CTP (S3EMarSpecial8) Combat Spy Truth Tests

CTP (S3EMarSpecial8) Combat Spy Truth Tests
Exploring more of the fascinating intersection of Activism, Community Engagement, Faith / Religion, Human Nature, Politics, Social Issues, and beyond   
We talk with former Army intelligence professional Pete A. Turner about what a “combat spy” really does and why verification matters more than outrage. We break down how target decisions get made, how propaganda hooks people, and why emotional headlines can be a warning sign.
• What “combat spy” means in Army intelligence and how it differs from strategic espionage 
• Why commanders demand proof and how a target package is built from multiple intel sources 
• How interdiction and counter-smuggling decisions work in practice and why misidentification is taken seriously 
• Collateral damage, the fog of war, and what investigations and battle damage assessment are meant to do 
• Why “trust but verify” applies to journalism and why anonymous sourcing can erode credibility 
• How loaded adjectives and crisis language function as influence operations 
• Ukraine, corruption, and the challenge of holding nuance without slipping into propaganda 
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A Short Story: A Lasting Legacy? book Trailer

Transcript

Meet The Combat Spy Guest

SPEAKER_01 0:08

Hello, welcome to another episode of Pristitution Podcast. I am your host, Joseph M. Leonard. That's L-E-N-A-R-D at LeFranch. It's not it's London without an O. Thank you for tuning in as Graham Norton used to say on his show. Let's get on with the show! Special segment for February and March, midweek drops. Normally Saturday monologues and normally a guest appearance on a Wednesday, February and March, two a week, Tuesday and Thursdays, in order to get caught up on some interviews that have been stacking up. Enjoy. Joining me today is Pete A. Turner, and I already joked with him, and you, my audience, knows I can't pass on a joke. So the biblical joke for every season, there's a Turner, Turner, Turner. But um bum, right? And his profile says combat spy turns podcast host. Well, the other obvious joke of, well, I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you, right? So we'll see what Pete can share. We sure don't want him disclosing anything classified and getting into trouble. And the differentiation and distinction between a combat spy and a CIA kind of type spy. But before we get to that, welcome to the show, Pete A.

SPEAKER_00 1:57

Turner. Wow, thanks, man. I appreciate you having me on. Yeah, it's uh it's a crazy world being a spy and trying to figure out how to communicate things. Because even if I tell the truth, would you believe me? You know, it's so it's one of those queer conundrums, right? Part of your job is just so disinformation at times. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or or at least what I would call information, and you might not you might not like it, but all of a sudden it's like, no, he was right. You know, it's yeah, there's a lot of negotiating what the truth is in any given point in time.

SPEAKER_01 2:31

Well, first, and again, I don't want you to dox yourself, so I don't know if you want to answer the question, where were you born and raised, where are you now, places you've been to in between, what you can tell us that won't get you killed.

SPEAKER_00 2:48

Yeah, it's not that dangerous to be me. You know, my my time doing all that stuff is passed, and and no one's looking for me. Um, so and and if they want to come show up, I guess they're oh wait, I hear a knock at your door.

SPEAKER_01 3:01

Joke.

SPEAKER_00 3:03

No, it wouldn't be a knock, it'd just be boots knocking in the door, yeah. Probably a 3 a.m. or something. Yeah, yeah. No, it's um, you know, the classified stuff really doesn't it's not that big of a deal, you know. Uh, because most of the stuff in my particular line of work, it was all tacticals, it was short term. And once we left, most of those classification things go away because it's just not relevant anymore, you know. So for my line of work, even though I was a spy and did things, it was all about that specific commander's intent. And so that's sort of the difference between maybe a combat spy and more of a strategic spy or a national level service spy. You know, I'm I'm an army spy, and so short-lived. But I I grew up in California to answer your question in the Bay Area, and um, you know, I'm just a California kid. Uh that's what I am, you know, from the 80s and had a great time, had a good life, and uh, you know, ultimately uh working in the army kind of by happenstance.

Benin Geography And Strategic Resources

SPEAKER_01 4:01

Yeah, now the way my OCD brain always works. The rest of the night I'm gonna have journey in my head. The lights go on in the city by whoa, yeah. Sorry for the bad singing. I used to have a reasonable voice. I wrote and recorded music in the past, but oh, my voice is shot these days. Anyway, uh you know, by the time this airs, yeah, this'll be old news now. But and I don't want you to chime in with thoughts on the Ukraine-Russia situation. I'm only bringing it up here to make a point about social justice keyboard warriors online who wouldn't know where Ukraine or Russia is even on the map, don't know what the Budapest Accord is. I make that point though, because even as author of Terror Strikes Coming Soon to a city near you, there are about 180 nation states on the planet. And researching that, I know of most of them, but I've got to admit myself, this benin, benign, benign, where this coup just took it tried to take place. I have no idea where that is on the map. So I've got some studying to do to determine whether, you know, maybe the military needed to overthrow that nation. I don't know. Do you know anything about it?

