Kitbag Conversations - Kitbag Conversations Episode 17: Rock the Casbah

Episode Date: July 13, 2023

In this episode, Matt and Cody discuss Gulf War 1, Gulf War 2, and Gulf War 3. From Saddam to isis we look at Iraq to see what they look like next to each other and it isn't good.

I know you don't really know me I know you don't really care to see me I'm in total affection Not being scared if you never wins me You know you really want to lay it up. Now we're dealing with that shit now dude. Oh my god. Oh my god.

The pal doctrine essentially is, if you punch as hard enough, we'll leave. Yeah, probably in 93, just. No, but yeah, I was gonna go short scoff, Powell, cause they're two totally different people and they define 91 and then 91. Well, Spell was more of like, not, not Powell. Sporchkov is more like a classic.

He was more like a like a MacArthur kind of guy. Just get a job done kind of thing. There's that story that he cried the night before the invasion because there was an estimated like one million casualties. Yeah. They were supposed to sustain just like. He got the nickname in Vietnam the bear. Cause I watched this like 25 minute documentary about him.

But he earned two silver stars and like three other combat medals in his first horn Vietnam because he was like an attache to the South Vietnam about South Vietnamese aerosol and airborne units and he he fight apparently that six foot mother fucker or something fights like a mother fucker and he will call him after this for the, off-wrestormon Norman. Yeah. He just fucking rolled right over him. But yeah, he dude, he like, uh, he was like, like a real officer and he like, he started in the 101st and then he was like, this sucks, I want to get out of the army

and, like, Commander told him, like, no, stay in and be the change you want to see. Then he hit 20 years, he like, he's like, let me retire and his wife's like, no, we're fucking rich, bitch. Keep going. And then like he was at like the 32, 33 year mark when 91 kicked off.

So he was like, I'm so tall. He was, he was burned out, man. He was saw Panama, and Honduras. He's like a fucking Toby Keith song over there. Like, it's crazy because when he was a teenager, he was in Iran. His dad, it dirt, yeah, that's the fucking, dude, Schwarzkopf is wild.

His start this thing. What's that? No, we're, yeah, no, we're, I'm just gonna start it. We're already recording. Yeah, fuck it, no. That's fine with me, but. He, he fucking, his dad was in, I think the Middle East or Iran. I think it was I ran and Because his dad was a police officer and they needed him to help. Yeah, that's what it was

They needed him to stop the indigenous personnel from attacking the convoy's going into the USSR And so he got to see that as a kid and eat all the shit food and whatever. But he started at a very young age and just didn't stop well into like his 60s. And his last go up, like his last hurrah was the first Gulf War. And he fucking nailed that shit to the, I mean, he, it's the, it's the perfect O-pland. nailed that shit to the I mean he it's the it's the perfect oakland. It's hilarious to look at it was a general betrayess wrote that book how to win a counter-resurgency in 2003. Fucking bitch.

It's a copy. Fucking bitch. It's a copy. It's a Marine Corps man. Yeah so it was how to win a how to win a. I'm not gonna. No I read it and I was just like, you guys read this and it's recommended reading at the Marine Corps

like the Naval Academy for officers from Marines. And I was like, we didn't win. That was like, what? Well, in the book, the Savage Wars of Peace, it talks about that book. And the guys like, this is literally the Marine Corps manual pre-1940 for taking on grillas. And like Petraeus, I mean, he's a smart guy,

don't get me wrong, but like if you probably asked him after a couple of beers, like, did you really copy the Marine Corps handbook and then say who's yours? Because what he did is he like isolated the city, put up walls, put up guards, tracked and killed, the real it, like what fucking Marines used to do? And everyone's like, he's a fucking genius.

Like, no, he's a god. I was actually getting when you don't read your own doctor. Yeah, right. He's like, I mean, it just keeps going back to like Americans don't read anything. Like the Brits, I mean, there's an episode plan for like, we can do like golf or a no three, and then we can do like Malaysia with the Brits

and their kind of uncertainty and us and Vietnam completely different With the Brits went with like the traditional way like take all the food burn up like poison all the water Give me a communist. I'll give you a bag of rice Give me two I'll give you a bag of rice and some beans give me three and I'll make you a brew citizen What was over like five minutes like five minutes. They're like, don't sense soldiers, don't fire bomb villages because that just makes more insurgents like and then they came over to like the Australians, SAS, they went back and forth and then we learned stuff and then go over to Vietnam.

The Americans are like, you guys are cool. Going to patrol with burn village. They're like, is that how you would? Here's a Jared can. Anyways, I don't want to go too much from the weeds on there. But yeah, for listeners, Golf 4, 1991 versus a Rackinvation 2003, and it is night and day in terms of like strategic competence.

Yeah. It's just like, it's a professional rugby player who's out there who's been in there for 5, 10 years. He's fucking mint. And he just got like a JV Just like just overconfident kid on coke right on the field just like I should get it I'm gonna get a D1 scholarship But yeah, we were talking about professional trophy baseball trophy Ferrari

College am I choosing baseball? It's how it works. Yeah, it's like blue mountain state. I fucking love that show Yeah, damn it, but uh, so I was gonna say wanted oh Go ahead. Go ahead. We talked about Schwartzkopf but Powell had like this Different reaction to Vietnam where he was like they tied our hands behind our back And we just need to go full-board like we, we either go all in or not at all. Like, we just need to end it. Like you said, it's like, we either step all the way

in 100% or we don't. And there's a book by Max Boot called The Savage Horse Peace. But they talk about that where they say, the pal doctorate is literally not how you fight a war. Like you said, the British have done it. The Marine Corps literally made its a name on crushing gorilla forces. And so Powell was kind of the right guy for Schwartz Koff to have over him because Powell is like, I have this new doctrine that like totally says you can do whatever

you want. Just beat the shit out of him. And Schwartz Koff's like, once more, one more fucking time, I will kick somebody's ass for this country. It's almost like grabbing Eisenhower and MacArthur and from approaches to things where it's, Eisenhower was definitely groomed to be a president. He was in first, that a general second, essentially, through was a fucking soldier. And then he's like, we gotta get this started with. And then he relapsed to late 1940s, early 1950s,

when Korea goes on, and MacArthur just jumps head first and do, he's like, we gotta nuke, and MacArthur just jumps head first, and we go to the newt the Chinese. And everyone's like, who are they? Who should? Who should? Who should? Who should? Who should?

