The State of Our American Security: The Complexities of Global Security, From Cyber Threats to International Diplomacy

Join us, Bobby L Sheppard and Jay D. Anderson, as we dissect critical global and national security issues with a rare blend of military, intelligence, and law enforcement candor. Our inaugural episode promises riveting, ground-level insights into cyber threat hunting, counterterrorism, and force and executive protection nuances. From the murky waters of domestic terrorism to the complexities of international diplomacy, we lay bare the hard truths of an increasingly volatile security landscape, sharing our deeply personal stories from the front lines to set the stage for a series that's as enlightening as it is engaging.

Through the lens of seasoned experts, we tackle the contentious Israeli response to terrorism, revisiting a devastating attack on a Jewish settlement and unearthing the intelligence oversights that made it possible. We draw parallels with the all-too-familiar notion of complacency that preceded 9/11 and dissect the mechanisms of global support and sanctioning within such conflicts, all while peeling back the layers on the Israeli-Palestinian strife. Our dialogue confronts the morality of military might and the impact of leadership decisions on the enduring quest for a peaceful resolution.

Lastly, we pay tribute to the unforgettable courage of Alexei Navalny, whose opposition to Russian control cost him his life. As we ponder his unwavering commitment to democracy, we explore Russian security operations' daunting geopolitical risks and inner workings. With each story, we honor the bravery of those who challenge oppression and consider the sobering consequences of their defiance. This is not just another security podcast; it's a call to understand better the forces that shape our safety and the world order.

If you have any questions for the OAS team, please reach out to oas-podcast@braass.io 

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Welcome to Our American Security. I'm your host, bobby L Shepherd. Our American Security is brought to you by Brass LLC. Brass business resilience as a security service is a new and innovative consulting firm which provides world-class intelligence, monitoring and analysis on emerging threats specific to your organization and its priority areas of concern. Your Brass subscription will provide monthly or quarterly audits for operational security, physical security and cyber security, as well as liaison with federal agencies and help see suite executives to strategize and plan for crisis events. Hey, welcome, welcome, welcome.

Speaker 1: 0:46

Today we are reinstituting on our American Security some new and updated capabilities, one of those being my new co-host, jd Anderson. Jay is a retired Special Forces Warren Officer, chief Warren Officer 3, he wanted me to say 3, with the Army National Guard, and he's also a former federal police officer with the federal government. We will maybe expose who that particular government agency is if it's relevant to our conversations. The other capabilities are that we will be providing both commentary about the state and issues with a global and national security context. As it relates to America, we will have podcasts that focus on specialized security capabilities. As well as the type of commentary, our specialized capabilities that we will be talking about are things such as our recent podcast not recent our upcoming podcast cyber threat hunting, force protection, executive protection, counterintelligence, counterterrorism, counter proliferation and all those things you hear about from Jack Bauer and so forth and back in the day, but had no clue what they were. Definitely, this is a podcast for the layman as well as the security expert. This is a focused, relaxed, contradictory, opinionated, well educated guessing. No, we're not really guessing, but we are definitely well educated and knowledgeable about these subjects. But we are definitely coming from a place of opinion and context based on our experiences as military operators, intelligence specialists, operators, so forth and law enforcement. So, yeah, you know you're going to get the whole gambit from a perspective you probably never heard before, but it's human and it's everyday, and it's also from folks who've been trained to stop these bad guys for the last 25, 30 years. So hopefully you will enjoy it as we go.

Speaker 1: 3:12

Now for our first podcast of 2024, as I said before, we are speaking about the state of security in the world. We had to cut it short, but hopefully you will get something out of the perspectives, perspectives and information you hear here. Also, as a caveat, I just want to let you know this is. You know, I haven't done this in a while. I'm not the biggest you know speaker. I'm learning how to be a better speaker. I think I have sort of a cool you know bedroom voice. I don't know what to call it, but anyway, hopefully you will get more information than you know. Some sort of dopamine hit from my voice. So thanks, and I hope you enjoy this podcast. So welcome back to our American security. It's been a little while I got my partner in crime here, jay Anderson.

Speaker 2: 4:05

Hello everyone.

Speaker 1: 4:08

So you know, basically, let's get back to the beginning, the basics of who we are, what we're doing here. So our American security is set up to be a basically an open commentary about national security, about law enforcement, about how we handle our security in the world and what's going on in the world as far as security is concerned national security, cyber security, domestic terrorism we're going to handle, we're going to talk about the whole gambit. But the thing is the difference is you know, we're coming from that industry. Myself. I spent eight years in law enforcement, federal law enforcement, as US Capitol Police. That's where me and Jay met.

