Glad to have Connor on the show again. We're going to talk about Venzuela. That's probably I think everybody needs to buckle up. He's done some homework and I'm gonna have to catch up. So Connor, glad to have you happy with what you got. Man. Uh well, so yeah, Venezuela. It's kind of a hot button topic right now. A lot of stuff's happened, a lot of different opinions and and and views on it. I know, you know, my side of things has been in some cases speaking before thinking a little bit. So I want to start. Give us an example really quick on your side of speaking before you think type of thing, and then how after stuff kind of you know, flows through and you get start getting to the facts. Give us an example of that on your side. So the way I see it, you know, coming if we stick to this example specifically, it's using verbiage that doesn't really portray the message that is trying to be gotten across. So you've seen some some groups get spun up, these these political activist groups that are really good throughout history of getting you know, anti war, anti imperialism, anti you know, US expansion protests spun up pretty quick. In big cities, it's it's PSL and answer, I think are two of them, and they've been doing it for decades and a lot of times, shocker people jump in without taking a second to think about the whole situation. And in this one, like from the left, my personal viewpoint is, and you know, kind of getting into sort of the topics that we're going to be discussing, is that Maduro not being in power in Venezuela is potentially a very good thing for the Venezuelans. He was a bad dude, he was connected with drug cartel, He was pretty much repressing thoughts and opinions and voices in his own country. He was not sticking to a democratic process. So him not being there is a good thing, big picture of fingers crossed. However, when the left, I think I've seen a couple posts of you know, people saying holding signs that are free Madureau and whatnot, and I've not quite seen like how much vetting of the truthfulness of these signs and whatnot go through. I think a lot of it where the left sometimes gets ahead of itself is voicing the liberal opinion of we don't agree with how Trump went about doing this operation, like the start to finish presentation of it. But that's being misconstrued as we're supporting keeping the Dureau in power, and that's just not true. And the other part of it being it's important in context like this to think about the venezeu wh people. It does not matter to me in Winchester, Virginia who the President of Venezuela is. It does not affect my day to day, So to take my feelings out of the conversation as far as the positivity or negativity of him being there, it's all about the Venezuelans. Are they going to be in a better spot today, tomorrow, next week, next month, next year than they were four days ago? And hopefully I think there is potential for doing that now. And that's where it brings me to my research myself. So realistically, what we're saying is based on what you've seen. There was an effort by some we'll just say left. It could be far left, but there is something out there where they're protesting him being removed, and I think we can agree him being removed is a positive thing for the Venezuelan people. It's just like Afghanistan is a positive. It's just how we do from here realistically. If that country turns into a better country because of for the Venezuelan people, then it's a positive thing, correct. And I think the. One tweak I would put on that assessment would be a lot of the protests, I think, because they were spun up as quick as they were. In my viewpoint, the protests are not about taking Maduro so to say, not about how that affects Venezuela. It's about how we went about executing the mission, at executing the objectives, and the lead up to it. You look at you know, going after drug boats, moving a carrier group into the area, moving all this stuff and equipment and whatnot, saying it's one thing, and then boom we pull off this operation and it just the legality of things is drawn into question. The context and the reasoning or the means through which this was executed, I think is more so where the pushback against the administration is not necessarily that Maduro was a good person, but that our approach to this did not meet the criteria it should have. You know, is that from a standpoint of like we the the other side, so the right side, So from our standpoint, I look at it and think, Okay, it was a well executed plan and it didn't it removed a dictator and we had precedent to that. I think we can discuss more about that. But like from my standpoint, I don't think anybody out there could say when seventy percent of the people, and those are the numbers we discussed earlier, seventy percent of the people in Venezuela supported an opposition party candidate and they that Madure did everything he could to remove that person from being on the ballot, and then once the ballot came in then there was issues there where he wasn't like realistically, wasn't there the best person. The other thing I think is interesting is the influence of China and also Russia in Venezuela. I mean, that's way too close. They talk about oil and I think I think the first thing is I think the words of like, oh my god, you're stealing the oil like we did in Iraq. I think the problem with that is there is something to be said about that. Not necessarily that we want to take the oil, but we don't want someone else who is who is against us to get in and get and have access to that. And I think clearly on from what I've read up until this point, China and Iran or China and Russia both were receiving oil from Venezuela, and that's part of the problem. Part of the problem is is that that's how a dictator was staying in power with two people, two countries that are that are I think even left would agree Russia is not a friend. I mean, we had Russia Gate and everything else, and obviously China is not the best partner, and I think they've done some things that would indicate, hey, there's a problem there. So from my standpoint, when I look at it and I think about Venezuela, I think, yeah, one hundred percent, like there's a lot of ways that you can go about it. I will say this, it reminded me a lot more of someone that is near and dear to you, Barack Obama, making a decisive decision to say, just think about that, we went to a country that we were not at war with and killed someone who and so. What is it about Osama bin Laden? Sma bin Laden? We went and killed him. What's the Obviously we had declared war a war on terrorism, but so from my standpoint, we still did the same in the context of we went against someone else's sovereignty. We went against the sovereignty of Pakistan to accomplish an objective. So how is that different in Venezuela. So great, we'll start spot on there. It's a great, great jumping off point on that. And so for me, my perspective, and this is purely just my my thoughts. Okay, when you're comparing and contrasting the two you're looking at, you know, Asama bin Laden and going after Madero, I think, while yes, the and and feel free to say I'm splitting hairs. You know, they are operations. They are approved by the president to go take care of something that needed we felt needed to be taken care of. But I think