Prepare to hear the truth from a real whistleblower, an American
Patriot, here's civil liberties, enthusiasts, Second Amendment,
Defender and indefinitely suspended FBI agent.
Kyle seraphin. Hello my friends and welcome to
the Kyle seraphin show for Monday.
March the 19th, today's guest is going to be are in Stevenson and
you met him in our episode of Double Trouble where we talked
about child sex trafficking, with his partner in crime at
this point Tara roads. But today we're going to have a
kind of a different episode. We're going to dig into some
things that he saw while he was at DHS, things that he saw
before, that his background in the Marine Corps and going
overseas and then working as a contractor.
And so some of those things are going to lead into.
I think a very Very insightful experience of what happened
during the failed Afghan withdrawal in August of 20, 21.
I think we are now seeing some of the results of that and
hopefully we don't see it in a more kinetic way, but I want him
to be able to kind of share with you guys, some of the Intel and
some of the concerns and warnings that need to be out
there that you need to have in your back pocket.
When you talk about failures of this Biden Administration which
are significant the data and having that information is going
to be really critical to being able to speak to it incredible
ways before. Do that.
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Okay. And without further Ado, I'm
going to bring on our guests. So let me pull him in right now
and we're going to say. Welcome to Aaron Stevenson.
Hey buddy, how you doing? Good man, how are you?
I'm well and I've got my Patriot coolers this is my hot Tumblr
which I always keep next to me when I'm doing my recording
here. So first of all I noticed you
don't have your your handle on there.
I'm going to plug that right away.
People if you're not following Aaron on social media you can do
so at called underscore out underscore.
DH HS like the entity called out DHS with underscores in between,
on both truth and on Twitter and, and you, and I follow each
other there. But moreover, I see a lot of the
stuff that you have to put out. There is pretty good way, and it
comes from somebody who has lived inside the administrative
State, and dealt with the administrative State, the same
way that I did. So folks, follow him there,
Aaron what, what do you think? Are we, are we in a good spot
right now is this country looking pretty good from where
you're sitting? No, definitely not the people.
Yes, I do think that as far as Americans were, they're really
kind of starting to wake up, 2020 was in a, you know, there's
always a silver lining, right. It was a horrible year or a lot
of bad things happened, but the whole Veil came down, I think
and a lot of people really can start to realize like
something's wrong here and it hasn't stopped.
But a lot of people I think just they're getting kind of back to
the basics of who we are as a human being and you are as
Americans but on top of that I think really start
understanding. And who we are more spiritually
as well, but also like, what makes America Americans?
So yeah, I think it's been a good thing.
But yeah, as far as the government bad bad government
stuff, it's mention. It's interesting.
You mentioned spirituality. I know a lot of people consider
this this sort of ongoing resistance to what the
government's been up to as kind of a spiritual war.
And if my memory serves you kind of had a different Spiritual
Awakening. Probably like a lot of people
did as as the last couple years have kicked off.
It's given people focus. I see a lot more people talk.
About faith being the thing that sustains them which is
indicative of difficult times. Do you mind talking about that
just a little bit? You don't have to get into it
too deep if you don't want to know.
Yeah. So after Iraq, I was kind of
like, you know, whatever and kind of during Afghanistan
that's when I bi I was a self-declared atheist and I was
that for like ten straight years almost and it was 2020.
I just you know, maybe government you lock me down, so
I was sitting around thinking and I just saw like know
obviously the reactions. A lot of things, how Society was
kind of operating what was going on.
And I just looked around. I was like, there's one common
denominator with everything going on right now.
And this is basically a very Godless, like, thing happened
with all these people and just made me start thinking.
Like, all right, well, who am? I like, let's let's really get
in the who am I? Where am I, where am I?
That old thing? And so I started questioning,
you know? Okay, well I'm a father, I'm a
brother, a son. I'm a friend of, you know, I was
in the Marines. I was just kind of going through
the checklist and I was like, well no a theist nothing.
But what does that even mean? And I was Going to die as an
analyst. So I started going through my
arguments going through all my, you know, and I realized like I
think I've made a, I think I'm wrong.
Like my arms are actually really, really weak and I just
kind of ran with it. I started reading more.
I talk to people. I watched a lot of, you know,
documentaries and just all kinds of things.
Can I do a quick promo? Yeah, for sure dr.
Taylor Marshall. He's a major major helping
handle a say. Yeah, it's kind of, you know,
Went back to church and started going.
I got baptized got Chris mated, get my communion, the whole
thing, Eastern, Orthodox. Sorry, doc.
But it's, you know, it's it's where I am right now and I'm
obviously very, very grateful for everything.
Did you grow up with any faith in your house or was that
something that you came to literally in 2020?
Not really, I mean, you know, parents are Christians but I was
Catholic mom was like a Protestant type thing but we
didn't. We I remember going to church as
a kid. I remember like a pastor coming
over when I was like Young. I was like five and they were
like, do the whole like blessing of a house?
That was it? I didn't know what Easter was
honestly until like, probably I was an adult and I no idea what
it was. Yeah.
And then I learn. So what was it about dr.
Taylor Marshalls videos and I he's reached out to me and I
some point I'll probably be on his podcast.
I think he's invited me on. So, assuming the offer stands,
it will do it. What was it about his message
that rank. So true to you.
That gave you something for me? Because I think a lot of people
have folks that either have Doubts that are agnostics that
are either, you know, sort of departed, Christians, that have
walked away, and where maybe they had nothing like my wife.
What do you think that like really struck with you?
There it was definitely the way he's able to convey, not only
the theology, but also the history behind it at.
That's one thing about me. I'm very historical, I'm very
logic-based and I got read the Bible and that's what you'll
have brought me to be an atheist but I also like yeah.
But also running with a bent angle.
I don't look at it. I'm buying Look at it,
objectively and I didn't look at any of history, but I didn't
really know more. Any other more like Christian
history or Catholic history. Orthodox Street at all.
Yeah, one of the, like, last things that kind of brought me
over was when I learned that, like, of all, the Twelve
Apostles, like 11 or tortured to death, this is like, alright,
there's a pattern of behavior. There are these dudes aren't
giving in, it's like, that's, that's a sign for me, you know?
It's like, yeah, I think it was legit think it was real, right?
And when I started was, I'm praying about stuff started,
actually, you know, Okay, I'll take my next steps.
Now, then I actually started feeling a difference, like
feeling, not just like in my head like how I feel better but
like it. How I felt inside I was like,
yeah, I think a soul is a real thing.
Like oh my gosh, I'm so cool and I was like, wow.
I'm way off. How awkward is that?
Like you know, because you live your life a whole way.
You don't talk about this kind of thing especially because you
and I are pretty close in age and we grew up kind of in the
80s and the 90s went like, you didn't really discuss.
This is wasn't, it wasn't dinner table conversation.
It wasn't like Rangers wouldn't have this conversation.
Although, you probably could do it today in a way that you
couldn't do previously. And, and then you're like, now
I'm talking about it in a potentially National Forum.
I'm out there like identifying myself this way on a Twitter
where people from all over the world.
Could know when I'm about, like, how, how weird is that for our
for our age bracket? It's I think it's a sign of the
times but it is it is a stark difference though, because
again, this was not dinner table conversation when I was a kid.
But with my kids, it's like we watched, you know, Passion of
the Christ and like I'm stopping it giving history, there's the
part of the Bible and we're going through my kids, loved it.
And it's just, it's not say that it my parents didn't raise me to
whatever way. But it's just like, I think it's
a sign of the times were kind of get tested a few different ways
and it shows you, I think like okay this is this is our source.
This is our, our Rock to stand on that can help us out with
things and just then took a little bit of pressure and it
shows you how I think fast and quick.
We are to run back home, which is obviously God.
Yeah. And it's just one of those
things where it's like, wow, this is This is legit thing I
think so I'm grateful for it. It's good.
You mentioned that the 11 of the 12 were tortured to death for
their faith and that's known as red martyrdom.
I've been learning a little bit about this because I've been
also following some folks that I, you know, martyrdom wasn't
really a discussion that happened when I went even
through through Catholic grade school and high school and
middle school and things kind of things, I don't know.
Like I feel like you don't have to worry about that.
But today, it's more of a real, it's a real possibility, not so
much, the red martyrdom which is giving your life but But the
white martyrdom where you give your social standing where you
lose your paycheck and I know a lot of people including the
folks that I dealt with in the FBI and I would consider myself
in one of those, it's like I took a stand.
The stand may not be everybody stand, but it's mine and you
can't take it and you lose things over it.
And I think that you're one of the guys who did the same thing
because you saw something that was wrong, it was immoral, it
was in just and or unjust rather and then, and that makes you
sort of a white martyr, which is probably not a thing.
You would consider yourself until you someone puts it on you
and then you go, yeah, I am willing to lose things that are
comforting and lose things that are social status because
because there are beliefs that are more important than your job
and your paycheck. Yeah, yeah.
I never would have thought that are simply as you said it
because I decided I never really thought that.
But um, yeah, because what I mean, I'm not gonna lie to you,
I could have like, you know, went to the office Spectre
General and follow report and it would have taken months, but
there, Would have been no, I'll come out of that.
And that's why I was just like, no I'm going to go.
I'm going to prepare to us now about this because it's going to
have to go out quickly. And I'm glad I did because
that's what are Assad. And then all sudden terror is
like, oh geez, this is actually happening and kit.
She did no cases that because of them, they were pulling kids out
and putting them into long-term care out of the traffic
situation. So it's like that's worth it.
It does the whole thing's worth that.
I really don't care anymore about And yet being a Fed is a
couple job, but it's like, it doesn't matter, but it's not
that comfortable to where I can take that from somebody else,
right? Especially my children and their
future. It's like, no, I showed them.
What's right? What's wrong?
And it's like no, you will act on it.
You will do the right thing because you have to sew and
they'll always have that that calibration for their Compass.
They'll always know which way, like, the right way was they may
not always do it. But they know what it is.
And, as long as your compass is calibrated, you can always make
it back to the path, which is kinda interesting that's going
to give me a little bit of a segue to talk about your
background. I want to do A little bit deeper
and we talked about how you were a marine for eight years, folks,
if you didn't watch double trouble, I only remember the
name of it because I had two people on.
It was the first time I did two guests.
But if you haven't seen that episode of our of our podcast,
go back a couple weeks, it's about two weeks, maybe or three
weeks. And, and you can watch that, I
think you'll find it, Illuminating, this is going to
be a little easier because there's two of us and, and you
sound great by the way. I think it sounds awesome.
I'm glad you got some ears. It all looks good, man.
Yeah, I think the message is so important that you get this
thing out. So I want to dig into your
Marine Corps pass. Past, you are an Intel guy.
What did that look like? What was your on the ground job
when you were domestic? What did it look like when you
were overseas? Because I know you did that a
couple times kind of give people a glimpse into being a Marine
Corps until Troop. Well, so there's obviously an
array of intelligence and also enlisted.
I was never an officer, but it means you didn't realize our
shame what's called. Yeah.
So I was in what's called a child Italian.
So we had you all components of intelligence with us now I'm, we
also had like, you know, a sister Italian with us, or next
whistle. He's called radio Italian, they
did sigint. But my job was called all-source
intelligence analyst. So our job was basically to, you
know, in traditional Military Intelligence.
You're there to You've information, whether it be
imagery and Satellite photographs, you can receive
reports of your measurements, it signals a more technical things
and then you're there to basically assist the commander
and reducing his confusion, that's what traditional Military
Intelligence is you make the commander less confused right
now can understand and this whole new 21st century Warfare.
It's not just about their intelligence because the enemy
is different. The battle space is a little bit
different, those kind of come and go, but the enemy itself, it
was different, you were fighting in A certain see not a
traditional standing army so for the Iraq campaign when they
first invaded, I wasn't there but over time it's like you
could see how Iraq kind of got divvied up, you have a Qaeda.
You got Iranian influence, militias, like Jason, Almaty
these things kind of morph over time, names change.
Then you have like X beta. So it was a complex battle space
and it was never very easy, but I would say that to be fair,
there's a lot of professionalism from the listen to what the
officer ranks that it did a great job at it, but so
stateside We were on a known rotation schedule.
So we were basically home six months, gone, six months home,
six months gone. Six months.
So the home six months you gotta do your standard record
training. So we had to do like a PFT a
strength test. We had to do acronyms and now we
know I think a lot of people know.
Yeah. The physical fitness test but
yeah and is what's the Marines look?
Like? Just for just for a so ellipse
to get a perfect score. You have to get 20 pull-ups, 100
crunches, Has and a three-mile run within under 18 minutes and
then everything that you don't do.
So that's like your you start there at perfect score and
whatever you don't get your score goes down.
So getting a first class P of T is like the standard.
I think you have to get a to 45 and above.
It's really not that difficult. I usually, I was wrong.
I probably 260 270. My highest was a to 90.
Something I can never forget the 18-month 80-minute, run through
miles. I've never smoked and Bash
six-minute miles. I'm short.
Yeah, I'm 59. I'm a sprinter.
I'm deadly in the spring game. I am not a long-distance guy, I
guess, what femurs? This is the way it is.
I'm Neanderthal. I'm sure that you are.
So yeah, totally. I'm like a dwarf dangerous over
short distances, right? Exactly.
As a matters though. So it was just that, but like we
would straight, we try to stay up to date with obviously, you
know, the reporting flow. You don't want to ever drop off,
whatever, but there was also an operational cycle as well.
So we were always gone in the summertime.
So we do. Gone from like March to like
maybe late September early October and then the East Coast
unit, they would come was I was on the west coast, we were just
kind of rotate in and out and that's how it worked.
So wintertime the tax but it was still bad place but it's
actually kind of go down because you know what was cold and it
was just a situational thing. We come back in the summertime
the kind of ramp up again and that was at the pattern of Flow
by 07 that change drastically or dramatically because the Marine
Corps is employing a new thing where they're really engaging.
Populist this. And this was called this a Hawa
or which the, I think it means The Awakening.
But like, they hit the all the Sunni tribes and Al anbar
province, which is west of Baghdad and they were like,
Al-Qaeda hate, you guys, they are using you guys.
We don't want to dominate you guys.
We just want to like get some peace stability, returned a
normalization and you guys go on your way and be a happy little
democracy. So it's a flawed concept to
because that whole cultural thing but it was like we don't
mess with you guys and four years.
Is a struggle Al-Qaeda got sympathy because they would come
into like the market and control bread prices, which sounds like,
you know, this communism. It's like, yeah and starving
people were eating so that's sympathy points right away,
right? So there, yeah, this I mean this
falls into the the quote unquote hearts and Minds.
You call it the Awakening, but people that were back home, kind
of knew of it as the hearts and Minds campaign, the sort of a
softer version. But did you what was your role
in that as intelligence? What were you guys doing?
Akley to kind of Aid that mission set.
If somebody else was out there, dropping pamphlets, or doing
psyops, or whatever the things that, you know, the other units
type 2. So, this was we called us a so
stability and security, Operations, Security, and split
operations. And what we would do is just to
literally try to keep any kind of like combat and fighting
gone. So, we was almost is almost like
a police force type thing. We had a recce police.
We had a wrecking, our me there was other are executed forces
but we were too kind of there to hold her hand walk them.