Speaker 1: 4:51

And then I went on to the Central Intelligence Agency for a while. There started out and a security protective officer there, then got into counterterrorism, then moved into helping out with the staff operations there, supporting human operations, and then tried to become a case officer. Didn't quite work out for reasons we would discuss and maybe in later, later podcasts, but ended up working for the ICD, the intelligence community at large, for about 18 years or 20 years, almost 20 years now, in different capacities intelligence operations, specialists, analysts, counterterrorism, counterintel, cp, counterproliferation. So I've done a bunch of stuff, primarily in intel, on analysis and operational support side primarily. And then, jay Jay, you go ahead and tell your side of defense man what you've been into last 20, 30 years.

Speaker 2: 5:46

Hi, so I I spent the majority of my time working for the United States Army Department of Defense for over 30 years. A lot of my experience it's their ranges within, you know combat operations, counterterror, counter drug operations, intelligence analysis, as well as information security, which also includes physical security. I also have 17 and a half years in federal law enforcement, where I was a protective intelligence special agent there, basically advising members of Congress and their protective teams on particular threats that may be out there wherever they were traveling to and from. So, and that's just kind of the gist of my experience. I mean, obviously I can go into more details, but let's, let's get cracking all with this thing. Yeah, but you don't want to kill nobody.

Speaker 1: 6:50

You know what I'm saying. No, the thing is man. Yes, so the base of the bottom line is, you know, we're coming from a lot of experience in this area and so we're going to give you just our ground truth perspective. You know you're not going to get a whole lot of you know, I would say academic, scholarly even. You know field manuals, information, some of the will, but it's going to be our opinion, you know, is what we've seen throughout our last 25, 30 years and how we look at the world and what we're seeing from the world. But we're going to try to give it. We're going to try to give you our honest, truthful perspective and hopefully that would be something that you'll get something out of and you'll agree or disagree, but you definitely going to learn a little something. And some of our other podcasts are going to be more specific to certain types of capabilities, like we're going to.

Speaker 1: 7:43

We're going to hit one coming up here soon about threat hunting, threat intelligence after shooter engagement and how we do preparedness for that. You know we'll talk about those kind of things as well on some of our podcasts, but then there's going to be somewhere we just kind of you know they say in a rap game. You know spitting, you know facts and knowledge about our perspectives of the world. So that's what we're talking about in this particular podcast. So what we're talking about today is data to world, world security and how it will influence America. All right, so we got about four topics going to touch me, going all of them? I don't know for sure, but we're going to go ahead and start talking about the first one, which is what I consider One of the biggest incoming bombs, in my opinion, is the threat of domestic terrorism, especially in lieu of the national elections that are coming up, with our boy not really, but our boy Donald Trump, and his perspective on America, his perspective on, you know, him being like pseudo-king and all this stuff, and how he's inspired a lot of people to just believe in him. You know you got to give him props for that.

Speaker 1: 8:59

You know, like I said, I do my best not to get political on these things, but you know that's real life. I mean you're going to get political. I mean just to just, you know, for disclosure, I am an unaffiliated you know voter. I'm not affiliated with a Democratic or Republican party or whatever else out there. I'm going to vote my conscious, I'm going to vote my background and my knowledge about. You know what I consider is best for this country and for my family, and so you know that's how I look at it and hopefully you know that's good enough for you guys.

Speaker 1: 9:36

But you know, let's go ahead and I'll ask my partner here and then I'll give you my opinion, you know. So, jay, what do you think about? You know the state of threat for domestic terrorism happening in our country. I sort of think we're due, bro. I hate to say that, but I mean I kind of see some writing on a wall. You know, with what's coming up with the elections, this fanatical and lack of misinformation, lack of information, low information, fanaticism for Trump, which means, you know, 75 million plus people are, like you know, loving this guy when it's obvious that he is bad for this country. So I mean, what do you think, man?

Speaker 2: 10:29

I think you kind of touched on it, bob, when you mentioned misinformation slash disinformation. I think that those are the biggest issues that we have you know today because obviously, for people like us that have kind of been in the know, we actually get to see reports that were written and things of that nature. We have a lot more inside information compared to just your everyday average American or even people across the globe that's watching the situation. So there's a lot of you know talk about. You know how can we combat you know misinformation and disinformation. You know because you know in Australia they actually created a communications legislation amendment that's particularly targets combating misinformation and disinformation, that actually they drafted it in 2023.

Speaker 1: 11:22

You know our own yeah.

Speaker 2: 11:24

So I think that you know just and I'm not sure if our own, if they modeled that after what our bill was, which was HR 6971, that the 117 Congress drafted in 2021 slash 2022.

Speaker 2: 11:41

But that's like from the politicians perspective.

