Valuetainment - April 09, 2025


＂Full Access To AREA 51＂ – Navy SEALs WARN About A Threat FAR Worse Than Aliens


Episode Stats


Length

13 minutes

Words per minute

201.47533

Word count

2,795

Sentence count

233

Harmful content

Hate speech

8

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, we sit down with two men who served in the U.S. Air Force Delta Force for 17 years. They talk about their experiences in the Middle East, their views on Iran, and their thoughts on the current state of the intelligence community.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 You know, I lived in Iran almost 11 years, so I was born in 78.
00:00:04.020 We left July 15th of 89, went to Germany at a refugee camp, and then we came here.
00:00:09.360 But I live there, so I know the environment, the climate, how it is.
00:00:13.740 And when you're in business, you have enemies.
00:00:16.100 You have a lot of competitors, and you have to know whose threats are real threats
00:00:21.440 and whose threats are just, you know, hot air.
00:00:24.760 I'm going to do this to you.
00:00:27.540 You're not going to do nothing.
00:00:28.500 But if that guy says, I'm going to do something to you, like, hey, listen,
00:00:32.780 we have to pay attention to this.
00:00:35.220 You guys sit there all day, watch tape of who the enemies are.
00:00:38.580 You study Iran.
00:00:39.680 You study, you know, what happened with Yemen.
00:00:43.040 You study what happened with, you know, Gaddafi or Saddam Hussein or Putin or all that.
00:00:48.720 That's the business model.
00:00:49.740 I'm assuming.
00:00:50.240 I'm just speculating.
00:00:51.020 I'm not in it.
00:00:51.500 That's your world.
00:00:52.060 And do you guys talk about, yeah, those guys are not going to do nothing to us.
00:00:59.900 Their threats mean nothing.
00:01:01.920 Or to say, no, when that guy says that, listen, we have to really be ready that they're capable
00:01:07.300 of doing something.
00:01:08.660 How did you guys, 17 years, your tier one, how do you view when Iran makes threats? 0.94
00:01:13.360 For me personally, I look at it just like Osama bin Laden threatened it for a long time,
00:01:19.780 said he was going to attack the homeland and didn't take it serious.
00:01:22.720 And I think after that, you've got to take every threat serious.
00:01:26.020 You just have to, especially now open borders.
00:01:28.500 There's so many people pouring in this country.
00:01:30.200 And if they want to spin it on and turn it on, they can really, really fast.
00:01:33.320 So I think now, after 9-11, I think everybody is taking every threat serious.
00:01:38.660 At least you should, because they proved it.
00:01:41.840 I mean, we've had to adopt a lot of cultural changes since 9-11 for the good.
00:01:45.840 I think it's made us better overall.
00:01:48.140 No, I mean, you can't look at guys like that and just, oh, he won't do that.
00:01:51.760 Well, we've already said that before.
00:01:52.980 We've said that multiple times.
00:01:54.380 We've said that as long as I can remember.
00:01:56.620 We said that through World War II.
00:01:58.080 We said it with Japanese.
00:01:58.960 We said it with everybody.
00:01:59.640 Oh, they won't do that.
00:02:00.560 Yeah, they did.
00:02:01.680 Yes, they did.
00:02:02.160 They flew this plane straight over here, crashed them into Pearl Harbor,
00:02:05.300 and then kicked off the whole thing.
00:02:07.940 They will.
00:02:08.680 They will do that.
00:02:10.640 Yeah.
00:02:11.200 Now, don't underestimate the power of any threats.
00:02:14.720 Especially not threats that have actual money and resources.
00:02:18.320 I think after 9-11, it was a complete switch.