So it's really weird, because I need to find it. But when I was a cadet, there was a guy who said that there was a World War I general who had written down all the names of the generals in both the Army and the Marine Corps of who was going to be the leaders if the next World War kicked off. General Pershing. Was it Pershing? Okay. Yeah, and it was like he had a... Where she plays it.

4-1-2 command. Yeah, fuck me. Calvary officer. But yeah, MacArthur was in there, fucking Eisenhower was in there and all that shit patent We're if Trumon was in there because he was like a junior officer at the point of World War One. He was a artillery I don't think they saw him be the vice president never know But I was but say it's it's one of those things like destiny and like dudes who are higher up probably knew Somewhere along the line like 1970 1980s like Schwarzcoff's probably gonna be the dude because he's like six foot something, two silver

stars, like get fucked. Like, it was a traditional officer. You got like the Mustangs, you're usually like five, seven, five eight, maybe five nine, you got a lot of pissing right inside him up, but they, uh, you're great soldiers, great Marines, but when it comes to like leading, they're just like the boys come first. You're like cool, that's not really playing the game, is it? So, but I want to talk about more like the cultural differences

between America and like the late 1980s, early 1990s, and like post 9-11, because it's fucking night and day, where, oh yeah. So, so, plus or minus in 1980s, where all John Rambo, fuck the Russians, just America is bad ass, right? It was just in your face, tough action hero, you know, Arnold Schwarzenegger, just, the movie commando, it's just everything America was

in the late 1980s. And everyone's hopped up, I mean, like, you could say what you want about like Reagan, you know, you could agree or disagree, but what came really cool about that era was the TV because he was like put violence in TV so we can make soldiers for the next war. What?

He's got like the transformers with a war about genocide. He got GI Joe. He got all these cool things like that. He got all these really cool movies. He had the movie Aliens. He got Predator. All these cool sci-fi action films. And it's really like shaping public consciousness.

It's like that a presidential fitness session in the 1960s. Yeah. The thing of the past, kind of a thing in the past, but it was still kind of like at the forefront, like you had to take the pace, or you had to do these kind of things. And so when it comes to like a Rackward 91, the whole country was ready.

Like everyone collected newspapers, or like let's go get them, even though they were fighting. They just wanted to go fight someone because you have like all these guys and you shake up this box and they're like, let's go get them, they didn't even know who they were fighting. They just wanted to go fight someone, because you have like all these guys, and you shake up this box, and they're like, they're coming after our oil. You're like, gas is a buck, get that out of here. Right.

I'm gonna fuck it is, like. Yeah. So the whole public perception around Gulf War leading up to it was just like, we gotta, we gotta take the world by the horns, greatest generation part two kind of thing. Like the Gen Xers were really just in your face, ready to take on the world.

And then even if you're looking to pop culture like Bart Simpson stepping on sit-hands head saying like I wasn't I went to the rack man and it sucked like something like that. So even pop culture was on the side of the Americans. Post 9 11 1990s. It's that low period is that show friends. You want to know what America was like in the 90s? Watch friends. No stress, no problems, no wars, nothing happened in the 90s. And so there's like a passivity that kind of goes into it where people just kind of got comfortable, you know? 9-11 is like a reality check. Everyone's like, let's go get them. But the media entertainment, no one was backing like the Americans. Even like our allies were gun hoe 1991. French were even a part of it not 2003 French were like

I don't want to be a part of this what they were like no, it's article five you have to do your job This is an obligation based on NATO and so immediately afterwards like You guys shows like you know what was big-con public Congress the Simpson still like family guy stuff like that Where it's just like is ah, it's going to worth smart idea. There's really no point about it, but then you have like the, so it's like a split between the two. 91 everyone's on the save page. 2003 or 912 everyone's like, let's go get them. But by 2003 that's two years later. You're like, cool. Should we actually be doing this? Who cares? I mean, it was a couple buildings. It wasn't actually as bad as we think it was. And so it wasn't like all in. And so the public was already kind of like splitting. So if the Gulf War 90, what was about oil?

So it was 2003. Two completely different ways of looking at it. It's... You know what really sucks about that is like that, and I keep saying it, because it's the friend's thing, but the sitcom friends in the 90s, I think it ruined a lot of things,

but if I'm gonna add something that is weird about it, it's because I've never, my wife loves friends, I'm not, I'm just like one or two. I just love the TV show I don't know Just The fault around that show is they always say like do you watch friends like it's still in the air? Yeah, Jesus that dude. It's but no it is it's it's kind of the party after the big win 91 and then there's just so much hope in it is What is I will say that like it's it makes men look stupid

It does all these things, but I will say the one good thing if you look at it and from like 2023 looking at back at 30 years ago It's weird to me because it's like they're so happy and they're so like that life's fine They're living in New York city. There's no existential crisis There's no chemicals in the water. There's no plastic. Yeah, there's no war. There's no existential crisis. There's no chemicals in the water. There's no plastic. Yeah, there's no war. There's no nothing. It's we won 91. But yeah, you're right.

It's that 1980s build up. And I remember, I don't know, you probably haven't listened. And I got to get my dad back on here, because we only hit like wavetops of his career and it took two and a half hours. But like, I remember him talking about the 1980s. And he was like like it was just it was go time. It it it was the perfect amount of because you had the Vietnam veterans where

you were your field grades, your Sergeant majors, your lieutenant colonels because they'd only done like 17 17 to 20 years at that time. So most guys are on a few left. Yeah, so they had not gone. And so, but you also had to remember that like in Vietnam Leading up to the 80s the Reagan build up They didn't have this technology to bridge the gap of being a shitty soldier or marine like we do today So like my dad would talk about that on the podcast. He was talking about how big their their training manuals were He was like it was just this fucking brick you had to learn and you know you had the 113 which had nothing on it it's just a fucking tin can it doesn't have optics it doesn't have a toe missile it has 2 240 or not even 240s 2 m 60s on it and a fit to cow like that's it

and it it's just this but that like you're saying, not just the culture, but the equipment too. You have like the Bradley coming in, you have new NVGs for tanks coming in. Like the Abrams versus the M60 Patton is just, I mean, the Marines still use the M60 Patton, which I don't know if you saw that, but it is we, it's wild what they did to Marines in 91. But it's like, you have the point. It's his heinous. Yeah, you have the point. I mean, my dad was a Marine.