Speaker 2: 11:44

So when we talk about we, you know, I always look at we is kind of like two sides you have the public and then you have your public officials, and just those two types of bills would be something that the public officials would do, but for everyday average Americans and anyone else that's interested in actually knowing what the truth is is that you really have to vet your sources of information. And one of the problems with that is some people, you know, they only surround themselves with people that agree with them, or people that think alike, same as them, so they're kind of living in a bubble, or silo, as we like to call it, as opposed to actually having an open mind and listening to different points of view. You know, obviously you can see the biases in all the mainstream media news outlets, whether it's Fox News or CNN, it's, you know, drastic differences between those MSNBC, they, they all have their own. I mean, there really isn't a centrist organization that's out there, unless you're just listening to your local news that talks about the weather and the sports.

Speaker 1: 12:55

And that's. Let's attack that for a quick second. I mean, I mean, I mean that's part of the problem. I mean is that, like you know, news has become so sensationalized where you know it's hard to find a media source where it is the ground truth, where folks are actually just they're reporting the news, true journalism. I mean I know there's some hardcore true journalism journalists out there and we've seen them and they work on, they work on those, those mainstream news, news shows, some of them, but it but it comes down to what they consider news and what they consider news is generally, from what I've seen, sensationalized information, right, and it's coming at us in a you know one minute. You know what they call those news cycles one minute news cycles and it's hitting you but it's not informing you. It's what it? What it is, is, is, is is emotionalizing what's going on in the world and pushes your buttons without giving you kind of a, a centrist, like you said, a centrist informational platform where you can kind of go and feel good and feel good that you're getting information that's going to actually help you make a solid decision about your life and your family. You know you're not really right now, you know you're just getting like hey, bam, bam, boom bali. You know this is what's going on and crap that's happening in the world. You know, even when they talk about Donald Trump, I mean, come on man. I mean, yeah, this dude's off the off the wire. But, truthfully, once you start, you know, giving us information about the trials, giving us information about that information, that that he's being held upon instead of like he's, you know, letting all these talking points go in and out of your head.

Speaker 1: 14:33

Let's, let's get some hard and information about what is this guy on trial for? Why is he on trial? For 95 different whatever there are. You know what I mean. We should know that information and have good knowledge of that information to make an informed decision Come, come, next November. But but instead we have them speaking to you know point. You know it's just counterpoint, point and counterpoint and then you know, basically, you know fashion one on one, you know, make the media and everyone else seem like they are liars and that only information that you can trust is the one that you trust as a, as a person. You know that because you feel good about this person. You know, not because you're getting any kind of like neutral or you know centrist information that you can trust. No, you're basically going on your own gut instinct again. You know what I mean. I hate that guy. I don't like the way he's saying I don't know. Let's talk about some real intel. You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 2: 15:31

Well, you know, I think another major issue is that you know, people are kind of lazy and they would just rather listen to someone tell them what their opinion of the facts actually are as opposed to reading it for themselves. You know, like, for instance, when it comes to whether it's a trial case or or, or an indictment or whatever, you know a lot of people have their opinions about it. So I don't believe it, I think it's all garbage, right. And then you know, you ask them did you actually read what the indictment actually said? Well, no, but I just don't believe it. I'm like well, how do you? I mean, how can you not believe it if you've never even read it?

Speaker 2: 16:11

You know, so you see that with books as well, you know a lot of these book fannings. Well, people say well, I don't think that children should be reading this book, and I'm like what, did you actually read the book? No, I just read highlights from it, which is exactly what news outlets do. They give you highlights but they don't actually give you the full details. And that's really up to each and every person to take it upon themselves to actually research and find the information and read it for themselves. You know, which is kind of what college teaches you to do.

Speaker 1: 16:39

Right. And so, coming back to the original question, I mean you know we see that there's danger on the line, you know that's coming out here with these, with potential for domestic terrorist attacks. You know, and we know that, you know the rhetoric is not going to stop, we know that the one minute sensationalized news cycles aren't going to stop. You know, what can we do from a law enforcement, from our law enforcement, from a public safety perspective, you think to be, to be able to, to counter or lower the temperature on some of these, you know these, these, these feelings and in possible, you know machinations, people coming out with, you know doing crazy things, you know attacking other people because they don't, you know, subscribe to, to their way of thinking. You know where, where do we, we, what can we do as a, you know law enforcement, you know National Guard, you know executive branch, basically, you know to, to be able to stymie and hopefully, like I said, lower the temperature for, for the potential of attacks on, on our, on our country and in our way of life.

