, you know, support agents, people who are sympathetic towards the Iranian regime who take action on their own or maybe at direction from, you know, back. Back in Iran. One thing that I was told about just yesterday is a bun. Suspicious packages have been showing up at MacDill Air Force Base directed towards Centcom Central Command. The FBI is investigating this. They're involved. I have not heard that an actual bomb has turned up yet. But I mean, this could even just be a psychological operation to send packages that look like bombs to just, you know, get people on the base, you know, cautious or afraid. So we'll see what happens with that. I don't know what's. John, is there anything I'm missing here that you'd like to elaborate on?
- [13:00]
John (Counterintelligence Expert)
I just want to kind of pull on a thread that you mentioned. You mentioned sabotage and a couple of things like this. And again, from that counterintelligence framework. So there are four types of attacks we'd be looking for from a potential sleeper element like you're mentioning. And those attacks would be against certain types of targets. Right, because you're trying to achieve some objective by doing this thing. The four types of targets are persons, organizations, installations, and then people generally. And there's a specific type of attack that targets each one of these. So, for example, attacks against persons are typically espionage related. Attacks against organizations are subversion related, then against installations, it's sabotage, then against people or other things. You have terrorism as that kind of catch all at the end. But when we're trying to protect against these things to reduce that capability, I was talking about, you know, like you mentioned, there might be a lone wolf or even a person in contact with some Quds Force guy overseas. They could have that intent all day long. But if we can actually go after the person's organizations and installations to defend those. Those categories, we can more precisely protect them. So even if the adversary had some really good intent and maybe even a little bit of capability, the target suddenly becomes too hard to strike, and they're going to have to flow around it and go somewhere else. So this is kind of the thing we look at when we're trying to preemptively neutralize these activities, is evaluating our own installations, like MacDill Air Force Base, for example. We'd be think, how do vehicles get in on a base how do packages go around here? Like what are the cameras? All these things to get these things already ahead of time so that if something like this comes up, the person approaching their vehicle already understands how to evaluate their vehicle before getting into it due to heightened threat environment situations, for example. So these are the things to keep in the back of the mind as a person evaluating what are these actual threats and what is the actual capability. And I'll mention the Bojinka plot, which was a pre Al Qaeda type plot in the 1990s that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and some others were planning to bring a bunch of air aircraft and crash them into buildings. Which sounds a lot like September 11th, but this was before September 11th. The reason they weren't able to do that, they had a really good plan, excellent ideas and a lot of intent, but they had almost no capability to do it. It wasn't until later on that they actually shifted their operations to be able to have the capability years later in 2001 to actually execute such a threat with the capability required to do it. And I only highlight that because the intent didn't change the entire time. What did change was their ability and the opportunity to do that attack.
- [15:20]
Andy Milburn
Just one more thing I'd like to touch upon here with the nature of sleeper cells, potentially especially sleeper cells from an authoritarian regime that are placed undercover in a country like the United States. There were a few. The Soviets didn't have as many as we probably thought they did. But at the end of the Cold War it was revealed that they did have some sleeper agents. In Milt Bearden's book the Main Enemy, he talks about one of them, a Czech guy who they had placed in the United States. And after the wall came down, he, I think, I believe he came forward, if I remember correctly, and he had just integrated into the community. Like he had a family. He had like kid playing in Little League baseball and this sort of stuff. And he was like, yeah, I have like this trunk of like rusty military gear in my basement if you guys want to come get it. Like I don't give a fuck. And I think this is a problem too with that. A country like Iran would have you send sleepers to the United States when they're here for a prolonged period of time building their cover and building their capabilities. Unless they are the most hardcore ideological dude, they are going to start finding a woman, they're going to get a job, they're going to have kids, the kids are going to get into school. And then when that activation code finally comes 30 years later, they're like, do I really want to, like, screw up my whole life here and end up in a supermax for the rest of my. Rest of my days? Because this authoritarian regime that doesn't give a shit about me wants me to go and kill a bunch of innocent people. So I think that's another dynamic that comes into play when you're trying to use sleeper agents.
- [17:03]
John (Counterintelligence Expert)
Actually, jack on that. So even not just sleeper agents, but embassy personnel from these countries. I was doing a lot of work in North Africa out of the US Embassies there, and there were a few North Korean diplomats that. In the countries that have North Korean embassies there in Northwest Africa, those diplomats are not allowed to return back to Pyongyang, ever. They have to rotate around the embassies in Northwest Africa because the government, authoritarian government, is worried about the exposure they've had to things like alcohol and parties and restaurants and freedom, even in Northwest Africa, to the extent that they will not allow them to return back, to rotate back to the mainland.
- [17:39]
Andy Milburn
That's crazy. What I'd heard is that the embassy personnel from North Korea have to travel around in threes.
- [17:47]
Howie Mandel
Yeah.
- [17:47]
Andy Milburn
We call it the troika. Yeah. To make it impossible for the agency, for CIA to recruit them.
- [17:52]
John (Counterintelligence Expert)
We had the same thing with the Chinese as well. When I was on the defense attache staff, the Russians would always come in a group of three. The troika. The Chinese would always be in a group of three. And we wouldn't interact with the North Koreans, but they also would. And so would the Iranians, because they know themselves, the government knows that this is going to happen.
- [18:09]
Andy Milburn
Right. It's this, like, mutually assured destruction. Everyone's spying on everyone else, even going to.
- [18:15]
John (Counterintelligence Expert)
They had to go to the bathroom in threes at any events that we were at.
- [18:20]
Andy Milburn
It's wild.
- [18:22]
Podcast Host (Teamhouse/Eyes on Geopolitics)
Andy. Andy, Restart. What you were saying. I apologize. You were muted.
- [18:26]
Military Analyst (possibly Andy or another expert)
Am I muted now?
- [18:29]
Podcast Host (Teamhouse/Eyes on Geopolitics)
You're good now. You're good now.
- [18:30]
Military Analyst (possibly Andy or another expert)
Do you do customarily mute me during these.
- [18:33]
Podcast Host (Teamhouse/Eyes on Geopolitics)
You were yelling at Richie.
- [18:34]
Military Analyst (possibly Andy or another expert)
Oh, okay. All right.
- [18:37]
Andy Milburn
Yeah.
- [18:38]
Military Analyst (possibly Andy or another expert)
So, you know, going. Getting back to. To Iran, though, I mean, I. I think and. And John, you know way more about this than I do, but, you know, this term sleeper cell sounds sexy. It's. It evokes Hollywood. It evokes that miniseries. You know, the Netflix, I think, is a Netflix miniseries about Russian sleeper cells. But I think it's fair to say, I mean, that's not the way the Iranians operate. They can't afford to operate that way, as, you know, as Jack pointed out what put a cell into the United States and with the instructions to act if a war comes, if war occurs. I mean, neither Kuzforce nor Hezbollah has that kind of resources, although. And that's just not that modus operandi. Right. I mean, they plan for specific operations and they insert people for those operations, but they don't send people to the United States for two or three decades and have them integrate in American society, apply for green cards and residents. All of this just on the contingency that something might happen. And I think, although there's another factor to this or the gain. I mean, although this is a super sexy topic that's likely to get everyone's attention if you are planning this from an Iranian perspective, domestic attacks within the United States are actually a relatively hard target. You've got plenty of softer targets spread out across, not just the Middle east, but globally. US Interests, overseas, diplomatic missions, military bases. As we've seen, even military bases that should be hardened in the Middle east are still subject to attack from the Iranians, where they can cause casualties without all the planning and everything else involved in putting action cells within. Within the U.S. so, you know, I'd say that there's. There's just no chart. I mean, very little chance of a Hollywood sleeper cell type scenario. And what we've seen historically is small targeted networks, you know, that, that are. That are put in for a specific mission. And we've. The other thing is, I think we kind of conflated and I'd like to hear your thoughts on this, John. Direct Iranian action, which would be Kuzforce. Right. Which is Iran's external operations arm, irgc, and proxies like Hezbollah. Hezbollah does have an overseas. A section that's focused on overseas operations. And I forget what it's called. It's like the IJo or something, John,
- [21:17]
John (Counterintelligence Expert)
you probably know that Islamic Jihad organization.