Long. And we do play catch up because
the US government decided to fire the entire recce Army.
After 03, when the war's over it's like get I was a bad idea
guys because a lot of those do is join the fight, they had to
get money, right? So we did a pretty good job and
what we did is intelligence was it was basically mostly threat
reporting, we'd come in and find out.
So if we had any human sources or human intelligence sources,
they would come and tell our collectors.
Like, you know, this is what's going on in the city.
We rip the collect obviously signals intelligence, but we
would also just said The patrols and, you know, get a get a feel
of the land. They have to you have to
actually engage the population. You can't just spy on them.
It was talk with them turns out so yeah, right.
And yes, we were just kind of get an understanding what's
going on the lives and then continue the Security operation.
So we were still fighting Al-Qaeda.
We're still fighting bad guys by 07-08 really kind of changed,
and speaking of hearts and Minds.
So there's two kinds of missions for winning hearts and Minds.
You have the, the people the Douglas put, you want to win the
hearts and Minds. Then you're supporting also the
like, you know, targeted raids where it's to in the heart, one
of the mind. Yeah, so that's funny.
That's a very real people. Yeah.
Yeah.
What sort of what sort of other government agencies were you
interface with in? At that time because I have to
imagine everybody's over there. Everyone's got their hand in the
pyrite Yeah, but so, I was supporting infantry battalion,
1st Light, Armored reconnaissance, and that was all
sporting different regimental combat team.
But we wouldn't, we would still be an information flow for
Alexia reporting. Obviously some NSA reporting,
but it wasn't like we were operating in Han like we were in
a very small forward operating base table.
If you will, and we would get the reporting.
But we weren't like sitting with like super spies are like that.
We would operate a lot of combine stuff though.
So we sure. Operational border with the
army. So we had to establish
Communications and Rapport and like, kind of be cool with
everybody. SEAL Teams would come in and
they'd be able to operate our area.
If they had to get bad guys, there were always the funnest
ones work with because you know, their seals they're they're
they're awesome, they're good dudes.
And the good at what they do but it's like their mission and for
that time was just you know like get bad guys.
So they were really cool. They taught us a lot about
intelligence with like more of a long the Black Ops type thing
and it was kind of fun to learn that and like okay how do you
guys operate? How do Do these things.
Do they come in with their own Intel guys?
Yeah, they did. And, but they were great though.
They would, they would really teach you like how they operate
in a certain few senses of like, yeah, you actually want to find
this kind of information if you see these transits what it's
looking at now, don't worry about those.
Dudes are fine, who cares about those guys.
So the, you'd really kind of learn like, you know, it's like,
okay this makes sense and I would help us out when we were
again, like re-engaging the population.
So that way when you're going through the desert and you come
across like couple dudes and they've got there like, you
know, Oh, they're gas canisters. And some people would be like,
no, they're making a bomb made. Like, no, they live in the
desert. It's like your go camping every
gas, you know, it's just like, oh, yeah, so they were really
good. A lot of those things helped us
out a lot. And that was kind of fun and 08,
the wars for us was really dying down and anbar.
So we did kind of seemed like, support operations.
Still, I went up North for a little bit to outside of
Missoula is Airy called sinjar and our body because that was a
lot of smoking coming in. Of lot of weapons for fruition
lot of smuggling, lot of foreign Fighters old station.
And we were trying to understand that one and so that we were
working a lot less on the ground and we were working, what kind
of moron the like operation centers, but that was fun too,
because then you get alerted like, you know, all right, I've
done the task of operations. Now, we're doing more of like an
operational size thing because you have three levels of
intelligence. You have tactical, which is like
day-to-day small stuff operational, which is more like
an area like a think of like a state, right?
But then strategic is like, you're smart do Is that are
thinking of 30,000 feet, like, you know, what's the world look
like in five years? And stop racial lens is great.
Because, you know, we're seeing different battle spaces and how
they operate and trying to get understanding of what's going
on. Everyone involved here.
And so one great thing we did was we established to find the
actual pattern of how these dudes are coming in.
So, we did like a big berm study because there's a huge berm as
the border between Iraq and Syria out west.
It's not like there's a border wall but you see I don't mean
he's like a pile of dirt. I do it's like just a yeah, like
like bulldozers just and they make this thing and obviously
Smugglers to. It's not like they were just bad
guys because they would be bringing in goods and stuff.
They'd break a berm and they just feel to drive through it
over time. And so we were trying to find
out where all the like, how they're getting from this part
of Syria to these parts of Iraq and they're skipping past us.
We know they're going through the desert.
So we did a few different ways to collect information.
We did kind of like long-term like nighttime search has to
look for you know. Non-artificial light, so, like
campfires and stuff, we would look at just look at the map.
We're all the natural watering holes, where the natural water
Springs because you're in the desert is going to take you a
few days. You got to have water.
And then we finally, then collected, some dude has GPS and
like hit every single way point we when we detain the guy it's
like we had that we mapped it out and it's like oh cool it's
actually literally everywhere we're looking at right now.
So it was cool to kind of put things together like that.
We're working more like you know, it Major intelligence and
understanding how they like, how Olympics work and the collection
platforms is it was what kind of fun.
Imagine you called operational is that correct?
So tactical being ground level, you know, day-to-day operations
operational being the next step of, that's what you were doing
there, looking at an area, trying to see that the issues in
that, in that particular region. Yeah.
And that was and that was going to support the commander at a
more of a theater level type thing.
So that way he can understand. Like okay, we these are my
missions. There's bad guys how to getting
here. There's this house that
happening. We're able to tell him like, the
bad guys are coming through here and then you can go.
Alright, thanks and you can figure out his job but we were
still, you know, every now and then get pulled out to support.
So in 08, if you want to hear a quick little story, we got a
call from, I've got the Marine unit was out there but is an
alkyne and I'll kinda is in the The way west part of Racket
borders Syria. So it's a port of entry and it
took years for this thing to open up because of funding and
Corruption whatever else. So we can automatically these
were hurting right? But they're kind of going along
now. The kind of moving along and
this is now in the summer of awaits the wards like really
kind of starting to not die down but it's like there are get
there knowing that we're leaving soon and it's not a shock there
and so there was this really bad dude out there.
I can say is Only Southerner know his name is bhadra on
Turkey. I like that you were ready to
censor yourself. It's good.
And so he was actually the Iraqi army during when we invaded, and
he was surfing with his best friend.
This is like, it's like a Scorsese movie.
And these two dudes were like units together.
I will then bring up the Army and then it kind of goes away.
And then bodhran is like, Americans are evil.
They came here and they're ruining our lives.
So he joins like the resistance those other guys like they are,
but I want to help my country. Tree.
So when I multiply my people really.
So he joined the local police force and so you have the guess
I'm in the stores words like, you know, good friends but oh
they become you know, like enemies now and so it's actually
upsetting story. So we get a call that over the,
you know, in the morning that overnight the unit came in and
I'll tell the story as I learned it.
This unit came in their dresses Americans.
They're dressed like a special forces so they were like I'm
blast boots. They're wearing like the cooler
helmets. They had like the totally decked
out in For the, the proper nvgs, the everything, right?
And they go to this one. Little police Outpost they were
like, hey guys, we're doing an operation tonight.
Like we got to go find some, you know, some Al-Qaeda guys, you
guys got to join us. Hey guys.
Did your gear get some of our good stuff?
And we're going to get you guys ready to roll and they went
around a few different police stations and they're grabbing a
recce please doing this. And they were they were coming
off not till we talk to the locals that were there like,
yeah, I saw this. You need to come in with Autos
you guys. So we didn't call anybody
because we thought was Americans, they were looking,
they're Americans. They're just an All-American
uniforms. And so they rounded up around
acting like 15 or 20, Iraqi police, and the minute they got
them, they got them outside, they just, you know, knock them
out, back them up, tied him up and they took him out to the
desert and they'd accepted every single.
Dude, what they did out there is they would cut the head off but
they would put it like on the chest.
Like so that way it was like dudes head is like top of his
chest and it's one of those things where it's like it's
horrible to see. It's really really disturbing
and it makes the people also go just like, you know, I'm not
doing this. More like that's that's it for
me, I'm done. Yeah, very visually jarring but
also kind of like that and it stays with people.
I'm sure. Definitely.
And so this Iraqi he was a lieutenant.
Now the guy that was best friends with Bob on Turkey, he
was one of them and there was like I think 40, I things like
14 or 16 guys. I never thought in my head one
of the dudes actually got away because as they were like
cutting heads off, he can hear everything.
He's like, I'm, he takes off running, he gets shot it shot up
but we're able to find them and we actually represent and that's
how we got all the information out of everything.
And he was getting debriefed and he was like, you know,
explaining is like, guys this, the, we thought these were
Americans like, you know, they were talking like, you guys.
Like, go, go go. And it turns out.
It looks like it was obviously a foreign probably intelligence
service we think, but it's definitely some kind of foreign
asset that came in and did this. And that really shook the
population, like that was a really bad day because there was
a lot of people in the area, they're just coming back.
Like they're kind of start to become a site again and I'll
sudden this happened, it was really exciting for people.
So that sucked but then I think it was maybe a few months later
maybe was in 2009. We did Kill the guy but on
turkey, that was the Syrian. What reading what your wedding
raped. You can watch on YouTube, that
was the guy that's who got killed and it's hard to talk
about it because it's like, you know, these are people, these
are human beings and it was one of those things where I was just
like now, yeah, the were still there.
This is like us kind of slowing down the war and it's like not I
think still going for them and later in the deployment, right?
For, I went home there was, we were getting reporting, kind of
long, the that little river valley, whose that, the Western
Euphrates River Valley, good reporting from like, little bits
of pieces were like, older, dudes, that we know are bad guys
were kind of popping up in the area and but they weren't like
operating, they were like carrying guns, they weren't
trying to recruit, they're going around and like, basically
talking trash to like the local like leaders whether they be the
tribal leaders or like a city council member, but they just
saying like, you know, hey, you guys just go and stand by
because we know, once once they leave, we're coming back in.
And it's not gonna be pretty though.
They were very, very threatening god without the kinetic, you
know, like posturing right. So they weren't carrying guns
and like their tactical trucks with 50 Cals.
They were just walking around being like, it's going to
happen, it's going to happen. You know, what kind of stuff and
then. So we took that and we were kind
of seeing other reporting reflecting that and a couple
friends and I we started looking at it.
We were back home now and we wrote a small report like maybe
two to three page or maybe and we were just saying like you
know, like listen guys I've all things going on it's like
because We shut down ambar pretty well, but I mean not
really they just kind of moved like we were a really bad for a
long time like it Fallujah and ramadi you know hit haditha
these places are getting lit up bad but that's her.
That's what the sahaba the wakening.
They just basically moved up to like Missoula and Beijing and
other parts of Iraq. So the fight just left.
It was still really bad but it just wasn't here anymore because
we were working. And so we were saying in our
analysis, like they're going to come back and it's going to
probably be a lot worse because As we're going to be gone.
So we were like, probably within like 16 to 20 months.
After we depart our forces from Iraq, it's going to get ugly.
We think and know, whatever our mess Sergeant reads.
A is like, yeah, thanks. Let me follow us in the cabinet
and Shred. Yeah, Noah hand.
Yeah, this is like, whatever goes, right?
Not, good news, isn't it? Yeah, so in 2015, or 2014 when
Isis starts rolling through the, you know, going from Azul all
the way down. I hit up to friends of mine.
I was just like, is this what we said was going to happen?
Open because it's like it's about two years after we finally
pulled out. And so maybe a few months after
I guess but I like, is this what we were talking about?
And you know, a couple guys got a Facebook.
There are like, yeah, dude, this is it is then one guy was like,
no. Yeah, dude are in like that.
Someone wrote this thing even like three years prior.
It's just like, you know, this is we've all been knowing this
and we've been saying it to leadership but that's just the
way it works, man. So that was upsetting it's like
wow. That's really, you know, we
could've done a better job and we just didn't what did ya what
did that do to you? So you're here.
You are like Or an enlisted guy so you're not making decisions.
You're not calling shots with people to understand how the
military works. Then that's what, that's how it
works. You're not in charge of
anything. You're the guy who writes the
paper that gets thrown in the shredder, but you have time and
Country, you've got experience, you've got some cultural
awareness and you're writing a articulable threat with a
timetable that ends up being true.
You know, how does that sit with you?
I mean, do you at that time? It just frustrating, it just
just sucked. So that was a 2014 and that was
my second full year in DHS and as after it might have my three
deployments to Afghanistan. So, it's kind of like, I've been
locked up before, you know, and I've been wrong before.
I know that how that feels to this one of those things where
it's like, you know, it's not like our paper was going to stop
the whole thing. But it's kind of also, like,
what was this? The whole attitude of everyone
above us. Who was also involved in
analysis and like, briefing, the commander and understanding
these things. It's like, just get socked.
It's like, that was a waste time.
Like, after the end of it, I was like, that was a waste of time,
right. I got to the point where
honestly, basically, I would say by my, you know, my middle, my
second deployment. I was sitting there thinking,
like, if this is for, you know, like whatever people say, like
this worth, what oil. I'm kind of like, yeah.
I know what fine whatever then like zemin.
Oil is about our country. Okay.
I can justify that. But by the end of the day,
that's my like 80 of the Marine Corps.
That's when I got out. I was like, I don't believe in
this anymore. I don't, I don't hate the
record. I don't regret my time men, but
it's like, but I don't believe it anymore.
Just, I'm just not there. I just, I can't do it.
I still wanted to, you know, I still like the idea of serving I
want help on America. I want to bump, you know,
Americans. So I still had that but it was
like, maybe this is my capacity more.
But yeah, but when I that all, when Isis burrow through it was
like that was literally pointless because A lot of dudes
died. I've had friends kill
themselves. It's just like, it just sucks -
like that was. It was rough.
Yeah, I don't know anybody. That's a marine that hasn't had
a friend, the Marine Corps that or after the Marine Corps, that
that took their own life. Like literally not, I don't
think I have any Marine friends who don't have buddies that were
real close to them that serve up there.
And I only have one or two from the airport that I recall that
that made the same Choice. Most of them are pretty
aggressive, you know, kinetic and kind of on the edge anyway
kind of guys like knife and types, but but that's what you
need to win Wars, it turns out you need people that are Willing
to go to the end, right? I mean like Berserkers that and
then when you bring into Peace, A lot of them, don't know what
to do, right? I got it.
I got so story. I'm sure your audience.
You okay hearing this it's a little offensive but this is
this is a good that's a great intro to this.
So in 07 I'm sitting down with we've got back from a three day
out on the desert. So we're all tired.
We're all just like covered in crap but we're getting shot with
a quick and they have in this little chow hall.
They have like a little TV for afn, the Armed Forces Network
and so you can watch like States I TV shows.
But the weird thing is, is like you can't watch commercials
because it's a DOD networks. You can't get paid to so you'd
have to watch like this. He's just the dumbest, like, you
know, awareness like no, like we always joke and there was like,
the balance, your checkbook commercial like, don't shake
your baby like these were actual commercials, right?
Well, so one of them, it was from a foundation for a better
life. So, sorry.
I'm reliving my head and so we're watching this and it's
just, you know, we've got back. So everyone's kind of zoned out.
