Navy SEAL on Whether We Should Be Withdrawing From Syria | Joe Rogn and Andy Stumpf

you know, Trump got a lot of criticism for saying they were going to pull troops out of Syria. Yeah. And when you see, you know, the debate about that or actions, possible actions against North Korea and all this kind of stuff, like how do you, do you view this? I mean, obviously you view this as a guy who has served and has been overseas, but do you look at things like these are potential issues that are coming up and things you need to be concerned with? The Syria and maybe well, the Syria one, there are guys from the community over there. They've been actively engaged. Iraq. It's funny. The news reported for a long time, we've withdrawn from Iraq. All US troops are out of Iraq. No, they weren't. We've always had a presence there since we invaded in 2003. So, and I can go tit for tat on a lot of issues where the news gets it wrong, which is why I don't necessarily look at it for me to inform my opinion. Syria, certainly any area where we allow a place for, and the only word I have for it is evil to grow, it's going to happen. The problem with the strategy that I see it is, is that actually, so we started in Afghanistan and again, this is my opinion, not the military opinion. I can only speak for myself. We went into Afghanistan, we were incredibly effective. So we cut the head off of that snake, but it spawned two more. You go into Iraq. You can argue whether or not we were effective, but then all of a sudden we started seeing foreign fighters coming in from all these different countries and the tactics that we started seeing used in Iraq, like my first deployment to Afghanistan in 2003, no, 2002, it was not uncommon to drive around in vehicles that were not ballistic. They were not resistant to mines. It would just, it Tacoma, a thin skin Tacoma, that bolt would zip right through. Fast forward to Afghanistan in 2008, and they're starting to see vehicles being detonated by bombs that we first saw in Iraq that were coming across the border into Syria, where they were, had the ability to allow, again, for lack of a better turn, that evil to grow, to learn, to come across the border, to engage American forces, then to flee into a sovereign nation we couldn't do anything about. Then we started seeing that in Afghanistan, but we got effective any time that these people would get together and have a large group, we'd get effective at either capturing them or killing them. So they realized they need to be disaggregate. So now we've spread this, I think the last stat that I saw is ISIS is in 64 countries. And the problem that I see with the US military is that we're very, very good at going in and cutting the head off of the snake, but we're not good at creating and holding infrastructure. And the timeline required to hold that infrastructure is well beyond the palette, I think, of most Americans. And the best example I can point to is South Korea. We still have bases with an American presence in South Korea. That war ended decades ago. We still have bases in Germany, we have bases in Italy. Now, we're not necessarily using them for the same purposes, but if we really want to control that area, we have to be prepared to stay there for that long. And I don't think the US military, one, has enough personnel to do that. And I don't think the American populace has the palette to allow that to happen. Do you think that that's necessary, that in order to protect people from, whether it's ISIS or whatever comes after ISIS? I mean, obviously ISIS is fairly recent, right? They went to Al-Qaeda, to ISIS, and they changed, yeah, to ISIL and all that. Whatever could be next. So you feel like we have to maintain presence in that part of the world, period. I think we should use the military as a measure of last resort. I think that war should be a measure of absolutely last resort, and I would love to see us evolve to a point where we use it less and less and less. I describe it as you're standing at a dam, and you can see a little spout coming out. Do you put your finger in the spout, knowing that it's not going to fix the problem, but it was going to buy you time to hopefully have somebody come and fix the dam, right? That's the option I would go for versus just leaving it as it is and allowing it to continue to weaken the dam, or another sprout would come out. My theory that the military is really well served to provide that space, to put that finger in that sprout. So yes, I think if we find an area where these ideologies are thriving, we have to do what is necessary to remove that ideology and hopefully destroy it. Not resettle it somewhere else, but actually destroy it. So yes, the short answer is absolutely, if we find areas where we can squash this down, we have to go. But I just hope that there's people smarter than me that have a much longer term strategy, because all we're doing, in my opinion, is the finger in the dam. And is there a