- [21:20]
Military Analyst (possibly Andy or another expert)
Yeah, but as far as. I mean, there was an attempted attack on the Saudi ambassador, right. Back in 2011. But aside from that, we've seen mainly fundraising, logistics, procurement. That's kind of things that they focus on mostly, and integration with criminal networks in the Western hemisphere.
- [21:43]
John (Counterintelligence Expert)
That's a great point, actually, it seems to me.
- [21:46]
Military Analyst (possibly Andy or another expert)
I'm sorry, it just seems to me. Just go ahead, John.
- [21:50]
John (Counterintelligence Expert)
I was just going to mention the financial thing you're talking about. So Latin America in particular, Brazil, for example, has 6 million Lebanese people. There's almost as many Lebanese people in Brazil as there are in Lebanon. And many of them are either Druze or Shia descendants from Lebanese diaspora. And Hezbollah's main source of money, even though the regime pays them a lot of money, their main source of money is drug sales. And a lot of those drugs are from South America, especially cocaine being sold in Africa. And Dakar, Senegal is the main entry point into all the entire continent of Africa from Latin America, which is a Hezbollah controlled throughway. And actually in Dakar, Senegal, there's a big Hezbollah problem. And there's absolute Iranian embassy right down the street from the Hezbollah house that they live in. Our team house was across the street from where the Hezbollah house was when I was there. And it's a very interesting little microcosm of what they're trying to do to fund themselves. And part of the reason they had this Islamic Jihad organization, even though the name of it sounds like an ideological thing, it's actually more of a force protection asset to protect the money and drugs moving back and forth between these nodes to make sure that people aren't going to steal it or do something to it so they can bring it to the Middle East. Saudi Arabia is a huge purchaser of these drugs. So is Syria. We had a thing in Lebanon when I was there where we had an aircraft that was a Saudi prince's aircraft that was full of Ecstasy pills that Hezbollah had manufactured and this prince was selling them and we found it on his aircraft, even though it was diploaded or dip noted. And these drug networks require a lot of strong arm muscle, including these overseas operatives who may be trained to protect the stuff, but could also be activated in turn to do other things like we were talking about earlier. They could do sabotage, they could do subversion, they could conduct terrorism if they need to, especially because they have these networks that can already move in between, in and out of, between these different countries, especially into Latin America.
- [23:33]
Andy Milburn
Yeah, we just, I was in dakar in like 2013. Have a nice new embassy we just built there.
- [23:40]
John (Counterintelligence Expert)
Right.
- [23:41]
Andy Milburn
Significant Lebanese population in that country.
- [23:44]
Military Analyst (possibly Andy or another expert)
But I would guess, I don't know, I would guess Hezbollah's external operations capabilities likely being degraded compared to about a decade ago. I mean, largely because of, I mean Syria used to be a key hub for moving people and equipment. And of course that environment's become much more contested and Hezbollah has, has its own problems on its hands in, in Lebanon itself. You know, I just, again, it just seems to me a far fetched but, but attention grabbing topic that is, that has surfaced without any foundation in, in, in, in, in. In fact. Right. I'm not, I'm not dismissing the risk and of course it's always a risk.
- [24:30]
Ryan Seacrest
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- [25:00]
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- [25:59]
Howie Mandel
Hey, it's Howie Mandel and I am inviting you to witness history as me and my How We Do It Gaming team take on Guil Billy to King and Wallow 2, 6 $7 million gaming in an epic Global Gaming League video game showdown. Four rounds, multiple games, one winner, plus a halftime performance by multi platinum artist Travy McCoy. Watch all the action and see who wins and advances to the championship match against Neo right now@globalgamingleague.com that's globalgamingleague.com everybody
- [26:29]
Military Analyst (possibly Andy or another expert)
games minimal compared to real risks facing us, right? Like the collapse of the global economy and continued attacks on U.S. forces and interests and related interests overseas.
- [26:50]
Andy Milburn
So I mean, I don't know if we're ready to shift gears, but I'd love to hear you two guys opine about the MU on its way to the Persian Gulf.
- [26:58]
Military Analyst (possibly Andy or another expert)
I was waiting for John to kick it off, but I'm happy to do so. Yeah, this has been one of the most important developments, or perhaps not the most of my attention Grabbing developments in the last week is the movement of a Marine expeditionary unit, the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, out of Okinawa, a garden spot, as those who've spent any time there know. And why is that important? Well, 31st MU has actually lower level of capability than the MUs that are based out of the United States. I'm not saying that it's used to be known as a security corporation. Mu. Right. I'm going to get beaten up by 31st mu guys for saying that. But it's definitely a lower level of capabilities. My point is it's an odd choice if you are indeed planning to conduct raids. It wouldn't necessarily, wouldn't be my first choice of mu. It's a forward deployed amphibious landing force, but it's very small. You'll hear a lot of talk about 2000 Marines, but actually those who go ashore is pretty near a 1200, which is relatively very small. So I think if they do go ashore, it's going to be very quick. They're going to hit specific targets raids and then withdraw. They're not going to invade Iran, which is what I've seen, you know, and that's the problem. Right. You hear talk about ground force and people don't understand the nuances of this, certainly the general public. So Marine Expeditionary Units, I mentioned about 2,000 Marines, amphibious ships, typically three or five. They have helicopters, tilt rotor aircraft, limited aviation support. And it's primarily for raids, crisis response. Straits of Hormuz, potentially targeted raids within the Straits of Hormuz, the islands there. Because as we've seen, you can't. There's a couple of problems with the air campaign. I mean, there are certain things that you that are, as we found out, hard to destroy, locate and destroy. Missile launchers being one of them, drones, fast attack boats can be hidden, coastal radar and mines. You know, all these things can be, can be moved around quite easily. And although we've seen very optimistic projections about what we've destroyed, the real truth is, as anyone who's dealt with battle damage assessment knows, is that once you get past kind of like an estimated 50% pass, 50% estimate that you destroy the enemy's capability. It's really difficult to be precise about it. And the point here is at what point do we say the Strait of Hormuz is open for traffic? Right? Because unless we really show even eliminated the risk. Well, how are you sure you eliminated the risk unless you put someone ashore to do that kind of assessment? To conduct raids, to destroy targeted operations, to destroy enemy infrastructure and then report it so I mentioned missile launchers on these islands. There's also the potential for underground storage of missiles and other weapons systems. Another factor disrupting battle damage assessment in the Gulf is undoubtedly the Iranians use decoys and camouflage just the way that we would and the way that Ukrainians have continued to do in that conflict. So what value do they bring? Okay, why would we land them? Clear tunnel complexes aside from the missile launches. Destroy radar systems, eliminate drone launch sites and confirm targets and neutralize. Those are all things I know we're going to talk about separately, the enriched uranium problem. But if we're just talking about kind of conventional targeting for raids in the Gulf, that's more or less what we're talking about. And there's a series of islands, John, I'm going to butcher the name, but there's Abu Musa, right? The one right at the entrance to the strait. I think if we were, you know, normally we'd have Dee point these out on a map, but we haven't got that far far technology yet. And then there's like the, it's spelled T U N B Tunb a couple of islands over there which are directly overlooking the shipping lanes. Right. And Kesham island, which is near Bandar Abbas, which is major Courseranian support. And we know that at least open source intelligence suggests that that's been supporting drones drone attacks. So any of those islands could be the target for raids. But of course, you put 1200 Marines ashore. It's not quite as simple as that. It's a major, major operation. You' to have to have all kinds of, of support for that. And of course you elevate the risk. It's huge. Oh, hey, I mentioned, I forgot Carg island, which is our favorite topic. Right. It's primary. Iran's primary oil export terminal are critical to its economy. As we've heard some back and forth about whether we're going after the oil terminals on that island or whether we want to preserve them and perhaps a difference of opinion there with the Israelis, that we can talk about. So, you know, a rate of seizure of CAR could disrupt further Iranian oil exports, if that indeed that's one of our objectives, but also again, conduct battle damage assessment, which as I've said, is a significant problem. So when you step back. So the MEW moving towards the Middle east, all it does is represents it more options. Right. I doubt, and I don't know, I'm speculating, I doubt that they're being moved there with a specific mission in mind. There will probably be a series of contingencies and probably the decision hasn't been made whether or not to land them. And by the way, you know, the last thing I'll say on this is a mu, a Marine Expeditionary Unit. I explained how small it is. Arguably you get more out of it while it's at sea. Right. It has kind of an operational impact then because you could land it anyway. You keep the enemy guessing. Once you've landed it, it becomes very tactical and you elevate your risk. Right. Because now you're sucked into that one location.