Speaker 1: 17:49

I mean, that's really what we're talking about here, you know I mean right, you know, just I'll give you my first thought on it and then you know what you think. I mean, I think that you know, I think I think we need to have, I think, the president, I think people with the bully pulpit, people that have a, whether they want to listen to them or not, I think people with the bully pulpit need to get out there and actually start seeing things, to start countering the narrative that's being said, because the truth of the matter is man I mean, maybe Biden's too freaking, old or whatever the hell's going on but the truth of the matter is I don't see a lot from anybody doing anything besides just existing. I mean, I don't see anything as far as, like people kind of looking towards the future and figuring out hey, if this continues, what are we going to look like as a country If this misinformation continues at the level it has? What's it going to look like If deep fakes continue the way they have? What's going to happen in the future If we continue to let this guy who obviously tried to disrupt an election and instigate a freaking riot on Capitol Hill and whatever was insurrection, and we're going to put him back in the White House? It's like what the hell? At some point, guys, you got to think this is not going to end. Well, god damn it. You know what I mean. What are we going to do about it? What steps do we take?

Speaker 1: 19:22

The bully pulpit is the only place right now where people have the capability to be able to. Guys, listen up. This is what's really going on. I know you don't believe me and notice that, but you need to hear it. You need to hear it. But the thing, jay, you know what I mean. They may not like what Biden has to say, or whoever, to Camilla Harris or whatever, but the bottom line is that they have the bully pulpit. They have the ability to reach millions of people and say things that are going to like lower the temperature, give true information Instead of just letting things just go until which time they feel it necessary for their own benefit.

Speaker 1: 19:59

Basically, you know what I mean. We need to get the hell up out of here. Start talking to people. Start making people feel a little bit safer about their environment, at least making people feel. Let people feel that they know what's going on, because I mean, if it's not just me, I sense there is a feeling of something. Get ready to go out of control. It's very low, key sort of, but it gets high. But you can feel it. You can feel it. It's like we're uneven, the world's like the energy in the world is uneven and it's getting worse. You know what I mean. And so what do you think, man?

Speaker 2: 20:37

Well, you know, I think about this. So you know, if you think about you know you worked intelligence for a very, very long time and the first thing that you have to do is identify the threat and respond accordingly as opposed to what you believe to be a perceived threat and respond accordingly. So, and I think that's kind of been a major issue, because, if you think about you know what happened on January 6th. You know, I remember because I was, you know, in that area at the time when BLM, when they were protesting at the Capitol, you know they had every single resource available to the known demand out there to make sure that nothing was going to happen. Nothing did happen.

Speaker 2: 21:21

But when you had the January 6th event, which is a major event, that it was also known ahead of time their response to it, when they did not perceive it to be a threat, it ended up being one of the largest threats.

Speaker 2: 21:36

You know, since we've had coups that taken place in the United States. You know, long before you know, even our great grandparents were born. So you have to call it like you see it. You have to say, okay, this is a threat, and how do we do that? So we have to kind of go back to the time immediately following our very own 9-11 terror attacks on this country, where we actually they started to create fusion centers so that we can communicate with each other. We have to talk to one another. You know, we cannot allow law enforcement and intelligence agencies to continue to go back to working in silos because if, for example, if the FBI is telling you you know, the biggest threat we have to national security is domestic terrorism, you know then that's, they have identified that. But if you do not act accordingly to that information, you say, well, no, we don't think that because we perceive it to be. You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 2: 22:34

And then Nucky's gonna happen.

Speaker 1: 22:36

Yeah, I mean. So the problem is not really law enforcement in the Intel community, not really. We're still doing our job. You know what I mean Exactly. The problem is that the general public has become so jaded and so confused, quite frankly, that they don't know what to believe, and they don't want to believe some of them. You know what I mean, and so it's kind of it's a scary situation at this point, man. I mean it's kind of like what the hell do we do really? Because I mean we're, you know law enforcement is going to enforce Intel. It's going to do Intel. You know, we're gonna inform people, we're gonna let them know what's going on, we're gonna provide analysis, we're gonna shoot out information, those bulletins hey, this is what's problem. But if no one wants to listen, it's like that freaking Netflix movie, man. Remember the one where they said the guy had predicted that the earth was gonna be hit by some bomb or something or that asteroid Asteroid asteroid yeah.

Speaker 2: 23:28

Yeah, and everybody was kind of just kind of like Don't look up, yeah, don't look up.

Speaker 1: 23:32

Yeah, yeah, they're like whatever man and then went until the last moment. You know that actually they didn't even begin. I mean, nobody believed it until it was there, you know. And it's like we can't really be that stupid. I mean really.

Speaker 2: 23:46

I mean come on, but we Well, like I said, we have a lot of smart people that are there, but, once again, if their perception of reality is warped, then we're gonna be in trouble.

Speaker 1: 23:59

We're gonna be in trouble. Yeah, I shouldn't say stupid. I mean, can we really be that?