that there's a few very key differences between these two operations. I'll run through those real quick, as quick as again. The first, the first and foremost is when we went after Issama bin Laden, it was a as small as possible operational force to go into one home to get one man who was not the President of Pakistan, was not in any way important to Pakistan, and it's someone that we had been targeting for decades. The Pakistan thing. Do you not think he was experiencing safe haven in Pakistan? Being right now? He absolutely was. He was valuable to Pakistan from that standpoint because he was a valued guest of Pakistan. I understand the leadership thing, but I think it's splitting hairs Mandua. Can you say someone that represents that I'm a democracy but then runs people. I think that's the biggest complaint people have about Russia is Ladimir Putin just kind of rewrote the republic that they have rewrote the history and said I'm going to run as long as I want to run. And so from my standpoint, I agree, a duly elected president of a country is one thing. But someone who is who has clearly shown that he is not following the past of what that country stood for. And you have seventy percent of the people saying we don't this is not what we want. Sure, but so specifically, like with the Sama bin Laden thing, like why these two in my opinion, are different. Real quick was he's not the president, he's just for on tent and purpose. He's just a guy in a house. We sent in the smallest possible military unit to get him out, and the only casualties were his guard and whoever was in that home that posed a threat. No one else in Pakistan, nothing outside of that house. Maybe that block because I know a helicopter crashed and that I forget what that damaged. But all you know just that house was hit and it was someone who and will split hairs on this one, it was someone who did a direct attack on the United States, killing three thousand Americans when you compare that to Maduro, but there was the president of his country. It was a full blown assault, helicopters, navy, ground troops. Eighty or so people died, including thirty something Cuban soldiers. So it wasn't just the guard the location. You were the Cubans doing there? I don't know. I saw that apparently that I guess it happened in Panama or Nicaragua too. That I guess Cuba is outsourcing its special forces to be like palace guard for Central American presidents. But yeah, because it's something like thirty two of their I think they're called like the black wasps or something I saw were his guard. But the dead hornets. So we killed about eighty people. Multiple US soldiers were injured in the attack. We bombed multiple locations, not just wherever Maduro was, and it was very very public, as opposed to bin Laden, where it was covert, you know, sneak in, sneak out, get him and go. So to me, they are two vastly different situations because of multiple context points. Again simple just off the top, you're taking out a president and a terrorist, which the president could be considered terrorist with his connections with the drug industry and or narcotics industry. So there are those, but those are indirect deaths, as opposed to bin Laden, who flew planes into two buildings and directly facilitated the death of three thousand Americans. So that's me, that's why I see them as different styles of operation. And to me, that's also why I view the Venezuelan operation as needing congressional approval. And I know that we have the president throughout history of doing operations, including going into Iraq in the first place, within executive purview, without needing congressional backing because it's an operation, not a military war, declared war. But that also calls into question because I remember when Bush went into Iraq, a lot of people questioned him for that, a lot of people said, hey, whoa, whoa. I don't know if this is legal. Then I know when we went into Panama to take out Noriega, it was not. It did not have congressional approval when it happened. It got congressional approval after the fact. So we have these moments where we have acknowledged that something is not how it should be done and we sort of back channel the approval. And in doing that, to me, looking at something like this, I take that as like, Okay, I robbed a bank and got away with it, so I have permission to rob more banks because I got away with it the first time, just because we did it just he was legal then either, right. But I also think that what we deal with this precedent and I do, and in the judicial system, that's what we go by. We go by. We have our legislative laws, they're interpreted by the courts, and they have precedent assigned in appeals courts and things like that. To go to a couple of your points, if we just go like okay, Osama bin Lauden, known terrorist, we'll go with the point it was a different kind of military operation. I would remind you that Barack Obama had like killed a ton of people, which I'm fine with, and drone attacks in Pakistan was even killed an American, which again I'm fine with because they tied them to terrorism. Here's something to think about. We lost how many people. We lost several thousand people in the September eleventh attacks just in twenty twenty five alone. ROC estimates between seventy six thousand and eighty seven thousand people overdose deaths in the United States. And I don't apply it just in that case. I also applied from a standpoint of China with COVID, there was a lot more deaths and there was no accountability for that. So it's not like I'm just saying one thing is you know, just in one area, this country is not responsible. We're going to talk about Venezuela. From my standpoint, there have been a tremendous amount of deaths that are contributed to the nucleus of China, Russia and also from Venezuela, and it was almost acting as a hub and so from my standpoint, hub for illegal activity because again these countries they are all supporting a rogue what I would consider a rogue regime, and the more leeway you give them, the more the probability of something bad happening in our backyard is greater. You have China trying to get influence down there, you have Russia trying to get influence. And from like, from my standpoint, the fact that we've had all these overdose deaths, he has declared them a terrorst threat, international terrorist organization through Venezuela, which is why he was taking out the boats. So like, from my standpoint, he has had that discussion, and if they had an issue with that discussion, they should have. They have that ability. They have the ability to go to the court file suits and say hey, we don't think this is right. I think from my standpoint, you can dislike the way that just I think at my point, I think people hated Barack Obama and they complained about everything that he did. I felt like what he did with the seals and what he did to take down Assamom bin Liden and kill him and take him out, I think that was a ballsy move. In the flip side, I wish and I feel like history will show and a lot of it depends on how we moved from here in Venezuela. I think history will show that this was this was a ballsy It's almost like going on fourth down, Big Georgia saying we tried it twice, we made it once, the second time we didn't make it. But that's a ballsy move. It's it's