- [34:15]
John (Counterintelligence Expert)
And I want to talk about the straits for a minute there you talked about. Andy. It's really important because when we're talking about measuring how safe are the straits, whether we've reduced to 50%, 90%, et cetera, looking at absolute numbers of straits transits, on February 27 there were 140 plus per day of oil vessels. That has trickled to six over five days, like one per day roughly. There were 11 Iranian vessels in the Persian Gulf in the past couple of weeks that were able to transit out and bring oil to China, which is why they're actually selling more oil right now than they were before the conflict started. And the only vessel that has actually gone out and exited the straits with oil was yesterday. It was a Pakistani flagged vessel that had agreed with the Iranian Foreign Ministry to allow it to transit through for various political reasons. And there were two Indian vessels that are allowed to move back to repatriate some Iranian bodies from the Sri Lanka coastline that were bombed by the submarine a few days ago. So if we're looking at that, it's down below single digit percentages of transits through there. It's absolutely not secured. In no reality is it safe to transit through there. And the other challenge is maybe from a military perspective it's physically safe. But if you're an insurance company that's insuring a maersk ship with $300 million worth of oil on it, you may be very hesitant to insure that ship. And so this is another like political external factor that the military can't really control. It's going to have to be at the political level that this problem is solved or else these vessels won't feel safe enough and the insurance companies won't feel safe enough to insure those vessels even if it is physically safe to pass through. So that's another step that has to occur as far as messaging from the US side and from the Israeli side to tell the world that hey, it is actually safe or the US can Absorb some of that risk by promising those insurance companies that they'll almost subsidize that insurance. Kind of like the federal deposit insurance we have for deposits in banks, which is something that has been discussed but isn't fully in place yet. And then on the, on the MU portion of it you mentioned, it's this small versatile entity and it's actually the smallest of a certain type of Marine task organization called a Marine Air Ground Task Force, which is something unique to the Marine Corps. For listeners who don't know this, this task force is very scalable from that MU size, which is roughly 2200 total people, including logistics and other support and command element. It can move up to a brigade size element and it can move up to a force size element. These are kind of like increasing scale echelon for what a command might need. And by comparison, during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, there were mus that were there, but they were part of larger, much larger entities doing a ground force invasion of Iraq, which is arguably a far less complex invasion than the terrain facing the ground forces in Iran, which would require many, many more units of much higher scale to actually traverse and secure those high terrain features to safely move into the country from a conventional ground force invasion perspective. So when looking at this MU people are thinking about boots in the ground, probably of some kind of conventional combat force. And it's important to be hesitant there and question, well, how much would that MU actually achieve and would it even be safe for it to go aground with the small size it has? Because that's not what the MEW is for alone. As Andy mentioned, that MU is to do things amphibiously, from sea ship to shore and then back to ship. That's really what it's supposed to be for. That could be seizing a beach, holding a beach, securing a location for follow on forces to flow through. Things like this. They're not supposed to be there long term and they're not supposed to be the main combat element. That's what things like the 82nd Airborne and Marine Divisions are for. We have a great map up here. We can see Straits of Hormuz.
- [37:53]
Andy Milburn
Masters of technology.
- [37:55]
Podcast Host (Teamhouse/Eyes on Geopolitics)
Yep. Jack came in clutch with this one.
- [37:58]
Military Analyst (possibly Andy or another expert)
I'm impressed.
- [37:58]
John (Counterintelligence Expert)
Actually.
- [37:59]
Podcast Host (Teamhouse/Eyes on Geopolitics)
Do you see Crag island though? Isn't it a little bit more north?
- [38:02]
John (Counterintelligence Expert)
It's up there. It says Kark, which is incorrectly spelled.
- [38:07]
Podcast Host (Teamhouse/Eyes on Geopolitics)
Yeah.
- [38:08]
John (Counterintelligence Expert)
Yep. And that's 100 kilometers from Abadan.
- [38:13]
Andy Milburn
And I was reading about this island too today, that this has supposedly underground missile facilities on it.
- [38:20]
John (Counterintelligence Expert)
Yeah, you can actually see them On Google satellite imagery, you can see the Russian, you know, the Russian surface to air missile, the SA9 structure, where they usually have like a Pentagon formation. You can see those all up and down the island.
- [38:31]
Podcast Host (Teamhouse/Eyes on Geopolitics)
Have we not been hitting that island? I'm sure we have. I'm assuming we have been.
- [38:35]
Andy Milburn
We. The desalination plant we hit was on that island. And that's kind of messed up. Like, it basically deprived 30 villages of fresh water. I mean, I don't know.
- [38:45]
Podcast Host (Teamhouse/Eyes on Geopolitics)
Isn't that a war crime?
- [38:47]
Andy Milburn
I'm not a jag, but it sounds like it.
- [38:51]
John (Counterintelligence Expert)
Well, remember, we don't have those silly rules of engagement anymore.
- [38:54]
Podcast Host (Teamhouse/Eyes on Geopolitics)
Oh, yeah, that's right. No more politically correct wars. I'm so excited about that. John's trying to get me triggered, bro. And this is such a good episode. And he's doing. He's doing this on purpose. I know it.
- [39:04]
Military Analyst (possibly Andy or another expert)
You know it. I mean, it raises. It raises a point that I don't think is commonly understood, not even in the military. Right. About the enemy's order of battle and understanding how much you've attrited it. And even with all the technology the United States has at its disposable. What a difficult task that is made more difficult by, you know, the terrain, by the fact that when you're talking about the nature of what is being potentially could be hidden. And we talked about missile launchers and drones, small boats, all these things that could significantly remain a threat are easy to disperse and conceal. So it doesn't matter what you have. So these press conferences where we are trotting out all the things that we have done don't really answer the mail. The real question is, what does Iran have left? And that arguably could be what Marines ashore could do. Although personally, I. I think I would just for a number of years, I mean, I would select different special operations forces to. To do that. If you, if you. Your concern is BDA and 2000 Marines, one MU. Once. Once you committed them, as I made the point earlier, you committed them. Right. It's not something that. I mean, yes, you backload them on ships, but it's not. It's not as though you can hop all around the Straits of Hormuz using them again and again.
