Thoughts on Senator Lindsey Graham

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A politician dies and the war drumline instantly auditions new villains. We take a hard look at the speculation around Senator Lindsey Graham’s reported passing and explain why “don’t believe the hype” is not just a slogan, it’s a basic survival skill in a media environment that turns grief into a trigger for escalation. We keep it respectful on the personal level while refusing to sanitize the professional record, because rewriting history is how bad US foreign policy keeps repeating itself.

We also walk through the specifics people skip: Graham’s opposition to the modern GI Bill, the way “support for troops” gets used as branding while policies cut against veterans, and the intervention pattern that runs from Iraq to Libya to Syria to the current Iran war. Then we shift to the weekend’s escalation details, including reports of retaliatory strikes in Kuwait and the fog around possible US casualties. This is the part most talking heads avoid: once the shooting starts, uncertainty is the norm, and the costs don’t stay theoretical.

The sharpest segment focuses on retired General Frank McKenzie’s public comments about controlling the Strait of Hormuz and even seizing Iranian islands like Karg or Qeshm as a bargaining chip. We separate “can” from “should,” lay out why amphibious seizures become magnets for drones, artillery, and missiles, and ask the only honest question: how many American lives are worth a negotiating prop. We close with the argument that the off ramp is diplomacy, enforceable agreements, and leadership that values service members more than cable-news swagger.

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Chapter Markers

• 0:00 Weekend Shock And War Talk
• 1:26 Going Solo And Sponsor Note
• 2:33 Lindsey Graham Rumors And Reality Checks
• 6:01 The Record That Gets Forgotten
• 16:35 Iran Escalation And Kuwait Strikes
• 20:37 Frank McKenzie’s Island Seizure Pitch
• 27:35 Maps And Blood Cost Comparisons
• 33:27 Diplomacy, The MOU, And Who Runs It
• 35:44 Final Context And Sign Off

[SPEAKER_02]: Good afternoon, everybody.

[SPEAKER_02]: It is Monday, July 13th.

[SPEAKER_02]: We had another busy and wild weekend.

[SPEAKER_02]: Some of the biggest news is Lindsey Graham, Senator from South Carolina, and Art and Supporter, just about any war.

[SPEAKER_02]: Never Trump or turn Trump whisperer has passed.

[SPEAKER_02]: There is much intrigue surrounding his passing, but I would suggest don't believe the hype people please for the love of God, don't do that.

[SPEAKER_02]: We'll talk some sense to that a little bit.

[SPEAKER_02]: Also, the blockade of the blockade is back on.

[SPEAKER_02]: talking about ground troops.

[SPEAKER_02]: I can't take this seriously.

[SPEAKER_02]: Just can't.

[SPEAKER_02]: And more to the point there, I have no time for former senior officers profiting off the lie that this in any way shape or form would be a good idea.

[SPEAKER_02]: So we're going to break that all down next.

[SPEAKER_02]: All right, all right, all right, it's Monday, July 13th, and you all have me rolling solo today.

[SPEAKER_02]: So as usual, when I'm out here by myself, anytime you all want to drop a question in the chat, and you want to make it a little extra with a super chat, please do happy to spate with you.

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[SPEAKER_02]: We're moving on to kind of the meat potato is everything here, right?

[SPEAKER_02]: Um, first up is, uh, is Lindsey Graham.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I, uh, I want to just stress something here really, really quick.

[SPEAKER_02]: Now, I, I'm going to leave a lot of room to where I could be, absolutely convinced that, uh, something nefarious did happen with Lindsey Graham overseas.

[SPEAKER_02]: And, uh,

[SPEAKER_02]: I'll leave the room to be convinced of that, right?

[SPEAKER_02]: But I always try to operate off of Arkham's Razor.

[SPEAKER_02]: What is the simplest and most logical way to explain something?

[SPEAKER_02]: And Graham is a guy who is 71 years old.

[SPEAKER_02]: He is no spring chicken.

[SPEAKER_02]: He just finished a...

[SPEAKER_02]: uh... uh... a campaign period for his uh... for his primary and i can tell you from experience working these as a much younger individual than him at seventy one that uh... that'll break you off um... it is it's no joke it's no sleep it's high stress uh... i worked alongside linty graham in the senate you know as a as a staffer on the center for relations committee and i could tell you he didn't really give off the era someone who is in great shape he's not a guy you would look at me like hey

[SPEAKER_02]: that guy runs marathon or even goes to the gym, really.