SPEAKER_00 5:37

About Benin. No, no, I mean, you know, I know some things about it. You know, I know it's on the, I guess you would call it the south-facing west coast of Africa. It's near Ghana and and Ivory Coast. Put it into perspective a little. Yes. Over there by I think Nigeria is is to their east because they are on the southern facing hunk, and then it comes back around to like Morocco, right? So on that southern part, almost back to the the elbow, like the elbow kind of happens around Nigeria. Yeah, so there's stuff there, there's resources there. I mean, if you think about where that locks into South America, a lot of oil, right? So, I mean, God. And the world still turns on oil, like it or not. It's yeah, that's not gonna stop. Um, not in my lifetime, you know. I mean, oil is a miracle, you know, it's it's so energy dense. Yeah, but these resources, like you know, um heavy metals, uh, things for making magnets, rare earth minerals nowadays is a big military strategic concern. Yeah, yeah. Natural gas, like Ghana has a ton of oil and gas, and we're just now figuring out how to get to it. That country's uh well-being is gonna change dramatically. Well, that I'm a spy. Like I know that if that was my area of South America, was my area, I would have to get hip to that. What's that gonna mean? Who's gonna be the new power players? All that stuff that all comes into play.

SPEAKER_01 7:02

And if we don't have influence there, we can't have let Russia, China, Iran, North Korea have influence there.

Interdicting Smugglers And Target Proof

SPEAKER_00 7:12

Right, right. And so there's a competition there too. You know, like uh right now in the news is this stuff with the um the drug runners coming out of Venezuela, right? So it look, I don't care about politics. So I might have been all I'm gonna say is is like I don't care about the politics. But if you're telling me I know drug smugglers and they don't smuggle drugs anymore, but they did. And so when I asked them, are these guys moving product in these boats? They're like, Yes, of course, shoot 'em. Shoot them, right? These are reformed smugglers. And so look, boats can stop, they can get fuel, you can portage the uh the chemicals, you can portage the product. You know, these guys are good at what they do, and they're not gonna run it in a boat that's like drug smuggler, they're not gonna do that, right? So, all of these things are people who aren't in that illicit world, they are in a political world, they can't understand. And the other thing about that particular thing is um there's no admiral, there's no staff of of a ship or a collection of ships that's like, yeah, let's kill innocent people today. Like, that's just that's not a thing at all, right? So if the boss, in this case, Donald Trump or Pete Heggseth says, Hey, sink any boats that we identify as carrying drugs, well, the commander who's there on the ground is not just gonna shoot on Pete Heggseth's order. Like, obviously, they're gonna do their job, their due diligence, and they're gonna use a guy like me and they're gonna say, Hey, Pete, tell us when one of these boats please.

SPEAKER_01 8:42

Properly identify legit versus unlegit target, which is not to say on occasion a misidentification can happen, of course, collateral damage. And that's what keep it drives me crazy that people that want to talk on this will only take a political angle and not factor in all the things. Now, the war on terror, which the president has been given congressional authority to do, it's been going on for decades now. The war on drugs has been going on for decades beyond that. Are you going to, if you take both those seriously, how do you have a problem with this happening? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:29

Yeah, and that's the other thing. I mean, backing up first off, to the um, if you put together a target package and you say, hey, there's a drug boat coming out of this port or whatever it is, the the commander is going to look at you and say, Okay, where's your proof? Right. And so I'm a guy who's put together a target package before, and I'm gonna say, here's our signals intelligence, here's our imagery intelligence, here's our human sources, and I've got to put together this package to say, hey, I think this is a good bet. Sometimes Intel is wrong, sometimes we get played, right? And so the commander knows this. They've been up and up and up this. This guy's gonna be.

SPEAKER_01 10:27

That's a collateral damage situation, and shit happens in the fog of war.

Fog Of War And Collateral Damage

SPEAKER_00 10:34

Yes, yeah, all of that. Everything you're saying, right? That's totally normal. And what that commander is trying to do is discern is there fog here? Or is this clear how strong is this signal? Go back and get more. The next time a commander says, well, maybe not for me anymore, but the next time the commander says to a local spy or local analyst, go get more information, get me another mode of intel, you know, go get me something else because I don't feel comfortable, right? Right.

SPEAKER_01 11:04

So it's like journalism, right? There's no such thing, no such thing as it anymore. They're just reporters. Say what you want to say, and we won't fact check it. We'll just let you say it and report it as if it were true, even if it's bullshit, right? You need multiple legitimate, reliable sources, not all anonymous or you know, well, we think we might be able to trust them sources. No, as Reagan used to say, right?