saying I'm a leader, and and people are not going to agree with leadership. And like, from my stand point, Barack Obama phenomenal choice to use the seals in that way. I don't I take not exception because that's a strong word. But like what you're saying is a military operation. Those are military targets. I understand that we're not at war with them, but there there is, there is, without question, there is collateral damage in any military operation. Unfortunately, just like when we do the drone attacks and there's you know, innocent people inside of the car. Innocent as a relative term. They might like not be actively gazed in terrorism at that point, but they are affiliated with somebody that is. And so like from my standpoint for me as it relates to what you said, is I agree it was a military operation. I think you've made it sound a lot bigger than it is because you had all these entities in support. And I think when you start adding up the entities and support of asauvan Lauden to include the Burial Sea and everything else, you're talking about a whole lot more people. Sure, And that's one of the things about it is just you can't number people and say, well, we had a whole fleet out there doing this, and so they're involved in this operation. They were involved, but like how operationally who was used and who was utilized to complete this operation? Not We were talking about a very limited number of bombers, a limited number of attack helicopters, and then the delta operators that went in there and actually extracted them. And I think that that to me, what I look at is I look at let's call it a win from my standpoint, because it's not easy to go after somebody. First of all, everybody everybody talks about the intelligence operations and how shittd we do a job. This is a the CIA should be taking victory lapse because they did an amazing job getting information. And I think the average person looks at that and they're like, oh, they just landed at the right place. No, there was a lot of a lot of work that went into them going to the right place. Second thing, is from an operational standpoint, those dudes went in and that was a surgical hit. I mean, the fact is they went in there, that didn't cause any damage to anything to their target that they wanted to extract a live they did it. It was almost like a hostage rescue, except it was a targeted We're going to extract this person back to justice. And I think that speaks volumes to the efficiency of them and what they do, their level of training. So, like I said, I think I think we can disagree that, hey, whether it's a military operation not a military operation. I think one of the greatest things about our conversations is we both are going to come down on different sides. But I think at the end of the day, one of the things, just strictly is it revolves around this conversation, is that this was a good thing for the people in Venezuela. It remains to be seen if we do a good job. In the past, we've not done a great job of supporting things. And I guess this will go to your next point. I think it's really a good thing that we did not try to shove a leader down their throats. We took an existing leader that they had and are in negotiations, might go to ship any day now that he's right. Now we have a we have a duly elected well that remains. You know, look it it doesn't look like the United States is trying to take over a country. I feel like we're trying to help them take care of themselves, and we're going to start. We didn't just like dismiss everybody think about Iraq with Paul Bremer. I mean, we just like got rid of everybody in it, and we stuck. We were stuck there for a long period of time. This I think, I think he's got I think Trump is. I mean, you can people can go back and forth and they can say different things. And I think one of the things the Secretary of War is taking his force like he doesn't have an experience, any experience, but I can almost. And I want to give a shout out to the Raging Kane, the general that is over the Joint chiefs of Staff as a b M. I graduate, which is very short distance away from where we live in Lexton, Virginia, and I think it's pretty cool that you have that kind of connection in Virginia, that we've got our military academy that's producing that level of leadership. So to your next point, we've got the transition to a new leader. Yes, and so that that's where I spend a little time. Uh. I mean, honestly, most of it's on just Wikipedia because it's all history anyway. But that's where I wanted to hit you with some some some stats and get your feedback on it. Because we are now in the transitional part. We're in the next part of the phase of who takes over. There's there's the conversation coming from the President that you know we are there. We will we will run the country until a safe and proper transition of power can be can come through. We're gonna send uh, potentially our oil companies there to rebuild their infrastructure. We at least in the short term, based on what you know, Lindsey Graham, President Trump Stephen Miller, Deputy Chief of Staff, have said we're gonna we are going to be involved in the Venezuelan government for at least the short term future, if not a little longer. But looking back throughout the history of the United States, we have anm of sticking our nose in other countries and historically it's not gone great for us. Through my rough research kind of looks like that there are three instances that I came through where we successfully changed the regime of another country. Now, when I looked at this, it was my premise was, since nineteen fifty, you know, post World War Two, how many times has the US, either directly or indirectly through covert or non covert means, affected change within a different countries government a regime change. Rough numbers that I was getting back was somewhere between like sixty and seventy times. We've had some sort of influence in that, and then the number drops down when it's like our direct involvement of taking someone out and putting someone in, and in doing that, I found three instances where it went well. So Number one nineteen sixty five, Dominican Republic. It took a few years, but by nineteen seventy eight they have a democracy. They have since pretty much just maintained that democracy, have had economic growth. They're in a good spot. Grenada nineteen eighty three. They now have democratic elections, they've had economic growth. They're in a good spot. Panama nineteen eighty nine, Noriega. We went in and got him out, and they've pretty much been for on intent and purpose, a successful country ever since. The interesting thing with that one was Noriega was a CIA asset that we had worked to put into place in the first time in the first place, so we kind of went in and cleaned up our own mess. Now the flip side is, so that was three in the last seventy five years or so, the flip side of that, and I won't get into details on all of them. But let's just let's just do three to three due to three war. So back in Afghanistan would be the two that you would think of off the top of your head. But I'm actually going to jump to a couple of different ones. Three other ones, so I'll give you four actually because one of them is kind of important. So Guatemala nineteen fifty four resulted in civil war and