- [40:37]
John (Counterintelligence Expert)
Yeah, that's actually a good point. We were on the Special Operations Task Force in Iraq in 2016, and we did a lot of strikes. I think it was 30,000 strikes in six months. And we had to do battle damage assessment after all those strikes to ensure that we were hitting targets right. With the right things. And all that. And even that when we were we had the ability to get inside the denied area and actually measure the bda, we had a very hard time to get accurate BDA on the ground where we actually were. Because you have human intelligence that's not always accurate. You have signals intelligence that only gives you a piece of the picture. When you look at the physical infrastructure that doesn't actually tell you about capability, it just tells you about the building. Right. And if there's bodies in there, we don't know which bodies. You have sources at the hospital trying to tell you who they were, but you still don't know. And that's when you're actually physically there. And we don't have that scale of deployment in Iran, which on a much larger scale of destruction already that's going to require precise BDA to actually measure did we hit the right things with the right equipment and with the right follow on effects.
- [41:34]
Military Analyst (possibly Andy or another expert)
John One thing that hasn't received much attention though, to my surprise certainly in the media and discussions are this time around in Iran's nuclear facilities. I mean, there hasn't been mention of destruction to them in the discussions of battle damage assessments. First of all, what's your take on that? And secondly, do you think perhaps that's the next phase of this operation?
- [42:04]
John (Counterintelligence Expert)
I saw some satellite imagery on January 31, I believe, of some of the facilities and they're basically buried underground by the strikes that we did. And the thing there is you don't know how much is buried or if there was even anything buried there. And back in June when we were striking some facilities, the regime had already moved some of the uranium to other facilities. So it's very difficult without having people on the ground to actually know what's in there. And that's not human sources because even the sources might not know because they're not digging in the soil. They might be just guessing and saying, well, it looks like this was destroyed. So I guess that's probably what this is. You would actually need to go there and measure with some technical equipment to figure out what amount of material remains underground. And the only way to do that is to obviously dig underground is a very challenging thing to do because these facilities were very deep underground in the first place. If you've seen some of the strikes that we did that were the penetrators that went that, they basically are very heavy. They hit the ground, go deep underground before they explode. So they have this little pinpoint hole in the ground before they go in and they do a bunker Buster explosion deep underground. You have no way to measure what the efficacy of that was or even if that was the right location in that complex where you should be hitting it. Because nobody's got a flag there saying the uranium is here. Even if at the facility they might have moved it to a different wing, there might be other tunnels. We can do a lot of measurement and signature intelligence or mayzent to see what soil was moved, where, when, how much soil was removed. So we can estimate how large the tunnels are based on what the amount of material that's been removed is. But that doesn't tell you what the configuration of the tunnel is and all these other things. There could be some side room that we never knew existed. So there's a lot of variables and difficulties on top of this. Even if you had a good human network in the country, it's a kind of a black box without actually physically being there with the tools you need to measure this material.
- [43:50]
Military Analyst (possibly Andy or another expert)
Yeah. And there's no, you know, when there's talk about not just damage to facilities, but the potential of securing enriched uranium itself. Right. You see that speculation. I mean, one of the core problems is aside from the fact that as we talked about damaged facilities doesn't necessarily mean that what we've seen from damaged facilities doesn't necessarily give us an accurate picture. And trying to track where that material is, what condition it's in, whether it has been moved, whether it can be moved at short notice, all those things are questions that are going to be very tough to answer if indeed that becomes a mission.
- [44:39]
John (Counterintelligence Expert)
And actually that's a great point about the complexity of this because there isn't just a box of fissile material in a facility. There are varying ways that this is stored depending on where it is in the process of enrichment and refinement. In the early stages, you might have some yellow cake, for example, that is contained in a pretty obvious structural container. But once you start putting it in the centrifuge cascades, which Iran uses this specialized cascade system of centrifuges because they're not allowed to get the larger centrifuges that the nuclear powered countries have. So you basically have these very long lines of centrifuges all produced by the German company Siemens. That's another thing to talk about how they got there. Anyways, they're there, they've got these things all linked together in these very long, almost like tubes of many centrifuges spinning at different speeds to try to separate and enrich the uranium in a particular facility like Natanz for example, there may be thousands of these centrifuges and they're pretty good. They're bigger than my head per centrifuge. Right. So I mean, if you want to go get these things out, you're not talking about a guy going in with a backpack and just putting the uranium in his backpack and walking out. You're talking about a very long tailed logistical requirement to support just the movement, not talking about the safety or these other things, but just the actual logistics of getting this stuff out. How many people would you need? What kind of equipment would you need? There might even be a thought going on in the decision making process about what if we just physically destroy enough so that nobody can dig down there and get the stuff out? Because that might actually be a better solution than going over there and actually digging with heavy machinery to get this out. And I'm sure this kind of discussion is going on right now with the National Security Council and I'm sure Marco Rubio is talking to himself and the different positions that he holds to try to figure out how to advise himself to tell the President about how to get this uranium out.
- [46:19]
Military Analyst (possibly Andy or another expert)
Yeah, the hardest part of the mission isn't getting there, it's what you do when you do get there.
- [46:25]
Andy Milburn
Yeah, a little bit. I'm not going to talk too much about what's actually going on or potentially going on right now in regards to this, but a little bit of historical data that may be useful for, to help people think about this. The counter WMD mission, I mean, of course has been, you know, with JSOC since its inception, early training exercises. Delta was going up against simulated improvised nuclear devices and having EOD guys come in and disarm them. But then it kicks into high gear. In the 1980s when Gaddafi had an underground chemical weapons facility in Tarhuna and JSOC was tasked with a mission or planning a mission to go in and destroy it. And interestingly, the way it was planned was that Marine Corps hovercraft would come up over the coast of Libya, come as far as inland as they could, then they would offload trucks with the JSOC guys on it. They would then drive to Tarhuna using industrial drilling equipment drilled down from the surface into the facilities, and then in like basically cement mixer trucks, pour an explosive slurry down into the facility and detonate it. So it was a pretty crazy plan. I guess it's for the best that it never had to be executed. That was, that situation was resolved diplomatically and Gaddafi shut that facility Down. But that was sort of the beginning of JSOC sort of looking at this problem set. And it's evolved over the years. It's been called the deep Underground mission or the Hardened Deeply Buried target mission. And over the years, that has evolved into essentially, you know, JSOC going in to conduct WMD sabotage to like just go in and destroy those facilities. And it could be like chemical weapons, vats, it could be fissile material, whatever the case may be. And then that evolved, you know, by the time you're getting into like the mid to late 1990s, it evolved not just into the destruction, but to seize the material and take it out with you. And JSOC has done extensive training on this at the Nevada Test Site in underground tunnels and things like this, practicing explosive breaching, like breaching heavy volt bunker doors underground. It's a very technically difficult mission to accomplish. And they've done this. And I mean, all the way up until. Yeah, some other stuff I won't even get into right now, but the CBRN aspect, the radiological material aspect of it, makes this mission that much more dangerous, especially if you're going into targets that have already been hit with airstrikes. You don't know, like, have those vats been cracked open? Did they topple over? Is this stuff already in the ground? So it's a very technically and logistically complicated operation to pull off.