longer term strategy? Like when you see all the global conflicts, I mean, is there a time that we can, I mean, it sounds insane to say that there's never going to be a time where there's no war. It sounds like an insane thing to say. I don't know if there's ever been a time, at least globally, not that the US was involved, but I don't know if there's ever been a time where there hasn't been a war. I don't think there has. I don't think there can be, because, and I think we talked about this the first day I met you, there's ex people and there's white people. They're not going to get along. It doesn't matter what your belief is. You have an axis somewhere that has another belief. And if you go to the extreme end of that belief, that individual may be willing to take action against you, violent action against you for your belief. And I don't think there's a way around that because humans are just too diverse. But is it possible that one day we'll move past this? I mean, is there any plans at all to try to facilitate some sort of a peaceful world civilization where all nations kind of get along in some sort of a mutually agreeable way? I mean, does anybody have some sort of hundred year plan? Isn't that hilarious that that's a funny thing to say? I mean, they didn't brief me on it, if it exists. Isn't that fucked though? I mean, human beings are always going to shoot and kill each other. We're always going to have war. Isn't that fucked? Since the inception of human beings, it seems like, at least at some level, and thankfully, it's microscopic in comparison to the overall total. Right. But it's happening. I think it's happened since man has been walking on earth. And the only way that we feel today that we can protect ourselves is to have the more dominant, more powerful military, and to make sure that we're the ones who get to dictate whether or not evil flourishes. Yeah, I mean, I would want maybe a, I want the dominant ability of our military to continue to grow, but I'd like to see, and I think it's already moving in this direction, smaller, more surgical uses of it. I just, the military, in my opinion, is not good at building infrastructure and holding terrain for a long period of time. It's just not what we're designed to do. Right. It's not the design of the military, for that matter. What is the overall view about getting out of Syria? It probably depends on the people that you ask. What about people that you talk to? Yeah. Both sides of the coin. I will get answers from, I think we're making a difference to, we're wasting our time. And I got that on the initial invasion of Iraq, the initial invasion of Afghanistan. There is, one of the things that I enjoyed about the community I came from is that critical thinking was, it's rewarded. It's not, there's no attempt, and people think about this, you know, you watch Full Metal Jacket, you know, choke yourself with my hand and you get told what to do and how to do it and how much time you have to do it. People think that critical thinking has no place in the military, but where I came from, that's what we're looking for, is people who are able to critically think. So there would be, we would have political arguments, religious arguments, philosophical arguments in the team room, and then come together and go do exactly what it is that our nation expected us to do. So you're going to get both, you get, there are people who are conservative and liberal, Republican and Democrat and everything in between. So I wish I could give you like a very precise answer, but I have heard every spectrum of answer, from this is awesome to this is stupid. You know what confuses me, I've heard different opinions on Assad, whether Assad is evil, whether he's gassed his citizens, or whether or not he's a victim of propaganda, some mass smear campaign, like, whoa, this is way past my pay grade. I've heard the same thing, and it's beyond mine as well too. It's frustrating, because you know, when you don't know whether or not this is some propaganda, or this is a real threat, or whether you know, he, or whether it's something like the Saddam Hussein situation, where yes, he was an evil dictator, but also removing him might create a power vacuum, like Libya. A power vacuum. Yeah. And Qaddafi with Libya. I mean, Libya is a horrific example of that, right? Yeah. And I don't, I don't know the long-term solution to those problems. It's, like I said, I, I spend enough of my waking hours truly questioning whether or not anything that I was involved in made my family or your family or Jamie's family safer. Did I, did I, did my actions erode what the rest of the world thinks about the United States of America? And I mean, I, I flow back and forth. I think it had an impact in the moment. I think it had an impact stopping the water coming out of the dam. I think it was essential that it needed to be done, but I don't know if any of that has an impact beyond that, that time period that it occurred.