00:02:22.060 You can't just pass off threats.
00:02:25.340 And the communication technology that's evolved across the world,
00:02:31.340 on intel.
00:02:33.900 And I think there's different ways to defeat them,
00:02:37.600 even if it's not a missile.
00:02:38.920 But I don't think they're missing any of it now.
00:02:41.120 I mean, they're catching everything,
00:02:42.180 and they probably got AI involved as well.
00:02:44.940 And part of the problem, from my understanding,
00:02:47.140 with 9-11 is none of the intel were talking to each other.
00:02:50.020 And now it's like all the intels are talking to each other.
00:02:54.660 All the intels are talking to each other.
00:02:56.880 So?
00:02:58.940 Like all the different intelligence agencies,
00:03:01.100 whoever's collecting and picking up.
00:03:02.320 From different countries?
00:03:03.680 Or, okay.
00:03:04.320 So you're saying like more of a united front of a CIA, Mossad, MI6,
00:03:11.420 than it was before?
00:03:12.940 Yeah.
00:03:13.460 Or you're saying more at your level?
00:03:16.080 Definitely at our level.
00:03:17.560 Definitely at our level.
00:03:18.520 But then our interagency partners and all our allies,
00:03:20.780 like our closest allies.
00:03:21.900 That's what I'm saying.
00:03:22.520 So, yeah.
00:03:23.000 We're all pointing in the exact same direction,
00:03:24.640 which is the source of our strength really,
00:03:26.300 is how good our allies are,
00:03:28.020 and how much we really do support each other.
00:03:29.940 Got it.
00:03:31.820 So, when you say that, like you guys,
00:03:35.360 do you see Delta as a team?
00:03:37.360 Do you see 18 Deltas as a team?
00:03:39.340 Do you see Delta Force as a team?
00:03:40.440 Do you guys see each other as equals?
00:03:43.360 Mm-hmm.
00:03:43.920 You do.
00:03:44.860 So, okay.
00:03:45.740 Was it more competitive pre-9-11,
00:03:48.540 where it was a little bit more lax,
00:03:49.800 and now it's like, listen,
00:03:50.680 no one's going to ever do a 9-11 again under our watch?
00:03:55.720 It certainly fell with the 90s.
00:03:57.300 You know, I was in active duty in the 90s,
00:03:58.900 but I grew up in the 90s.
00:03:59.940 A lot of it was training.
00:04:01.260 You deploy to Germany.
00:04:02.420 You do interagency ops with Poland.
00:04:05.240 All our European counterparts,
00:04:07.280 they do cold weather training in Alaska for six months.
00:04:10.540 I mean, everything was just a big training mission,
00:04:12.140 waiting for one big thing to pop.
00:04:13.940 And now that it has popped and we've seen it,
00:04:15.800 we've come so far tactically,
00:04:17.600 technologically in the last 20, 25 years.
00:04:21.320 But I think now we're in such a good spot
00:04:23.280 to defend the nation,
00:04:25.080 and now with our allies too.
00:04:26.140 I mean, 9-11 was the worst thing that's ever happened to us,
00:04:27.960 but in a lot of ways,
00:04:28.900 if it wouldn't have happened,
00:04:30.280 we'd be in the stone age still.
00:04:32.280 I mean, you look at body armor,
00:04:35.400 AI, just digital communications,
00:04:37.760 everything that had to elevate and grow so fast.
00:04:40.820 If we wouldn't have had 9-11, we wouldn't.
00:04:42.720 We would have stayed the same way.
00:04:43.820 And I look at it like,
00:04:45.320 and this will sound messed up,
00:04:46.140 but if you look at Black Hawk Down,
00:04:48.780 October 3, 93,
00:04:50.940 look at the gear they're wearing
00:04:52.080 and then look when they stepped on the ground in Afghanistan.
00:04:56.340 Not much change.
00:04:57.740 Same body armor, same carbines, same helmets,