- [49:24]
Podcast Host (Teamhouse/Eyes on Geopolitics)
And I have a question. It's not going to be like some quick, like Maduro raid, few hours overnight, it's going to take days or weeks, I'm assuming, to do this. So there would need to be security. You know, it's not just a quick in and out. You know, thanks for coming.
- [49:39]
Military Analyst (possibly Andy or another expert)
In a, in a foreign, in a sovereign hostile country, you, you're going to need a secure perimeter for an extended period of time, right? I mean, days to weeks, a secure perimeter, control of surrounding terrain, protection against counterattack, which could come from. In any domain. Right. So as a Marine Expeditionary Unit potentially could provide, could accomplish that mission. I know, let me rephrase that. That could potentially be a mission assigned to the Marine Expeditionary Unit, but it's never been done for before. Right. It's not something specifically that Marines train for, for that period of time. And you can imagine. I mean, so you've got all the inner problems right inside that cord and all the problems that you're going to have to deal with. Locating the material, verifying it, securing it, either destroying it or removing it. And then you've got the, you've got the external security problem, which is immensely complex too, and makes you, all of which makes you hugely vulnerable.
- [50:56]
Andy Milburn
This is pretty much unprecedented, what we're talking about here and the precedent you would look to, if anything, it's not like the Maduro raid or the bin Laden raid or something like that. Actually, what I would look to is there was an operation in the early years of the war on terror in the early 2000s. SOCOM was somewhat involved, but mostly it was DTRA, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency went to a island in Uzbekistan where the Soviets had a chemical weapons facility back in the day. And there was tons and tons of anthrax in the ground. If terrorists wanted, they could just go to this island and dig anthrax out of the ground and they'd have their sample ready to go. So Dichtra goes in there with their, all their, you know, subcontractors and Raytheon contractors and everyone else, and they destroyed that material. They dug it up out of the ground and destroyed the, I think like 60 tons of anthrax. It came out to. Now the difference of course, is this was a permissive environment. This was done with the cooperation of the government of Uzbekistan. You know, we want to go in and destroy these WMDs and keep the world safe and use back of stands like, okay, bring your boys in, we can do this. It wasn't an armed military operation, but what we're talking about in Iran would have more in common with what I just described than with like a Maduro raid.
- [52:21]
John (Counterintelligence Expert)
And plus, we're talking about this as if it's like one facility. There are at least 12 different facilities in different provinces spread all over the place. You have to repeat this 12 times or more successfully to achieve the objective that you're looking for. So that means every single time you do it, you're introducing new risk, new layers of complexity, new opportunities for attack. Because let's say you do it like three times. Well, the adversary is going to measure how you did those three times and figure out all kinds of ways to exploit the next nine times. You have to do this because you're going to have to keep repeating the same ttps every time. And if you reveal your clandestine methodologies in that first couple of goes, you can't use them anymore in the same way that you did previously.
- [53:05]
Military Analyst (possibly Andy or another expert)
Yeah, if this was what we call a COA brief, right, A course of action brief, you look at the cons that we've stacked up here and it's very difficult to think of pros that would balance against those cons and yes,
- [53:22]
Andy Milburn
strategically, Andy, I mean, you look at this kind of operation that we're talking about, explain to me how this brings us closer to victory in Iran. How does this bring us closer to a democratic Iran?
- [53:36]
Military Analyst (possibly Andy or another expert)
Okay.
- [53:37]
Andy Milburn
You're getting some fissile material out of the ground and denying that to the Iranian government if they ever get back on their feet to the point where they can recover that stuff. But this doesn't really bring us closer to a victory or a win, the kind of win even that, you know, President Trump seems to desire. I don't think it gets us closer to his own stated objective here.
- [54:02]
John (Counterintelligence Expert)
It's similar to Desert One. I always go back to Eagle Claw in Iran because this is a very similar thing where there's that risk benefit in the military planning side of it, then there's the political choice to do it anyway, even though it's extremely risky. And a commander would never give this green light unless the President tells him, like, you're doing this. And it's the same thing where there's these layers of especially air and logistics capability that there's so much complexity in there. And it only takes one crash at a fuel bladder in a desert to change the whole thing in a direction that you didn't expect and that the people just will not accept.
- [54:34]
Military Analyst (possibly Andy or another expert)
Yeah. The difference being the rescue of US Hostages in Iran arguably was a strategic imperative. Right. Whereas securing enriched uranium in sites in Iran. It's hard to align with any strategic imperative that would justify the level of risk.
- [54:56]
Andy Milburn
Yeah. Especially when it's buried under rubble. They don't have any access to it, apparently.
- [55:01]
Military Analyst (possibly Andy or another expert)
Okay, well, I'm glad we dealt with that one.
- [55:02]
Andy Milburn
Yeah.
- [55:03]
Podcast Host (Teamhouse/Eyes on Geopolitics)
Let's also not. Let's also not forget that this was. They were. The uranium was on the table right before we started bombing Iran to be sent.
- [55:11]
John (Counterintelligence Expert)
It also didn't exist in 2015.
- [55:13]
Military Analyst (possibly Andy or another expert)
Well, it gets back to perhaps a lack of coherence in describing what the end state is, though the desired conditions are for termination of hostilities. Right. And we haven't seen yet kind of a coherent statement. So we're speculating, and I'm sure military commanders, I don't know, but I hope that they are saying, hey, boss, we're going. If our goals are reduction of Iranian capabilities, Right. To the point where Iran is effectively neutralized and cannot do X things for X period of time, then these are the conditions that need to exist, and we are one week, two weeks away from achieving those conditions. Right. That's kind of the conversation that should take place. But, boss, if you want to destroy the nuclear facilities and set them back six months, one year, two years, then we need to extend the campaign by X number of time. And finally, if you want a regime change, we just can't get there from here, not with an air campaign. Hopefully these conversations are taking place.
- [56:27]
Andy Milburn
Spoiler alert. They're not. Yeah, sorry. I'm sorry to be a doomer Debbie Downer on you, Andy. I don't think those conversations are taking place.
- [56:39]
Military Analyst (possibly Andy or another expert)
Well, you know, one would hope those conversations are taking place in an open forum, too. You know, I mean, these, these sort of conversations that, that's one of the disadvantages with waging war as a liberal democracy. And I say liberal little L. All right, Liberal democracy as in, you know, look it up, what it means. Not, not you guys. I meant for those of our audience
- [56:58]
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- [58:29]
Military Analyst (possibly Andy or another expert)
u n d screaming every time you mentioned liberal. Is that. Yeah, you. You. You lose a little bit of the opaqueness Right. That an authority authoritarian regime has about the way it wages war. We owe to the American public, normally via their elected representatives, an explanation of why we're at war and what the objectives are. Because everyone's aware of the cost or perhaps they're not at this stage. Which is a good point that I'll finish on, really, and I'm not being a hand wringer here, but I don't think anyone has a clear picture of the overall cost of this war. I'm not talking about the billions a day that we're spending. I'm talking about the effects on the global economy, the effect on our alliance networks. Alliances, sorry, that was a poorly worded phrase.
- [59:18]
Podcast Host (Teamhouse/Eyes on Geopolitics)
John, you wanted to talk a little bit about the Iranian elite real estate portfolio in the uk?