We're just we're done and the commercial we're watching is
such a high school dance. It's like a prom and there are
And they're handing out like the court and they're like, okay and
now for your homecoming King like, you know, whatever his
name is, and they're like, all right, and for the homecoming
queen and you might have to edit this thing up.
By the way, they like unveil the girl who wanted and it's a girl
with Down Syndrome, right? Because again it's a foundation
for better. Life is teach people how to be a
good human beings, right? So this Grand, he's like 19
years old, he's watching it, he starts laughing, his ass off,
but he's spilling his food just like laughing his ass off.
And I'm telling my friends and my family that's been Back home
and they're like, Aaron that's that's insensitive, that's so
whatever. And I'm like that's the guy you
want though. They're doing a job.
You need a dude who's like that. Like that's what you those are
grunts. Those are the guys you want.
Yeah, there's a reason why we call them crayon eaters, right?
I mean, there's a reason why window Liquor crayon.
Eater knuckle-dragger a mouth breather are like sort of
compliments when you're around people that are fighting Wars
because you want those guys. Because when you tell them to do
something stupid dangerous and needs to be done, then they jump
into do it. And I know a lot of Like that.
I love people like that, too. They're my favorite kind of
people but you can't take them to, like, nice places.
It's why we can't have nice things, right?
You just have to remind them. Look dude like you know, stop
gnawing on all the things that are wood in the room.
I know that you're sharpening your teeth or whatever it is you
do. But like come on buddy and we
all know that guy like so I always tell people I had a 19
year old roommate who ended up being like a legitimate war hero
and and he was a complete bonehead.
I mean, he looked like an alien. His head was a His shoulders
were small, his body was stretched, he was in that
awkward like 19, you know, 18 19 year-old phase before he grew
into his face and he ended up being awarded a bronze star for
like saving six guys and dragging him out of a Humvee
because he was Fearless. But he was retarded to.
I mean, he was just a moron and he was like, Hey, I'm gonna buy
this Ford Mustang and it's like no, you shouldn't do that.
He's like house, 14 percent interest and I was like, that's
terrible. My God, that's the worst thing
I've ever heard. Why would you do that?
And he was like, well, I can afford the payments and then he
bought it. And it's like, can you afford
insurance? And he's looking at me like
insurance. What's that?
It's like I know you're a moron because you made bad decisions
with your money. I know you make $100 a paycheck,
it's all going to the stupid car payment and then the next thing
he did, as soon as he got through the next school, you got
a little bit of a bonus. I think his enlistment bonus
paid out, and he's like, yeah, I'm getting this motorcycle.
I'm getting up, you'll blast, and I'm like, you know what?
I call that and he was like, what?
I was like, that's a murder cycle.
You're gonna kill yourself on that thing.
You can't die on that buddy. Like you can't do it, like, get
rid of the bike Captain, both survived.
Like so many, you know, God's fortunate creatures do, and then
he went on to do really great things, but just terrible
decision making, you know, just foolishness.
I also remember him getting pulled out of a boat.
We pulled them into the boat. Actually, after I die Mission
and everybody near us had been like telling people to watch out
for the jellyfish which you don't need a symbol for that.
By the way, if there's jelly fish in the water and you
haven't worked it out, you look at your die partner.
You get this thing where you're like, there's your eyes and then
you're like it's up there out. No, you just show them what the
jellyfish as the jellyfish symbol.
Just your hand. Making a jellyfish and so we
didn't work it out. But we all got Jellyfish out of
the way except this poor guy. I don't want to name him because
he's like a grown man. Now, with children, I'm sure.
And and he came up and he had like a jellyfish that of just
like going across his whole face, you know.
And he was wrecked, his face was all just like pus and you know
stung and it looked awful and then because he's 19 and some of
us were in our you know late 20s or one or two guys in the early
30s we're all students like at the die school there and were
like dude now we have to pee on your face and he's looking
around. The instructors.
You know they're just like yep that's what they're going to do.
They're going to pee on your face.
Hey sorry. Miss weight is.
Yeah, you just have to get pee on your face because, you know,
which is and a half, the guys that are paramedics.
So that's the other thing. So everyone knows this is not a
like a really good treatment for her for getting stung but he's
looking around like panicky and no one peed on the kids so that
was a good news but I wouldn't put that past any combat unit
like being on somebody's face for a jellyfish is like 100% And
that's totally endeavors. Yeah, there was one dude who I
met him and he, you know, because when you're with that
level, like everyone knows everything about each other.
Like it's the tightest family ever.
And so once your blood in, it's like, they'll love you the same
way and then they were like walking around.
Cause I was a little guy so they were like, no.
All right, cool. You're gonna be in this vehicle,
help us out like the Tesla questioning, you know, I oughtta
and like, here's a team. You're with yours, you know,
like Higgins and Jenkins. Whatever.
How's it going, guys? Cool.
Like you know, whatever. And then that one do is like
head. You wants his guy threw up real
quick. I was like what they're like.
Yeah. Watch this.
He's like, yeah. Do you watch this?
That again slowly shiz. Hold on.
What if you want to see this guy, do what throw up food?
Like you can throw up a command and the way he threw a bucket
man as you kick him in the Shins, really, really hard.
And so he's like yeah, watch this.
And this dude just like Bruce Lee chopping down a tree and he
just flattens. The guy he just doesn't and
starts throwing up. Everywhere is like, see seen,
I'm like, how does well, because we're about to the operation.
I do the up order, like we gotta come on.
Guys already know that is that is the prep.
His family had his family. Yeah, very dysfunctional.
Not to Pivot away from that too quickly but let's let's dig into
some of the military. Is one animal obviously
Contracting is a different world altogether.
You got into doing Contracting and you end up going to
Afghanistan like three times. And what I want people to
understand is like, how much on the ground time you got compared
to some of the people maybe in the Department of State.
And some of the Intel people that were domestic that were
looking at charts and trying to figure out like, you got to go
eat the dust with the guys in the in the grand.
It's you got to go and do a contract and go overseas and
tell me what that was like, what the difference was kind of the
type of personalities you dealt with that were different and
maybe the entities you dealt with over there.
Yeah, so I left the like the idea of being an all-source
intelligence analyst and it went into a job that was it was a
Biometrics of forensics analyst. So our job was to basically
operate biometric systems but also the information.
Make sure that we were like properly utilizing its storing
it. If we had a identify bad guys, I
said that it was our job, right? What is my about towards?
Just tell people what those are? Like, what specific things you
are collecting? So, yeah, the big ones were
fingerprints, facial pictures, and Iris scans.
And those are the major ones we could do DNA, but it's like, It
is rare because it's just, we didn't have an equipment to
collect everything. So if a do was like a known,
like he built bombs and IEDs, we would get his DNA because it's
like, yeah, we might see stuff on there.
But if it's your average Taliban fighter, like that, we would
just print them fish, photograph iriscan.
And that was to understand, like, where the guys at the
Battle space. So if we're grunts were out
there, they have like, you know, mobile readers, where they can
pay that guy looks Shady, who is he?
They could scan them. And if we did our job, we
uploaded it to the machines and servers they would know like Oh
yeah, this dude got detained like five months ago.
This is a bad guy that. So those kind of jobs, it was
the dominant population. Was that, is that available in
Iraq? At all?
It was we did was the depth of its Well, it's there's two ways
you can utilize Biometrics in the, in a war type suddenly, I
think that one is for Force protection.
Make sure these dudes don't come on your base.
Like identify these guys are identify.
The council members are like really dominate identity and the
second one is more of what we were briefed.
The commander is we will tell you who's killing your Marines
so you can build your networks, you can understand the human
terrain better for like a counter Insurgency which is very
important. So there's two kind of As you do
that, then you can get creative. Like we were assisting
interrogations. We could do, just if you go, if
you have the window all approach, it's like we will let
you know all about this guy, so we could use it, leverage it,
and I want it. But yeah.
So that actually, it was excited too.
Because I just got on the Marine Corps.
It's March 2010 and I just started my job and I was in
Charlottesville Virginia at the National Intelligence Center,
or, and Jake. And, you know, they say right
away like, well, you're deploying.
You're a new guy. You're on the contract.
This is the way it works for deploying right away.
I was like, what am I going too fast?
And you know, I want another Iraq.
There are a lot of guys going too fast, and I was like, all
right, sweet. And I was like, he was like, I'm
gonna go to the mountains. I'll be.
Were you married trees? I was married and I was married
at took it to the time to kids. Um yeah.
And I still do opposites up to kids, may be understood, you'll
get rid of it. Turns out they stick around is
like out, you know I'm excited. I'll be out of you know, rink or
territory will be now in the Army, I want to learn about this
stuff. Yep.
And so then my program manager with the contract finds out of
the Marine Corps is like oh, Oh, we'll send you the Helmand
Province in the desert with the Marines, take it out of me, you
know, so I deploy. I'm not kidding.
I got to Virginia in like mid February 2010, and I was gone by
like mid-march. So we get out there right away,
and this was just the beginning of what's called up my Stark,
and that was the clearing of how I'm Province.
So, starting to Marcia, and it goes out to the garments are in
other parts of Afghanistan. So by the way, Helmand Province.
Thing about Afghanistan looks like this bottom left.
Okay, hold on desert describe it for people that are listening
to. So what does this shape?
Yes, or give it a rectangle, doesn't make a difference.
So rectangle, you know, describe the rectangle like a kidney bean
kind of turned like this with a little sticking up inside.
And we're way down here in the bottom and the rest of it, it's
the Hindu Kush. It's a very mountainous, very
know, whatever, very humid, and a lot of areas but we're in the
Southwest desert and this place is we were to is Never What's On
The Border's just just for awareness.
What are the borders that are on the To the South was, I ran
into. The West was always treat this
one? Is it?
So one more one, more Province was herat, and then it was, I
think it was teaches it to gu stand.
It's one of the studies, for sure.
Yes, it's one of the stands, my buddies always over there.
That, whenever you explain that, I'm always like, I don't know
how my part of the world, but so the crazy part though, again,
it's like there's only a very, very small river that runs
through there, okay? And then they the state
department, the 1950s, they went there and they put this big
Canal system. About right?
And so this creates the town of Marcia, and it's cool because I
go, there you go, you can make more crops more Farms more.
People is good, right? Markussi.
But it also made the fighting train now a nightmare because
these canals were like just big enough to where you could jump
over and roll your ankle, but not big enough to dedicate a
bunch of like small and bridges. So, all these, all these
marines, all the grunts who are going through clearing this
area, they're jumping over Canal, after Canal after Canal
is very, very flat. So inside the Inside the canal.
You can get some cover real quick but then you get up and
get over. It's like high very high profile
and it's just like it's it was a very difficult operation
obviously. Plus this part of Afghanistan
has kind of like Taliban headquarters, pretty much like
Kandahar, which is just the East through, like Helmand Province.
It was just the heartbeat of, you know, that part of the
Taliban. And so we were there and I was
helping out, also, the British forces, which they had was
called op Eric. It's the same thing.
It's just a different unit different So they had different
operation names but again, we were there to tell them what's
killing their forces and to help out any of the scientists doing
their science stuff. So that's what we did and
science stuff. Now I gotta know what were the
scientists doing? The science stuff.
You got to be specific for me. Well yeah, so they would like we
do know they were gone so go out and talk some IEDs.
The the bomb techs with the EOD guys, they would take out the
explosives, then we'd go won't want to know like who made this
thing, right? So this is like Forensic type
science. Then yeah this is like CSI stuff
tape. They would do it all and then
get the fingerprints off the tape.
They give it maybe get some hair they can maybe get some D other
parts of DNA and these guys were good to they would understand
like hey is that the this is built the same way as that went
over there. Remember that guy where was this
bomb found? I've always that one pound, I do
just map it out and we start learning like okay who's air
operations of this. And it was our job to make that,
you know, and make an assessment out of it.
So at one point in time, we came across like this one.
One time dude, his fingerprint kept popping up and it was on
like hundreds of devices. And so at first people were
like, oh, this must be some like, major key player,
whatever, whatever. And we looked at where they're
actually cutting the fingerprints and it was like the
final product. We're like, no, it's guys, I
should like very low level. He's like the last guy.
He's just putting the tape on it.
Digging it was bearing it. This is a he's bearing.
The bottom. You don't.
That's not a high-level guy. You don't bury a bomb, right?
The important. That's the Expendables.
Hello Mom. Yes, things like that.
And we also had this guy was really good.
He did like ballistics and all kinds of crazy stuff with more
technical collection of actual like, you know, like obviously
like Don's with other enemy equipment, which should talk
about on this thing, but he was really, really good.
And there was one point time if you want to talk about
bureaucracy really quick. So there was sniper somewhere, I
think was a marja and it took out two or three, guys of like
one company of Marines. So it's like, okay, we got a
sniper on our hands. So, I went and talked to this
guy because he was really smart forensics and it turns out he
was used to be a sniper. So he was saying, like, you
know, I'm not going to buy like counter-sniper operations, but
he's like, but if we get that gun, I can tell you like, you
know, obviously, how many marines were killed by this guy,
and we can figure that out, but we have to get the bullet to.
So I went to talk to the morgue on our base and I was it's not a
good conversation to have because shot my, a dead Marine.
Yep, may or may He just casually, we're just got
wounded, but I asked them, like, could you guys when you guys
examine the body like, can you please retrieve the bullet?
Because we rise explain to them. Like, we're going to try to test
this thing and we can find that the weapon would give it was
doing this. The people we can help the
commander kill bad guys, and the doctor was like, I'd love to but
I can't like I gotta send somebody back home in a certain
way. We can't remove whatever too
much. I was like.
Alright. Fine and so then I was like well
where's the body go? I want to know what the bodies
goes. Will call there.
So they went to Dover Delaware, Dover Delaware.
And so I'm up all night trying to get hold his people and I'm
like, it's not easy finding phone numbers, right?
So I'm like going through all these things online, trying to
find it. Finally get it stable night.
I get this major on the on the phone I'm explaining what's
going on, we're talking about it and he was saying like a little
bit, we can do that but it's like you know, we want to study
it to. We want to make sure that we can
like you know really examine the cause of death and I was like
sir. Like the guy got shot by a
bullet? You know what the cause of death
Is like an explained again. Like if you give us the bullet,
we can find the guys that are doing.
Yeah, forget, cause it that people find the responsible
party. Yeah.
And then they were like, oh yeah but we can also do like, you
know, they're a, he was saying like basically like study the
bullet and tell us like the material used and it's like it's
Central Asia. It's like there's bullets
everywhere. It's like you're not going to
stop this but like we can find the guy and answer was no.
So it's like, I'm already seeing again, like, wow, it's just like
people aren't really in it for the whole thing.
If I trying to be, you know, the best I can for the lowest lowest
level of the Warfighter. And so that sucked seeing that
that wasn't true. T10 and it's just like we're
trying to help out, you know, Marines be Marines.
We're trying to make them more lethal, trying to get them
smarter but killing bad guys and it's like there's this roadblock
after roadblock and another part of that war I found very
different. Was I heard I didn't hear as
much in Iraq. I heard so many people say
that's not my job and that was weird to me because it was the
radio guy. It was the it guys, it would be
the cook in the chow hall and be just this collection.