00:05:00.080 nothing really changed
00:05:01.120 because they didn't have a reason to evolve.
00:05:03.200 Now you step foot on Afghanistan, 0.96
00:05:04.820 you're like, oh my God, this is not the same.
00:05:07.460 This is very, very different.
00:05:08.940 Then you teleport that same crew in Iraq three years later.
00:05:11.320 Oh, wow.
00:05:13.460 Oh no.
00:05:14.120 Like these IDs are a serious issue right now.
00:05:16.520 They're detonating them 50 different ways.
00:05:18.060 Like we can't stay ahead of this.
00:05:19.060 How are we going to do it?
00:05:19.920 Engineers attack this problem over and over and over.
00:05:22.580 EOD, everything you come across,
00:05:24.560 pump us the info.
00:05:25.200 We've got to be able to solve this.
00:05:26.680 And that's what they did.
00:05:28.260 I mean, we think about it.
00:05:29.860 Like if we only would have hit Afghanistan, no Iraq. 0.97
00:05:34.000 There are so many lessons we learned from Iraq
00:05:36.100 that if we wouldn't have invaded,
00:05:37.260 we wouldn't have had them.
00:05:38.280 Like we would not have evolved to where we are right now
00:05:40.380 if we wouldn't have hit them both.
00:05:41.840 I'm not saying we should have hit them both,
00:05:43.060 but I'm saying the benefit of doing them,
00:05:45.000 it really, I mean, the learning curve,
00:05:48.100 tactics, techniques, procedures, just everything.
00:05:51.220 It really, really evolved during the height of the war
00:05:53.080 and all our allies really benefited from it.
00:05:55.020 Let me ask you.
00:05:56.440 So has, because technology is advanced on all levels, right?
00:06:00.680 So the way they did 9-11, you know,
00:06:03.800 and now afterwards, like, whoa, no,
00:06:06.540 it's not going to happen again.
00:06:07.500 What do we make a mistake?
00:06:09.160 Boom, communications.
00:06:09.820 Okay, great.
00:06:10.840 So we knew we had science, yes.
00:06:12.040 We knew what it was.
00:06:12.740 Okay.
00:06:13.680 Airport, who was able to get in?
00:06:16.740 The enemy, their technology is advanced
00:06:19.480 as much as us, our technology is advanced, right?
00:06:23.420 Is it easier for the enemy to,
00:06:26.560 the level of advancement
00:06:28.760 to be able to conduct another 9-11
00:06:31.420 in a more creative way,
00:06:32.800 has that advanced more than our ability
00:06:35.040 to prevent it from happening?
00:06:36.200 What do you think has advanced more?
00:06:40.420 I mean, I think with growing in technology threats,
00:06:43.760 I'm not going to say that you can't keep up with them.
00:06:46.060 I mean, it's kind of like, I say, hacking.
00:06:48.580 You're always, like, stepping up that code
00:06:50.280 to protect your systems.
00:06:51.760 But as technology evolves,
00:06:53.760 you're always kind of playing that cat-and-mouse game
00:06:55.760 of maybe the technology hasn't evolved as fast,
00:06:58.820 but your defense is higher,
00:07:00.140 and kind of vice versa.
00:07:01.000 But I think they're always evolving every year
00:07:03.820 in the new threats.
00:07:05.500 I mean, it's no different if you and me
00:07:06.840 are both professional boxers.
00:07:08.260 You're doing your training camp.
00:07:09.480 I do a secret training camp with some ninjas,
00:07:12.160 and I'm just training in isolation.
00:07:14.200 You have no idea.
00:07:14.860 There's no training footage leaking.
00:07:16.100 You have no idea what I'm doing.
00:07:17.400 I step out, bell rings,
00:07:19.120 and I hit you with something
00:07:19.820 you've never, ever seen before.
00:07:22.300 Okay.
00:07:22.960 Now I have to go back to the drawing board.
00:07:24.200 Now everybody else sees that.