- [59:28]
John (Counterintelligence Expert)
Yeah, it's really fascinating. So Ali Ansari, who's this individual that's closely affiliated with Ahmadinejad, if everyone remembers this colorful individual from the presidency that caused the green revolution in 2009. So he just opened up 33 new luxury apartments in London using investment money that he got from Iran, which is fascinating because they're not part of the international banking system, they're not part of the swift banking system and the money was taken from a regime affiliated account. So that's all opening up. But that's not even the biggest dollar amount because right now Mojtaba, the potentially alive or dead leader of Iran, has a $100 million real estate investment in London as well. That was just talked about a few weeks ago that the British government approved this purchase. It's just a fascinating thing because people think, aren't they heavily sanctioned? Aren't they not part of the banking system? How are they getting this money? The thing is, sanctions have certain levels of efficacy. There are studies done that say that it's actually not as effective as you think. And they're not really effective against an authoritarian state because that authoritarian state controls the black market. So it's the regular people that can't access the banking system and then the small group of elites can get outside of it and go do things outside the country like we see right now. And a great example of that, Andy and I think we were talking about this a couple of weeks ago with how are they selling oil? And what they're doing is they have these banks all over the World Bank Meli is an Iranian owned bank, It's a state owned bank Bank Meli has a branch in Hong Kong and it has a branch in London. It's got a branch in Hamburg and Paris. And these banks are in those countries, they can actually do business in those countries. So if you sell your oil in China for $300 million per vessel, you take that $300 million, you don't send it back to Iran. You bring it over to Bank Meli in Hong Kong and then wire it to London and then go open up your real estate business in Seville Row. And this is what's going on. It's very interesting because Mojdaba, for example, the new supreme leader, he's never worked, he's never earned a paycheck, and he has $100 million that he can use to open up businesses and real estate in London. And this is just very important for listeners to understand about exactly. When we talk about the regime, they're terrible to their own people, but they're also highly corrupt. And this corruption is the thing that you can see outside the country. Canada, for example, a few years ago, the former central bank director of Iran fled to Canada with $3.7 billion in assets. You don't bring that in a suitcase to Canada. That's wired to Canada. And the government of Canada approves that. We actually have a professor at the University of Pennsylvania who's the son of Masoume Ebtikar. And if you remember, during the hostage crisis, there was a woman that was the speaker in English during the hostage crisis inside the US Embassy in Tehran that was the spokesperson for the new colonel of the regime. Her son is a professor at the University of Pennsylvania. How is that possible? Zarif, former foreign minister, went to Ohio State University. The more you look at this, the more you realize that these elites, they just escape all of our restrictions. And this is why there's such a problem right now. The disconnect between the people in Iran and these elites that no matter what you do, they're going to find a way to snake around it because it's not a democracy. They can be as corrupt as they want, and the people can't do anything about it because first of all, they don't have any guns.
- [62:40]
Podcast Host (Teamhouse/Eyes on Geopolitics)
We got to end on a better note.
- [62:42]
Military Analyst (possibly Andy or another expert)
Well, I've got a better note at some point, and I think. I mean, a slight change of topic, but I think it's important. I think a lot of people will learn from this. And this gets back to our discussion of the North Korean policy of the troika, right? Three people wandering around together. And I want to point out that within the Marine Corps, our own research of the troika has really revealed that it's ineffective Totally. So we used to operate. And this ties in with Okinawa, too, because this is the liberty policy in Okinawa. And that two Marines, it used to be the buddy program. Right. But then we discovered over the course of, oh, I don't know, maybe four decades, that where one Marine gets drunk, the other is likely also to get drunk. So the policy became they had to travel in a troika. But guess what? We found that the same three guys got drunk. Yeah.
- [63:36]
Podcast Host (Teamhouse/Eyes on Geopolitics)
Instead of just one.
- [63:38]
Military Analyst (possibly Andy or another expert)
So. And if the North Koreans are having the same problem, the other one. Yeah, they. And Jack brought up an excellent point too, that he talked about where sleeping cells break down. And he said, you know, they. Someone finds a woman. Right. I mean, that's. That. That. That's the beginning of the scene.
- [63:59]
Andy Milburn
I mean, even I believe Muhammad Atta, one of the 911 hijackers, was dating a stripper down in Florida. I mean, these guys get sucked into this stuff. Hell, maybe if that had gone on a little longer, he wouldn't have done what he did. As I was saying, it's only the most committed ideological people that can really stay committed to that. And I've heard some stories about the Chinese, actually, not so much sleeper cells per se, but more like espionage, where they're like super committed Maoists and they. They'll, like, live a life of poverty even if they have, like an advanced degree, because they're putting all their money into, you know, helping out the fatherland or whatever. It's very weird, actually.
- [64:45]
Podcast Host (Teamhouse/Eyes on Geopolitics)
Jack, you remember that? Go ahead. Sorry. John, go.
- [64:50]
John (Counterintelligence Expert)
I was gonna say the Ministry of State Security actually is very unique in the. The great power espionage world because they don't recruit, generally don't recruit non Chinese people. They'll typically only recruit Chinese citizens from China who are in the target country. Like, for example, they're going to Berkeley, getting a chemical engineering degree, but they're Chinese. That's who the MSS will go after because they know they have a very. Like, they can measure that loyalty. And it's. They don't have to develop it as much as we would have to develop, for example, recruiting an Egyptian guy to work for us in Egypt, you know.
- [65:19]
Andy Milburn
Well, it's also. It's also that, you know, if they even find somebody who's not a Chinese citizen but of Chinese ethnicity, and they still have family back on the mainland. And I mean, they call the mss, calls them up and says, I was visiting your aunt the other day. I mean, they get the message right away. I mean, they know what they're supposed to Do
- [65:38]
Podcast Host (Teamhouse/Eyes on Geopolitics)
Jack. What was that story about a virologist who's a doctor working in the United States, you know, probably making a decent living? Yeah, he was living in, like, squalor because he was like.
- [65:49]
Andy Milburn
That was a friend of mine, worked that case where it was a Chinese guy had a job working for the government. He was an md, but he was living out of his van, and he was selling ghost guns at gun shows. And so there's no. There's. As far as I know, there's no proof of, like, a Chinese intelligence nexus. But I've heard enough stories like this over the years. You start to wonder, like, is it really about making money, or is it this guy just acting as a chaos agent? Like, selling ghost guns to Latino and African American gangs in New York City? In this case.
- [66:24]
Podcast Host (Teamhouse/Eyes on Geopolitics)
All right, great. Now we just brought in church. China trying to us up, too. Great.
- [66:28]
Andy Milburn
Well, there's other stuff, too. I mean, if you start looking at, like, the Order of the Nine Angles and, like, one of their founders lives in Russia now. I mean, there's stuff that.
- [66:37]
Podcast Host (Teamhouse/Eyes on Geopolitics)
What is that? I don't know. I've never heard of that.
- [66:39]
Andy Milburn
It's sort of. It's like a Satanist nihilistic movement that came out of the UK initially, and those guys go and they do, you know, spree shootings and stuff like that sometimes. I. I mean, again, I couldn't prove anything as far as, like, an intelligence nexus, but there's enough things that, like, you're squinting at it, like, what the hell is going on here?
- [67:04]
Podcast Host (Teamhouse/Eyes on Geopolitics)
What a way to end Satanist shooting sprees.
- [67:07]
Andy Milburn
Yeah. Sorry, guys.