Speaker 2: 24:04

self-centered, maybe Naive is really what it is. You know, because the thing is people, they know when, if someone tells you, hey, this is going to happen or there's a potential that this is going to happen, you have to do something about it. You can't just say, well, we gotta do nothing, because then when it does happen they're gonna say, well, why didn't you do anything? You know, you know and I know you know they've made some people have that syndrome, maybe of the boy who cried wolf, and be like, oh, they're just someone trying wolf. But then what happens when everyone starts getting bitten a bunch of wolves, you know they're gonna be like, well, maybe we should have at least taken some kind of precautions.

Speaker 1: 24:40

Okay, yeah. So, moving on to the next topic and we'll be remiss if we didn't mention this the war in Gaza, trying to make sense of it as well as what can the US do to, I mean, stop the slaughter of civilians. Okay so, let's go ahead and talk about this. Okay so, all right, look, all right. Honestly sensitive topic, I mean, especially in this country, where you know you're anti-Semitic, just by disagreeing, it seems like. But the bottom line is this yes, these fools, these Hamas terrorists, you know, came across, you know the border, they're, I don't know what you call it, the fence line or whatever it is and they killed these innocent, you know, jewish, jewish citizens. I mean, they were kids, I mean it's, it looked like most of them were kids and then they moved over into the nearby settlement and then they killed those folks too, kids, babies, highly tragic over, I think it was 1,200 people that were killed and then to 300 or so were taken into Gaza as kidnapped victims, and so then, you know, the response began, and so at first, you know, of course, the world was on their side. You know everybody was like, hey, man, this sucks, this is ridiculous, it's heinous, it's unbelievable, it's ridiculous. And you know you guys have the right to defend and respond, and they do, they did, they still do.

Speaker 1: 26:23

But the thing is this you know there has to be a, there has to be, and if you're gonna be, you know, if you're gonna live by a certain amount of, are you gonna live by a certain level of honor, a certain level of how people should conduct themselves in war? The Geneva Conventions convention, the things that we came up with after World War II, these mechanisms that have been in place for decades, that don't allow for war crimes, that inform and ensure that the NATO and UN and folks like that have the mechanisms to put things into place to sanctions like we do for Russia and Ukraine, and so forth. There has to be a time where we are even-handed in doing these type of, I would say, procedures to stop war from continuing when it is obviously gone too far. So, like I said, and from an intelligence perspective, man, I can't even get into really what I think, what I want to say about, because, truthfully, there's no way you gotta understand.

Speaker 1: 27:53

Okay, israel has all the backing of the United States and most of the training of the United States when it comes to intel and so forth and, honestly, their cybersecurity is I mean, you could even say in small batches is better than ours in many ways. Sigint and their intel, their operation of human intel, was on the next level because of what they have to deal with, and day in, day out, they are fully able to know what the hell's going over across the fence. This 200, it was a 250 square mile amount. It's a 250 or 25 square mile, I gotta check it out but the bottom line is they have the capability to know what's going on and the fact that they did not have any clue that literally, well, me and Jay talked about, spoke about the other day that it's almost like it's like MS-13 against the United States Army. I mean, it's like kind of like you had no clue that these folks were going to do this kind of attack. You had no inkling that this was coming, and then you have all this.

Speaker 2: 29:13

I think it kind of goes back to what we were just talking about previously, about I didn't find a threat. And then what do you perceive to be a threat? I mean, if you think about, like even our 9-11, we had all the signs and all the telltales letting us know that something was going to happen. But then again, sometimes ego gets in the way to make you say, well, no one's going to do that to us, so maybe that's what happened there, maybe they had some information and they just refused to act.

Speaker 1: 29:42

Maybe, jay, if they hadn't been hit by a scud missiles on a continual basis a decade before, or that they were had dealt with terrorism attacks on their buses and in their cafes a decade before. I mean, it's not like they haven't seen it before. Yeah, I mean, maybe 9-11 was like some. Honestly, that was like some movie scenario that we would have never dreamed up. Them getting attacked by Hamas is, come on, it's almost an everyday occurrence. It's kind of slowed down since they started bringing down the hammer.

Speaker 1: 30:18

Now, the thing is this too. I mean, they've tried to get this two-state solution for such a long time, and for good reason. I mean, come on, man, you cannot. Here's the thing. Here's the thing that we have to consider. These are human beings. The Palestinian people are human beings. It's just their families. They're not a nation of terrorists.