[SPEAKER_02]: And he may have, but he was probably not in the best of health.

[SPEAKER_02]: And then he took a trip overseas, jump time zones, comes back, and a lot of bad things can happen.

[SPEAKER_02]: So the most simplistic thing, the easiest thing is that, yes, it just caught up with him.

[SPEAKER_02]: And then you have to couple this with the fact that anybody

[SPEAKER_02]: would just be working counter to their own self-interest, right?

[SPEAKER_02]: Whether it's the Russians or the Iranians or all these weird things that are being floated right now, what happens if, you know, it comes out.

[SPEAKER_02]: that they did in fact kill this guy, very simple like you get the war that Lindsey Graham always wanted and further you turn him into a murder and at the bottom the bottom of the heat pier or like the first piece at the top that I would suggest taking a look at is

[SPEAKER_02]: You know, Lindsey Graham, being legitimized by all of this talk, it all, it turns him into some kind of martyr for the United States that he was some sort of great patriot who died in the service of this country and I'm not here to denigrate him in his death at all.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I want to be very clear about that.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm sure his family is is very sad about his passing and I want to respect that, but I also think it's very important right now.

[SPEAKER_02]: to properly frame who this guy was in his professional life in the Senate based on his record.

[SPEAKER_02]: And what all of these conspiracy theories ideas being clearly floated from the White House to you know, to bolster this guy's standing and

[SPEAKER_02]: you know, in his passing, you know, actually serve and the bottom line with that is that it fuels the arguments for increased intervention or war with places like Russia and Iran.

[SPEAKER_02]: And it legitimizes him as some kind of patriot martyred for the cause.

[SPEAKER_02]: So please, I beg you,

[SPEAKER_02]: don't fall for it.

[SPEAKER_02]: Don't fall for it.

[SPEAKER_02]: Um, you know, let this guy rest on his record, and let's go through some of this.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm going to start with something that probably most people don't know about, which was back in 2008, Lindsey Graham,

[SPEAKER_02]: vehemently opposed the current GI bill for troops.

[SPEAKER_02]: He's a guy out there who always flexes on his eatable.

[SPEAKER_02]: I have to use past tense now, don't I?

[SPEAKER_02]: Flexed on his military record, his support for the troops while he always sent them overseas to go fight in any kind of form where that he felt was attractive or necessary or just was out there that he could support.

[SPEAKER_02]: And back in 2008, his argument,

[SPEAKER_02]: his argument up there, even interested in amendment, was that the current version of the GI Bill, which I'll give my dad a bonk pair for passing that, it's a great, great piece of legislation, model completely after the World War II GI Bill was too generous.

[SPEAKER_02]: He thought, Graham thought this was too generous and would trigger a mass exodus of service members from the military to go attend college.

[SPEAKER_02]: He instead favored a plan which would prioritize retention would keep guys in and you really get your kicker until you serve for 12 years and that is completely.

[SPEAKER_02]: completely backwards and not the point.

[SPEAKER_02]: The intent of the GI Bill was to reward the citizen's soldier.

[SPEAKER_02]: The person who steps away from their life, here's the call, the call of the guns, follows the drums, however you want to classify it, and goes forward, does his bit, and then the country gets to say, hey, thank you.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's not about creating a professional military class that

[SPEAKER_02]: It's your job, you know, you're in some, you're in a poor town or you come from a bad area and you want to, you have humble beginnings and you really want to make something of yourself so you join the military and that's a major impetus for a lot of people.

[SPEAKER_02]: The version that went through that he opposed supports that.

[SPEAKER_02]: Hey, man, you know, you're doing your bit for this country, let's go.

[SPEAKER_02]: And also, I mean, I'm just going to say this as a matter of kind of a policy nerd here, but when you're attached in something to 12 years of service, that means no one's going to take it.

[SPEAKER_02]: No one's going to take you up on it because who's going to step away after the more than halfway to retirement?

[SPEAKER_02]: I wouldn't see that happening.

[SPEAKER_02]: So that's point number one.

[SPEAKER_02]: Never forget that this guy did not want our service members to better themselves for volunteering for a war.

[SPEAKER_02]: And also one final thing about that 2008 was right.

[SPEAKER_02]: on the back end of the peak of hostilities in Iraq.

[SPEAKER_02]: So one of the most violent periods there, you know, and it was, it was very much welcomed across the board, you know, it's one of the best pieces of legislation in my opinion, it's ever passed.