But the further away, you got from like the bigger basis, the
more down, you got to the lower units, That does exist because
everyone's got to do a job. And so I enjoyed doing that
because I had to go out to like, you know, small really bad area,
small places. It's not going out there because
there's no like good amenities. You're washing your clothes in a
bucket. Like I was I went out there not
knowing I was going to see I'm wearing like, you know,
button-up shirts or pants. You know, I'm wearing, I'm
wearing mirror and More in Maryland, where I knew it's
like, I'm out there looking fresh.
All right, right. And I'm sleeping at holes, like,
at least once. Every few days like holes in the
ground, and this is like my doing was like, you know,
whatever is this here for the job, right, right.
And, and they didn't care. They would see me go off of,
like the heel and and ever see this guy walking off, just like
me. They were like, who the hell's
this guy? But by like the second day
there, they're like, you know, thanks for everything.
You know, give us this information and let us know what
you can do. However, and I would hit them up
before I'd go there and talk to them tell guys.
And like I know you guys are low on like printer paper or like
toner. I know you guys are low on
stuff. I'm at headquarters, I will
bring stuff out to you. So, They were always cool
because it was like, you know, like small little drug deals
like that, it would always give you like great Rapport people
you're doing air quotes on the drug deals part of it.
But that's yeah, that's how things get done your finessing
because you have access to transportation and they don't
have access to things so you're making connections like that.
Yeah, we call them drug deals in the bureau to all the time when
we're doing things like that. It's like, oh, you have this
thing. I need this thing.
Can we make this drug deal happen?
It's such a terrible. It's such a terrible euphemism,
but it's so useful. But I mean, they'd be like, a
lot of times they belong, Like dude, bring some rivets were low
or like bring some ribbons or like a really cheap energy
drink, you know? I'm no.
But they were like, dude, we're getting low on like marbles,
bring them out and I was like, I'll get it, I'll get it, I can
so it's like things like that. But it also tells them to it's
like we are here for you guys and obviously I can't be here
with you always, but it's like, we're just a port you guys.
I and that means a lot for dudes because they're down there in
it, and it sucks being down there, and they're there for
six, seven months at a time. So, you know, give them support,
they do their job better and You have gas, it was weird like
that. I don't know how many times
those guys were asked for something and you're like, you
know, it's not our job up here, sorry.
So, because art, I mean, there's a lot of that in the FBI as
well. I experienced that, so that's
government-wide. I think, I think that's yeah.
Might be a generational thing too, but it's nice that you had
the experience of being the guy who needed the something in the
field, who was in a forward operating base somewhere not had
access to it and then knowing to even ask I think that sets you
apart from the guy who came straight out of college, got a
good job. Job, you know was a until guy
from some sort of like degree program.
It didn't go through and heard it the same way.
I mean it's a different animal right.
We're just talking about different types of people and
and those are the not my job types.
No it's not. My job to bring cigarettes out
there when you know like somebody out there is Jonesing
for some cigarettes and life's going to be a lot better if you
bring it. It doesn't cost you very much
out of your paycheck and especially especially if they're
a Stateside camels, big gold, that's the goal.
You get anything you need You'll get the nicest whole asleep.
In, I've wanted to bring all this stuff up because I wanted
to set the stage for your ground level intelligence.
I think, as well as your analytical capabilities, and
when people listen to you talk, they're going to know that
you're one. I think they can tell that
you're being an honest deliver of this information because I
found that to be the case, but moreover, that you have a, that
you're interested in the mission, set that your mind
works in a certain ways and some people are analytical types and
some people, I'm not really an analyst type.
I'm more of an action type guy, but I do tend to see the bigger
picture but I love having analysts that are really
passionate about their, their craft, their trade, to bring
stuff to it and in the bureau, unfortunately, a lot of people
that go like, oh, I don't do tactical intelligence and it's
like, well I'm doing investigation.
So I need tactical intelligence, that's what I require.
So, you're useless to me, don't ask me for anything either that
it's not. My job experience is very FBI
and probably very much like a lot of the intelligence
Community when it comes to doing.
I really tactical type operations.
People want to do the high level stuff.
They want to do the operation or the Strategic.
So I wasn't even familiar with the Strategic terms.
I appreciate you. Bringing that into my lexicon.
There's a lot of strategic thinkers, they have no idea how
to do tactical operations, which is where things get done, right?
That's what brings in the Intel that allows them to that sort of
like processing all that to say you had a pretty good
understanding of what was going on in theater in two different
theaters in war zones and you'd seen obviously failures and
typical government bureaucracy failures which Are the nature of
the Beast right there? Just there an operational risk
that you deal with. If you deal with the government
I want to fast forward a little ways.
You've been working for DHS tell people kind of in like a very
you know quick little couple hits bullet points of how you
ended up where you were in 2021 when we saw the Afghan
withdrawal. Yeah it's about the way that was
2010 and 2011. I went back to Afghanistan,
sporting Special Forces went there again under this time DIA
defense, August 18, 2012 supporting special Horses again.
So that's why I got into that little Community.
Yep. And then I went to go work for
DHS. I was at CBP for about a
year-and-a-half fish and I was like, oh wow, we're letting a
lot of bad guys and CBP is customs border patrol.
Right. Am I saying that right?
Support protection protection? I know I get that wrong.
Yeah. So border patrol is BP and CBP
is another animal. So people may not know that but
it is there two different entities under DHS.
Yeah. So what and I was like, okay
well if they're if they're getting in because they can't
legally well how does guys getting in the first place?
Then it's like okay we'll probably use C is so I went to
go work for USCIS citizenship and immigration services and I
was there for about eight and a half years.
And then in 2011, 21 in August, you know, Morgan, whatever and a
body hits me up a signal. And he's like he just says like,
hey bro, I want to play into a conversation.
I'm talk to this guy and, you know, probably like nine months
and this is like, you mentioned, very, very quickly.
But you said, you got pulled into the Special Forces
Community. You have contacts at a Green
Berets because of the work you did, in Afghanistan, as an Intel
guy as a contractor. Is that correct?
Yeah. Right.
And so, I just wanted a hammer
that home because because that you ran over that really fast,
but I think that's going to be an important connection here.
Not knowing the whole story. So sorry.
But um, yeah. So he hits me up and he just
says, Like, hey dude, I'm gonna put into a group chat, a signal
that was it and it's like, I haven't talked to you like but
what's up? And then all sudden, like, you
know, I got this invite so I pop in there and it says, the group
that the channel name the group chat name says, like, Neo, you
know land to or some like that Neo means Don noncombatant
evacuation operation. This means getting due to not
part of the fight women and children up for the fight and
get them the hell out of somewhere bad as an ego.
And that's, that's a DOD Mission turns out.
State Department actually ran that.
So, hold on the thing there and so someone he tagged me in a
comment but he kind of replied to it type.
My name in the air. This comet is asking like, you
know, hey how does like, you know, this immigration thing at
work I was like, oh that's why I told me in high school and I was
late time and I think the answer will kill you.
Do this, your foiled, this form, sand whatever.
So I went back to the individual chat, my bro, what is this
thing? And it says like, you know,
we're getting everyone out of their, we're getting all are all
of our sources. All of our old, Terps Oliver,
Oliver. Ends.
Basically all the people we worked with in Afghanistan.
The actual Afghans were getting them out of right now because
going down and so this was in. It was it was after the middle
of August, it was somewhere in like the 16th 17th 18th of
August and our pull out data, as you want to 30th or the 31st was
kind of the hard hard. Stop date was that right?
Yeah. So, we'll well, it was supposed
to be made first and then Jill Biden extended that.
And then the day after you send it that the Taliban said no.
Not doing that. And so the day after May 1st
Taliban started rolling through Afghanistan and I May 14th,
sorry, August 14th, Biden sends the additional troops to Kabul
because now it's like, he's looking really bad.
They have gone through so fast and so the airport got really,
really bad. And so I'm gonna have to do a
bit of a Tarantino type story here because yeah, well, first
of all just remind people about what that look like.
So we had basic full control of the theater.
We had minimal Friendly casualties of any kind like they
were. We were taking like injuries on
a monthly basis occasionally but not we weren't having K.
Is that was that was the agreement but the Taliban it was
in brevity. It was this you hate America.
You guys leave by a certain date.
Okay cool. You don't tell man, you don't
touch us. We won't kill you guys deal
deal. Fine.
And the other part was will do this in a staged process.
Okay, we're not going to go out once and Mary.
You can't be involved with like the domestic stuff going on.
You can't be involved in, you know the Afghan government and
the Afghan government you guys American government and those
are two different things and it's not like Taliban were that
honorable they made mistake, didn't you know, out of entire
thing also. But in brevity, they did they
didn't attack us, we weren't hitting them.
We said we'd leave by a certain date and we did not and we
actually knew this back in 2020. There was total total deep sake,
guys, talking to the Washington Post.
And they were saying like no we're not leaving, we're keeping
an assets were keeping an air SSO.
You can walk, you can read this thing.
It was on November 27th. 2020 is the Washington Post article
talking about. Not we're we're leaving but we
don't worry, we're not right and so that signal to the world like
what's really going on, right? So yeah, so May 1st Taliban
start volunteering through Afghanistan and it's not like
it's a this unified ground elements going Province probably
know they were all in the same area like is just Farmers.
That are like okay yeah well tell them.
It's going to win someone to join Taliban.
So that is raised up quickly tell bones got their forces.
They had their own probably like 80 to 110 thousand but these are
dudes that want to win. This is, this is what they're
fighting for, they believe in it and this is their home and yes
although they're not going anywhere that's that's one key
thing by the way. So this was a cultural thing
that we did learn for a while. So in a lot of Afghanistan,
whether it be bypassed Tunes down in like South and the east,
or I've got the tribe names or the ethnicities the whole
country Pakistan though it was not Not considered honorable to
like join the Army and leave your territory because they
would say like okay you're leaving your land to go to find
somewhere else to why would you do that, right?
But your you live here, why would you go to that mountain
over there and do that mound chain or that part of the
whatever? Why would you leave to go to
festivals me? Some sense to us?
So they were not looked at as, as a very Noble, or honorable
thing, the police a little bit different because it's like,
well, these are in your same city as your in your same
territory. It's like we can respect a
little more. Now, the soldiers were not hike,
the top of the Notch, and they've always been that way.
This is not a new development, we've known that for a long
time. I seen them.
It's got to be, I mean, we've been there 20 years.
So, I'm 12. Yeah.
And so, it's just like, that's, that's the way it is, guys.
You're not going the best, right?
And this is partially our fault, and it's not to say, by the way,
there's not, there was awesome, Afghan soldiers.
Go to do the thing. They're very honorable, a lot
of, you know, great dudes, that can fight very well, then they
were not the majority at all. So that's not even worse for
them. Because Now, it's like, they're
getting relied upon heavily by the government and it's like,
you look at it like, you know, we have this big fighting force
and it's like, that's really more like this and they can't be
everywhere at once. So there are falling like crazy
Afghanistan's going down. Kandahar goes down and the only
reason why there wasn't a bigger bad though there is because they
got the soldiers, the hell out of there because they were like
they're gonna lose. So they negotiate, the Taliban,
fly the dudes out, no fighting but it's like you got to leave
now though. And this keeps going down.
Closer Closer, Closer to gets to Kabul, And cool the city of 5
million people. All right so it's a big city and
the way the mountains are around its kind of weird.
So it's like once you're in there it's kind of like a couple
roads in couple roads outside most like Las Vegas and it
demonstrates is not great. So it's like, you know, you're
kind of there, it's not easy to get out of these things and so
by the hit the outskirts sorry. Well I think it was the 13th.
Maybe before that actually got a bit out here.
One second. So on the July 14th kind of her.
Fell July 23rd. That's the infamous phone call
between Biden and Ashraf ghani the present Afghanistan.
That's where Biden says, like you.
So you go through the press conference, you're going to turn
the whole you know, do a little head fake, right?
That's that's what we need. Is a press conference to make
people think you're winning and even off Connie, the president
of Afghanistan who sucks even he's like, no, I we need like
these assets, you're wrong, in our numbers, you're wrong on
their numbers, like he's actually schooling biting on
this thing and it's just like that was the phone call.
That was it so on. August 14th, Biden sentence.
Three thousand more troops to Kabul.
And on the 15th, tell back she got the outskirts of Kabul.
So this August 15th, they hit the outskirts and they just
emptied. What's called a, the parwan
Detention Facility. So this was at Bagram Bagram,
which be closed down. No, the night that thing is
about a 24-minute Helo, right away.
It is very very close. Like if you look it up on Google
Earth like and you just flatten the Earth you can you can see it
across the mountain right there. It's like no, no, it's right
there. Guys, this was a very, very
close thing. Huge airstrip, a lot of
resources was hard to penetrate so there's a commitment, a great
place to Stage everybody but we do have access anymore and then
that was that this essentially like one of the major tactical
failures that people always kind of made to just like we had an
incredible infrastructure. It wasn't in the densely
populated urban area. We had the landing strip.
It could handle every single one of our types of planes that we
need to put down. We had full control over the
area and everybody knew it. And we had when we got detention
facilities there as needed, and we had all the resources that if
you had. School a backup.
It wouldn't have been hard to spin that thing up into like
functionality really fast but it was a military base as opposed
to, like a like, a civilian are, you know, airstrip or us when I
was at I was on the bottom twice.
Like I lived there for you know, almost almost a year in total
probably but yeah. So the the apartment on facility
was huge head like I mean, I'd probably these couple hundred
but it can hold up to like five thousand guys.
Like this thing was massive. A lot of lot of cells.
Will tell Ben get there. No one's really Garden.
It click on Unlock and these are not just like, you know, some
dude throwing rocks at a convoy, these are like Isis guys,
because there is Isis in Afghanistan.
These are Taliban guys like the real bad Fighters and akane
network dudes. These are very bad violent, guys
who want to win, but they did start going straight to Kabul to
Kabul, which is right across the mountains, right?
So they get on the 15th and this is important to understand too.
So, you know, ostrov gone, he was the president and Jill
Biden, who's the president? You know, they're on the very
top the information pipe so it's not like they just know.
All they they're getting fed information, the whole way up.
Well, if you're plugged into that, you see what's going on to
that includes the Afghan side and the Afghan side.
There's this thing called the NDS, the national director of
security. It's kind of like a doj DHS
thing, they have a State security, there's some telogen
SATs, you know, it's like kind of that whole thing.
So these, they also guard infrastructure.
And key infrastructure and things like airports.
So they're plugged in to say their name again, they're called
D DNS, India, India's the deputy director of Security National
director of scanned. And again, they know what's up
and plus they have cell phones, like, they know what's going on
their own country, their own cities.
So as these people are watching Afghanistan fall like that, like
they started stage in their families, nearby.
They're calling their families, like, get here now, because
we're going to be, we're going to be leaving here soon and
you're not going to Afghanistan by driving.
There's no infrastructure. That and plus you have to get
into other countries with Pakistan, won't let you in Iran.
Just won't let you win who's been cast and we'll just let you
in. It's like no they will the kids?
Absolutely not guys. So once they hit Kabul, these
dudes, that were guarding the gates, they ditch their gear,
they ditch their like their uniforms.
They put on their Afghan clothing, they got their
families and these were the first guys that got the hell out
of there. And then all of a sudden this
airport with no security. There's yeah, there's big walls
in between and those big walls have these things called Gates
and those gates are This is called gate guards.