- [67:08]
Podcast Host (Teamhouse/Eyes on Geopolitics)
No, I want you guys to check out the high side. Jack Murphy, Sean Nail. They're working on a really good article coming out soon having to do with J. Sock. Really interesting with several at this point. Yeah, actually, yeah. Multiple. Multiple. Pants on the Fire. The. With Zach Dorfman. Right. He's. He's helping out on one of them. What else we got? Andy Milburn. Of course. Andy, give us a flex. Just show us one. One. No. All right, we'll do that after you
- [67:38]
Military Analyst (possibly Andy or another expert)
got me on that for the team house.
- [67:40]
John (Counterintelligence Expert)
Remember that.
- [67:41]
Podcast Host (Teamhouse/Eyes on Geopolitics)
I want you guys to check out Andy's book.
- [67:43]
Military Analyst (possibly Andy or another expert)
The. The time we went shirtless.
- [67:45]
Podcast Host (Teamhouse/Eyes on Geopolitics)
Yeah.
- [67:45]
Military Analyst (possibly Andy or another expert)
As well as drunk.
- [67:47]
Andy Milburn
Well, yeah, Andy. Yeah.
- [67:48]
Ryan Seacrest
It's a classic.
- [67:50]
Podcast Host (Teamhouse/Eyes on Geopolitics)
That's a cloud. We'll get you shirtless again. Not drunk, but we'll get you shirtless again. We're gonna get John shirtless to drop his reputation a couple notches, too.
- [67:59]
John (Counterintelligence Expert)
Give me more Twitter followers that way.
- [68:02]
Podcast Host (Teamhouse/Eyes on Geopolitics)
Your book, when the Tempest Gathers. Incredible book. Check that out. That link is in the description. John's book, of course. Theory of irregular war and Iran shadow weapons. All those links are down in the description. I know. Andy, you're working on another book having to do with Gaza and Israel, right? Like that's cooking. So we're looking forward to that one. And of course Jack's got a new book coming out in June. Very exciting fiction. The the Most Dangerous Man. I read it. It's really good. Yeah, all those links are in the description. Support the show. Patreon.com TheTeamHouse you get both eyes on and Pat Team House episodes ad free and early. And as always, a pleasure guys. Thank you.
- [68:45]
Andy Milburn
Yeah, thank you.
- [68:46]
John (Counterintelligence Expert)
Thanks guys.
- [68:47]
Military Analyst (possibly Andy or another expert)
All the best.
- [68:51]
Andy Milburn
Hey everyone. I want to tell you about my new novel the Most Dangerous man out in June. It is a novel about a regimental reconnaissance company soldier who gets kidnapped while he's on a mission to West Africa. And when he wakes up up, he finds that he is now being hunted for sport by a group of tech billionaires through the wilds of West Africa. This book is based on stories that I heard over the years about safari guides taking wealthy clients hunting for poachers on game reserves in Africa. I took that and I took a century old short story, the Most Dangerous Game and modernized it. And the product is this book which I think will feel contemporary and resonate with audiences today. Thank you and please check it out.
- [69:44]
Ryan Seacrest
Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons N Safeway. Cold weather can wreak havoc on your skin. You don't want to miss out on this month's great savings on all your favorite skincare Essentials. Now through March 31st. Earn four times points when you purchase participating skincare items like like Dove Soap, Dove Body Wash, Dove Beauty Bar, Soft Soap Body Wash and Irish Spring Body Wash. Points can be redeemed later for discounts on groceries or gas. Offer ends March 31. Restrictions apply. Promotions may vary. Visit albertsons or safeway.com for more details.
- [70:15]
Howie Mandel
Hey, it's Howie Mandel and I am inviting you to witness history as me and my Howie do it gaming team take on Gilly the King and Wallow267's million dollars gaming in an epic global gaming league video game showdown. Four rounds, multiple games, one winner plus a halftime performance by multi platinum artist Travy McCoy. Watch all the action and see who wins and advances to the championship match against Neo right now@globalgamingleague.com that's globalgamingleague.com everybody
- [70:44]
Whimsound Advertiser
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- [71:21]
Ryan Seacrest
Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway. Are you looking for a refresh this spring? Make sure you take some time for self care with savings on all your favorite hair care Essentials. Now through March 31st. Shop in store or online for participating hair care items from Pantene, Head and Shoulders, Aussie and Old Spice and earn four times points. Points can be redeemed later for discounts on groceries or gas. Offer ends March 31. Restrictions apply. Promotions may vary. Visit albertsons or safeway.com for more details.
- [71:51]
Howie Mandel
Hey, it's Howie Mandel and I am inviting you to witness history as me and my How We do it gaming team take on Gilly the King and Wallow two six seven's million dollars gaming in an epic Global Gaming League video game showdown. Four rounds, multiple games, one winner plus a halftime performance by multi platinum artist Travy McCoy. Watch all the action and see who wins in advance of to the championship match against Neo right now@globalgamingleague.com that's globalgamingleague.com everybody.
- [72:20]
Whimsound Advertiser
Games bring incredible sound into every corner of your home with the new Whimsound Smart Speaker. Get high resolution Audio with a 1.8-inch touchscreen, smart control and modern design in one powerful speaker for just $299. From Quiet Mornings to lively family gatherings, Wimps Whim sound makes every moment sound better and feel better too. Create a home filled with sound you love. Ready to upgrade your sound? Shop now at Amazon and search whimsound. That's W I I m S o u n d.
- [72:56]
Ryan Seacrest
Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway. Are you looking for a refresh this spring? Make sure you take some time for self care with savings on all your favorite hair care Essentials. Now through March 31st. Shop in store or online for participating hair care items from Pantene, Head and Shoulders, Aussie and Old Spice and earn four times points. Points can be redeemed later for discounts on groceries or gas. Offer ends March 31st. Restrictions apply. Promotions may vary. Visit albertsons or safeway.com for more details.
- [73:26]
Howie Mandel
Hey it's Howie Mandel and I am inviting you to witness history as me and my How We Do It Gaming team take on Gilly The King and Wallow. Two $67 million gaming in an epic Global Gaming League video game showdown. Four rounds, multiple games, one winner plus a halftime performance by multi platinum artist Travy McCoy. Watch all the action and see who wins and advances to the championship match against Neo right now@globalgamingleague.com that's globalgamingleague.com everybody
- [73:55]
Sling Advertiser
games want a game changing way to watch college basketball with a one day pass from Sling. Get instant access access to the men's and women's tournaments starting at just $4.99. You can catch all the action on TNT, TBS, ESPN and ESPN too. Want even more hoops? Then add an extra pack to your subscription for just $1. No overpaying, no over committing. Just tournaments so crazy they'd be crazy to miss. Visit sling.com to learn more. Sling lets you do that.
- [74:33]
Ryan Seacrest
Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway. Are you looking for a refresh this spring? Make sure you take some time for self care with savings on all your favorite hair care Essentials now through March 31st. Shop in store or online for participating hair care items from Pantene, Head and Shoulders, Aussie and Old Spice and earn four times points. Points can be redeemed later for discounts on groceries or gas. Offer ends March 31. Restrictions apply. Promotions may vary. Visit albertsons or safeway.com for more details.
- [75:02]
Howie Mandel
Hey, it's Howie Mandel and I am inviting you to witness history as me and my Howie do it gaming team take on Gilly The King and Wallow. Two $67 million gaming in an epic Global Gaming League video game showdown. Four rounds, multiple games, one winner plus a halftime performance by multi platinum artist Travie McCoy. Watch all the action and see who wins in advance of to the championship match against Neo right now@globalgamingleague.com that's globalgamingleague.com everybody games when you manage procurement for multiple facilities, every order matters.