[SPEAKER_02]: I went to college on it, so, you know, it's a thank you, you know, but so, okay, let's get some of the down to some of his highlights here that I think that should be, you know, really, really taken, taken into account here.

[SPEAKER_02]: So, to do, obviously, number one, 2003 Iraq War and subsequent occupation, the surge, all those things, that's how he got his claim to fame, he attached himself to his little friend John McCain, have he won a class by that.

[SPEAKER_02]: And he strongly supported the invasion.

[SPEAKER_02]: He strongly supported the

[SPEAKER_02]: And this was quite frankly the biggest strategic error in U.S. military history up until the Iran War, which he strongly supported, kicked off a couple months ago.

[SPEAKER_02]: So you can kind of see where his track records going, right?

[SPEAKER_02]: 2011 and mind you this is this is just a highlight sheet like I could go in depth on this like tit for tat but I don't really see the the point in it I mean I think you guys get most of it but 2011 Olivia you know he's out there you know slapping

[SPEAKER_02]: somebody on the back by the name of Hillary Clinton saying go get it.

[SPEAKER_02]: This is another fantastic decision by our government to go in and take out MoMarca Doffy, which led to mass migration into Europe, slave markets reemerging in Libya, absolute chaos, the death of our ambassador

[SPEAKER_02]: nefarious stuff happened nothing good came from this and you know if you remember the argument at the time it was a responsibility to protect we had this horrible horrible guy in Gaddafi not saying he was a good guy but he definitely wasn't what they said he was.

[SPEAKER_02]: and it was our responsibility as Americans to go in there and protect these people from him.

[SPEAKER_02]: So we went in there and ensured that Omar Kadafi was murdered by being sautamized by a bayonet at the hands of his own people and then the entire country developed into total chaos from which it still is trying to emerge 15 years later.

[SPEAKER_02]: Um, absolute a plus decision.

[SPEAKER_02]: I say that completely dryly and cynically.

[SPEAKER_02]: So don't don't smash me in the comments for that.

[SPEAKER_02]: Um, let me pause here and actually take a look at the comments here.

[SPEAKER_02]: You know, it's, uh, oh, well, blank like I wish I could say that on the air, but I can't.

[SPEAKER_02]: Um, but, uh, all right, man.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you guys are, you guys are on point with this dude.

[SPEAKER_02]: Um, and I really can't.

[SPEAKER_02]: say a whole lot on the air, but I'm picking up what you're throwing down, for sure.

[SPEAKER_02]: So the next one, the next absolute great decision that he supported was the serial policy.

[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, you got to say blank it because it's a policy because it went across several administrations and eventually culminated in the regime change of Bashar al-Sad.

[SPEAKER_02]: But the thing I remember about this once again, this is, you know, this is him being a neocon to his core where he supported policies led initially by Barack Obama, piggybacking off of the policies spearheaded by Hillary Clinton and wanted to do just about anything possible to make sure that Al Qaeda in the region overthrew Bashar al-Assad.

[SPEAKER_02]: This is right in the middle of the global or on terrorism.

[SPEAKER_02]: once again a policy that made absolutely no sense that didn't do anything to further the interest of the American people.

[SPEAKER_02]: And quite frankly, it was confusing at the time because we had spent all of this button treasure standing up a Shia regime in Iraq, and then we turn around and back the guys who not only over through,

[SPEAKER_02]: Um, so don't forget that ISIS is core military leadership at that time and for a long time where displaced bathists, SUNY bathists, uh, from Iraq who had gone through the finish academy, if you will, um, in Abu Graib and other prisons around Abu Graib, um, and come out and decided that they were still super irritated and found a way to try and establish their own country.

[SPEAKER_02]: Um, and we helped them.

[SPEAKER_02]: go into Syria and take on the Assad regime to the point where it looks like we ran a color revolution there and provide them all kinds of weapons and training and whatnot.

[SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, not only do this kill over 300,000 people destabilize the entire region in a big, big way, but the end result of it is the policies that one Lindsey Graham

[SPEAKER_02]: supported, advocated for thumb distressed for.

[SPEAKER_02]: Resulted in literally Al Qaeda, taking over a country.

[SPEAKER_02]: Like, and I've said this any number of times because I'm a broken record, it's probably not even funny anymore.

[SPEAKER_02]: I thought it was initially, but you know, fellow member of Al Ambar University is running Syria now, and fortunately, he was a guy that I fought probably in Al Ambar and my peers took on.