And so the city of frightened, five million people descend on
the airport and they see no one's guarding it and they bum
rush it. So this is this is the images
you're seeing now of of Afghans running on the tarmac of you
know, hanging out on the wing and trying to get the wheels and
just completely like The Whole World War Z.
Look, right. Have you imagined you ever heard
anyone articulate that being the actual failure?
Because when you first told me this, I was like, I don't think
I've ever heard anyone talk about that this director dove.
National Security was the fail Point.
Like, that's the single point of people bailed out and left the
gate unlocked that like, that would have not heard that.
And so, I learned this from Afghans that were actually
there. Because again, so once I got
pulled into the signal group chat and effort like I started
making your connections and couple friends again and I was
getting pulled into food these channels and then one of them
there were a couple of the Afghans that are actually out
there. These are like these work for
seals for a few years these guys actually We had like XF XF s
guys, Special Forces guys who came back in and like, you know,
they're trying to do things. And so we saw what was going on.
We saw how State Department was turning plans around by the end,
they were shutting down, you know, like flights and stuff of
Americans on there. And so they were setting up back
channels to get their get Americans and get their friends
out of Afghanistan after the fall, who's they?
And so they were this group of private individuals who get
these were Afghans. And the most is guys, are
actually naturalized Americans. Okay.
But these were Afghans that supported like Americans in the
war and again these are these are good dudes.
Like they're credible. They're good guys are operating
with ex-special forces, guys. So it's like, this was a good
Community. This is what this was not
Pineapple Express if people are wondering so and I wasn't up
getting some of this is going on, but there's on.
But they were really multiple channels of people trying to
solve the same problems because the SF Community is obviously
capable and fairly loyal to people that save lives.
Enabled operation. So you're one of many nodes in
this sort of, like, pipeline of people, trying to say the right
people. If we were to put that in air
quotes, who actually were involved in the American war
effort that we have essentially abandoned because of this type
of operation. Right?
And and also the other thing about that Community is they
take the initiative. They do.
They make decisions quick. Like these are the guys who were
like, no we're doing this now. Yep.
And it's just like, yep, what you need?
So they were setting up like a Communication Center in a city
that was like about I think eight, Eight hours away from me
and they were like, you know, can anybody else come here and
help out? And I was like, I can drive some
right. I'll see you guys in like eight
hours and they were like, you know, what you want to do?
I was like well I can tell you about see is I can tell you
about how this thing works. Maybe I can try to get a deal
like a drug deal but like I'm saying like you guys need table
setup, I'll move the boxes is the TV straight like just let me
do things. I'll give you guys more time.
Then they were like yeah bro come out.
So when I'm not there, help them out and that meet these Afghans
and are you on leave great point.
You had succinctly for it and it was actually on my, this was
over the weekend of August 31st actually turned 39 and while
driving out there because you know, it's like I want to help
out this. Is this guy be done right now.
Yeah. So did I not there?
And these people are great. They're nice.
But I was asking I'm like, guys what the hell happened?
Like, know you have friends about their right mind?
They're like yeah like what what happened there explaining me
like oh yeah this is gate guards all left.
There was a ton of them, like these dudes, all ditch the thing
though. And this is first time Access.
And so I was just like you've got to be kidding me.
It's really that there are like yes, right up.
And by the way, the first like I think four or five or six
planes, like no one knows who the hell got on there and that
was a really, really bad thing. But who do we think they were?
Yes, just speculating at this point.
Obviously, some of them had to be these great cars, right?
Yeah, mostly I would say mostly inside.
They mostly Afghan officials, government officials and
problem, is those dudes are insanely corrupt.
Now, here's where it gets hard, by the way, against me, little
bit of a Tarantino story. So to be in the Afghan NDS and
to be in anything in the Afghan National Security Forces, you
have to give your Biometrics to the US government.
So you have to give your fingerprints, you take official,
photograph may be an iris, can we get your name, your date of
birth? We get your like ID number like
you exist inside of our system. So after this all went down and
I find out about this, I go back to work and I'm like, hey can we
like just kind of go through the first like ten plane loads and
if any of these guys mashed up to n DS, records like can we can
we kick them out of the country because like the reason why is
because it got so bad and Marines had to go re-establish a
security perimeter on the outside and they had to go do
everything because they have Canadian Stitcher job.
That's what led to 30 or 12 Marines getting killed and a
Navy corpsman. If I'm not saying like, you
know, and it could have changed out of that, but it's like,
those guys wouldn't have to die. They really didn't have to die.
They did a job because the Afghan, the at that Afghan
element, ditched it. And that's got to be a problem
with somebody, right. So I got to work, I say this.
I'm like, you just go through these records and just like,
let's just find the guys that are we know or in the end.
Yes. And at least we can, we can
question them. At least we can, you know, maybe
they'll start Stone beads on each other.
We can find the guys responsible.
This, let's just Deport them. Can we do that?
No. What was the?
What was the answer? No for was it just no.
I don't know no no fries, no further information.
That's no yeah can't do it. And I went back to him about a
week later as I was still talking with these Special
Forces guys and there I was like guys can you tell me like legit
dues like that? You guys can guarantee our a
still good. The not like bad guys but
actually help us out with like major operations or help us out
with like something like that. We actually want these guys.
We have to help them out. They're like yeah, here's a
stack of like, you know, hundred.
So I got to work with this and I'm like, guys, I have the names
or dates of birth. I got there, a numbers, they're
alien numbers. At their visa application.
Like can we can we just put them on top of the list?
Like, you know, because now we're giving out all these
things, two, dudes, that shouldn't deserve it.
These are going out. Some shady guys are getting
these Visa programs and work was like, no, it's going to come on.
A first come first, serve basis. It's just like it's just, it's
the psalmist possible way to handle that problem.
But it's the simplest thing that it's because that's our
government. Our government is not, it
shouldn't doing what's right when you talk about the, the 12
service members or the 12, Marines, in the corpsman there,
Names are on a plaque that's outside in my parents front
yard. I don't know if I told you this,
but my hat, my dad had me, put up a flagpole, they've got a
20-foot flagpole, that's always lit.
And they've got 13 crosses in their front yard.
It's a big chunk of their front yard, and it's all graveled, and
maintained and groomed. And there's a big black clock.
That's probably probably three feet by foot and a half or two
feet. It's got all their photos, their
names, their ranks and where their Hometown was, and all
that. And a, in a brief paragraph,
saying, what it was with the never forget written out.
Stones and people walk by their their their house every day on
this walking Loop. There's all these old timers at
walk around younger families and stuff strollers and people stop
there every single day and I think it's really important that
nobody forgets what what happened but I think it's also
important that people understand what that failure look like.
And that there are people who are actually responsible for it,
not just the nebulous like oh the administration failed and
the president failed like know, they were people on the ground
that are now in this country, enjoying the blessings.
Of Liberty because 13 of our finest, went over there and did
something that they didn't. He shouldn't have to do that.
It's really important to remember that, though.
And I it just in case of any any anybody that's related to you
know, those guys that got killed and the women to like family or
friends or team members and I really am not trying to say that
like this was written in the stars.
I'm not trying to say that whatever but I think based on
what by the ministration is done in this whole thing because
again, this was a state department, operation not DOD
like we can really get into this thing.
I do think there was chaos no matter what that was, I think
predetermined based on all the steps they took but it's like I
don't want to try to sit there and say like you know this would
have been yours. Because x y z, that's, that's
chaos. Theory back is no one knows,
right? It's right.
See there's obviously some terrible decisions that were
made including abandoning Bagram, including, you know,
right seeing it fall so quickly and not reinforce it.
Either with overwhelming force and take advantage of whatever
it was. They were going to like their
there's this is Step eleven or twelve down the chain and we
could have stopped it two or three down and and realize that
they were bad decisions being made and that didn't happen
which which, you know, at the end of the day I think, This
Administration should be accountable for all the rounds,
they sent down range where they're good or bad here,
otherwise just like every Administration should take
should own what they, you know, they succeeded and failed at and
this is a clear failure and, you know, one of the, one of the
most awful images of my adult life that I can remember, is
people falling out of those planes.
Not because I knew anything about them.
Like you. Like we watched people from
Afghanistan clinging to Wheels. Not understanding how landing
gear Works knowing that they are going to get thousand.
Thousand feet in the sky and then fall off to their death,
which is insane. Which just tells you how little
they understood about anything that was going on there.
I mean, those people like you don't jump on a plane like that
and think you can hold on to the wheel.
I don't under no circumstances, but they don't do any sense.
But imagine what they were fleeing because what they were
looking down, the barrel of, right, right?
And please understand. Also this then to.
So that's the level of Vesta culture, if that's the, you
know, the population. Oh, yeah.
Here's democracy. Yeah, here's some, you know,
here's some training on LGBT. It's just like what the help
will be. Ying why we try to do this,
right? Just want to hear a great story.
I do, I only want to hear great stories about in 2010 that we,
you know, this there was a human intelligence report.
It's called IR information on Talent, OR intelligence
information report. And it's just like, you know,
like hey, I talked to a guy who said this, right and store
reading this thing and this is, I don't care.
This is this clothes food. So, it's talking like to an
Afghan farmer. It's a local information report.
Basically, and this farmers saying, like, Hoof.
I'm glad you're here Americans. Hey, we need your help.
There is a dragon behind that mountain over there and that's
the reason why we have a drought right now.
And you know this is this sucks for us, right?
So if you guys can launch them, some airplanes over that
mountain, you can bomb that Dragon.
That'd be cool because then the drops can be over.
And by the way there's a big like Pearl inside this Dragon.
So then we can like take that big pearl and we can do like,
you know, go sell. That's what like a lot of money,
right? That's good for us.
Us, right? And this was a natural
intelligence report. I love the end of it.
He's the end of it that the collector, he writes on the very
young, the comment the bottom saying this is the level of
people. We're dealing with.
It's like so stop sending us complex like requirements of.
Like what's the socio-economic? Blah blah blah.
It's like no, no, no. It's like we're not dealing with
a population. That's Highly Educated, right?
This is your, they have shoes or not.
Exactly. That'd be a good collection,
right? Like what is their ability to
march in cold weather and or rough terrain?
So my little experience being on The Afghan camps and Holloman
which were nicer than the ones on Fort Bliss because the Air
Force runs things. A little bit cleaner and nicer.
They had these things, they called The Cadillacs which were
like multiple multiple toilet heads and multiple showering
facilities like built into these little trailers.
So that's where people went and I'm I'm actually interviewing a
this kid who was a really nice cat.
He was 21, 22 years old, great English.
I like an American sense of humor had dealt with the state
department for a number of years.
You know, there's there's all different levels of
capabilities, this kid was going to be fine.
He was going to go catch eighty thousand dollars working for,
you know, meta or Google, or something, for the novelty of
hiring an Afghan parolee who actually was competent at a
skill set, whatever me and he was.
And so we're talking to him and he goes Those, you know, these
people are from my country but my country is not a country.
It's just a bunch of tribes that live in the same place and and
that's what you guys always fail to understand.
He's like, I grew up in a city and I am now sharing a bathroom
with people who have never seen a toilet and have never seen a
plumbed anything showers or otherwise and they keep shitting
on the floor of the of the showers and he said I'm horribly
embarrassed every time I come in because they Don't know the
difference and these are the people that were dealing with
and he goes when you're asking questions to me that are
complicated, I understand what you're saying, you're not going
to find that when you talk to the others and you know, I did
12 and we did 12 12 or 13 interviews of guys, supposedly
who allegedly sexually assaulted a black female Soldier on Fort
Bliss, which was a silly. I mean, I don't know if you've
ever been in a fight and if you've ever been in a fight in
the dark, but can you tell me the Under the eyes of anybody
you've ever fought no because that's a really interesting
piece of information to share. I ended up bringing this is one
of my whistle or disclosures to my congresswoman because it was
like look. I'm an investigator.
I just go on what people say but I also look at the plausibility
of the information that's being collected.
And if you're telling me that at 1 a.m. in one of the darkest
places I've ever been in my entire life, which is out in the
desert in New Mexico or you know, West Texas. and you got
into a fight with 12 men for your life that you believe we're
going to sexually assault you and you can tell me what color
eyes they had and what they were dressed like and then you got in
your car because you got away from them by kicking them in the
shin really hard and then you drove off.
Did anyone ask her if the trunk was still open when she showed
up there? It's like the easiest question
to like that's the thing I want to know, was the trunk open if
they were trying to fight you and get you while you were back,
opening up in your in the back of the trunk of your hatchback,
was the trunk open when you arrived.
Because if not, then I have more questions.
None of these basic things were asked and and that was the level
of chaos that was happening on the state side of what you're
talking about. So the Evac was going on
insanely over there with no management and gate guards
getting a you know, blown up and then they got on all these
planes and they landed. They were like offloaded by the
tens of thousands into these parolee clothes.
Yeah, and then there's this, there's people crapping in the,
in the, in the showers and then there's people making up stories
and then like, you know, and and it was insane.
Like when we drove up my buddy, not he was a Green Beret, he's
my partner. So we drive up there to do some
interviews and he was like, dude, are we in Afghanistan?
Like, people were just crapping on the side of the road.
They literally, like walked out of the tents, which they were
like temper tents. Like the, you know, the kind of
high-speed Air Force in our meetings, and they would walk
out on the roads. They would be praying kneeling
in the middle of the street. Like vehicles are like flying by
and then they would walk off like 10 feet and just crap on
the side of the road for like a mile or two.
It was a like a crap row, when you drove in, it smell just like
human feces. And you're like, what in the
world? Are we doing them?
It felt like, I mean, I've got videos if they're like you can't
take videos here and I was like, well, I'm taking a video because
this is insane. This is the craziest thing I've
ever seen. And I need to document this for
our case File so I don't really care.
I actually had on my government cell phone so I was like but but
wild like truly was. Yeah, totally Weird.
Anyway, that's what they got. That's when they came over here
to so they built a little Afghanistan in the middle of
West, Texas. And in the middle of nowhere and
New Mexico, which is kind of wild to think about to, right
next to White Sands Missile Range.
But so some of these people that came in, you know, we've got
obviously, serious security concerns because nobody knows
who they were. You had Biometrics that have
been collected and you know that Biometrics are collected for a
very long time in Afghanistan for the the conflict and more in
the way we dominated population. Everyone over there was
fingerprinted like multiple times like if you were
fingerprinted is because you're either too young a woman or like
you were just a true hillbilly out of sticks and we never saw
you like we get everybody basically fingerprinted that we
knew the whole population. So what is our ability to go
through the people that we have domestically that we brought in
here and identify friend foe or unknowns?
You think? Well, that's that's why the
process. So when they're doing their
Advance parole and they would stop, they wouldn't fly from
like Kabul. So, you know, Dulles, right?
They would have to stop along the way.
So they would do these a few different places, like Rota
Spain. Qatar, I think there's some in
Germany, there's a lot of, you know, just basically have.
Right. I know to those three are
correct. So I know Qatar and I know there
was like, I think Rammstein also had a bunch.
Yeah, Rammstein, yep. And so we park them there they'd
be there for a little bit and then we would do like the
initial security screening and then we would send them on their
way and they would get their Advance, parole, they land and
we take him to these camps that you're at, you know, you know,
you know, you're hearing. All right.