Speaker 1: 30:38

I mean, that is kind of how they're trying to paint this thing, man. You know what? I mean that they're basically a nation of terrorists that need to be stopped at all costs. I mean, which means what exactly? I mean, are you talking about babies and people? You know shopkeepers. Everybody needs to be eradicated or pushed into a box where they can be. They're already in a box. Okay, my point is you can't keep people in a fence line, basically where Egypt is, egypt and Israel is giving them. You know tacit and grudging support. You know for life requiring needs and accessories. You know water and plumbing and internet and all that stuff is at the leisure of other countries and they don't have any self-determining you know ability to do this for themselves. I mean, you cannot expect people to be okay living in that scenario forever, you know.

Speaker 2: 31:44

It's a lot like South Africa's apartheid.

Speaker 1: 31:48

Yes, you know, and it's kind of like you know, and that's probably why South Africa has gone has actually started filing for war crimes against Israel, you know, with the UN or whatever it is, and so it's just like you know. You gotta look at human nature, man. You know, yeah, in every city, in every town, every group, you're gonna have a crazy group of crazy people. You know you're gonna have the fighters. You're gonna have the ones that go in there and says no F, this man, we're gonna go ahead and kill these motherfuckers for doing this for us, right? You know what I mean.

Speaker 1: 32:18

And if you don't have the mechanisms in place, you know, to hold those guys back and have more political, more discussion, more even-handed discourse, then those guys are gonna win, because the majority of people don't wanna fight. The majority of people do not wanna get into battle and do all this. The majority of people don't wanna do that man. Most people just gonna live their lives, man, enjoy their families, eat some dinner, sit back and watch Netflix if you're living here, you know what I mean or sit back and sing some songs, drink some tea. You know what I mean.

Speaker 1: 32:47

They not trying to go run around and dig fences and shoot missiles and shoot motherfuckers. They not into that. That's not real life for a majority of people. But when you have those people who say, no, we're in charge, then I'm like, okay, man, you know I'm not gonna fight you, bro, you know what I mean. Are you gonna let my family be mostly alone, mostly, okay, yeah, okay, you know what I'm gonna do. I don't like this scenario.

Speaker 2: 33:10

Well, you know, like a lot of these, a lot of this issue that's going on over there now. I mean, obviously, the terror attack on October 7th was horrific, you know, and Israel has every right to defend themselves. All right, and really the true way to end this seemingly, you know, forever going on going conflict, is a two-state solution. But clearly, you know, leadership starts at the top. Okay, so I do not think that Netanyahu is interested because he has, you know, verbally and publicly rejected the Biden administration's Not just Biden, yeah, but just anyone's suggestion for two-state solution. He clearly said to himself that he's not interested in doing that. So that's part of the problem.

Speaker 2: 34:00

The second part of this whole thing what does that mean? Yeah, so what that means is that these conflicts are gonna continue, because, you know, I always said, if you push man hard enough, the sooner the way he's gonna start pushing back. And you know, and they know this, because this is why Hamas was created in the first place, because of this situation in Gaza, you know. And so if they let's say, they eradicate every single member of Hamas, another group's just gonna, you know, come back in their stead.

Speaker 1: 34:30

That's the point, jade. I mean they're going beyond Hamas. They're I mean, they're, I mean was it 12? Right Now there's a lot of people.

Speaker 2: 34:36

Now I mean what yeah, and what that is. That's a different so what you're talking about is their response. Okay, so you know, you know what it reminds me of. It's like and like even in the Vietnam War, you know, when you knew you had pockets of little insurgents, or they call them the Viet Cong. Right, there's a couple of ways you can handle that, just like we did during 9-11, right, you can just say, well, we're gonna just carpet bomb the whole place. Right, and just, you know, devastate the entire area, every facility, every hospital, every school. Or you can say, well, maybe we should engage in low-intensity conflict by conducting surgical strikes, which means heavy intelligence, focused, going specifically after targets, you know, and we've usually done that with drones and, you know, special operations forces, and so this is what I think they should be doing, as opposed to just demolishing the entire area, because what you're doing is you're displacing a lot of people. You know you got a lot of civilian casualties, to include their own people, and it's absolutely horrific, you know. So, obviously, the terror attack was bad, but what they're doing is even worse, in my opinion, because they are absolutely, you know, destroying, you know, not only the people's way of life. They're just destroying everything.

Speaker 2: 36:01

I mean, like you know, the most heartbreaking thing I think I heard was that six-year-old Palestinian girl that was in her vehicle with her family. They were trying to get out of the war zone and then, you know, the IDF Hank saw the vehicle and they just opened fire. They didn't know who was inside, they just opened fire, killed everyone in there except a six-year-old girl. So this little girl reaches out for emergency services to come and rescue her, saying she's scared, everyone in the vehicle is dead. And then, when they were finally given permission to go and rescue the girl, an ambulance goes out to that area and then the IDF destroys and kills the two drivers of that ambulance. So then, eventually the girl was killed, you know, while she was in the vehicle, you know.