- [75:36]
Military Analyst (possibly Andy or another expert)
But when it's for a hospital system, they matter even more. Grainger gets it and knows there's no
- [75:42]
Howie Mandel
time for managing multiple suppliers and no
- [75:44]
Military Analyst (possibly Andy or another expert)
room for shipping delays.
- [75:45]
Howie Mandel
That's why Grainger offers millions of products in fast, dependable delivery so you can keep your facility stocked, safe and running smoothly.
- [75:54]
Military Analyst (possibly Andy or another expert)
Call 1-800-GRAINGER. Click grainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done.
- [76:09]
Ryan Seacrest
Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway. Are you looking for a refresh this spring? Make sure you take some time for self care with savings on all your favorite hair care Essentials. Now through March 31st. Shop in store or online for participating hair care items from Pantene, Head and Shoulders, Aussie and Old Spice and earn four times points. Points can be redeemed later for discounts on groceries or gas. Offer ends March 31. Restrictions apply. Promotions may vary. Visit albertsons or safeway.com for more details.
- [76:39]
Howie Mandel
Hey it's Howie Mandel and I am inviting you to witness history as me and my How We Do It Gaming team take on Gilly the king and wallow. 2, 6 7's million dollars gaming in an epic Global Gaming League video game showdown. Four rounds, multiple games, one winner plus a halftime performance by multi platinum artist Travy McCoy. Watch all the action and see who wins and advances to the championship match against Neo right now@globalgamingleague.com that's globalgamingleague.com everybody.
- [77:09]
Sling Advertiser
Games want a game changing way to watch college basketball with a one day pass from Sling. Get instant access access to the men's and women's tournaments starting at just $4.99. You can catch all the action on TNT, TBS, ESPN and ESPN too. Want even more hoops? Then add an extra pack to your subscription for just $1. No overpaying, no over committing. Just tournaments. So crazy they'd be crazy to miss. Visit sling.com to learn more. Sling lets you do that.
- [77:46]
Ryan Seacrest
Hey it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons n Safeway. Cold weather can wreak havoc on your skin. You don't want to miss out on this month's great savings on all your favorite skincare Essentials. Now through March 31st. Earn four times points when you purchase participating skincare items like Dove Soap, Dove Body Wash, Dove Beauty Bar, Soft Soap Body Wash and Irish Spring Body Wash. Points can be redeemed later for discounts on groceries or gas. Offer ends March 31st. Restrictions apply. Promotions may vary. Visit albertsons or safeway.com for more details.
- [78:17]
Howie Mandel
Hey, it's Howie Mandel and I am inviting you to witness history as me and my Howie Do It Gaming team take on Gilly the king and wallow. Two, six $7 million gaming in an epic Global Gaming League video game showdown. Four rounds, multiple games, one winner plus a halftime performance by multi platinum artist Travie McCoy. Watch all the action and see who wins in advance of to the championship match against NEO right now@globalgamingleague.com that's globalgamingleague.com everybody games.
- [78:47]
Military Analyst (possibly Andy or another expert)
It's only getting every customer's order right.
- [78:50]
John (Counterintelligence Expert)
It's only a point of sale system connected by Spectrum Fiber powered Business Internet, helping you track hundreds of secure transactions and it's all backed by 24.
- [78:58]
Military Analyst (possibly Andy or another expert)
7 US based customer support and local technicians.
- [79:02]
John (Counterintelligence Expert)
It's only everything Get Business Internet Advanced Advantage free forever. When you get four mobile lines from
- [79:07]
Howie Mandel
Spectrum, visit spectrum.com freeforlife to find out how Restrictions apply.
- [79:13]
Military Analyst (possibly Andy or another expert)
Services not available in all areas.
- [79:23]
Ryan Seacrest
Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway. Are you looking for a refresh this spring? Make sure you take some time for self care with savings on all your favorite hair care Essentials. Now through March 31st. Shop in store or online for participating hair care items from Pantene, Head and Shoulders, Aussie and Old Spice and earn four times points. Points can be redeemed later for discounts on groceries or gas. Offer ends March 31. Restrictions apply. Promotions may vary. Visit albertsons or safeway.com for more details.
- [79:53]
Howie Mandel
Hey it's Howie Mandel and I am inviting you to witness history as me and my How We do it gaming team take on Gilly The King Wallow 267's Million Dollar Gaming in an epic Global Gaming League video game showdown. Four rounds, multiple games, one winner plus a halftime performance by multi platinum artist Travy McCoy. Watch all the action and see who wins and advances to the championship match against Neo right now@globalgamingleague.com that's globalgamingleague.com everybody
- [80:23]
Sling Advertiser
games want a game changing way to watch college basketball With a one day pass from Sling, get instant access to the men's and women's tournaments. Starting at just $4.99. You can catch all the action on TNT, TBS, ESPN and ESPN too. Want even more hoops? Then add an extra pack to your subscription for just $1. No overpaying, no over committing. Just tournaments so crazy they'd be crazy to miss. Visit sling.com to learn more. Sling lets you do that.
- [81:00]
Ryan Seacrest
Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway. Cold weather can wreak havoc on your skin. You don't want to miss out on this month's great savings on all your favorite skincare Essentials now through March 31st. Earn four times points when you purchase participating skincare items like Dove Soap, Dove Body Wash, Dove Beauty Bar Soft Soap Body Wash and Irish Spring Body Wash. Points can be redeemed later for discounts on groceries or gas. Offer ends March 31. Restrictions apply. Promotions may vary. Visit albertsons or safeway.com for more details.
- [81:31]
Howie Mandel
Hey, it's Howie Mandel and I am inviting you to witness history as me and my How We Do It Gaming team take on Gilly the king and wallow. $267 million gaming in an epic Global Gaming League video game showdown. Four rounds, multiple games, one winner, plus a halftime performance by multi platinum artist Travy McCoy. Watch all the action and see who wins and advances to the championship match against Neo right now@globalgamingleague.com that's globalgamingleague.com everybody
- [82:00]
Sling Advertiser
games want a game changing way to watch college basketball? With a one day pass from Sling, get instant access to the men's and women's tournaments starting at just 499. You can catch watch all the action on TNT, TBS, ESPN and ESPN too. Want even more hoops? Then add an extra pack to your subscription for just $1. No overpaying, no over committing. Just tournaments so crazy they'd be crazy to miss. Visit sling.com to learn more. Sling lets you do that.
- [82:31]
Ryan Seacrest
Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons N Safeway. Cold weather can wreak havoc on your skin. You don't want to miss out on this month's great savings on all your favorite skin care essentials. Now through March 31, earn four times points when you purchase participating skincare items like Dove Soap, Dove Body Wash, Dove Beauty Bar, Soft Soap Body Wash and Irish Spring Body Wash. Points can be redeemed later for discounts on groceries or gas. Offer ends March 31. Restrictions apply. Promotions may vary. Visit albertsons or safeway.com for more details.
- [83:03]
LifeLock Advertiser
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- [83:33]
Howie Mandel
Hey, it's Howie Mandel and I am inviting you to witness history as me and my How We Do It Gaming Team take on Gilly the King and Wallow $267 million. Gaming in an epic global gaming league video game showdown. Four rounds, multiple games, one winner, plus a halftime performance by multi platinum artist Travy McCoy. Watch all the action and see who wins and advances to the championship match against Neo right now@globalgamingleague.com that's globalgamingleague.com everybody games.