So what was the what was the security screening looking like
if you don't mind getting into just kind of the?
So the basic security screen. What is that?
So they we first defined by biometrically, so that's gonna
be your fingerprints and if they can establish that was
Community, very rare will leverage other things official
photograph for like facial recognition or will do maybe
Iris scans that they have it. But we will do identify like you
know, by fingerprints and this works very very well and so
we're you know, load them in and We're getting guys that have a
lot of detainment sand. A lot of like, oh, you were
actually like a very bad guy. You were, these things are all
identified inside the system. It's very technical.
So yeah, give me a little more technical than very bad guy
though. Do you mind like what does that
look like? What does a very bad guys?
So, a very bad guy. Let's say, while in Afghanistan
US forces or Coalition, we're trying to find this too because
they were like we think this guy's bad enough to go out and
do a rating grab. So he has to go through this
thing called The Joint prioritize effects list or the
JPL And to be ought to get a j-pal number or a target number.
You had to have like enough derogatory information, like,
you know, okay, there's like three or two or three like
really good human sources that can identify you.
Or it's like we've seen like, your phone and during summer,
number of things, we can see where your operating at.
But we know you're operating with bad.
Guys, the based on again, like, you know, sensitive collection
of intelligence information and then you're on this list for a
very short time period. If we can't grab you in time,
you go off the list. So it's like, this thing is, you
know, it's a system that's designed to go find bad guys.
And if you in this information is collected and stored inside
of your biometric profile. So when you put your
fingerprints on, it says like, you know JPL, you know, four,
five, eight, seven, six three. It's like you read.
Nobody, wait like oh man, that guy's bad.
That is terrorists. That just adds a shirt, a bad
guy here to know, right away or if they were on What's called
the dod biometric enabled, watch list or the buell's.
We would call it and the Buell has categories of bad guys.
So like category want means like detain him on sight, you know,
tier one time on site, tier 2. I was like, yo, get this guy
into though, like bring this guy in as well actually.
And if you if your fingerprints were found on a bomb, or a
homemade explosive, you were automatically to your tude.
So that shows you like the level of bad guys, right?
Then you have a tear for this was designed for like force
protection. So, you will want these guys,
come on your base. So, if you're ever detained by
US forces, or any other Coalition Force, you were put on
the tier for the watch list. Doesn't matter if you were
detained for four days or if you were to chain four like, you
know, years If you were on this watch list and it was designed
to, you know, identify who you are tier 5.
That means like you work with us, but we fired you because
you're shady as hell. Like we went through your phone,
there's a lot of bad news inside there.
Do we caught you take pictures of the flight line?
Why you have classified maps on you?
Like we would catch them, do countertops, you know, or are
you a con intelligence interviews, then be assessed
like no. Yeah, you're losing access, bam,
watchlist. It's now he tries to go on base.
Oh, he's watches to get On it works, right help.
And then tier 6, which is more of like we think they just got a
messed-up, so keep an eye on them and that's like, you know,
don't let them know whether we know them.
But like if you come across a sky, like take every note, you
can tell us what he's wearing, tell us where you're at, what
time of the day. What's, he know, those kind of
things got it. So these dudes are all through
CBP, screenings, Customs, Border Protection and, you know,
they're popping up on these Duty watch list.
Well, they're also becoming off plus watch this because an Jake
back stateside. I think operating in concert
with DHS, they're taking these Dudes off this balance your
nipple wasö. Watch list.
And it's like, okay, hold on, even if they're just to your
for, it's like, that means they've been detained, or they
were bad enough to where it's, like, you can't come on the
base. You can't get hired if you're on
tier 4, so you can't get a DOD contract and kind of stand.
So, let's say some, dude, you know, again, it's bad guy gets
rolled up. Not only is he denied on be on
base but you also can't enter a garbage cans either.
Like now screw you, you're done. And so if it's bad enough to be
out there, why the hell we didn't bring him in the country?
Then like this. This makes no sense.
Why is this happening? Are taking them off as watch
list. So right away, it's like that's
kind of bad as it is. Right now goes one step further.
Now we get into wedding because screening is like, you know, you
kind of look for somebody wedding is like, well, who are
you really? And when your wedding somebody I
look at it as the way you put somebody on the actual
terrorism, watch list and to do that, you have to have a few
things you have to have their identity completely, you know?
And so you have to have their biometric information thereby
graph. A confirmation name, phone,
number, whatever, and also like behavioral stuff.
Like really, who are you? What's your job, where you from,
whatever? Then you also have to have
particular, derogatory information with the Nexus to
terrorism? The league of these, you know,
legally is government to you isn't there?
But its standard structure processes like, no, you can't
put anybody watch, it's got to be legit bad guy, who got to go
to prove it to these things. So when you put somebody on,
like you're looking for like all these calipers are information,
but when they're vetting, somebody all they do really is
they check for the phone numbers.
They check for the email addresses.
So I go have we seen this phone number?
He gave us his phone number is anywhere inside of our
databases. No you're good.
So it's a voluntary testimony of them.
Giving us their phone numbers and email addresses.
It's like yeah, we might go to find more.
That can happen. That's part of the
investigation. That's not a wedding.
You're not really getting into these guys though.
So you're doing the biometric. Definitely, they're doing the
biographic somewhat. We're kind of learning it, but
we're not looking at All for the behavioral, and there's some
problem. And then, in the meantime, you
said they're, they're removing people from this j-pal list from
the other lists domestically like back home, who's they,
who's the ones that are actually pulling this stuff off, is that
state department? So, I don't know, but they'll
know, but I don't know who did it because I thought there
wasn't like a trail of it. But if you're on the the dod,
you'll watch list the by much. We never watch list.
That's the National Ground Intelligence Center.
I used to work there. I know that mission maybe DHS
was doing it. With them by being like, hey,
these guys came in and take them off the fuel that could been
happening. Also.
But there's no way in hell that DOD would sit there with their
contract work in the governor employees.
They wouldn't go like, hey, this thing is all going on
Afghanistan. Let's take all these guys off
the fuel. They wouldn't do that.
That's not a mission, they be doing right?
So, I definitely think they were operating in because first of
all, there's no money in that station.
Yeah. That's a proactive thing.
That's not how government works. Anyway, like government holds
records, They Don't destroy records unless there's a reason
to at least that's my experience, I'm sure you had
similar correct. Do anybody right now going?
Like, is there an expiration date?
No, it's not like you're on their five years and no activity
fall office. Not at all.
Your honor on, right? And so, so yeah, that part's
that. And then when it came to the
wedding, again, we're not looking at this.
Dude's of who they really are. And again, this is a big problem
because we were there for 20 years, like, we were really good
with intelligence. Sure.
And yeah, it's hard. It's hard to find the guys based
on their name because African names are kind of weird, like,
they might change in your life, over time.
It going to, who knows? You it's kind of strange, the
things Is though, it's like we dominated the battle space.
We had these things called civil Affair groups and they would go
out there and they would run out information operations.
They would know the the human terrain are very, very well.
We had human train systems to understand these things better
to and all you gotta do is like okay well where's this guy from,
what's his village? And you can look up like you can
literally take a many programs like penalty has got these
things. There's other I would say, I
wouldn't know what to call it, but basically, like you take a
map like Google, you draw a circle around it and then you In
like here all the significant activity reports of like
firefights and bombings from this year to this year okay I
don't want those. I want to look for like you
know, information intelligence reports.
Okay cool. Here's some of the over here,
like you can really know what's going on plus because all these
Biometrics were also geotagged. You can literally see the
footprint of where this guy's been in Afghanistan.
And so it's like yeah, it would be slow.
It would take a long time and that's what wedding is.
It's not just like, you know, what's your name?
Which phone number? Which Emoji.
Russ does exist, he's good to go.
So I'm going to Discount. Yeah, I want to show you a story
that I had of one of the women that we dealt with.
I think I've said this before on this podcast, but I had a lady
that we were interviewing about and I don't even know what the
context was. Maybe your husband was
supposedly beating her or something.
We went out for all the domestic violence and stuff like that.
So I'm dealing with this lady and she's got her
identification. That was issued either at Qatar
Ramstein and so we're looking at it and we got interpreter there
because we've got a female interpreter to talk to her and
she goes you know, Ru Ru this name.
She says, yes and she says, and you're and you're 25 and she
says no. And she goes, well, it says
you're 25 and she's like, yeah, but I'm not 25.
They just wrote that on my ID and we go.
Well, so I said well how old is she?
And she goes, I'm 23 and I was like ask her.
If she knows why it says she's 25 on her ID and she's like, oh
yeah. She like it's real Animated.
She was like when I was getting my ID I told the lady that I was
23 and she said, no, you're too tall to be 23 or 25.
So they wrote down, and that's what that is, what made it to
the documents that me as an FBI agent was dealing with.
And so that's the level of scrutiny that these documents
were generated with it was that you're too tall to be 23 for a
woman. So you're obviously 25 people.
Cannot fathom the level, like, the, the, the shallowness of the
wedding that was going on and if it's like, what's your phone
number? What's your name?
And your side of your like, man, there's some really bad, dudes,
think I'll serif, and I'm not going to be Kyle seraphin.
I'm going to be Tyler care if in here, like, that's it.
Like, that's who you are now. And then you just gotta remember
that a few times when they when you go through and remember what
your ID says. And so, we got people that did
that, I'm sure. And we're able to get away with
it because they all got brand new cell phones.
They came over, some of these guys were coming over with,
like, Pockets, full of cash. To don't know if you knew about
that. I definitely like some of the
guys, like they already empty. They emptied bank accounts.
They got either paid out by US forces, or they got, you know,
helped out in some ways. But some of them would come over
and they'd have like, Fifteen twenty thousand dollars of the
cash. And then what do they do with
it? They're on a refugee camp, in
the middle of a like an army base in the middle of the
desert. So they just paid for hookers.
It's, there were women that were hooking on the basis which we
saw as well, and it's like that was a Commander's problem that
was not a, that was not an FBI problem, but they were some, you
know, yeah, knock out women. That were trying to find
somebody who had some cash and like put their own thing
together and didn't speak any English.
But I guarantee you there's some army guys that probably gave him
a thought about making them a citizen here because people are
people, man. People are still people.
Yeah, and Joe is still Joe. So if Joe finds a beautiful
Afghan wife, he comes here and wants to get smart.
I know I know you were in the Marine Corps but you know who
Joe is? Yes, because you gotta love ya.
The Marine Corps term of that is, Lance course Machiavelli.
Yes. Our Joe is smoke.
A tele shimoga, Tom. Yeah, I can do that.
By the way, with the wedding, please, look how bad it is.
Yeah, I want you to. All right.
So And by the way, the people are voting, they don't know
what's going on Afghanistan. Like they don't understand the
what has happened over. Yeah.
What doing personal? Do you haven't been there?
Who are they? Are they contractors?
Are they, they D OS state, or what do you think?
Well, so a lot of it was done by USCIS and I know those guys and,
you know, a lot of these are pretty good and they're actually
good. Analyst problem is, they are
given this Mission and these, these parameters is say inside
of so, and they're also being told that the job done, so they
have to do the vetting this way and you've got good.
They could do a lot more but it's like, no.
Once you once you hit the you fulfilled them writing
requirements and standard checklist.
I do not it's like but there's more you can do guys to know
that. So one example is this and a lot
of guys don't get a cent to, that's another problem.
It's like you can really leverage these dudes in a much
better way. Not all of them.
Some guys are just like you know until guys because they got up
to somewhere else. But there was about seventy two
checkpoints like all around the airport of like Taliban
checkpoints. This is back in, they are in
Kabul this back this. Yeah, back in Kabul, and this is
during the evacuation, right? So, these are Taliban that are
looking very thoroughly to find certain dudes.
Well, some of those guys they want to make sure didn't leave
or like Afghan security forces and typically, you can defy
those guys because they might have an ID on.
Well, that's easy, ditch the ID ma'am.
Okay? Some of these guys get down to 5
because they're wearing like the Afghan National army, uniform,
bam. And so typically, you would have
be able to get to those checkpoints if you're wearing
Army uniform. Because they're looking for it,
right, right. That checks.
So, one of the, one of the guys that came in who ended up
Landing in. I think dullness, and like three
weeks later, the FBI does investigation.
Autumn turns out. He's a terrorist.
Well, in his, I'm going to these guys.
And I've seen his initial photograph, his first first, a
collection we have on him for his Biometrics is member.
We know the chronological order of you may be coming in and it's
like that's weird. He's wearing Afghan army
uniform, all right, whatever. Mike, wait a minute.
This guy's at these guys is he's a terrorist.
He is a straight up on the watch list.
You know, tier one armed dangerous, why is he an Afghan
army uniform more thing taken at that thing was taken in a ramps
on air base that guy landed in Germany.
Wearing that outfit. It's like, wait a minute.
Why do I not see any other enrollments?
Don't forget if you were in the Afghan National Security Forces,
you had to put down your fingerprints and get enrolled.
So why the hell is not pop up before then?
This makes no sense. So I try a few of the variations
to find them and we don't want it all It's like, okay, so now
the wedding analyst, he sees this, he doesn't have.
As he know about the information about, you know, he got to be
part of it to be a part of the Afghan Security Forces.
You got to go through this process, obviously, they didn't
know that because first thing you would see is how the hell
this Duke at this. Checkpoint wearing that.
And where is it to begin with? Like why is this guy enrolled
previously? Yeah, flags all turns out with
the right turns out within a few weeks.
Oh yeah. Is actually a, by the way, this
guy is category 7, which is threat.
If enters the United States that's the banner of a cat.
Aghori seven terrorists and it's like and we brought the guy in.
So now I'm sitting there going like, DHS isn't even 20 years
old yet? You know, this thing got
established 2003 in the wake of 9/11 because terrorists came in
the country and attacked us. Literally the purpose that it
was developed for right and not even 20 years later, we are
flying. The terrorists from the same
that same area back over again, right?
And like, you have kidding me. All right?
And so the failures look like this, like Of all, nobody should
have been showing up in Ramstein Air, Force Base, wearing an A
and a uniform under any surprise because they should, because
they will not be telepan because they would have been pulled off
by the Taliban and probably killed.
So, the only people that came through, should have Misha lie.
Those should have been suspect right away.
That's a watch list number one for people who are paying
attention, but that was not us. And then number two, if they are
wearing an, a, in a uniform than their Biometrics have to show up
and they have to match the name on the tag, and they have to
match the name on. The ID and everything else.
Rise otherwise that guy's a fake.
Yeah. It's it was a fake.
This is me, get through the checkpoint, maybe Taliban push
their guys through maybe Isis, push their guys through and this
is one example. But how much, how many hard
examples did you have or was this, the only one example that
you can really drill down on that, you know, know there's so
many. So I came across a list of 600,
like a trick. You know, do is ever like how
these guys might be Shady. There's this about 600 and I
just kind of start going through there and I'm already by the
Interesting. Gatien at DHS.
At this point, you're being investigated because you're
already propagation, but some go through this list and I was
like, all right, I'm like, I'll look up the first like dozen or
so guys, so copy/paste search, nothing concave nothing like for
guys, it's like a weight that dude, he was a pre-party
detainee. I was, he detained for, and I'm
looking up information about this is a bad guy.