[SPEAKER_02]: So, it's worked out fantastically and is counter-intuitive

[SPEAKER_02]: Man, I can't really wrap my brain around it.

[SPEAKER_02]: So, next part, obviously is Iran.

[SPEAKER_02]: Lindsey Graham has been the probably the single biggest champion of what we're doing in Iran in the entire United States Senate.

[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, there are any number of clips of this guy out there talking about, uh,

[SPEAKER_02]: why we need to do this you know who basically who cares if this is in the interest of the Israeli government and not ours because our interests are one in the same and here we are and right before he passed we kicked off the war once again once again and this is you know this is replaced his

[SPEAKER_02]: I guess you could say his decision-making process or his track record of his sporting the worst decision in U.S. foreign policy history of the Iraq war, you know, not cut down to second, I guess, so he's got a new one that's the worst, but it's still an absolute mess, and it's not going to end anytime soon.

[SPEAKER_02]: So basically, if I could sum this up with a little bit here, it would be that please,

[SPEAKER_02]: Don't buy the hype that this guy is worthy of being taken out at the risk of direct confrontation by a place like Russia, or a country like,

[SPEAKER_02]: Iran, it's not worth their time to take this guy out and make him a martyr because he is not some genius.

[SPEAKER_02]: He's probably a pain in the butt to these folks, but he's not some genius Patriot who died for America furthering some cause, and please do not let this turn into his wet dream, which would be a direct war with Russia or ground invasion of Iran, which we're going to get into once again in a second.

[SPEAKER_02]: I still can't believe that.

[SPEAKER_02]: Excuse me, not feeling the best.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's a hundred and eight feet in the upside and somehow I got a cold.

[SPEAKER_02]: So, let me take a sip of coffee here real quick.

[SPEAKER_02]: Hmm.

[SPEAKER_02]: Wow.

[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_02]: So, that'll be touch Lindsey Graham.

[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, man, I probably shouldn't have said that.

[SPEAKER_02]: Anyways, but now that you've got a blue Lindsey Graham, sorry Chris, I could hear you in the background.

[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I was trying to be clean on this all the way through

[SPEAKER_02]: There you have it, there it is.

[SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, I need to recover for a minute.

[SPEAKER_02]: Anyways, so move it on here, right?

[SPEAKER_02]: So yep, no tears, no tears.

[SPEAKER_02]: Never done a great, somebody in their death, not a good idea.

[SPEAKER_02]: I try to be super, you know, I try to make my Catholic and Christian morals about this.

[SPEAKER_02]: Somebody else is going to judge him, but what we can take a look at like we did right here is what has this guy accomplished absolutely nothing like you set the country back got a lot of people killed You can't get much worse in a legislator than that and that's where we need to look so moving on to a run here real quick so over the weekend man did the the head if you did the top pop off this It's so we've got all kinds of different bits and pieces

[SPEAKER_02]: of escalation, hundreds of more targets hit.

[SPEAKER_02]: We also had, I don't know if anybody out there caught this, but it looked like a bunch of our attackams missile systems were hit in Kuwait as a direct retaliation.

[SPEAKER_02]: And that's pretty concerning.

[SPEAKER_02]: That shows a really good, once again, really good imagery being acted upon by the Iranians and they're going right after the source from what I read this weekend.

[SPEAKER_02]: those attackers had been used straight up to launch missiles into Iran after infrastructure target at infrastructure targets and they decided to take them off the board.

[SPEAKER_02]: After some conversations with some people I know this weekend, you know, you've got the high probability that there were soldiers, US soldiers in the vicinity of there because that's how they operate them.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm just

[SPEAKER_02]: hoping that our command no is better than some of these talking heads that we're going to get into a second about the defensive capabilities we have in the region and only allow the soldiers to be in or around those pieces of equipment when they were actually being used and once we were down firing got the heck away because they would understand their probably counter-battery fire or something like that and they preserved our guys on the ground from becoming casualties but I'm

[SPEAKER_02]: If you look at RT, I'm going to quote them here, um, they were claiming that they were at least three US casualties, uh, we're not hearing anything from DOD.

[SPEAKER_02]: Unfortunately, I don't trust the numbers coming out of DOD right now.

[SPEAKER_02]: Um, sure is act don't really trust RT a lot of the time.

[SPEAKER_02]: They have a vested interest in showing that.

[SPEAKER_02]: you know, we are taking casualties and not as strong as we say we are, but it would make sense if we did encourage some casualties here.

[SPEAKER_02]: Um, yeah, they may have been killed in Kuwait.