Guatemala became a failed state. Nineteen sixty four Brazil we installed what became a military dictator for about twenty years who was notorious for torture nineteen sixty five Indonesia. That was. Samartu s U m a Rto Using CIA intelligence, he became a dictator and is looked at his killing or that government became dictorial and looked at his killing anywhere between five hundred thousand and one million people and ruled for about thirty one years. And then the last one I'll give you is nineteen seventy three Chile. That's Pinochet who became a dictator and was accused of killing or disappearing about three thousand of his people. Along with that, you've got Saddam Hussein Cia asset Shah of Iran that was a CIA coup Mobato sesse Seco ciakup in Africa. All of these are examples of people where we have backed them or we have specifically put them in and it has gone very very poorly. So when you say put them in, let's talk about that a little bit. I think I think one of the things that I look at, and now I can speak one of the ones that I'm familiar with, I'm gonna cheat, but anyway, I think Iraq. If we can talk about Iraq and Afghanistan and then you talk about whichever one you think is the best to talk about on your side, but I'll go into a little bit from my standpoint on our Raq, I think I think we did it. I think we had in our minds and it ended up with the Arab Spring. I think we in our minds were like, hey, everybody wants a democracy and it doesn't work. I mean, it really doesn't. And so I think one of the things that we learned and I hope we have learned in Iraq in Afghanistan, is it's much easier to overthrow a government than it is to manage it and allow it to grow on its own. And I think that's going to be the proof as we move forward with Venezuela is how good is the State Department in doing that? I feel like like we've already said, the CIA, the other intelligence organizations did a phenomenal job with this one. Dealt to the guys did a phenomenal job, were moving the power that be. How good are we going to do moving forward? Is the real question? I think honestly with that, it's we just need to not get in our own way, because it feels different this time because Venezuela has already been attempting democratic elections, They've already been asking for the as opposed to us trying to install democracy, you know, Iraq, Afghanistan, in these places where it's tribal where that's just not gonna. It doesn't it doesn't work. And I'll give you an example of a personal example from Afghanistan's one of the things that we talked about this somewhat with immigration, and that is the federal government operates in numbers, like how many numbers we can get. And I remember when Secretary Defense Romsefield, all you wanted to do is stand up the Afghan National Army and there and board patrol and all these different things, and it was all numbers. The problem is there was no infrastructure. They had no Afghanistan had no infrastructure. That was it still is. I mean, it's it's it is Stone Age meeting the Jetsons type of thing. I mean it is it is Flintstone's meeting the Jetsons, I think is the word that they use the term. But like from my standpoint in Afghanistan, one of the problems is is that we we we did it a lot of different ways. But one of the things that we did is we were like, okay, we can train these guys. We trained them right from a support standpoint. We were like, okay, if we train these guys, we can send them out to this province that has no reco They do not recognize the federal government in Kabbo Kabul or what however you want to say. I always say Kable, but I'm sure I'm not saying it right. But anyway, they didn't recognize the federal government there, so they really didn't like they They wouldn't ahead and did all the things that they did that that never got support from the federal government or anything else. They lived in a tribal region. They knew who they liked, they knew who they disliked, which I mean, I think it's a pretty good indication about a country. When you have all these different languages in that same country that they have, they still haven't figured it out. You know, you have student Dari, Arabic, you know, all these different languages there and they didn't fit. You know, they hadn't figured it out. So from for us, we armed these guys. We sent them into their village and they're gonna, they're gonna they're going to be the representation of the federal government. The problem is is that we visioned him a fire, we visioned him a gun. We provided them training, and we have their leader, who is the tribal chief or some entity out there that's who. The federal government who the United States government, the federal government of Afghanistan says, Okay, that's how we're going to pay him. The problem is they have no payroll system. So that person just gave it to people that he liked. So the average person, the average Joe soldier on the on the on the battlefield in Afghanistan is out there with a gun, no food, no support, and training we gave him because what he decided to do. He's like, you know what, if I set up a checkpoint on the side of the road, I can start charging my own toll and and so all of a sudden, it's like, okay, you, yes, the Taliban's not here anymore, but the services that we're supposed to get, we're not getting running water, we're not getting any of these other things. And on top of that, the people you are training are ribbing us. And so it just doesn't work. It doesn't that. And so my hope in this one is we look at it and go, y'all have a better idea about what to do than we do. Let's let you go with it, and it's easy for us. Twenty twenty you know, it's twenty twenty high insight. That's what it is. Hindsight twenty twenty. You look at something and you're like, oh, that was a terrible idea. It's a terrible idea because it's easy to it's easy to complain after it's over. But I do think history is the best thing to learn from how to prevent mistakes. And I think one of the mistakes mistake we made in Afghanistan, and I think the mistake we made in not Rick, is that we thought that people would rally behind an idea of a democracy, and I think they did eventually. Initially look at all the people that voted. I think about all the stamped thumbs and everything else that these people went in there to vote, and I think they really embraced it. And then they realized, like, our lives in our lives aren't any better, So then it, you know, then that vacuum is filled. And I think for me, I think Iran is a very interesting thing right now, and I think I think Venezuela is a very interesting and there are some very smart people working on it. I just hope that they are able to put a government together in Venezuela that is beneficial to the Venezuelan people. And that's the that's the aspect of it where I personally, I'll say, I'm not holding my breath. Is us going in and you know, I'll let a little bias out real quick. I'm not holding my breath under this administration because this needs to be for the Venezuelan people. It needs to be for the success and growth and economic stability of that country. And I get the get the feeling that it's We're still going to find a way to make sure America gets it's cut because from what I've seen, from what I've heard, you know, Trump saying that the oil industry is going to go