This guy's a national security concern, by definitely this
dude's. A bad dude, and I was like, I'm
gonna go through all now. So I go back to the top again
and I start going down, pop up. And I think by the time, We got
to like the 17th guy. He was on the loose on the watch
list and I'm like, I'm not getting like, he landed.
Let's say, like a 31st by like, September 20th or October 3rd.
He's already on the watch list and it's like, like you guys got
to be kidding me. So out of the 600, there were, I
think around, I think there's like 35 to 50 terrorists, like,
dudes on the watch list, or dudes, taking off the watch
list. Here's the 35 to 50.
Yeah. And that this is a list of six
hundred out of 88,000. So one of these guys gets to
America, he's coming in through the checkpoint of CBP.
We, you know, if you flown in Ashley, you got to go to the CBI
officer and then they're like, oh snap.
This guy's actually the terrorist watch list, so they
fly in back to wear. And then they find a key like
back to like Germany or Qatar and then they take them off the
watch list and they find out getting out and it's like, it's
like, okay who him back out to take.
Off the list and then brought him back in, right?
So it's like okay, so either this dude, is just okay the
worse or is something or right? I mean, that is that's the only
possibility, right? So he decided to cooperate in
some way with friendlies or something like that.
So here's here's the other thing I knew that we had a bunch of
guys. Are you familiar with the coast
Province Force? You familiar with them, KH.
Also, got a second. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So, Coast Coast Province force was like a militia group in that
area that were capital. I don't like know these guys.
But yeah, sure, sure enough. So they would like 35 or 40 of
them that had come in from, from coast and they come in, you
know, as a unit and they had been prior, you know, fighters
on behalf of some CIA interest. So some probably some gray level
interest and who knows, right? So they set up a camp in this
was at Holloman, they were in Holloman, they had like 35, 40
dudes and they set up their own little Outpost, and these are
all like twenty eight forty year old men.
They've all Seen combat, they're all walking like that because
you can see they don't, you know, who they are.
They're different than the rest of these people that are hanging
out with their families and trying to figure out like, you
know, where the toilet is. These guys are like, they're
they've they have a unit and they have cohesion and I guess,
one of the things they did was they decided to grab them.
Do you know what chai boys are? Yep.
So they grabbed a kid who was 17 years old city kid.
That's old. That's all for driveway for
sure. He was young looking though and
so there's, I mean, he was so they grabbed him and then they
pulled him away from his two, older brothers, who were like
20, and 22, or 21, or 21, and 24, or something like that.
Shove them off in Germany said, he's with us, took them push
them through got his ID to say that he was 19.
Not 17. So now an adult by American
Standards fluid in the United States.
His brothers went to Virginia, where they had family.
They had an uncle up there and that's where they ended up in
Northern Virginia. Landed Alison went on to the
rest, their life. You know, I talked to the uncle
on the phone, spoke grade English, had a small business of
some kind like a carpet business, maybe or something to
that effect construction, but a nice enough guy had been in the
country for ten years. Like productive member of
society. The kind of people that you
would hope would come over here and do what you would expect
when you join. Erica.
And the tube that you boys are with Him boys being in there,
you know, early 20s. This kid is gone.
Just totally nobody knows what happened to him and the only
reason he shows up is because I don't know if he made an
allegation to somebody or someone made an allegation that
they had seen something happen and they id'd him and he sort of
like indicated he might have been the kid.
But essentially these guys about 20 of them were keeping him
under guard at all times. Like, you know, five to six,
dudes were like surrounding him at all times, holding on to
their prize, and then they would just get him boozed up.
And we're taking advantage of him sexually.
And so you know take them to the showers together with a couple
of dudes, whatever. And of course, that's of course,
he's 17 years old and he's 19 years old rather.
Sorry, no, he was 17 because he was underage.
So he's underage, which was the only saving grace in when I got
in there but you know, end of the day he's I'm sure shockingly
embarrassed and he's dealing with his foreign culture and
he's looking at this dude. He didn't know anything about me
and so I'm trying to explain to him like I just need you to tell
me what happened because I'm going to go after these guys and
we could It out of him in the end.
But like I knew that he was old and he was young enough that he
was too young to be in the adult end of the camp.
And because of that, I was able to pull him out and got a DHS
guy and we resent him to Virginia.
I'm sure you'll be traumatized forever.
I mean, wrecked. You know what I mean?
And like, that's one little story of like human destruction.
That happened because of failure to vet because of inaccurate
information. And because, you know, we took a
bunch of dirt balls that were in the CIA that were in the CIA
operations over there and brought them over.
And generally speaking, I say we are on the side of bringing over
our allies. I think those guys would have
been probably just fine if they stayed there too because they
seem like scumbags. They, they chased five Air Force
Security Forces members that were in full like battle rattle.
They look sort of ridiculous, like a little doughy, you know,
I don't know if you know, Air Force Security Forces but I have
a love-hate responsibility with them because I thought my God
Cooper as though, I remember that, you don't even want to get
me started on where they got that Beret, because they
actually stole that from combat control back in the day.
But Um, all that being said, there's like, you know, six
armed members of our military on us soil in an American Air Force
Base and these guys literally stalk through the streets,
trying to keep their kid that we, that we were taking and at
the end of it, what happened was?
And I'm I'm kind of a funny, dude.
So, like everyone, I went out to the Indian Reservation.
Whenever I went out to these these, these two camps, I always
have a, I've got a white Stetson, it's a straw stats in
for work because I sweat through it all the time.
And I've Got some Justin All American cowboy boots and so I
would wear my Stetson and I wear my boots and I wear jeans and I
wear it open pistol rig. And so, that's what I'm in.
Like, you know, like attacked please please tell me and you
could lie to me. It was a revolver, right?
I do have a revolver. Second.
I say, yes. So I've got a 44 mag version of
that. That's like nine inches of
Western justice, but I don't wear that on duty so I didn't
wear that on the pretty good thing, but I'm wearing like
lock. And I'm wearing my stuff and I
got my badge and all this stuff. And so yeah.
So we're walking through. I go get the Kid.
And we you know witness victim interview interpreter, the whole
deal. I tell them to go back with him
with the was I think the first sergeant goes with me and we go
and we gather all the kids stuff up and I'm like I'm not gonna
leave your side and I'm not gonna let anyone touch you
again. Like you're you're done with
these dudes. I'd almost swear right now, but
I don't feel good about any of those clowns.
So we get all this stuff, he starts leaving First Sergeant's
with him. Got the armed guard and we get
this like mob following us. Like I said, probably like a
half-dozen and growing Owing and I turned to the first sergeant
and I was like I was like Hey sure just get him out of here.
You take him. Take your security forces and
get out of here. Take a more needs to go and I'm
going to stand here and I just stood in the middle of street,
like, like a gunfighter, look, you're just like a complete and
I just looked at him and they're grinning at me because these
guys aren't scared of much, you know, and, and I kind of gave
one of these things. Like, I just kind of gave him
the eyes, you know, and, and they're kind of like chuckling
at it. And I don't think they
understood English. And if they did, they weren't
gonna let on to it and He said something to the effect of I was
like if you keep following this boy, I'm going to shoot you dead
in the middle of this base, you know, and I just stood there for
about eight minutes, you know, until they got away and then I
kind of did a like a slow about face and walked off and that was
the end of it for them, but these guys were totally unfazed
by being in our country and they have no interest in following,
you know, they brought their culture.
So, not not concerned in the least because they know exactly
who generally speaking Americans are and that that was their
experience when they got to the camp.
And of course, in the meantime they've got like they had a
couple of agency dudes that were on the base that we're Like
giving them stuff and, you know, hooking them up with new things
and, you know, new phones and cash and whatever else and they
weren't even supposed to be on the base.
But I mean people don't understand how crazy these these
bases were. They were many foreign
territories because we had 10,000 foreign Nationals that
were as you mentioned very very poorly vetted.
We had dozens of government agencies in there from DIA to
CIA to you know FBI to probably some NSA posts.
There was every branch of the Armed Forces and There until
branches. We're all set up in these big
Huts so we'd go into like to come on the comms Billy and
you'd literally look at their be 150 people in a big tent, you
know, and everybody had to little Enclave of what they were
doing and some people had maps and some people were, you know,
organizing Red Cross. And some people were trying to
figure out how to get people, you know, clothing or food or
you don't organize the logistics.
And some people were over here, doing the ghs Smithson and doing
wedding, and trying to figure out, who's who, I mean?
It was insane. They had human sources that were
being reported in the a debrief rooms that they were bringing in
their sources that it was. It was in Insane.
I have to imagine it was like the end of a war on the other
end and we just brought it here and we did the end of the work
here basically. Yeah.
And and and that's how you end up with minimum dozens.
But I mean, how comfortable would you say if you said you
saw about 8%, looks like right 8% of the of the 600, you looked
at you think that held across the bigger even if it was five
percent of 88,000, No because I'm looking at this in like
February and they were still adding.
And so these guys are looking up and on the watch list and
they're getting put on like a few days prior.
So know I'm short ending this thing when I say like 35 to 50
that's out of 600. Now it's important in this to
that is the national the terrorist watch list, which
again has a high threshold to get odd, right?
Doesn't include the other bad guys on the dod by maternal
watch list. And the sad part is there are
people at DHS that like, oh that's just the dod of you'll
it's like, yeah. These are the guys that were bad
guys in Afghanistan. They're going to be bad guys
here, too. Let's like this not hard and
enough. So if I was to give a number out
of the 88,000, I'd say at least five thousand give or take
minimum. But here's the crazy part
though. So even dudes on the terrorist
watchlist, they're not all just category 7 like, thread it
through the United States, right?
And all Category 3, like, remember the reduces down there?
There were like collections, they were like Intelligence
Officers. We had one guy.
I know is category 15. He actually used explosives or
Firearms, so he's a natural fighter.
But there was also recruiters, they were religious leaders,
they're all kinds of categories of these dudes on the watch list
and it's like, okay there's no way that they're all just hang
around the airport. Like this was I think a effort
by them to get into the country, to do, whatever to just continue
operations because that's still their goal is to bring down the
United States. They still want to attack us but
your terrorism right. Even though it's been 20 years
since 9/11 or whatever the time. So it doesn't matter.
They have an interest in defeating us and we jacked up
layers, we jacked up their territory for two decades.
Yeah, we test them. Yeah we just said The Hornet's
Nest and just kept throwing rocks at it, it's like, yeah,
when it's gonna happen now what were you aware that people once
they got to these bases, whether it was in Dover, I think there
was one, there was definitely one of Delaware somewhere and
one of my buddies was the XO there.
And then, you know, we had the two that were in my area.
There was probably like six or seven time across the country.
Were you familiar with the fact that they could just walk off
but they didn't have to check in or with anybody that they
literally could just walk. Did you know that?
No. Are you serious?
So we had several hundred. No that's not exaggerating.
I think like somewhere between two and four hundred when I was
paying attention to it before. I was unceremoniously removed
from my abilities to be part of the FBI's operations but we had
several hundred who literally just walked off grabbed an Uber
and they're gone and just gone wherever.
Yeah, because it was because they weren't being, they weren't
being detained. So they weren't under guard.
They literally could walk down the road call.
And Uber as long as it didn't go through the, you know, through
the Army checkpoint, but they could walk around the
checkpoint, which would take 10 feet.
Like, the Army was not authorized to stop them from
leaving the base and neither were the, it was a little bit
harder at Holloman because Holloman, just the geographic
location of it. It's much more structured and
the camp was deep into the actual base.
We had to actually walk through the entire Air Force Base, which
is a little bit daunting. I think, for a lot of people but
for Fort Bliss, where it was, it was on its own section out,
where the shooting range. Ange is where they basically
just set up this like, Tent City.
And so, it was all by itself. There was a road, that went
through there normally, but it was cut off to normal traffic
and you got turned around if you were like a truck or something
but it cuts, literally from El Paso, like all the way into the
center part of of White Sands which is kind of deep in the
heart of the southern part of New Mexico.
So you can literally roll all the way through and they just
shut that off. But you could walk from the
camps, it would have taken you 15 minutes.
To just end up on a road and you could have called an Uber if you
knew what you were doing and then some people walk North
maybe like 15 miles or 20 mile honesty.
If you walk 30 miles, you would have got to my house because I
was 26 miles north like through a little mountain pass.
And you literally would end up right in my neighborhood.
Which was if you kept walking, like when I went on the hikes
that I used to go, you could walk up to the fence and it was
like, you know, by Commander thought of the Holloman Air
Force Base. You can't go here and then if
you turned around and you went like three hundred yards, the
other way it would be like, you know, By order of the White
Sands Missile Range. Commander, you can't go here and
you're like, dude, like neither of these things are even close.
I mean they're miles and miles and miles and a mountain range
on the other end of it. But those were all US Army and
US Air Force property. But for whatever reason, you,
these people just walked off literally hundreds of them from
the camps that I'm aware of. And like I said, they were five
or six and that was in a very, very small amount of time.
So really quick, it's just replacing out with that.
So, these are dudes that were They knew they can get off.
Yep, they did. And they knew how to like get
out of there. So like, you know, do an Uber
right? Okay, so, Who would have that
ability to know, all those kind of things, might either dudes,
that know this system. And there are they've maybe been
here before, maybe they're kind of westernized.
Okay. Got family guys going to be
brave enough. Yeah.
But are they gonna be brave enough to violate the know what
they're doing is wrong? So I know is that they're trying
to escape, you know, whatever. I think they're going to try to
maybe follow the process has to go through it ever.
Not all of them, may be sure but it's like, no.
Because in theory there was like, some sort of paperwork you
would get at the end of this, right?
I mean, that's the goal, like they stuck around and then State
Department or CIS. I guess we probably the one like
you get parolee number. You get paperwork, you get
access to money, authorization, card work, authorization, only
things. These people abandoned school
together, All right. So then it's like okay so then
who would want to get hell out of there as fast as you can even
though they have all these good things coming your way.
It's like probably guys are bad guys.
I'm sorry if there's 100, I would say there's 12.
You know, I mean it's like it's just there's no way it's just a
numbers game. That makes exactly.
It's just that point. It's like there's so many now.
You can, you can make a just Nepali that money, easy?
Yeah, statistical, statistical, smattering of once you start
looking at it you know the roughly 100,000 people that came
in here knowing that. So you didn't know that before
you and I just talked right now. How does that make you more or
less worried? Hey mrs.
Moore. But it's like, why am I shocked
Aaron? It's like, we have, of course.
That happened. Of course, that happened by my
shots. That's my fault.
Actually that you're shocked. Yeah, yeah.
And it's something, it's truly nuts to think that, well, I
think this is because we had so many different government
entities that were involved in. Nobody owned any process of it.
So everybody was like, not me literally, when I showed up
there doing my job. Yeah.
They'd be like, hey FBI, like come in and do this thing.
And it's like, what do we Doing and they're like, somebody got
into a fight in the tent and it's like what happened there.
Like, they kicked your shin really hard and she has a bruise
and I'm like, Okay. Is she bleeding still?
And they're like, no, it's just a bruise.