He was a part of that whole thing. So it was, but it's the perfect amount of skill and like training that from the Vietnam era, but we just now introduced like technology. So it was, we have great technology and we have great training and skill and they were finally put in together as one and we weren't over reliant on the technology.

We were just good soldiers and Marines who had great technology at our disposal. So that's what I see when I look at like that build up to 1980s, it's like that cultural difference of like, we had both and then 91 kicked off. Like you even have someone like George Bush senior coming out and he's like this is not going to be another Vietnam. He's just like standing in the camera, I'm a woodworking shit out of you. But then it's you know, night and day two is kid 10, 10, 12 years later.

Yeah. But then it's you know night and day two is kid 10 10 12 years later. Yeah, it was just like we got him now Watch this drive. You just like the political leadership between the two is just like just night and day in Same it's night and day. It's there's that I get I don't even know if we're recording at this point But that uh and turns to like geopolitics or should be an enemy. It's like hey, we're fighting that's like I don't know what we're on the side of but it's not that. So it's one of those things where the partition was a French, the Romans, it was a Greek and barbarians, all these things. In the 1960s and 1980s, it was the Russians. So the whole world was not that. But then the 1990s were like, we got them. Not what? We won the game. But everyone just forgot a player to get entered.

It was like, who is that? The Russians, the Chinese, or the Russians, the we won the game, but everyone just forgot like a player to you can enter. Yeah. So it was like who is that? Russians, the Chinese, or yet the Russians, the Chinese, the Indians, the Iranians, like who's, like who's the next big fight? You always need one. And so when it comes, you always need one. And so it's like that 1990s, we didn't have one. Like who the fuck knows where Somalia is. We went over there, left.

Oh, indeed. Oh, God. Talked about Somalia. That's why I was telling my wife when I was like research it for this because you said you wanted to do this. Left. No, indeed. God, talked about Somalia. That's why I was telling my wife when I was like research it for this because you said you wanted to do this. I was like, and we talked about this a little bit, but we weren't recording. It's weird to fucking look at it because you were the one that said, we should do 91

in the Gulf War, but I've never looked at it that way because you always think like, oh, there was 91, Kosovo, and then there's fucking Somalia at 9-11, and then 0-3. But if you take that out, and you just go 91-03, and you look at those two side by side, you're like, what the fuck were we doing in 0-3? What the fuck was that? Yeah, it's... So, Reagan era, just like... What do you want?

600 ships on each side of the country It was the arms race that essentially just obliterated the Russian economy They were like they just couldn't keep up with building thanks guns cars trucks armobiles What do you do with all these toys? You're like? Oh, what if they work? Just invade a country obliterate. Oh, they're like cool all that work We just did for 10 years and all those taxes and insane people will be let on the street It was worth it, see? Like we fucking, we did it. And then, so it's like, got all these cool things and then you're like, cool, short

cost steps down and then like, cool and pal steps in with his pal doctor, which is essentially shock and awe, balls in. And as soon as you punch us in the face hard, like in the face hard enough, we'll leave. It's like Somali 93. So if you want to look at the Clinton era in the 90s, as soon as the Soviets were over, Clinton like cut the military in half. So of course the military is gonna be like scrounging.

A lot of the good guys probably wanted to leave because they're like, I have all these skills, I just want to war. I'm gonna go get a job at like BA or something like that. And so you gotta like, like the remnants, like a peacetime Marine Corps is the most awful place to be in here. God, it's so like, so you just got a bunch of like, you know, metalheads, they're like, Like the remnants like a peacetime Marine Corps is the most awful place to be like

So you just got a bunch of like you know Metalheads they're like yeah, I was in a lot and all the younger guys are like shudder And so this like even like the soul dreams degraded in quality But also the approach to geopolitical terms because like 91 we did it Hundred hours of hell man. We killed more of our own guys than the Iraqis killed us by friendly fire. And then looking at say was was Kosovo first? Was the Yugoslavian implosion? Was that first?

I want to say that was like 1990, 1995. And then what was Somalia like 90? 93 October. It was like October 13th, 1993. But we'll just it? Somalia like 90. 93. October, it was like October 13th, 1993. But we'll just start with Somalia. So Somalia, we show up, special operations, Marines invade. Yeah, so Marines invade, go balls in, they take over everything, just did their job.

Secured it, they're like, cool. We got to go get this guy. And it's like the ROE was just like, well, instead of going all the way in, let's just get this one guy. And the locals are like, why? Even the approach to the whole thing. Like you could talk about the humanitarian risk and everything like that. But even the whole role of going in, the political terms were not there. The strategic terms were not there. You just kind of show up. They hit us. We left and Clinton's like, oopsie. You're

like, what? Left the subaggit. But it's spaghetti. I mean they drug it's it's one thing to go from a military Pre-a victory parade in New York City I'm like what December 1991 with all the Marines and all the soldiers and sailors and airmen just walking They're like we did it. It's another to watch two of our guys get drugged through the streets of Mogadish You're like whoa, what happened what happened in two years and then if you go to like Kosovo the Yugoslavian state was imploding. And I think they looked, I would have to find the clip, or it might be like a sound bite,

but the president of Yugoslavia at that time looked into the camera and he was like, hey, remember those bunkers we used to kill Nazis? We'll use it to kill you too. Yeah. They were like, come at us America. So Clinton's like, oh, man. It's a very bad thing to say that.