in, it's going to redo the infant structure, and it's going to run their oil, essentially denationalizing their oil industry for at least the short term, if not the long He's already said something today or yesterday where something to the effect of we're going to start exporting oil to America to the US on air Force one. Yesterday, he gave an interview with Lindsey Graham to a bunch of reporters, and every single thing he said. Was oil, oil, oil, oil. To the point where Lindsey Graham even tried to pull him back, saying, oh, and you know, narco terrorism, we're going to cut down on drugs. We're going to really put a try and put a cabage to this. If I remember his comment, right, and then right when he stops talking, Trump chime back in and said, and we're going to get the oil. And so for me, what makes it difficult is you're absolutely right that we do have the people. Again, Credit to Delta and CIA for seemingly pulling off as near as can be flawless in operation. Credit because that's you know, I jotted it down that clearly like they've been working on this plan for a while. This doesn't just pop up overnight, which to do my little two cents also means Trump declaring drug fentanyl weapon of mass destruction two and a half three weeks ago is to me a red flag of Oh there, he's creating an excuse for something they were already planning. Not saying that it isn't not saying that many people have died, but it's it's terms like that that to me wave the red flag of Iraq two point zero, you know, oil weapons of mass destruction. Dictator US involvement, YadA, YadA, YadA, but it's one where right now, like I my hope, the success for Venezuela, I feel will come down to how much do we allow the Venezuelans to take lead and how much do we try and put our influencing. Because while it is a good thing to get Russia and China out of our back yard, getting them out of our backyard by just taking other people's backyards is not the for lack of a better term, American way of doing it. Like it's we need to support them, We need to help them grow and help them rebuild, and then we need to step back. We need to make deals. Sure, it absolutely is beneficial to us to have a good connection for oil, for natural resources, for their mineral resources, but not to the point or not to the extent of exploiting the country, but to prop them up and help them grow as well, because a strong Western hemisphere creates a problem for the Eastern hemisphere. If we can back our people, back our neighbors, right, that's that's how you keep the other ones away. So to go on that point, as far as our back working in our own backyard and talking about history, what can you point at in the previous Trump administration and so far now that he has done where you felt like this, I understand what he says. He says a lot of stuff that like I'm like, I wish you wouldn't say that, But like, from my standpoint, what is he actually done? What policies has he has he had? Foreign policies has he had in his first administration and thus far in this administration? That would show the kind of I'll just call cannibalism of another entity, where we're going to take over something. What have you seen from what it from the left side? What has he done? I understand people don't like the way he does stuff, but historically speaking, you have five years now of leadership. What in that five years of leadership causes you, Pauls on the left that he's going to do that based on what he has done thus far, just in foreign policy. So I think what I think is really interesting about Trump when you look at his two terms, is they are so distinctly different from each other. Because I feel in his first term he was still under the impression that he would run for four, run again, get another four and that would be it. And with the break in the middle. I think that exacerbated some of his rhetoric, exacerbated some of his frustrations. And so in the first term, I remember he had he would bring people in to be his advisors and whatnot, And it seemed like in that first one hundred or so days that first year, he was firing one left and right until he got people he wanted. What he's done differently this time is from the jump, it feels like he's targeted and and you know, this is my left view of feels like he's targeted people that are not necessarily the most qualified for the role and therefore will be more likely to go with his plans because they know, you know, they're in a position outside of maybe they know they should be. But so he gets yes with that. Let's think about that. So we're saying that he's putting people in who aren't qualified. Let's just strictly take it from this standpoint. The Department of War is the one that executed this mission, meaning the Department of War. They are the ones that put this mission together. Is that, like what we're talking about is effective effectiveness? Is the Secretary of War beneficient as it relates to just this operation I do not feel that I have the en results, the end results. We've all we agree that that this operation was a flawless operation. The objective was to remove a leader and do it in a strategic way where we didn't lose our people. And we did that, and he did that. And I think people want to say, well, he's not qualified, But at the end of the day, he did. He was given a mission and he executed falllessly. So that is to me, that is an indication of effectiveness. Sure, And I as much as I want to, I won't hit the low hanging fruit on that one and just say that. I think time will tell who was or how this mission played out as we get more information, as as details of it come out, and see. What do you mean how this played out? So you like the coordinating of it? Like where to what degree was secretary Hegseth involved? To what degree did we defer to our admirals and our generals for coordinating CIA directors for coordinating? Essentially the director is an appointed position. Yeah, But my point being like, whose fingers were where in the. Let me just interject on leadership. One of the things people can piss a mon about Trump all you want, but like, look at who he is appointed and look at the effectiveness. People can disagree with Okay, well I disagree with this policy, but from an effectiveness standpoint, he was given a mission. One of the things that is that has caused the most problem for the average soldier on the on the ground is leaders policy, leaders appointed positions, Secretary of Defense, Secretary of Defense back then, you know the president by you know all the people that are involved in the chain of command. I think one of the reasons why the Obama plan works so well for assawomn Bin Lawden is he said this is this is what I want you to do, and he made the ultimate decision. So I think it's unfair to sit there and say, well, I wonder who planned it. Well, the fact is, the fact is his entity was successful in what it did. His department was effective, and he was the leader of that department. So he's done a good job. I can Yeah, I won't argue that. Yeah, that, and we'll get into that one another day. But you know, just I would like in light of when we're going over this, like the dudes in ice and the officers that are involved in that, like I feel bad for that woman's family. But I also think that that your site's got to tone down the rhetoric because you