00:07:25.860 I think a lot of this time,
00:07:27.400 it sucks, but you're almost in a defensive posture.
00:07:30.160 Like, we've prepped for everything we know right now.
00:07:32.620 We have contingencies for the unknowns,
00:07:34.080 and if they happen,
00:07:34.760 this is how we're going to combat it.
00:07:37.180 So which one are we, though?
00:07:38.200 Are we the one that's trained and improved
00:07:39.940 without anybody seeing it,
00:07:40.920 or is that the enemy?
00:07:41.800 Both.
00:07:42.320 Okay.
00:07:42.700 So that's a little bit intense.
00:07:44.220 It is, because, yeah,
00:07:45.320 I mean, it's spy on spy.
00:07:46.260 I mean, you're trained,
00:07:47.380 you're perfecting,
00:07:48.360 advancing as much as you can,
00:07:49.660 but you have to do it in secrecy,
00:07:50.840 and that's where a lot of the general public,
00:07:52.600 they want to know everything you're doing.
00:07:54.300 The Area 51s release all the documents.
00:07:56.560 We want to have full open source
00:07:58.400 to everything the military does.
00:07:59.660 You can't do that.
00:08:01.480 You shouldn't have any right to do that,
00:08:03.040 because if you know it,
00:08:03.960 everybody else knows it.
00:08:05.540 Well, they're doing the exact same thing.
00:08:07.420 Just a lot of time,
00:08:08.220 their tradecraft is better.
00:08:09.660 Like, they don't have cell phone communications.
00:08:11.160 They just do it in straight isolation.
00:08:13.140 They bring in all the parties
00:08:14.180 from all the other countries
00:08:15.140 and train them up on bomb making
00:08:17.340 and all this other stuff.
00:08:18.900 Now they're doing isolation.
00:08:20.340 They're not putting out propaganda videos,
00:08:21.760 so you don't know how far ahead they are.
00:08:23.540 You hear a rumor mill.
00:08:24.160 There's a community that said,
00:08:26.240 hey, Trump, his first four years
00:08:29.660 when he was president,
00:08:30.420 there was no wars.
00:08:31.260 ISIS was gone.
00:08:32.280 A bunch of different progress that took place.
00:08:34.780 And then Biden comes in,
00:08:35.960 Ukraine, Russia,
00:08:37.740 you got Israel, Hamas, 0.99
00:08:41.000 all these things that are taking place
00:08:42.540 all over the place.
00:08:43.180 Now Trump is in.
00:08:44.460 Day one, peace,
00:08:45.900 deal between Ukraine and Russia.
00:08:49.680 Day one,
00:08:50.200 we're going to have Iran, 1.00
00:08:52.000 Israel is going to be done. 0.98
00:08:53.100 That's not going to happen.
00:08:54.200 You know, Hamas, boom. 0.97
00:08:55.220 Okay, great.
00:08:56.340 Now it's a slightly different energy.
00:08:59.900 If you do this,
00:09:00.900 we're going to do this.
00:09:02.360 Okay.
00:09:03.400 And you better release the hostages.
00:09:05.420 They don't.
00:09:05.880 You better release the hostages.
00:09:07.060 They don't.
00:09:07.460 You better release the hostages.
00:09:08.620 They don't.
00:09:09.760 What is your position?
00:09:10.720 Because some are saying,
00:09:11.840 I'm a fully anti-war.
00:09:14.760 If Trump,
00:09:15.440 I swear to God,
00:09:16.300 if Trump goes out there
00:09:17.340 and we go to war,
00:09:18.120 I'll be the first one to come out
00:09:19.400 and say that
00:09:20.140 I make the biggest regret of my life ever
00:09:22.920 to, you know,
00:09:23.640 vote for Trump
00:09:24.300 and I should have never done it.
00:09:25.500 We cannot be going to war
00:09:26.600 and we're getting closer to war.
00:09:28.720 What's your position with that?
00:09:34.040 He's putting it on you, Cole.
00:09:40.600 I'll say the limited foreign policy
00:09:42.480 that I somewhat know,
00:09:44.180 you know,