I don't really want to do that either. Yeah. like it come at us America so Clinton's like oh no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no But just if so if you look at those two like huge victory two small defeats or just the what the fucks and then we have a rack of three So it's like two poor qualities. You get some of the old Vietnam era guys You like we're holdovers until a rack 91. They probably got out and left. You have this pacifist essentially military floating around Getting a nice related conflict was not real strategic goal or tactical like Reality, it was just kind of show up. And then yeah, O3 rolls around. So you got these guys who were doing not much or just heard about how bad things can happen.

Like a pessimism is seeking into the military rank. So I'm sure a lot of junior officers were afraid of O3 because they're like, they have the chemicals. Like, ah, you watch that show, Generation Kill. They just got like, those Marines got chemicals, like, ah, you know, you watch that show, Generation Kill, like, they just got like, those Marines got like, you know, nothing essentially sent in with like mixed mass uniforms and everything. And then the actual invasion starts,

and even the Allies don't want to participate. They're like, why are we doing this? And so it's like, there's already like this fragmentation between the coalition. And then within that, like, Marines were like, well, we do this, we don't like the army blah, blah, blah, like that traditionalism kind of like set in. But it's even like the culture inside the military

was different. Where, 1980s, everyone was raised to be a soldier. 1990s, everyone's just like, why would I be a soldier? The world's fine. Like, why would I go to the army? Yeah. It, the cultural thing hits different.

I mean, so like, for those who have never studied the Gulf War, it really is kind of the last hurrah, I'd say, the first Gulf War because you have this. So what it looks like on paper is like, from right to left, and I'm gonna fuck this up maybe, but it was like, it was a weird o-plan, but it worked. It was an Arab Coalition core on the right, the Marines, first and second division in the center, or of the Kuwait, and then on the left of them, was another Arab Coalition, and then it was the French and the British,

and all those guys in the middle. And then you had the 101st with all their two aviation brigades and then armor. And then on the far left, you had another American armor brigade, another armor division with the 82nd who are all in Humphies because they couldn't jump. And so the idea was the Marines and the Arab... Swimming door. Yeah, the sweeping door. So like the fast moving airborne forces are going to be on the extreme left and they're going to sweep through Iraq. Well, the Marines and the Arab

coalition push into Kuwait. And if you there's a great fucking YouTube channel called the operations room, it talks about day one through five of the first Gulf War, and I swear to God, it's probably the last time, like, because there's a point where a company of T-55 Iraqi tanks attack a Marine headquarters company, and the Marine headquarters company holds off that fucking tank, those those tanks until LAVs and Bradleys can show up and it's like this point where like we've talked about it we're like if somebody attacked a pub unit in the Marine Corps or the

American Army now they did that that HQ unit would have been fucking crushed like fucking mo down but a Marine Corps HQ held off a company of fucking 55s it's why I mean if you want to talk about like in the bigger picture, first and second mess of first Marine division, second Marine division took on 20 Iraqi divisions and crushed them. Yes, just annihilated a bug dumb. 20. What is that like a hundred thousand soldiers? Jesus Christ. Yeah, 17,000 dips. Yeah, it's like a hundred

thousand Iraqis in annihilated them. They just like cry. I want to say it was an hour within hours too. Just like Yeah, 17,000 dips. Yeah, it's like a hundred thousand arachnids in a nylon. They just like cry. I want to say it was an hour within hours, too. Just like, yeah, it was, it was, it was, it's beautiful. I mean, I mean, like, I'm not to take away the glory of the Marine Corps out of that one, but it's just wild because it's like, you have like Tomahawk cruise missiles from the Gulf, the Arabian Gulf coming in.

You have B 52, uh, fucking carpet bombers coming from Missouri. Like all Arabian Gulf coming in. You have B-52, fucking carpet bombers coming from Missouri. Like all these things are coming into conjunction with MLS and artillery. So that by the time the Marines get there, the fucking Iraqis are like, what the fuck is going on? And then there's a Marine and their trench beating the shed out of them. And that's not what O3 was.

O3 was this, we blew by cities. We didn't give a fuck about Fallujah. We kind of dipped our toe in and said, nope,'s enough and then went straight to Baghdad and it yeah, yeah Yeah, the O plan is just what rose for O3. It's so greasy It doesn't make any sense. Well, I mean like even the coalition for O3 It was like who us the British all Australians Like a Canadian detachment Well, that manage about it.

Like the initial invasion. So it's like you took the Australian SAS, they secure some airfields. We dropped like like what, 75th Rangers and a Burbeel, something like that. Stint in the boys from Iraq, not Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait again, sent them in. Mugas come on off the water. And it was like cool. But you're like, like just looking at like how the allies participated with their park like their part where if you want to look like the British That post Suez crisis nonsense where the birth were kind of ashamed to like do in a military action. They went to

the Falcons in 82 Destroyed the Argentine military to the point where they had a change of government like just destroy the Argentines and Then they had the same cabinet that did that note 82, in 90 what? But the cabinet from, oh three, it was completely different, because I think they went through like two changes of government at that point. Tony Blair was more of like a,

like a, take it at, at, on a whim kind of approach, when it came to like foreign policy, where it was like domestic issues, like you could say, like you did good thing, but foreign policy was more like, yeah, see how this goes. Which I guess you could say like that kind of goes hand in hand with like, bush,

it was like, we're all in and then the birds are like, uh, what if we don't? Yeah. Well, it's, it's wild because. Is it like a glass of water? Yeah, it's a glass of water. It's wild because like you, the, the O plan in 91, like soft was out there doing these things,

like dropping beacons from the 101st to follow in on their helicopters to guide them to the targets and the Apache's and shit. SAS were behind enemy lines, hunting down scud launchers and shit. They did real soft shit. But in O-3, the SAS tried to capture a water plant that they thought was a chemical plant.