don't, you can't continue, They can't continue to put a target on people's back. But well, that's just a blurb back to what we're. For the most part, I try and stay true to the fact that at the end of the day, whether I agree with the policy or not, the Delta Force guys that went in, they were doing their job and they were doing it very well. And I can't, you know, any feelings I have towards the execution or the legality or whatever side conversation that's not on them. They executed their operation to the best of their abilities and nailed it and credit where credit is due to them and therefore up the chain. Like it went off. It went smooth as smoothly as to be expected as it could be planned to, you know, not without casualties on the other side. But yeah, you know, credit credit there that it was, it was executed. Well, well, let's say, let's talk about casualty. I think one of the things people complained about a lot is they're like, well, they were innocent. Have you heard any anything on your side about innocent people. I'm not talking about like, hey, you're a bodyguard and you were. The only people I've heard as a casualty as of yet, haven't heard anything about Venezuelan citizens or civilians. It sounds like it was eighty soldiers, thirty two or so of which were this Cuban special forces group that had been brought in as like direct security. Apparently not very good, but you know they were there. And then I guess that would be forty eight Venezuelan soldiers. But to my understanding, there have been no secondary civilian casualties. Some US guys got injured, but no, we lost no US troops, which is good. So all in all, this was, from from that viewpoint, a successful military operation in that it was only the combatants that were involved. And I think that again, it can't just stop with the Secretary of War the Delta guys, but the agency did a hell of a job getting the information, putting putting those guys on target, and all the things that were involved with that. So like from my standpoint, I won't to do a victory like we'll go to your next point, but like from my standpoint, people can say, hey, they're not qualified and they might. I think, I think you can make the argument, well, there were more there's a loyalty there that he hadn't had in passed administrations. But again, look at what he was elected to do, look at what he's done and the people that he's put in charge as a results. As from like, I feel like you can clearly on the left say I do not like the Secretary of Wars policy as it relates to different things in the military, uh, you know, as far as transgender, all those different things, Like I think the left can say that, but you can't. I would struggle to say he's not qualified to do the job when he pulls off a mission like this, and time will tell it's one he's batten. He's batt in a thousand right now, as it relates well operationally what other operations is a sect. I mean, you can't look past the whole signaled gate thing of him releasing uh classified well not classified because it was deemed not classified, but operational information in the midst of the strikes being pulled off. So so you actually gave me one more the strikes in Iran and all the stuff that's happened over there. Now I would say, from an operational standpoint, he's two for two. You can, I mean, you can get in the weeds and say, well, he shouldn't have done this with the signal, he shouldn't have done that. But as far as if, if we are evaluating people on performance of their duties and performance of the dues for the Secretary of War is to take action militarily and be successful. And I think Venezuela was the success. In Iran was a success. I know people have said a lot of different things and said, well we weren't I think I can't remember how it was said, but basically like, oh, well you really didn't destroy the Iranian capabilities. But I mean, I have to say there seems to be some changes going on over there now, and I don't think it's because we were unsuccessful in what we did. Time will tell. I mean, the targets, from my understanding, the targets we were going for. Whether we can go back and forth on how much nuclear material was still there when they were hit, but the targets that we went after were pretty well destroyed, pretty well knocked out a commission. So again, I yeah, I would absolutely give you. You know, Iran Venezuela. Those were two very successful operations. So who else, See, see if you can find me one that you're like, Okay, from your from the left standpoint, this is somebody that wasn't qualified. We dealt with the Secretary of War. Who's somebody else that you think was not qualified? Uh I might even let. You pick Andy. You don't have to say it right away, but I mean that would be a good discussion if you want to get into it. I mean we can. I feel like that takes us off on a tangent away from Venezuela for another time. We'll come back to it, but I'll say, uh rfk, Junior. I think with HHS is a little out there for my liking in terms of his approach to to to things. I think we'll circle back to that one a different day. I think I think with bot views he went from left field to right field, and it's you wanted to stay towards center, but anyway to your next point. Well no, So so when we stick them with Venezuela. So we've looked, you know, historical context. The US really needs to nail this one because again, you know, if I'm just off the top of my or not top of my head, but looking like you know, nineteen fifty three, fifty four, sixty four, sixty five, seventy three, ninety four, twenty eleven with Libya, like we've kind of dropped the ball a decent enough number of times that making sure that these guys are okay and these guys are in a better spot. I think it has to be a priority now. It has to be like I know, I'm on the side of let's not get involved in other people's issues, you know, over the seas. We've been doing it for years, and it's kind of put our own country by the wayside a little bit from time to time. But I think with this one, with how it was executed. With the with the. Publicity of it, the just publicness of it, we gotta we got to nail the recovery for them and for the Venezuelans, like we came in, turned their world upside down, and we gotta we gotta do what we got to do right by them. And I think, where again, where my my concern is. You know, you asked earlier about policy specifically for like the US's benefit, which not saying that there aren't conversations to behead. It's it's trade. We we have, we need things, we have things. It's a give and take situation. But you know, one that jumped to mind for me when you asked earlier was our deals with Ukraine, which we can get into on a different one, whether how involved in Ukraine we should be, But in the midst of them trying to create this push this front, you know, can you get us help, can you get us whatever? I felt that we sort of strong armed them into agreeing to mineral deals because it was a you either agree or you lose your country, and we pull all of our support. To me, that seemed like a sort of taking advantage of the moment situation, which again that's maybe you know, a soft heart or whatever. But you look at Venezuela and again it's the the To me, the oil thing is a big red flag of did we do this for the people or did we do it for us? And it can