[SPEAKER_02]: I would say May is a very good way to put it.

[SPEAKER_02]: Um, thank you, a hum.

[SPEAKER_02]: But uh, so one thing I really want to get into in the time we have today is a clip over the weekend from

[SPEAKER_02]: Retired Marine Corps General Frank McKenzie, a guy that I really, really, really wanted to respect a certain point.

[SPEAKER_02]: As a personal note, I covered this guy in Afghanistan as a journalist back in 2004.

[SPEAKER_02]: I've got pictures of him.

[SPEAKER_02]: I put him in parade magazine.

[SPEAKER_02]: uh... at the point in time he was a time commander of my future battalion first time six Marines and had led the longest uh... i think that the longest penetration by a marine expedition unit into into a ground environment um...

[SPEAKER_02]: ever, like they had landed in Prashara, Pakistan and gone all the way up into Afghanistan and it was quite the logistical feat.

[SPEAKER_02]: And there were some great things on the ground there, but a lot happened.

[SPEAKER_02]: He was, I remember correctly, he was instrumental in the absolutely and totally botched

[SPEAKER_02]: ex-filtration from Bagram AirF not Bagram from Kabul in Afghanistan, the final piece of the withdrawal, and that centered around the fact that he appeared to be in favor of getting rid of Bagram Airfield, our cornerstone logistical base in Afghanistan, and was never held to account for that.

[SPEAKER_02]: And then now we have this, Chris, if you could roll his comments rather

[SPEAKER_00]: We certainly have the capability to control the straight-a-horse moves if the president chooses to follow that course of action.

[SPEAKER_00]: Look, what he's been trying to do is get to a diplomatic and a political solution here, which I applaud, and I think we should all want to see as the final in-state.

[SPEAKER_00]: Nonetheless, the fact of the matter is the Iranians generally only respond to military force and to extreme pressure.

[SPEAKER_00]: Look, we're not talking about regime change here.

[SPEAKER_00]: What we're talking about is modifying the views and actions of an extreme hard-line regime.

[SPEAKER_00]: That is possible.

[SPEAKER_00]: We have the capability to do that.

[SPEAKER_00]: That capability is resident in the U.S. military.

[SPEAKER_00]: Should the president elect to employ it.

[SPEAKER_00]: That would include opening the straight-a-horn moves, maintaining the straight-a-horn moves open.

[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, seizing cargallon should be elected to do that.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I would just say as an aside, that's something we should think about doing because

[SPEAKER_00]: of Iranian soil would be a significant factor in future negotiations with Iran.

[SPEAKER_00]: So all those options are on the table.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not sure where we're going to go with this, but I do know we have these capabilities.

[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, so no more general McKenzie.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to call him Frank from now on because he's a civilian and he's acting like a civilian because he's sure his heck not looking at the interest of any of the Marines out there who might have to go do this.

[SPEAKER_02]: So the biggest aspect by peace, right?

[SPEAKER_02]: Let's go with the first part of it.

[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I respect the fact that he's providing his analysis.

[SPEAKER_02]: I do agree with him that we possess the capability to do a lot of things over there.

[SPEAKER_02]: But

[SPEAKER_02]: The fundamental problem here is when he suggests that taking a place like Carg Island is a good idea.

[SPEAKER_02]: Because it's not.

[SPEAKER_02]: It is flat out not a good idea.

[SPEAKER_02]: The Marine Corps has a very long and storied history of seizing amphibious objectives.

[SPEAKER_02]: But the problem with this is that it always

[SPEAKER_02]: is the fact that a, it lacks honor because he appears to be bought and paid for by Gensa among other organizations, but b.

[SPEAKER_02]: the issue with all of this is holding it.

[SPEAKER_02]: Like the price you would have to pay to take it and then hold it.

[SPEAKER_02]: Is that worth an negotiating chip for the straight-of-four moves?

[SPEAKER_02]: And quite flatly, I would like to understand what the appropriate body count is.

[SPEAKER_02]: Like what is the transaction here?

[SPEAKER_02]: How many dead Marines and soldiers is it worth to have a bargaining chip?

[SPEAKER_02]: with the Iranians I don't know if I got a comment on that out there how many how many dead Americans is worth a bargaining ship to open this rate of form is I'm going with zero and I come from an environment in the Marine Corps you know raised in it my dad was in at my grandfather was at it on my mom's side my uncles marine I mean I grew up with the Marines in my dad's platoon from Vietnam around all the time my platoon and company

[SPEAKER_02]: The one thing that was always stressed top to bottom is, yes, you have to get the mission done, but you always think about your Marines first.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I know my dad was almost court-martialed for refusing a mission one time.