Speaker 2: 36:44

So when you see and hear stories like that, it's heartbreaking and you say to yourself why is this happening? How is this? You know, why is this necessary? To eradicate Hamas? You know, to destroy entire families. You know people who obviously had no weapons with them, they were just trying to escape, you know, and they're all dead now for no reason at all. So that is unacceptable and it should be investigated. You know what I mean Unacceptable, but right.

Speaker 1: 37:13

I mean, jay, it's like it's too much man, it's like it's like it's like, okay, you know where's your line, israel, where you know you can't spout being, you know, a child of God and a nation of God and all this other stuff, and continue on this line. You know, one of the holiest cities in the world, I mean, come on, man, this is this is this is too much. You know, like I said, you know, you know that story and many, many others is just it's too much man, you know. And the thing is, you know, the whole thing is a cluster. You know what I mean. The whole thing, you know, it's just, you know they've been, but they've been trying to do this two-state solution for decades.

Speaker 1: 37:53

And here's the truth. Israel, for the most part, does not want to have a two-state solution. Okay, does not Period. And that, and the thing is I mean, because it's like this, you have to consider the people with the power. The people with the power are the ones that you have to lean on and put the impetus of who's responsible. Okay, if you have the most power, the most capability, the strongest war machine, then you guys are the most responsible. Okay, yes, you know, if they want to attack you, you got to go get them. I mean like that group of fool-ass tear 21 terrorists who attacked us or whatever. I mean, yeah, man, you know we went, we went nuts, we attacked multiple countries, you know what I mean. But then we pulled that. We had to pull the hell back, you know, eventually. But I mean, and I guess we could, people could, I guess they could throw that. They could throw that in our face as well, right, but the bottom line is man, yeah.

Speaker 2: 38:50

And I really think that you know we should be leveraging, you know, you know America's power and influence, the rest of NATO, to force Israel to stop this. You know, and of course they're not doing it Because you know the administration when it comes to those things they're just weak, all of these weeks?

Speaker 2: 39:12

Yeah, you're right, not just this one. I'm just talking about this one because they're the ones dealing with it. They're just weak, you know they're not. I mean, when you have the deliberate killings of a large number of people of a particular ethnic group, right, you know, based on religion or whatever the case, that is literally the definition of genocide. Yeah, you know so. This is something that needs to. So like we are sending billions of dollars to Israel to support them every single year, you know so I think they need to freeze that and take a deep dive and say, hey, what you know? What are they doing with these funds? Are we actually complicit in what is taking place over there right now?

Speaker 1: 39:51

Yeah, what's your in-game, israel? Okay, look, we're giving you all these billions of dollars. You know, we, you've basically, obviously, you know, put these, put, put Palestine in a situation where they're not going to recover for at least five or 20 or 25 years if no one helps. I mean, so it's like you know what's your in-game here, because what your in-game sort of looks like is is pure extermination at this point. You're killing six year olds and ambulances that are trying to save six year olds. What the hell is your in-game? You know what I mean?

Speaker 2: 40:20

Well, you know, they would tell you that our in-game is to eliminate Hamas. You know. But what they, what they don't tell you, you know, is the last part of that, which is by any means necessary, because that's what they're doing, you know and I think about Hamas, is this?

Speaker 1: 40:35

I mean, Jay, what was the comparison? I mean, what are we talking about?

Speaker 2: 40:40

I mean because the rest of the world.

Speaker 1: 40:41

Hamas is like some you know two, two.

Speaker 2: 40:44

Well, it's not an army. They're not an army. They're not fully funded. Well, they are funded, but no, but they're very small.

Speaker 2: 40:51

They're really, you know, no bigger than if you collect up all of the like you mentioned, whether it's, you know, Kaye, dsco or MS-13, if you collect them all together, you know, collectively, just in this country alone, they're probably bigger than what Hamas is there and the Gaza Strip, you know. And, like I said, they're shooting rocket launchers, you know, from like bunkers. Well, you know, israel has one of the most powerful and well-funded militaries in the entire world, you know. So you know you have to ask yourself, you know, is what they're doing? You know, is that the solution to this problem or are you just gonna make it worse down the road? You know, and I think they're not doing anyone. I mean, I just can't imagine, you know, in the eyes of the rest of the world, that they're thinking that they're doing a good thing.

Speaker 2: 41:41

Yeah, this is how can this be a good thing?