And they failed because the Iraqi Republican Guard was guarding this quote unquote water plant and so they just said fuck it we're gonna air strike it and they blew up the entire water plant and lost all the evidence if there was a chemical fucking factory in there but it it once again it just goes back to it like if, and I was telling my wife this too, and I was reading about this, I was like, if you take it and you line it up, 91 Gulf War, O3, and then you come back into 2014 when I said,

like revenge of the Sith or whatever, return of I said it. The third Gulf War. Yeah, the third Gulf War. It just keeps getting worse. Like it just, like ISIS was purely soft. Like that was it like we were like, we don't have the capacity of a normal military,

Marine Corps or army to support conventional operations in Iraq and it was like, what like, what are we talking about here? Like even the episode with my dad talking about it, he was like, what the fuck are we talking about here? Like you're gonna send 12 men, Marsock and ODA and SEAL teams in to deal with ISIS. When we have fucking Bradleys and Abrams right here

and co-weight entire divisions. And we're just, yeah, nah, it doesn't, nah, just soft. Okay. I'm trying to say something like political risk is too high because politicians are kind of, their whole stance now is just like stability above all else, but you're like, cool, in America, but like, what about that idea? Like, well, you can even say something like, like that term imperialism has thrown around a lot.

And there's like, what does America double down say like we're an empire, just get over it, or do they just kind of like mitigate that, we should just do it. Like we should have made a rack the 51st state and said like, all right, here we are, but not just the mismanagement of just like even local tribe to what not where I think it's just a political risk that comes into it because no politician wants to back war and have it fail. They have a complete, you know, career get destroyed and that makes more political because you have a lot of officers, get out. And they wanna be like military advisors or something like that, but they're like,

whoo, so then they're thinking the big picture, they don't need to be a good soldier, a good officer. They wanna be a politician in like 10, 15 years. So they're just like, as long as I do my job, I don't fuck up. I got good, if I do the bare minimum. Like, gray man. Well, like, we were talking about this

when I was there at group, we were like, because there was like this female naval intelligence officer, this redhead who died, who was supporting a SEAL team. I don't remember her name, but like, it was a big deal. And because she was like part of NSW or something. And we had all these other things going on. Green Berets just dying left and right. And it's like you said, like politicians, they sit there and think to themselves, they're like, well, I don't want like, you know, just dying left and right. And it's, it's like you said, like politicians, they sit there and think to themselves, they're like,

well, I don't want like, you know, little Timmy from Arkansas to be on the five o'clock news with his hero photo of like, he died. Like, but the thing is, it's like, all these green berets and like, Marisak and seal team support person. All these people fucking died. And it's like, if it was to be a star at the Hall of

Usesok or something like that, there like, yeah, there is. Yeah. And it's, but it's crazy because it's like it looks to be a star at the Hall of Uses, or something like that. Or like, yeah, there is. Yeah, and it's, but it's crazy because it's like, well, you know, if we had just brought like, you know, an entire armor division and a Marine division in here, we'd have fucking crushed their nuts and less people would have died. And like, what are we talking about here? And it's, I think a lot of it has to do with one exact, the number one leading causes, like you said, the soft can do it, and we may have less footprint in there and it'll be worth less and the Iraqis will get the victory. But number two, it's like, I bet there was a serious discussion amongst themselves, like can we actually have conventional forces

do this? Like they can do the artillery, like they'll do the artillery. Okay, cool. Can they, can they clear the cities? Probably not. Can they hold them? And yeah. So it's like I honestly think if you line up 91, 03 and then ISIS, you just start to see if it were beef, it'd be like 90% lean and 91. And then you just have 03. It's like 80%. And then by the time you get to 2014, it's like 50-50 fat and lean meat and you're just like yeah and now we're here where like some would argue that the military has become more fat than in lean fighting force and I mean that's definitely yeah so it's like it like I said it was really weird for you to

sit there and tell me like we're gonna do 91 and 03 and I was like, with the minute you go and you look at Iraq back to back to back, it's like, it just keeps getting worse. Like, looking, we keep doing worse. Okay, so here's something, like, I like to look at things from like a psychological view. So we go to Iraq, it's the waiting days of the Soviet Union, like there. It's almost like, so let's go back even for Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Nagasaki was for the Japanese and Hiroshima was for the Japanese and Nagasaki was for the Russian.

So like look who we can do. Like fucking crosses. It was essentially just a message to the world. Like what America can do if you cross us? No one really attacked America for a long time. Going to Vietnam got bogged down. It was like a black eye in our society. And then the Soviets went to Afghanistan,

black eye in theirs. And then we have this beautifully orchestrated O-Plan, 1991, come back. And then we have a parade, essentially, just face fuck the world. Look what we can do. It was just like a process idea, you. And then no one attacked us, 9-11.

They're like, oh, wow, the world can attack America. They're like, not as strong as they perceive themselves to be. But then it's like, well, you have to double, it's one of those, you're like, well, Bush had to do something. He just couldn't sit around because the Americans would be like, what the fuck is the point of being an American if we don't actually stand up for it?

But then you know, we listen to yes men and bottomless checks into the military industrial complex or something like that. Like, let's go get them. They're like, cool. Afghanistan is a completely different topic, but it's just a rack. There's like, let's just throw something at it and go just, if you wanna talk about like soft versus,

like there's a big difference between blacksoft and whitesoft. There's even a bigger difference between like whitesoft and conventional forces. Conventional forces take time to muster and send somewhere. We're like, you know, white and blacks off, they can kind of pick up and move here and there, but they're smaller man teams, and the time the money,

like is the juice worth the squeeze to round up the entire 26-mew and throw them in. Yeah. Like, urbeal and sustain it for six months, you're like, probably not. It's like if you don't have like a clear end goal, like what's the point. I want to say the end goal in 1991 was not to protect oil,

but it was definitely just to show the world what could happen in the process. Well, I mean, that was it. It was just like looking what the Soviets couldn't do. Yeah. And then their countries imploding, and then we walk over there like, Hey, Russia, do you want to be France? Hey, Boris, come over here with Bill Clinton to get drunk on the National Law and order McDonald's. Oh, it's the lay. It's, well like, it's, it's a, there's a,

it's kind of one of those things that like, fuck me running, every time you kind of delve into history, I hate to say it, but it's the norm McDonald. Isn't it great that the good guys always want? Like, it, but it's not that case with Saddam and I'm not trying to defend. It's just dude, if you watch the house of Saddam Or you read watch the documentary like it says the Kuwaitis were slant drilling under the the Iraqi border into Iraq's oil fields to steal the oil

Lowering the price because they just got done with the Iraq war and they were fucking over Iraq hard and he and it's in the documentary House of Saddam, where Saddam goes to the United States Embassy and he's like, look, this is what's happening. Like they're intentionally unfucking me in the ass. Can I attack Kuwait? And like the Secretary, or like the ambassador, sorry, the ambassador literally told him we would like to see peace in the Middle East. And he's like, so what are you, what are you saying right now?