[SPEAKER_02]: It would have been too costly for his guys.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's complicated, and he was totally justified at the end of it and found to be right.

[SPEAKER_02]: And this is,

[SPEAKER_02]: This is not that.

[SPEAKER_02]: This is not, this is not Vietnam, this is not, you know, a, okay, I would say a serious war with any kind of existential, not say Vietnam had existential meaning for the United States, but we're not talking about taking a military objective.

[SPEAKER_02]: We're taking talking about taking an objective that is a piece of Iran's terrain that would make them want to negotiate for it.

[SPEAKER_02]: Like, that's just absolutely ludicrous.

[SPEAKER_02]: Particularly look at the historical arc.

[SPEAKER_02]: There was terrain sees a different points in time during the Ryanairak War, and rain isn't negotiating.

[SPEAKER_02]: By woodday, I'm gonna take that back.

[SPEAKER_02]: Another part of this is capabilities.

[SPEAKER_02]: Like, yes, I agree that we do have the capabilities that would enable us to go see something like this.

[SPEAKER_02]: But every military on Earth,

[SPEAKER_02]: It is worth its salt and the Iranians have definitely proven to be worth their salt on the battlefield.

[SPEAKER_02]: They're not a total pushover.

[SPEAKER_02]: They have a particular way of fighting that is in line with ours, but it is effective.

[SPEAKER_02]: And they all have capabilities to effectively push the other guy off the hill.

[SPEAKER_02]: and take that hill.

[SPEAKER_02]: Now, the question is whether or not you can bring your capabilities to bear on a particular hill that you want to take.

[SPEAKER_02]: And the one thing that the US military historically has excelled at is being able to have all like, and I'm trying to boil this down as simply as possible here without getting too far into the weeds, is that not only do we have the capabilities to take the hill, but we can prevent the other guy, excuse me,

[SPEAKER_02]: putting his capabilities in place to take that hill back.

[SPEAKER_02]: And there's a lot of things that go into this.

[SPEAKER_02]: But we have not proven that we can silence any part of the rainy capabilities that would be centered on a place like Cargher Cashham Island.

[SPEAKER_02]: And

[SPEAKER_02]: Quite frankly, we'd be putting a bunch of guys right up on top of where the bulk of their capabilities are from first person drones to basic to Bartillary and then you start working your way up to

[SPEAKER_02]: Uh, the type of attack drones that we were, we've been receiving in, uh, in Kuwait, um, all across the Middle East, we don't have a countermeasure forum, and then ballistic missiles.

[SPEAKER_02]: So it's a mess, right?

[SPEAKER_02]: Um, so, and large concentrations of troops who go in there are going to take casualties on the way in.

[SPEAKER_02]: And even if they don't, what do you do when you get there?

[SPEAKER_02]: You have to stop.

[SPEAKER_02]: You hunker down.

[SPEAKER_02]: You dig in.

[SPEAKER_02]: And then you just become a giant sponge

[SPEAKER_02]: Um, and, uh, the British learned this in Galipoli for, for lack of a better term, um, but also, or lack of a better comparison, like once you, once you stop moving is when you have the problems.

[SPEAKER_02]: And that's the same problem we had in the Global War on Terrorism, and Joe Kent had a great tweet where he, where he explained that as well, um, you know, all of us who've spent time on the ground and these conflicts,

[SPEAKER_02]: seemed to understand this and I would expect better from a guy like McKenzie.

[SPEAKER_02]: But then again, like he is no longer leading Marines.

[SPEAKER_02]: He is leading himself around.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm guessing trying to get a paycheck here and that's very disappointing to me.

[SPEAKER_02]: I would expect that he would want to preserve the life of his fighting force and not have an opinion on this because once he registered an opinion on it, it's pretty clear where he's going with this.

[SPEAKER_02]: He's trying to further himself

[SPEAKER_02]: So there was a gentleman by the name of Matt Braking or last week, his former Seal way back when Cold War Seal, who had a really good tweet about this or posts, I guess it is on X.

[SPEAKER_02]: But where he was comparing different things, he just put a map up of Kesheum and Kark, where they are.

[SPEAKER_02]: and then give a comparison to different Marine Corps battles throughout history, different amphibious attacks, right?