be both, but it has to be an equitable both and not an exploitive both. So I've got a question as it relates to that from I feel like you have a What we've discussed on the left is kind of this thought of like helping your neighbor and things like that. And so my question as it relates to that is, from that standpoint, what does your side of it look like? Because I think we look at the equitable side of it of like, okay, we we that wasn't a cheap operation that we performed to remove their president, so we have expended resources. So at what point from your standpoint is they're like, okay, you you have made restitution or at least righted the ship, and this is an equitable relationship on both sides moving forward, What does that look like on your side? Beneficial deals? So like obviously at the end of the day, like it's going to come down to oil exports from them, imports for US minerals, stuff like that. Right, so in a way that you know, if they're selling oil to England at you know, sixty bucks a barrel, they sell it to us at fifty five. Just something like those little bits where we're not exploiting them and just taking they're still making you know, they're still growing their economy, just giving us a little bit better of a cut, so to speak, or of an agreement, or you look and you go establishing themselves. I think a big one if we truly want to say that the operation in Venezuela was for drugs and not oil. I think one of the biggest ways that they could help us is be the police force of the Central American area to fight the war on drugs for US in that area. I think that would be a huge. So you're saying their country is responsible for interdicting drugs before they get to the US. Is that what you're saying. I think that would be an amazing exchange if there was a way to pull that off, if there was an agreement that could come where they were catching the boats before they left, you know, as they're leaving before it gets to us, or if they were influencing, to the best of their abilities their neighbors to try and prevent the movement. I don't know if that's even feasibly possible. I don't know what the policy or the diplomacy on that would be, but I think. You're definitely onto something because, like from my standpoint, because that worked narcotics most of my career, and we always said we're successful if we interdict them before they ever get here. I mean, you can make buys, you know, and take down people after they already have the product here. You can take the people that are supplying them a county away, a state away, or even a country away, take them out where they're at. And I think, I think it's a really good point. I think one of the biggest problems that we run into right now is our neighbor to the south direct neighbor is is one hundred. I mean it is. There are a lot of problems in Mexico. That's the best way to put it. I mean, we can go into a lot of detail. That'll be a good discussion from another time. But I think I think it can be both, you know, kind of what you were talking about. Instead of just the oil, you want to see more of the Marco terrorism and everything else. But again, part of I think all of it works together. I think this entity was funded by the oil, but also from the drugs and everything else. So it's not just a it's a it's a very complex situation because they they're they're bootlegging, for lack of a better way of saying that they were bootlegging oil to China and to Russia at you know, and it's it is interesting. Someone put a story on there and they said, you know, well, this is beneficial because seventy percent of the oil that is that China is getting is coming from either Iran in Venezuela. Well that's not and so if we shut those down, it'll it'll cripple the Chinese. Go well, that's not the case. The case. The case fine print is China is getting like some of their small oil refineries are in companies are getting all from the bootleg, all from Venezuela and Iran. So it's not it's not that it sounds good, but it's not that big like, oh, if we take out seventy percent, well, cripple China. Well they're not, that's not it. There's a contribution there, it's just not the biggest story. Well and so also, what's so we're gonna I'm going to take just a real brief side thought experiment of let's pretend we aren't Americans, right, so, right now America faulted Venezuela a lot for supplying you know, the ghost fleet for the Russians or the sanctioned oil getting out. You know, we just caught a ship in the North Atlantic that the Coast Guard's been chasing for two weeks of an oil tanker. So we have sanctions, the US has sanctions. We don't like Russia, we don't like China. We're trying to slow them down. That's America USA. But now let's pretend for a second that you and I are Venezuelans. I'm the Venezuelan government. I still have to make money, and I'm having people offer to buy my goods. So to me, like I, people bring up like, oh, they're supplying oil to Russia or China. Okay, they need to make money, they need to run their government, they need to fund stuff. I know for sure if someone tried to tell the US, oh, don't sell your soybeans to China because we're embargoing them, if it's Venezuela trying or Argentina trying to tell them tell the US, hey, don't don't sell soybeans to China because we're selling soil be Insichina. We look at Argentina and go, screw you. We're doing what we want to do. And so there's a certain degree for me when you look at these other countries. You can have the American opinion, but they're not Americans. They're Venezuelans. And how would we feel as Americans if we started being dictated what we could or couldn't do by another country. I look at it too in the sense of and this is where like the the thought experiment is is, let's say Russia or China or Peck Nato or pick a country thinks that Trump is being a bully and that Trump is being this huge problem in the Western hemisphere. Oh he just invaded Venezuela. Oh he's killing whatever, and one of their black ops teams comes and snatches him out of the White House in the middle of Then obviously that wouldn't happen. We did feasibly embossed. But the argument being, if we are able to sit and justify our actions, we have to understand that those same justifications are running through other people's heads too, you know as well as I do that somewhere in Russia there is a conversation being had of how could we take Trump, how could we take him out? How can we do whatever? And you, like, I know, it's it's a weird take, but it's that if we can accept that as Americans and our policy, then we have to understand that we aren't the only ones thinking that way, And how would we receive that same situation, God forbid it happen to us, and that perspective of you know, okay, so, and it's why I think it's so highly important to help rebuild Venezuela right now, is they took a kick in the mouth, and now we have to help with the bandages, we have to help with the. Whatever, because did they really take a kick in the mouth or did they did that? I mean, he had his supporters, he had people. But again, if you're dealing with the democracy, and I think that's the difference is that I'm not going to use the America first, but we are America and if we if we want to look at it and go, okay, well we made a mistake. We need to change our policy. I