Speaker 1: 41:44

Okay, okay, so we're gonna move on from there because we can go in there for another two hours, honestly, but I'm gonna, we're gonna pull up here short here, but I wanted to. You know, pay, pay, heed, or some respect to Alexi Navalny. You know the dude that we kept against Putin for last I don't know 10, 15 years now. He passed in one of the gu logs or what do you want to call it. There's a barrier in Jail sales up in there. We don't know how that went down. But I mean, you know the bottom line is he is said to be dead and this dude, I mean I actually read up on him after, after I heard about it again. I heard about it many, many years ago and I read about him at that point. But then I re-read it. But you know, basically this guy, alexi, Started out as a you know ultra, you know nationalist For Russia and he's all about Russian, but always really about Russia, not about like, consolidating power, not about being, you know the, the biggest dog on the block and authoritarian.

Speaker 1: 42:57

He really was about hey, let's make Russia a better, better country, let's give rights and and some you know voting and you know some, basically some democratic values to the citizens of Our country. You know, and so you know, at some point he became a threat to Putin, probably after the blog he started writing and then Putin started and he started getting influence and they were worried about him and eventually, you know, he, you know, try to. He basically attempted to kill them with a nerve agent. It was like it was something in his pants or something, or not something or another, something messed up. Wouldn't plutonium, wouldn't the plutonium was?

Speaker 1: 43:39

there was no chock nerve agent? Yeah, no, which I'm not nerve agent, but like the other one, they actually successfully kill those folks over in London with the plutonium right. There was 69.

Speaker 2: 43:49

Yeah, yeah, well, they use it and they believe they put it in his teeth. Yeah, yeah, that's right.

Speaker 1: 43:55

But um, but this, this particular person, he survived it. You know, survival. Thought to the, to the highest, he's amazing.

Speaker 2: 44:03

That's an.

Speaker 1: 44:03

Asian. You know God got treatment in Berlin and and then went back to Russia. So you know I Admire this guy. You know me by the same time. You know like I I think he knew.

Speaker 2: 44:21

I think he knew that eventually he was, he was. He knew they tried to kill him once and he's back within the borders of the country, that he knew they were gonna try to do it again. But I think maybe he felt that he would become like a martyr he's a failure, so he's a someone else. Or exactly. Maybe he thought that it would, you know, spark some kind of uprising in someone because it's not gonna happen nationwide, because Russia's got their thumb on every person there. But maybe he thought it was sparked something in someone else to take his place in the future.

Speaker 1: 44:53

Yeah, you know it's, you know, you know it's not just the thumb, you know it's a, it's a, it's a, you know Basically comes down to what I just said earlier about about Hamas. You know, I mean it's like the majority of people are not like fighters, man, if you're not now. They basically have their basic needs, you know, available to them. You know, I mean they're not gonna really get involved for our core they're not gonna push the envelope. They're not gonna challenge authority, they're just gonna, it's gonna be.

Speaker 2: 45:21

Just let's look about the. I mean, just take a look at the people that are actually trying to honor, you know, no vow me by placing murals and they're getting immediately arrested. You know, I mean, we're just trying to do that. So I mean, obviously, you know it's like living under an extremely oppressive regime and it's I mean, you know, everyone should know that if you are an enemy of Vladimir Putin, you're not gonna survive. I mean, look what happened to them militially. I'm gonna survive. You know the plane, you remember the plane got shot down.

Speaker 1: 45:51

Yeah, so yeah you know.

Speaker 2: 45:53

So I mean, anyone doesn't. That's a lot of them, is not as it's not, it didn't surprise me at all.

Speaker 1: 45:59

You know, a surprise me is, surprisingly, because this guy was supposed to be tactically sound, you know, I mean, like he had to know that if he was traveling within the borders of Russia that they were gonna have him tagged in Bag, you know, I mean. So it's kind of like you know what were you doing, man? I mean, did you think you really, with no one's watching you, that the area, you know that's your death, the ledger, the, he called it, the itinerary wasn't being scrutinized? I mean, he has the entire country able to look for you. I mean, what would you know? At first I was impressed because it's like he was having, you know, doubles and all this, but then he gets on a plane with, you know, did he fake his death? That was my first thought, you know, I mean, but then he said no, they confirmed it, I'm like, because, I mean, he seemed like he was on top of it, you know, I mean he was.

Speaker 2: 46:42

But you know, I think he underestimated his relationship with Putin. Think so too.

Speaker 1: 46:48

It's good, all right. So that's it for today's episode of our American security. I hope you guys enjoyed. We are brought to you by brass and s3 gsg elite guard. Both of those services are under our auspices and one will is high level force protection. The other is dealing with geopolitical risk and being able to prepare your company for threats and cyber threats that are on their way. So, with that said, we would talk to you guys and girls and gentlemen and so forth next week and we appreciate your attention. Thank you.

Speaker 1: 47:29

Absolutely, and we'll talk to you I.