[SPEAKER_02]: So you've got Kesheum, which is right on the street.

[SPEAKER_02]: It looks like to me to be a bit of a lynchpin in terms of a defensive network.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's on a turn, it'd be a great place to up an ambush if that was like a footpath, but it's an ocean.

[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm guessing it's probably about the same thing.

[SPEAKER_02]: but it's actually larger than Okanawa by 300 square kilometers.

[SPEAKER_02]: Carg, which you specifically representing, or specifically speaking about, is about the size of Ewo Jima, which is not a small place, neither one of these are small places, but it's 600 kilometers further in,

[SPEAKER_02]: further into the waterway.

[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, and that is 600 kilometers of paralleling a coastline.

[SPEAKER_02]: We're just riddled with a defensive network where people have been

[SPEAKER_02]: You know, they've been, the Iranians have been preparing for this.

[SPEAKER_02]: This is like they're Super Bowl.

[SPEAKER_02]: They've been preparing this for forever.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's up, it's their terrain.

[SPEAKER_02]: And you better believe that they have a way of defending it.

[SPEAKER_02]: So we used to have logistical pieces on the other side.

[SPEAKER_02]: About regular my faces in Kuwait.

[SPEAKER_02]: We used to have the fifth fleet headquarters in the UAE.

[SPEAKER_02]: But it's in Bahrain.

[SPEAKER_02]: But it's

[SPEAKER_02]: you know, we don't know where those are.

[SPEAKER_02]: We don't know the condition of them.

[SPEAKER_02]: And the Iranians and nothing else have been able to, to, without a question, demonstrate that any type of concentration of troops as areas would be targeted and effectively hit.

[SPEAKER_02]: So what on God's green earth are these people thinking about?

[SPEAKER_02]: And also you got the numbers up there from the EWG McCampane and from the Okinawa campaign.

[SPEAKER_02]: And one thing to,

[SPEAKER_02]: to illustrate with that.

[SPEAKER_02]: There's, you know, the plus and minus here silver lining also, you know, potential working on the worst case scenario, is that the Iranian military is not the Japanese imperial army.

[SPEAKER_02]: They have, they do not have the same construct, they do not have the same types of infantry capabilities.

[SPEAKER_02]: So,

[SPEAKER_02]: The actual initial invasion probably not as bloody as those numbers as you're going to see.

[SPEAKER_02]: And you'd undoubtedly take some because, look, look, just look at the look at the map.

[SPEAKER_02]: 600 kilometers in, and you're going to be getting shot at the entire time, no matter how you try to do this, whether it's a hell of or an operation, whether it's a contested.

[SPEAKER_02]: landing or you're going to float your fleet through there.

[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, you're just going to take it far at the entire time and something's going to happen.

[SPEAKER_02]: The problem, though, is when you get on the ground and where this gets very, very spicy is that when you're fighting, when the Marines in the Pacific were fighting, people like the Japanese.

[SPEAKER_02]: The Japanese had almost no external logistical support.

[SPEAKER_02]: on the island at the time that was being seized was what you were going to get they weren't necessarily can get re-supplies there was a couple battles where that sort of happened but towards Okinawa and towards Ewo Jima at the end there was nobody coming for those guys they died in place and the ammo they had was the ammo they had um this is not the case there right you have the entire Iranian state

[SPEAKER_02]: just a couple clicks of water away.

[SPEAKER_02]: They're entire military industrial complex, all of their weapon systems that they possibly could bring to bear are right there.

[SPEAKER_02]: And effectively endless supply.

[SPEAKER_02]: So if you put guys on the ground there, what you have,

[SPEAKER_02]: is, you know, you have a giant target and then you have a follow on mission, which is try to silence the guns on the other side of the street.

[SPEAKER_02]: And good luck with that.

[SPEAKER_02]: It looks like a very, very, very nasty trap that seems like a bad idea, but at the same time, I go back to the first point here, which is

[SPEAKER_02]: to seize terrain as a negotiating point.

[SPEAKER_02]: Like, that to me is a stone cold.

[SPEAKER_02]: no.

[SPEAKER_02]: You do not sacrifice American fighting men and women, in this case, mostly men, to have a negotiating point in a diplomatic kerfuffle that you caused.

[SPEAKER_02]: Let's not forget that the straight was open.

[SPEAKER_02]: The straight was open while we were negotiating with the Iranians back in February.

[SPEAKER_02]: They didn't close that until we attacked them and assassinated their head of state.