think that's one thing. But I think if you go into the history, I don't I don't feel like as Americans and as as a government, like there are people that take advantage of situations one hundred percent. We talked about the one percent before. But the other thing is I think the I think the old expression is you know, America is great because it's good. And I think that's the difference is that I think you look at some of the policies and the things that have happened in some of the countries you listed, they're not doing good and we can get better. But like from my standpoint, China, it hasn't been good, the stuff that they did with Taiwan, Hong Kong, and also in some of the other places you know, it's not been good. And that's where I'll say just this. One of my concerns is is this present like what if kind of goes, Oh, well, America interfered in Venezuela because we were there, will intervene in Taiwan because America is there, Like it's those like there's. The thing I think, right, But I think the difference in that is I don't think that any of the policies that we have are destructive of another country in my based on what I know. So in other words, I feel like we have a lot of problems in this country internally, but I don't think any of the policies no matter what president you've looked at or what what uh entity you've looked at. Yeah, there's going to be some selfishness and things like that again with the one percent, but I think as far as a country, we are not trying to like take other countries. China is actively trying to take other countries with Taiwan and things like that. Russia is doing the same thing with Ukraine, with Crimea, all those different places. So I think that's because. That's that's that's interesting because I've thought about this, and so obviously after World War Two, imperialism was kind of shoeshoot away. Colonies were given up, you know, the sun set on the English Empire, all that type of stuff, especially the British. Yes, and you know, especially after the Cold War when when Russia or the USR collapse, like they gave up all their satellite states. And but when I look at it, I feel like America did a very tricky maneuver and through our benefit. I don't fall us for it at all. I think it was very tactically smart. But I'll ask you this. You know, how many countries in the world does the US have an armed military base on. I don't know the exact answer. I know it's dozens, it's a bunch. How many foreign entities. How many foreign countries have a military base in the United States? Zero? Right, But that's because this is my point. Is we have a imperialism by presence that we've established since World War Two, which not necessarily is a bad thing. But I don't. I don't because it's protectorate, but it's I don't be present. I don't. I don't agree with the imperialistic viewpoint because I don't feel like we're annex and you know, we have we have a couple of I guess we can get to Greenland at some point, but again I think that's posture. But like from my standpoint, when you look at that is most of those countries that we're in, I think about Korea and a couple of the other countries are countries like Japan. We have signed on to protect them, and I think there's a lot of different things. But I don't. I think I look at it like this. I don't if we use it as an example nobody. So let's just take it from I'm as standpoint of. And I'm also imperialism, not in a definitive stance, but just so let's just talk about. Like from my standpoint, when I look at it, I think about the Secret Service is never going to say, hey, I want local departments to come in and help us with this protective detail. There are pieces that you can do, but as far as the core function of the Secret Service, the Secret Service is going to prove because they are the best of the best at protective work. There are other entities that can do it, but as far as they're concerned, they're the gold standard. So why would the gold standard ask a lesser to come and protect us? And I do think from a militarily, with what we have, we are probably one of the strongest countries militarily. I think we've got a lot of yeah, and in a lot of ways, there are things that we can get better at. And I think that's one of the things that I really like about the new Secretary of War is the antiquated systems that we had to fulfill contracts was just benefiting the one percent of corporations that got smaller and smaller the contract of corporations. And so from my standpoint, the difference in US and other countries, the reason we don't have people here is we don't ask for that help. Most of those countries have either asked for that help. I think about Pakistan because you can say, well, no, they don't ask for it, but yes, they really do. Because Pakistan didn't they have to talk out of both sides of their mouths. They've got the far, you know, the far groups of people that like, no, we're we don't need America, we hate America. So you have leadership going America sucks and everything else, but they're like, hey, we really like you to stick around because we need your help. So and that's that's what that's what comes with being the biggest, baddest in the neighborhood is yeah, you're going to piss off a bunch of people, but there's also a value to be had by having you on. You know, it's the it's the running joke of you always give the candy bar to the weird guy at work because you want him on your side if something goes wrong. Uh, you know, always make for as as the liberal always make friends with the people that have all the guns, because in a pinch, I know where to go. But it's that that aspect. So so I think you're you're spot on that it is a relationship more than a you know, exploitation by any means. And you do look at places that like Pakistan, where it's they know the use of America, but they also know that they have to play nice with their with their neighbors essentially, And I think that that's why when we look at, you know, going back to the Olama bin Lan thing, it's why we didn't just blitz Pakistan. We talked to them and we said, hey, this is happening. I think there was some communication at some point, but like. We were going in, we communicated with them, and I don't I don't have any inside story, but I would say there was somebody that knew that we were coming, but it wasn't somebody at the very top because of the possibility he was a welcome guest there. So yes, But my point being that it's that it's that conversation, it's that they know. We don't take it personally when they don't say nice things about us, because we know that it's their obligation in that area. Yeah, to take that stand. Is there anything else we want to cover before we cut it because we've we've hit our time limit. No, but I will give you one thing to think about for next time. When you're talking about your contracts, go look up the eight point six billion dollar Boeing contract for twenty five to fifty f fifteen. I as for Israel, and look up how it was funded, because it's the most roundabout weird way that ends up costing the US taxpayer in this back channel eue whatever, whatever, it's very interesting. I'd love to get your thought on it. All right, sounds good, buddy. Well, I appreciate your time, appreciate you coming on, look forward to having more conversations. Yeah, and take care