And she's like, we want peace in the Middle East. And he's like, I'm going to attack Kuwait because they're stealing my oil. And she's just like, we want peace in the Middle East. And he's like, what are you saying? Like, that actually happened. Like, he was legit confused as to what the fuck the United States was even telling him that he could or, like, he asked.

He asked them because he, I mean, for those who don't know, Saddam was a hero after the Iran Iraq war. He got the key to the city of Detroit. Like, he legit asked the US for permission. Like, and that was a 80 to 80, 88. Yeah. So it was just like three years later that we were like actually, Saddam. I'm sorry.

But we supported both sides in the Randall Rack war. Like, Iranians got all our cool toys from the, uh, the shot. Yeah. And then we gave all the cool toys to the Iraqis. You could say something like a war profiteer would say, I don't care who wins. I just need them both to lose. Yeah, I just need many. So you can also say like, you're like to lose yeah I just need money or you're like

well we think they have chemical weapons you're like I think we gave it to them yeah we were the ones who gave it to them yeah that oh my god bro that that's still to this day pisses me off when people talk about that they're like I like I like didn't have fucking chemical weapons and ask the courage you got gas dipshit like who gave that shit to them like it was us we gave. It was definitely us. We talked about American shortsight in this Fuck man, like this guy called those Sama and the Hindu Kush. He seems pretty nice He's a Mujahideen fighter What's happy? I love the D.H.H.H. to get to Soviet semifix.

Twitter, I don't know if one of them is does. Oh, God. Anyways, oh, I mean, isn't that weird that like we're talking 91 and for those who don't know of some of them Laden tried to convince Saudi Arabia to let him be the coalition. He was like let my Mujahideen fighters defend the Holy Land and they were like, no, I don't want your smelly afkans to come here and fight the Iraqi army that's just that's gross like and it's it's scarred of some up in London he swore vengeance on Powell and Schwartzkopf in the United States government but yeah I was looking under I'm looking at him as like a Salahadine kind of figure. And he was just like, I just, he's like,

I want what's best for my people. My people are also this religion. It's a spell. I hate that I want to ask this, but could you imagine if the Mujahidin had actually been the ones to defend Saudi Arabia and go after, like just have like literally the Mujahidin or just the Taliban, but have the Mujahideen

riding across the Saudi desert into Kuwait on the back of a Mujahideen island like this. It would be, it would make for some good TV. Fuck it. It'd be a great video game, guys. Not fucking, not kidding you. It'd be great. Yeah.

Yeah, it'd be pretty sick. Yeah. Not even into the meat potatoes of like, oh three, where it was just like, who was it? So, okay, strategically going in, right? We take Baghdad sick, and then third and see starts. And so they're like, how do we do this? How last time we did this, oh for the listeners here. So, there's a difference between like Sunni and Shia Islam. Shia is the Iranian back one. Sunni is Saudi Arabia's or the Iraqi's where there was like a pseudo-cold war in the Middle East between Sunni and Shia Muslims, but it's pretty much between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Because they both have oil, that's their whole thing. And Iraq was some kind of a middle. Iraq can be replaced today with Turkey if you want to. But good. but it's pretty much between like Saudi Arabia and Iran because they both have oil. That's our whole thing. And Iraq was some kind of in the middle. Iraq can be replaced today with Turkey if you want to, but so Saudi or Iran, Iraq is kind of stuck in the middle. So the Americans show up to like this is the second time we've done this, the Sunnis seem to be the problem was put she had charged.

And then the she had turned around and immediately started massacring Sunnis and like Saad or city in places like this. So what do they started massacring Sunis and like Sodr City and places like this. So what do they do? They just go off and like, hey, there's this guy called the Sama who's talking about preserving like the Suni way of life. And so Asama goes in, Al-Qaeda starts up, they're hiding in the Hindu Kush, but then the guy called up, what was his name? Oh, the guy who found it ISIS.

Back when it was just the Al-Qaeda in Iraq. Oh, yeah, no, the little fat Chevy guy. How's Wakari? How's the car? Yeah, that's him. Yeah, so we had all the tattoos and the Georgian prison. Yeah, Georgian prison, you kind of mall off, you got radicalized, whatnot. One of the Joined Mujahideem, but they're like, you're a bit too much.

In Iraq, they're like, just go kill Americans. So that's IEDs, these whole things. But yeah, so the Americans were like, oh, the like last time we dealt with this it didn't really go well So they just went full shock and awe and then you have like the difference between like the American army approach the American marine approach where general Mattis walks up into a village She was like give me all your terrorists and they're like no, he's like you see that hill It's not gonna be there tomorrow give me the insurgents and they were like no. And so he turned his round, hill's gone. He was like go get him boys.

And so it's him and the like Fallujah and whatnot just and Fallujah is about the same size as Mary Hope, by the way. Yeah, and it was just a fucking mess and that was the second time we went there. This is not even talking about like Urbule and all these other areas, Sotter City, Bagdad of course, but... So yeah, it's... So I rack the thing that pissed them off was you had the Bath Party who was mainly SUNY ran beating up the she-as. Let me double check that. Am I right here? Oh, like... The Bath Party were definitely SUNY's. Yeah, okay, so because this is where it gets weird, because when we came in and know three, we're like, we're gonna make a parliament of that matches the demographic.