[SPEAKER_02]: And it's never closed before, they weren't charging tolls.

[SPEAKER_02]: Second point being, is that all of this is in their territorial waters.

[SPEAKER_02]: Either that or the old monies.

[SPEAKER_02]: Like the United States does not have any type of physical claim to this area.

[SPEAKER_02]: And to sacrifice American fighting men and women,

[SPEAKER_02]: for something that has nothing in the American interest whatsoever.

[SPEAKER_02]: You know, nothing, there's nothing there.

[SPEAKER_02]: There is not an American base.

[SPEAKER_02]: There is not an American interest.

[SPEAKER_02]: There is nothing there is way beyond the pale.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm gonna start talking this to death.

[SPEAKER_02]: if I'm not careful.

[SPEAKER_02]: So I think you guys know how I feel about this and I think that's where we should really really focus on this.

[SPEAKER_02]: And moving forward, the appropriate thing to do would be to stop bombing the Iranians and to focus on what's in the MOU because there's a very clear layout that we agreed to.

[SPEAKER_02]: We didn't like it.

[SPEAKER_02]: We didn't have to agree to it.

[SPEAKER_02]: Like, I mean, this would be like, I mean, this would be like, my wife saying, hey, you want Mexican for dinner, and then you be like, yeah, I'll take Mexican for dinner, and then showing me the Mexican restaurant and just like throwing refried beans to people.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'd be like, I hate Mexican food.

[SPEAKER_02]: I don't want to be here.

[SPEAKER_02]: And then expecting the people in there to be like, whoa, okay.

[SPEAKER_02]: Sure, to get you to stop throwing refried beans.

[SPEAKER_02]: Would you like a cheeseburger from McDonald's, and then going down there and getting it?

[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, maybe a bad analogy, but I mean, I think you get my point like where we caused this, we agreed to it and it's on us to stick to the agreement that we agreed to and if you don't like it, negotiate your way out of it.

[SPEAKER_02]: And unfortunately, I don't think we have the capability of doing that inside of our department of state.

[SPEAKER_02]: We haven't put any emphasis on it and we have Jared Kushner,

[SPEAKER_02]: and Steve Wickhoff spearheading this, and they are not diplomats, they are businessmen among other things, and I think you can fill in the blank there, so man, man, I don't know where this goes, but yeah, Chris, Chris, you're saying that Lindsey Graham was scheduling

[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, so that was a tongue-in-cheat joke.

[SPEAKER_01]: Lindsey Graham was actually scheduled on most of the Sunday talk shows.

[SPEAKER_01]: Meet the press, face the nation.

[SPEAKER_01]: So they had to scramble to get a filler and for every network.

[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_02]: All right, well, that makes sense.

[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I guess he wasn't going to make it, was he?

[SPEAKER_02]: But, uh, the poem.

[SPEAKER_02]: But anyway, so, yeah, also, uh, everybody, I think it's, uh, this is, we're going to do a deeper dive into this at some point about Gensa.

[SPEAKER_02]: where how they co-op senior leaders in the U.S. military, but please look up Gensa and Frank McKenzie about what he does for them.

[SPEAKER_02]: And because embroiling the American military in a ground operation in Iran is something that only would support their interests that I'll leave it there.

[SPEAKER_02]: Anyways, I am running a temperature.

[SPEAKER_02]: I have been sick for days.

[SPEAKER_02]: I feel absolutely like a wasse because it is the middle

[SPEAKER_02]: and somehow I have a cold like it is the middle of winter and I need a cup of soup and a nap.

[SPEAKER_02]: But I truly appreciate all of you tuning in today.

[SPEAKER_02]: We're gonna dive deeper into this tomorrow and subsequent episodes this week because I don't think any of this is going anywhere.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's pretty clear it's not the war is super hot again and it's starting to pop off.

[SPEAKER_02]: But in closing, please remember Lindsey Graham in the proper context, he did not like the GI Bill for my fellow veterans out there.

[SPEAKER_02]: He tried to get rid of it.

[SPEAKER_02]: And wanted you to be part of a military cast system.

[SPEAKER_02]: So, and then, yes, we also have his absolute very confusing lack of shall we say ethics and morals where he was the Supreme Never Trumper before he became Trump's best friends.

[SPEAKER_02]: And on and on I got millions of quotes out there, but this is a good excuse me, this is a good sweet representative, but it's all right everybody.

[SPEAKER_02]: I hope you all have an excellent finish your Monday and until tomorrow, please have a good one.