00:09:44.600 we've always helped fund
00:09:46.300 our partners internationally.
00:09:49.400 to protect whether
00:09:52.000 it's just a partnership
00:09:54.260 or there's a mutual benefit
00:09:56.400 between those.
00:09:58.340 And we've become
00:10:00.520 kind of taken advantage of
00:10:01.640 on that,
00:10:02.460 on how we help support
00:10:03.820 and fund those
00:10:04.540 and where the countries
00:10:07.260 kind of just depend on us
00:10:08.460 no matter what.
00:10:10.620 I appreciate Trump's approach
00:10:13.140 on kind of getting
00:10:14.900 or trying to get those wars to stop.
00:10:16.600 understanding both sides
00:10:19.340 of why they're angry,
00:10:21.520 why they're fighting.
00:10:23.040 I don't know the conversations
00:10:24.360 that go on behind closed doors
00:10:25.760 on how they get,
00:10:27.380 Trump pushes them
00:10:27.980 to get the treaties,
00:10:29.120 but I think it's great.
00:10:31.340 It would definitely be
00:10:32.200 something different
00:10:32.760 if we were attacked here
00:10:34.360 and we were having to attack
00:10:35.600 a different country.
00:10:36.280 but really trying
00:10:38.000 to minimize
00:10:38.500 and stabilize
00:10:40.100 the countries
00:10:41.700 and environments.
00:10:43.340 And I say
00:10:44.340 there's always a winner
00:10:45.540 in war,
00:10:46.020 but it's like
00:10:46.460 no one's winning.
00:10:47.460 I mean,
00:10:48.140 both sides
00:10:48.680 are losing
00:10:49.380 people,
00:10:51.160 so it's not strategic
00:10:52.860 and
00:10:53.280 I mean,
00:10:55.700 I think it's just good
00:10:56.460 that he's able to
00:10:57.560 try and create peace
00:10:58.920 on those.
00:11:00.660 What do you think?
00:11:02.340 I think if you haven't
00:11:03.480 fought in a war,
00:11:04.340 if you haven't given up
00:11:04.980 your children
00:11:05.460 to fight in a war,
00:11:06.640 I don't really care
00:11:07.200 about your opinion.
00:11:08.240 And I know that sounds bad,
00:11:09.780 but we've been doing this
00:11:11.720 for a long time
00:11:12.500 and if I didn't think
00:11:13.980 it was a worthy cause,
00:11:14.940 I wouldn't have done it.
00:11:16.440 I wouldn't.
00:11:17.460 And if Trump did a recall
00:11:19.160 right now
00:11:19.620 and I had to slap it
00:11:20.360 all back on,
00:11:21.340 I'd go
00:11:21.720 because I think it's worth it.
00:11:23.180 I watched him for four years
00:11:24.300 avoid all these major conflicts.
00:11:26.360 He is not one of those dudes,
00:11:27.460 some warmonger
00:11:28.120 just trying to push.
00:11:28.940 He's not.
00:11:29.740 If he was,
00:11:30.200 he would have done it.
00:11:30.720 He had every reason to do it.
00:11:32.020 The most powerful dude
00:11:32.600 in the world.
00:11:33.520 If you wanted to spend
00:11:34.100 your first four years
00:11:34.840 just laying hate and waste
00:11:36.220 to everybody
00:11:37.060 who ever did you wrong,
00:11:38.080 he could have done it.
00:11:39.140 He didn't do it.
00:11:40.420 I watched him be
00:11:40.920 really diplomatic
00:11:41.880 and solve a lot of issues
00:11:43.360 with just a phone call
00:11:44.200 that I hadn't seen before.
00:11:48.160 Yeah, I mean,
00:11:48.620 my foreign policy
00:11:49.260 is not as good
00:11:49.840 as it probably should be.
00:11:50.720 I mean, there's a lot
00:11:51.220 of backdoor conversations
00:11:52.540 that are happening,
00:11:53.140 but at the end of the day,
00:11:54.560 if you say you can't
00:11:55.980 ever do that thing
00:11:56.880 ever again
00:11:57.520 and they continue to do it,
00:11:58.760 at what point
00:11:59.320 are you going to send it?
00:12:00.620 Going to go the entire way.