So we had Kurds, we had Sunis, and we had Shia, and that pissed, oh, the Sunis love, like, who? And so, the long story short, like when you said, let's talk about our bill, so I actually met one of the third group team sergeants who is in charge. You became a war officer. Um, he said in his own words, so there we were, no shit. I was with the Kurds. We were running down from our beel down a Baghdad and we were burning every mosque, every church, everything we could find. And those Kurds were going, apeshit. And he goes goes and I looked left and I looked right and I went, this is going to

have some repercussions. Right, fucking. Because he knew he was like- Well, this even the- Because they've been subjected to fucking air raids and bombing and gasing all through the 90s and then like, third group got their hands. Well, they got blamed. It was almost like the Armenian situation with the Turks and the First World War.

There were like you guys with the reason we lost against the Americans and so there was the I mean America even opened their doors to like Iraqi refugees fligs at all predominantly the Caldeon Iraqis who settled down Like deer born Michigan like they're also there, but that's weird, but they're like I don't know why they pick there. It doesn't make any sense, but anyways So they all all the called deans left a rack went over, but not really the curds, they were kind of like stuck, they're like, you guys are kind of like a stateless people, we don't really know what to do with you. And just thinking like big picture, like room temp American foreign policy is just like,

here's a gun. Fire ramps, can I interest you in ammo and guns? Yeah, but then you could see the second hand effects of putting like the she in power, Firearms, can I interest you in ammo and guns? Yeah, but then you could see the second hand effects of putting the she in power because, like, well, if you don't split it 50-50, they should have just looked at the way that Libby instated. Where it was just like, you have hundreds

of different ethnicities and cultural groups and everything like that working under the same banner and did I think really didn't have a problem with that. He would have like minor little scuffs and waltall, but he was pretty good at keeping Libby under control. And then that might have been a better model. It's not like a clean model. It's definitely not nice, but it's definitely a good way to, or would have been like a more

intelligent way of handling the situation. Because now you got everyone who hates each other, trying to talk to each other. It's just so. It's your turn. It's your turn. It's your turn. It's your kid. It's your kid. Then, yeah, send curds and sunnies and she is. And baths all in these different corners.

And then you got guys like the al-Qaeda off-shoot, Iraq, and then they become, you know, the Islamic state. So the Islamic state and Iraq is the Islamic state and Iraq and Syria. And then they just keep building and building. So they, it's the direct line, essentially with the the Iraqis, because they had the same flag waving. There's a bunch of videos, or a footage of like, American soldiers waving like this weird black flag. They're like, what is this?

Like, what about these guys? What is it with ISIS? What would become ISIS? Harding out in the desert. So they just waited. Yeah, that's what we talked about that in my dad's episode. He was like, I knew, he's like, we are beating the shit out of the Sunni.

And he's like, because like, I mean, at what point do you sit there as like that same green beret? His name's Billingsley. He's like, when the Kurds basically rip through northern Iraq and beat the shit out of all the Sunni, and then my dad said it on his episode, he's like, we were beating the shit out of the Sunni. And then I was there when they freed Abu Gharrab in 2015

at fifth group, I was learning Arabic, I'm not a standard Arabic. And the guy who was teaching me was Iraqi. He was a marine translator. Like he's been with the Marine Corps for like six years and then they let him come to fifth group. And he literally just like stands up in the middle of class and he like turns the TV on. He goes, whoever freed that prison

is going to be the next dictator of Iraq. And it was ISIS. And he was like, that's how we work. That's how we do things. I'm so happy to be here. I'm so happy to be here. I'm so happy to be here. I'm so happy to be here. I'm so happy to be here. I'm so happy to be here. I'm so happy to be here. I'm so happy to be here. I'm so happy to be here.

I'm so happy to be here. I'm so happy to be here. I'm so happy to be here. I'm so happy to be here. I'm so happy to be here. It's like, yeah, it's like, uh, you know, nobody wants to say some people need a boot on their back, but yeah, I mean, if you watch House of Saddam, it's weird because they talk about, I mean, it's a drama, but like Saddam talks about, he's like, we are, you know, we're Iraqis, bro, like, this is who we are as a people, we're a warrior race, we're the fucking, we're the, he called it like the fucking, we're, we're the, uh, he called it like the, the basket of civilization, like the, because I mean, the life begins on the tiger's and your Fridays, yeah, yeah, life

began here. And so, but it's, it's weird and it's, it's not something that you can look at through exactly like you're saying, you can't look at through this, through an American lens, you got a fucking go get a new pair of glasses and look at this from the second world and go, yeah, that's the minute we, I mean, we sat there and we took out the entire bath party who had been running Iraq and then said, we're gonna put something new in and all these bath guys can't do shit. And some of them were just like, they were bath party because it was the only party you could fucking be. And so it just, I mean, going back to like you said,

like the O3 invasion plan, it just, like most don't know because I've said it a couple times, but like Thunder Run, look at, actually look up what the Thunder Run was. It was a general trying to push in the Baghdad with armor ahead of infantry, no support, nothing, sleeping in Saddam's palace, like we're gonna take it, just keep pushing.

Versus like Schwartzkopf, who like you said, he was crying the night before, because he's like, if this actually, if the Iraqis actually fight us, we're fucked. Like, we're gonna lose a lot of dudes. And like, the generals were completely different in three, it's just, it's sad as shit. Well, we also didn't, in 1991,

we also didn't rip up the cultural landmarks of everything. Oh, yeah. We just didn't rip everything to pieces and they're like, now build it. Yeah. Fuck, yeah. I mean, build a new civilization out of the one we just destroyed. It. Yeah.

It's like, looking at demographics in the Middle East, the way it structured, the way like Iraq was never a state, it was the line drawn between the French and English, yeah, the French and the British, after the First World War when they got rid of the Ottoman Turks. And we're pretty good at keeping those guys in line, but they had like, they're a little jurisdictions and subgroups, almost like a Soviet Union type model,

where they had these little groups, where you got the Cheshires, you got the ethnic Russians, you got the Central Asians within Central Asia, we have Kazakhstan, we've got the Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and the other local jurisdiction. But then, that's like a, just, I mean, I don't think the British or French empires thought that they would ever lose it. This is bad, right? But yeah, just redrawing the lines. And so like, like, synonymous is like, we are Iraqis. Like, we just have to, like, own what this is.