And I'm like, the only thing that made sense is that I worked
on the Indian Reservation where that sort of absurdity would
like, normally, that would come in and you go, is the leg broken
off permanently because that's our standard, like, unless they
no longer are able to use that limb like kicking somebody in
the shin doesn't count. Unless they're you've lost limb
or function of limb permanently or at least for a long period of
time. No, you know, you break a face,
you facial fractures on a punch. Maybe we'll go in for those kind
of things that's actually like not even that easy.
But we had an agreement of like what we could and couldn't go
and investigate that the locals would deal with.
So oh yeah. Yeah.
And it was like, it was very specific and we rarely ever got
there, like it had to be death or serious physical injury.
Which is pretty narrowly defined under federal law to.
So that was like, what we could go do.
They had local police departments for for the Indian
reservation and then when we were dealing with the Afghan
refugee camps, it's not like anybody was dying.
So, sexual assault would have been our game because that's
pretty straightforward, but then it would have had to been a like
a really aggressive aggressive beating and we had a couple
guys, I got to end up like one, dude, I guess he went over some
chick and he said, hey, you're my wife right now and then she
was like I don't want to be a wife and he was like no by our
customs like you're my wife. And she was like, I don't think
so, so she wouldn't talk to the elders.
And then like, six, dudes, tuned him up, explain to him that he's
not able to take this wife. I mean, actually, I'm kind of
like, fair enough. Like, you know, like, I don't
know what you try. I don't know what your system
is, but it sounds like you straighten him out.
I don't really want to deal with this.
I don't even. That's results.
Yeah yeah the result is you know and then it was on an army base.
So what do we do with that than the Commander's kind of like we
gave them a warning and told them not to beat up people
anymore and we're like yeah that's good.
But I mean that sounds reasonable.
Don't beat up people but nobody got a briefing.
When they came over to like what are the laws of this country?
What do you behold into? So they don't know.
That's the other big thing we talked about.
So forget about like the people that are actually here to cause
brought problems, how about the people that don't understand our
cultural norms and got no briefing on it at all none.
So There are these things that states do but they can, like, do
a familiarity. They can just call translation
they reach out to like new refugees, whatever.
The hey, by the way, your America now.
So we are so I reached out to one of the states that was, you
know, is living in and I was like, hideous.
Why like some briefing material? I'm like Afghan culture on with
these guys have gone through on, you know, being past June,
versus whatever, and then they were like, yeah, because we do
not have a lot of Afghans out here.
So I was like, yeah, let me take out of you that work.
Hey, work. Like here's the, you know, the
state entity over here, I'm trying to help them out, and
whatever, can you give me some, my briefing materials that like,
you know, I won't give it to. I'll just give it a, like,
literally transfer him. I'm not gonna brief them.
But like, you know, can I just help them out there like?
No, that's not your job to run. It's just like again, like I'm
hearing it again. This is the nature of how it
works. It's just, this is, this is the
real status though of how our government operates on that
level. So yeah, it was kind of setting.
I think this is a good kind of final topic to kind of end on
but it should explain to people like the dysfunction as you
mentioned. You shouldn't be surprised even
though you are and like the the depths of the stupidity should
not ever surprise us, kind of like the depths of like what I
always do it's like what what's a good hook is where that come
from right, you know, because we have this like innate belief
that one people are mission focused and to that people want
to do their job. And we Enough people that are,
that's the real thing. I think this is the reason why
then coming after you for the child trafficking situation, the
FBI coming after me. It's the same surprise because
you're like, wait, I thought we were all in the team to do the
right thing here. I'm just doing what I think is,
right? Even if that even if you
disagree with me and there's like some consequences for it,
that's okay. Just be honest about it and then
we can all still be friends not when you go about it dishonestly
or when you go like sorry that's not my job.
I don't actually do citizenship and Immigration Services that's
just the name of the agency. What I do is this very narrow
box so I used to tell people that but there's a parable for
this. You ready for this?
Oh yeah, you'll like this. There's a parable of the
stonecutters. Okay, so, man's walking down the
road and he sees these men and they are cutting Stone.
And there's a cathedral being built, like, in the, whatever,
in the city. And so he knows about this and
he asked the first guy. He goes, what do you know?
What are you doing? And he goes, well, I'm a stone
cutter. And, you know, I am chipping
away at exactly this size block. And I'm, you know, just these
specific dimensions and so on and that's what I'm generating.
And he's like, oh, okay, and so that he asked the other guy and
he goes, you know, what are you doing?
And he's like, well, I'm on a team, we're building a
cathedral. And we have a lot of the, like
stonecutters that are just really interested in like,
cutting the block exactly to the specifications that they're
interested in, right? I think there's three stone
cutters but I can't remember the third right now.
So you lose part of the, parable off the text, it to you, but a
lot of people are cutting that stone to hit the exact metrics.
It's like these are the checklist things that I do.
I only vet as far as I need to go and I don't do any further.
And then there's the people that are on the team that you and I
are on, and it's like, well, I'm I'm on the team that cuts the
stone, but like, if you need me to carry it, that I'm going to
carry it. And if we're going to hoist it,
or you need me to mix mortar to like I'm on the team is building
a cathedral so probably just because I have a skill set
doesn't mean we don't do more. We have that one as analysts
similar you have gophers or so you have groundhogs and you've
got foxes, okay? Like Groundhog's Day, know a lot
about a little, they go deep but it like this.
Yeah. But Fox is they kind of hop
around They know a lot about a little, they know a little about
a lot of stuff though. So I can jack of all trades.
Yeah. And that's problem with the
specialization of, you know, like government function, you
want to get like the best whatever they want to get.
People will stay in that crap for a long time.
And yeah, you're saying spot on though is like, it's so it's so,
obviously compartmented but like tunneled or it's like I only do
this. I do this form eyes.
Rigid questions. 1 through 6. Yep.
And it's Like, yeah. But did you understand that
question? 17 needs your input better for
this thing is like, know why am I doing that?
I didn't touch it. I did it already.
Yeah, when you're rigid and you're right as you get deeper
in that tunnel, you have less wiggle room because you can only
go down and you can you can go up but you can't go depth.
But if you're shallow you can kind of keep pushing outward and
have more and you need both to be fair, right?
I mean we could we would agree with that and you have to have a
good mix of those but without that mix you get Either rigidity
or maximum flexibility where it never gets the mission done.
But you can't do both. And unfortunately, we either
hire one or the other type, like I find like until shops tend to
be very compartmentalized. It's like, we're all, we're all
deep diggers like what you call them groundhogs run?
Alex, we're all groundhogs here, or everyone's a fox and like,
but like the foxes, don't know, every single thing you need to
know. When you get to the deep
subject, you don't have that guy and you really need people that
are moving around. You need both like that.
Like so many things, the answer is both.
And that's not how government hiring works.
It turns out and it's not how government missions tend to
work. They get what they call siloed,
right? Oh, very smart mented, siloed.
And then people get rigid in their and they're thinking, and
they're not flexible. And then if you're not, if your
job is stonecutter, and your job is not part of the cathedral
team, then you're not going to go above me on which is why you
found a problem. Maybe it's why I found a problem
maybe because my my people are always team people and and your,
that's what matters. Well, and your empathy towards
the guys that were out there in the fa, bringing them stuff,
that's a team mentality. It's like, look, we're all on
the same team and your team and your situation sucks right now
and mine is like marginally better.
And and it's a very Christian thing to do.
Well, come full circle with this is to what is the team need from
me to give a you know, like give to others it ends up being the
right thing for the mission. It's the right thing for them
and it's the right thing for you because it feels good to be part
of the team that's winning. And if you don't do those
things, I mean a lot of these There's a reason why Western
Society is built on Christian ideology and Christian
understandings because if you don't do those things everything
sucks a little bit more and you end up with a bunch of
terrorists running around waiting for something to blow up
in our country right now, which is where we're living, which is
such a crazy thing to think about and that's the crazy part
two is because it's like there's already this all those border
being wide open and it's like we know you've got the
transnational crime milk coming in.
We know there's Terrace, coming in I can guarantee you now
because it before in the You know, the old days of
immigration like spice and foreign actors and foreign
intelligence, they had a like wiggle their way through the
immigration at worked and they might get caught.
It said no now you can go across border claim, Asylum and that
you are protected. You're not in the game.
You're good actually. Yep.
Yeah. It's is its, it sucks being in
it and it sucks looking back on it as you know, it still exists
but that's the worst part two is like, you know, when you try to
explain to people like just how bad it is and just like not
without being on. We'll be in it like you know big
do more guy but it's like no guys.
It's like it's you know it's bad but it's like but it is really
worse than a systemic level. It's like you try to get the
people understand and it's like it's hard because it's a lot of
information and sometimes he was kind of like know who would they
start checking out and you know, where they're gonna say you want
some pies to start failing on you?
They just can't handle a everybody.
If people talk to me about like you know, I don't know, science
stuff like you know, it happens, everybody know you're right?
It's upsetting though, because that is the nature of government
though, especially with the way we perceive the hiring process,
and that goes on so many different levels to.
And that's it, is it sucks. Any, any, any positive thoughts
that you have, since you've been out, you've had some time to
reflect on it, anything that you think is going to be moving the
needle in the right direction that you're seeing, now that
you're kind of a little bit away from the problem, or is it all
just frustrating? It's guys like you, it's people
talk about this inside platforms and like really good these
things out there because It was that wasn't me, that wasn't
meant to be a plug for me, but that's nice.
That's very thoughtful of you just silly but it's like, but
that's the thing though and I'm not trying to start bashing big
networks and whatever but it's like you go into stuff.
You get things deep and I'm sorry, like there's half the
media out there with just a media.
If they got this information, they would use it to kill the
story and you guys don't like you.
You guys really prefer, you know, pursue these things and
really kind of get it out there and I don't care if it goes out
to a smaller audience, it's not as that kind of cares and it's a
lot more active So it's hitting more people that do things with
it, as opposed to the three million viewers that will sit
there in the school, will consume it changes Channel.
And, you know, it's kind of gone.
So I have hope for that talk to people as a whole.
I've got Twitter spaces all the time.
I talk to people. I like, I like being those
things to partake when I can but also to listen and, you know, I
still think people are really hopeful and like too many things
and I try to remind them like, you know.
Yeah. But guys like the state is still
really bad. Like that's the problem.
And I'm seeing them kind of come around now, like accepting it
with like, you know? Well, yeah, there is that it's
like, that's good. Hey, as long as you understand,
like, don't have all your eggs in one basket for an option
because some people are just way too.
Like let's vote our way out of this thing and it's like yeah,
that's not going to happen. If it was it.
Yeah, it's like just I always tell people that don't get it.
I'm like just please make 10 friends and 10 miles like just
just build a network and like really good rapport because
that's that's worth it, long run.
The last thing I think they're gonna tell me this, do you feel
like there's a Advantage guys like you and me coming fresh out
of these, these different experiences but now not being
burdened with sort of the government non-disclosures or
not even a non disclosure is that's not what we're dealing
with the you know the have to filter, everything through
public affairs, exact give you some some ability to share
information in a way that you think is like because it's
really hard knowing this stuff and not being able to talk about
it obviously and you did it for a long time.
Yeah that. Yeah.
And I'm not gonna lie to you. There was at the end before.
Went to the Veritas, there's a point where it's like, I would
go home and I'd be in tears at night time and it's just like,
I'm sitting there, like, I'd go watch like my, you know, my kids
games, whatever be an airport, I'd be whatever.
And I would lie. People watch, right?
I'm sitting there going. Like these people really don't
understand how bad it is. It's like in how could they?
Because their media doesn't tell them these things because
they're not trying to because I, you know, but now that it's out,
it's, it is so it's not just refreshing.
It feels like someone's like, I kind of feel like revved up if
you like now. Let's talk about this.
Like let's actually the things out there.
Yeah. And I've seen the way you've
been coming at will learn. I've been seen the way you've
been coming at media, that you've been in the Twitter
spaces, which I do as well. And I have kind of the same
thing. I think it's cathartic in some
ways to it gives you an opportunity to just be like look
you guys need to know this information, I have it but it
doesn't help me. It has to help all of us, you
know, that kind of thing. So I love the, the kind of the
Zeal that you've been running at it with and I hope that all
continues, where can where can people follow you?
Where can they weave? Hold out, your What do you got
in the on the burner? You have any, you know,
potential jobs that are that are looking at your?
Is there an industry that people kind of steer you towards?
I really want to continue helping out finding trafficking.
So I'm trying to, you know, get in with that profits.
That's the world. I'm trying.
I'm trying to navigate. I'm still doing about myself to
him. So do my own research and like,
I'm right now talking to case managers domestic fostering, by
the way, to, but the case managers previous whistleblowers
parents that were inside the system, they know about it,
volunteers, that know about these things because they've hit
me up on Twitter, and it's like, yeah, I'll talk to you about
some and so I've talked to quite a few of them, but at least
about a half dozen or so. But, like really good.
Into an understanding things. And these are people that have
like, a decade in the system. I've talked to former survivors
and that those are. The, those are hard.
Those are really difficult to listen to, but it's good to
know, right? And look, I so, I mean I'm on
Twitter, Twitter truth, and GAP under that same handle Gap.
I don't really do a whole lot on a limb because that's more of
like, a, I'm letting it build. I kind of go on there for more
like to, you know, check out memes, I'd read more
conversations, I, you know, those kind of stuff.
Okay? I most active on Twitter right
now because the engagement really high.
It builds on Truth as well. Just wait for the day that you
has not there. But yeah.
And then otherwise, you know, I try to join conversations all
the time so whatever I can. So folks if you want to follow
Aaron, you can follow him from the show notes on any of the
platforms that you're looking on and then I will tag him as we
release this thing. So if you're finding this
through obviously, through Twitter, or through truth, which
are my two big platforms, I do there will be links in his alt
tag is handles, you can find it real easily.
Once again, I, you know, I follow them as well.
I I like what? He's got to say out there, I
think it's really important. Errand, I do appreciate you
spending this time on this, the sort of later evening, folks, we
broadcast this on Monday morning, but we shoot this over
the weekend for you, so that you have it first thing in the
morning and you got it for this whole week.
I know we went a little bit long, I think sometimes this
information, there should be no time limit on it so I try not to
worry about that for our Mondays.
So that is that is the scoop that is what probably bring you
back on again, to and we'll talk maybe counterintelligence
threats, Southern border because I think there's a some
visibility there that you and I We have some, we'll give it some
time for let people to kind of chew on this and to reach out to
you. But folks, you've been listening
to the Kyle serif and show. If you do like these kind of
conversations if you enjoy, what you had to hear, please hit that
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read them on the show like this one here.
This one is by Joseph beaten be e, Aton sent off this Wednesday
and it The review is truth matters to a ensures.
Every other amendment to the Constitution insist on your
right to speak the truth. God will punish the wicked?
Who bear, false witness? That sounds a lot like my buddy,
the Gob actual, my friend, Garrett, neighbors, I'm sorry,
my friend Garrett O'Boyle, he has a lot to say about those who
bear, false witness. So we do appreciate that Joseph.
Thanks for the feedback and folks, you have been listening
to the Kyle Serafin show. We will catch you again on
Wednesday. Thanks for listening.
Thank you. Thanks for listening to the Kyle
Serafin. Show be sure to follow him on
Twitter and Truth at Kyle's seraphin.
Thanks for listening to the Kyle Serafin.
Show be sure to follow him on Twitter and Truth at Kyle's
seraphin.