00:12:01.740 That's where it gets dangerous.
00:12:02.660 You call their bluff.
00:12:03.760 If you don't release hostages,
00:12:04.760 I'm doing X, Y, and Z.
00:12:05.680 They don't release them.
00:12:08.660 Well, now I've kind of
00:12:09.360 painted us all in a corner
00:12:10.140 and that's where
00:12:10.840 it gets kind of dicey.
00:12:12.340 Well, you have to go now.
00:12:13.560 You have to go.
00:12:14.380 You have to go.
00:12:15.560 And I don't know
00:12:17.300 what he says
00:12:17.980 on these phone calls
00:12:18.820 to get them
00:12:19.660 to change their mind.
00:12:20.600 I have no idea,
00:12:21.560 but it's working.
00:12:23.140 I mean,
00:12:23.600 he's done it successfully
00:12:24.460 multiple times.
00:12:25.180 I don't want us
00:12:26.780 to go to war.
00:12:27.340 I definitely don't want us
00:12:27.980 to go to war with China,
00:12:29.540 with Russia,
00:12:30.080 with any of these people.
00:12:31.700 But at a certain point,
00:12:32.720 we cannot,
00:12:34.680 you can't give them an inch.
00:12:36.800 If you do,
00:12:37.320 it'll take a mile.
00:12:39.040 I think a lot of times,
00:12:40.000 just like Cole said,
00:12:40.820 I mean,
00:12:41.120 we become the blanket
00:12:41.900 of coverage and support
00:12:42.800 for everyone else.
00:12:44.580 And Ukraine's 0.50
00:12:45.040 a perfect example.
00:12:46.100 We have to fly over
00:12:47.000 quite a few countries
00:12:48.280 that are really close
00:12:49.680 to Ukraine
00:12:50.320 in order to give them support.
00:12:51.620 And I feel like
00:12:51.960 not a lot of other people are.
00:12:54.780 You can always hear that,
00:12:55.440 like,
00:12:55.500 well,
00:12:55.660 if they take Ukraine,
00:12:56.580 they're just going to keep going.
00:12:58.400 What are you guys
00:12:58.960 going to do about it?
00:13:00.700 Like,
00:13:01.000 I shouldn't have to fly
00:13:01.960 from our country
00:13:02.940 over all of your countries
00:13:04.200 and land there
00:13:04.620 and try to solve that for you.
00:13:06.280 We shall be trying
00:13:06.920 to solve it together.
00:13:07.540 And I feel like
00:13:07.960 we always have to be
00:13:08.800 the big brother
00:13:09.280 to step in first
00:13:10.160 and kind of draw
00:13:11.500 that line in the sand.
00:13:12.660 And it puts a lot
00:13:13.400 of people against us.
00:13:14.820 And then it serves up
00:13:15.600 a lot of hate
00:13:16.040 and discontent
00:13:16.540 inside of their own country.
00:13:17.820 It just does.
00:13:18.980 People don't want to go to war.
00:13:20.000 They want to go to war.
00:13:20.860 They see this.
00:13:21.520 They see that.
00:13:23.340 A lot of times
00:13:24.000 it's a lose-lose.
00:13:25.660 Hey, what's going on, guys?
00:13:26.400 DJ Shipley and Cole Fack
00:13:27.440 from GBRS Group.
00:13:28.380 I want to talk to you
00:13:28.880 real quick about Menecht.
00:13:29.800 Retired Navy SEALs,
00:13:30.940 entrepreneurs,
00:13:31.820 and co-founders
00:13:32.760 of GBRS Group.
00:13:34.140 Cover everything
00:13:34.800 from flat range shooting,
00:13:36.280 mental health,
00:13:37.020 mental resiliency,
00:13:37.960 physical education,
00:13:39.140 anything you guys
00:13:39.720 really want to drop into.
00:13:41.300 Search us on Menecht.
00:13:42.100 Find us on there
00:13:42.680 and I'd love to connect
00:13:43.300 with you guys.
00:13:44.040 Look forward to hearing from you.
00:13:45.260 Appreciate you guys.
00:13:46.020 We'll talk soon.
00:13:46.860 If you enjoyed this video
00:13:47.760 and you want to watch
00:13:48.260 more videos like this,
00:13:49.120 click here.
00:13:49.580 And if you want to watch
00:13:50.280 the entire podcast,
00:13:51.920 click here.