This is, yeah. Like, make them make the most of it Like guys like you know Assad and Syria definitely did that the Iranians definitely did that the Saudis They've they've always kind of been like on the room, but they definitely held onto that Who's the other one? Oh? Saddam Hussein's brother the king of Jordan Support the Americans Why no king of doula Yeah, I want to say it was him I was supporting the Americans. What? No, King of Dula? Yeah.

Wanna say it with some? Yeah. So that was brother. What? I mean his son's Uday and Kusey, fucking. But... Oh, that's his son. Might actually be one to do it.

No, that's a son. Might actually be one on this one. No, you're probably wrong on that one. But I was about to say, he now named his son, King of Dool and named his son, who's saying. I was saying, Camille, I'm not sure. Yeah, but it was a Iraqi leader, the son of love, Saddam,dam Hussein, defected to Jordan, and was killed following your four betraying Saddam. Okay, never mind, never mind.

No, no, no, I was about to say, because like, but going back to your thing about like the sections and stuff, like, and I'm gonna call it what it is, because the Turks can eat a dick, Kurdistan, when you go to Urbihl, which is, this pisses me off to know when I see YouTube stars going like, I went to Iraq, haha, and it's like, that's

Urbiel, bro, shut the fuck up, like, go to Baghdad, go to Fallujah, like, they don't go south, they don't go to Baghdad, they go to Urbiel, well cuz it's violent, you know, am I dying? Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, the amount of people who, I think it was like well into the teens when I was in Afghanistan, they were like, Hey, we lost another tourist, another tourist thought I was safe to go to Afghanistan and they got fucking murder raped and killed. And you're just like, why? Why?

And but like you said, those, those sections are real is, it's completely westernized. If I put you in Turkey and then blindfolded you and then brought you to a real, I'd be like, do you think you're still in Turkey? Be like, fuck yeah, I am. Because it's, they have suburbs there. They have suburbs and like fucking suburban.

It's weird and water parks and shit. And it really is different. And like you said, those different areas in Saddam built them up accordingly. And yeah. Well, you've got to compliment your environment, you know. It's like, hey, was it Mozuul with the dam? They're like, hey, probably need a lot of people there to keep that work. Yeah.

Dude, it's so fucking stupid that we sit here and we have this conversation. Because the more we talk about it, the more I'm like, you know All of this could have been avoided with a good fucking sit down conversation if we had if only we had these people whose entire Job was to sit down and to talk to foreign dictators and foreign leaders and come up with a Like an ambassador. Yeah Like do you know how like we're talking about this? And I'm like, okay, we could have moved some pieces around and talked this out and like, no, no, we're gonna fight. And then, I mean, we've made it even worse. We pulled out of a rack

prematurely when all the military soldiers were like, don't do that. Pulled out 2009. I remember it was like 2009. I was watching the TV with my dad. He's like, he was like, this country's gonna implode. That's right. That was like everybody, everybody's dad, who would be by there, is just like, oh, watch this shit. And it was like the day we were leaving an IED,

just goes off in the bathroom. It's like, what the fuck? But yeah, so then there were like, we need American assistance, and it was like an advise and assist role because we killed all their officers and all the good soldiers became ISIS. The seven are all kind of. It was December. It ran off into the desert and just, yep, that was it.

And then I guess what we did in 2011, supported the Arab Spring who had further disabilized every single dictatorship from Morocco through... They being through, through yeah I ran all of them every single Arabic dictatorship had to go do you know how fucking wild that is actually now that I we sit there and say that that we pulled out and then the air nope with no soldiers we just we just told them they were like oh look what we just did you should be more like this

and then just do you know how fucking create, like, hold up. I feel like I'm smoking from a crack pipe now that you said. You wanna hit pause on this and make this like the part two in the middle of the fallout from these kind of things? Yeah. Okay, let's do that. Okay, so what do we got going on for Patreon and stuff like that for everybody?

So for those who don't know, Patreon, $10 a month gets you all the things listed below. You get access to the Discord where we have all the other Ocent pages in there. We're talking shit, we're playing War Game Red Dragon, we're playing Squalde, we're playing all types of games. We also have Book Club, August 19th is the date. We're doing the bear went over the mountain and the other side of the mountain put some zinke boys in there we're just gonna do the Russian more in Afghanistan. Yeah so we had to get where I think is a better

like because you could look at different angles. Zinke boys was more of like the home front, mixed with like the soldiers and the officers, the special operations and conventional forces, but then the other ones kind of focus more on the well that and the Mujahideen's angle of things and how they approached it and just like, exploiting cultures, it's like, hey, how do you win? Just give a bunch of Soviets blue jeans and a guitar and they'll, you know, love Metallica.

Yeah. And so we got, we got that, we got the project Zamboyd server where we play Zambi survival games, it's gonna get wiped, meaning, yeah, booboo. Uh, we're going to do a wipe there so new players can come in and it'll be a lot harder. We're going to put it on normal settings, not easy settings. Um, man, what else do we got going on over there?

We get a lot of stuff. Uh, we got the disc. Let's scurry over to the T-Shirt T-Shirt shop after this. Ooh, yeah, we gotta make t-shirts. Oh, if you guys have ideas for t-shirts, send us one and we will give you a free one. The best t-shirt design is. Because we have a little Frenchman in the f***ing discord who's made like nine t-shirts. Oh, f***, I love him. But yeah, he's great. Merch soon.

I love him, but yeah, he's great. Merch soon, video games, discord, hot takes. I got a one, I got a run. Try to do a movie night. We can do a movie night. We can watch, yeah. We can do like a monthly movie night kind of thing. Or you're like, hey, we do like a poll. And like, I don't know the fucking Instagram or something.

Like, hey, what movie do you want to watch? Send us like out of these three. Or like another. Ooh, and then we should do that. We should do aliens. I love that movie. Oh, dude. It's doing, Corporal Blaine Hicks. But anyways, yeah, so I think that's about it for me.

That's it for me, man. So now they're going to go to the Patreon and watch part two. So it's very fun. Alright guys, I hope you enjoy. Take it easy. Bye. part to you. So it's very fun. But all right guys, I hope you enjoy. Take it easy.