Journalism Standards And Trust Issues

SPEAKER_00 11:39

Trust but verify. Yeah, yeah. And the next time they write, whoever they is, that this is an unnamed inside source. You know, uh, I don't I no longer believe you. You know, these these are the same people. This is your opinion you're attributing to these fantasy sources nine times out of ten. Right, right. And and it'd be one thing if it's like, well, you know, the New York Times is the standard and the paper of record, but they have routinely been bamboozled by Hamas Ministry of Health, where they've had to print retractions, right? And so you only get to do that so many times before I'm not saying the New York Times is all bad, but they've compromised their integrity as a paper, willingly to go back to the same bad source, all to tell me a narrative. So I I won't consume this just Pete despise saying this, I won't consume them as a credible source. I maybe there's a particular reporter that I'll listen to, but for the most part, yeah. I mean, you only get so many of those shots before you aren't. And so if it was a commander and Pete keeps coming back going, oh yeah, for sure, you know, whatever, and then he keeps getting burned, he'd be like, F Pete. I'm never listening to him, right?

SPEAKER_01 12:49

Again, a source can accidentally be wrong, right? If they're always wrong over and over and over, you're the moron for continuing to use them as a supposed credible source.

SPEAKER_00 13:06

Yeah, yeah, and that's 100% true. And so when when we find out that there is a drug vote, nobody's just wantonly shot people. And by the way, and you know, and look, let's have an investigation, okay? Let's let's let the job like let's figure that part out. The military is good at that, and you can always have people, Congress can come in. By the way, the next time Congress does anything with any of these investigations, let me know because they don't do shit about it. It's all about pointing your finger at somebody and getting notoriety. But the um we have a mechanism for for checking these things, and when you shoot a boat, when the when the order is take down, you know, interdict and destroy boats uh in the Caribbean. Okay, you do that, you shoot the boat, and you do the thing called a battle damage assessment. And so they look, I'm using binoculars to look, but they look like still there, and there's dudes trying to put drugs back into or whatever it is, right? I'm whatever they they say is happening, they're looking at it real time. Deploy a team, do this, do that. All these options. One of the options is send another missile, send another round, put you know, whatever. Nobody cares that the Coast Guard gets into tactical fights fairly routinely, never makes the news, no one feels sad for anything, nothing, right? So we have to be honest that a lot of this is media manipulation because the military's not in the habit of blowing up innocent fishermen, they don't just guess and go, Oh, yes, that that that is so insulting to the quality of people that are sitting on the watch, like these are pros.

SPEAKER_01 14:39

Again, yeah, we already admit amazing how there's plumes of coke flu filling there, ne'er a fishing pole to be found in the debris, right?

SPEAKER_00 14:49

And again, again, keep in mind, I know smugglers, I know these guys, and they're like, Yeah, man, screw those dudes, kill all of them. And I'm like, that seems kind of harsh. He's like, I the my own friend, I don't care.

SPEAKER_01 15:02

They're bringing drugs in, drugs are gonna harm our people, and this kind of you know, so and it isn't like we're talking drugs from the 70s and 80s, we're not talking weak marijuana or pure coke, we're talking dangerous fentanyl that's lacing things. These aren't overdoses, these are purposeful, willful poisonings. Well, I I take back the purposeful willful to to a degree, China wants some death with them. But these drug dealers and that, a lot of them they don't want to kill their customers. They themselves at the local level don't know that this is Zanny or Riddle, and they think somebody's buying and they're selling may be what they're selling. They don't know themselves how much fentanyl may or may not be in it. These are poisonings, they're not overdoses.

SPEAKER_00 17:03

Yeah, and some of them are inadvertent, like let's say that there's enough fentanyl in that room to poison the next person who comes up or he gives mouth to mouth or responds in some way. You know, it doesn't take much. I mean, fentanyl used in a controlled manner for medical purposes, okay, great. You know, like that's that's a good thing. But we don't get that from a bunch of dudes on the on the boat. And I don't know if it's look, I don't know if it's fentanyl, I don't know if it's coke, I don't know if it's weed. I just know that no military member is going to go, what do you mean you don't have any confirmation? Let's shoot anyhow. Like that that isn't how that works. And it's not look, that admiral who's in charge of the city.

SPEAKER_01 17:38

We're supposed to be the good guys, we've got procedures, protocols. Yeah, we try. Unlike Hamas, who purposefully willfully attacks civilians, not one military target was struck on October 7th. We go out of our way, as does the IDF. They draw flyers for God's sake. Hey, we're Hamas is hiding there under your civilian feet. Get out. It's a legit target. We're gonna hit it. Get out. They, as we try to avoid collateral damage, where our enemies do not care about civilian collateral damage at all.

SPEAKER_00 18:23

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and and and all the things you're saying are are exactly right. And you know, when when I see these stories make it around the news, I I just I get a little dismayed. Well, first off, I don't watch the news partly because I don't want to consume this kind of stuff. And you can say, Oh, well, you're not aware. And I'm like, look, I'm aware of how the military works, I'm aware of how spying works, I know drug smugglers. So if I see all a whole bunch of people who are overly passionate, look, the amount of people had big, deep um feelings about the IDF and Hamas, I mean, without having any real knowledge, you know, we can all pick a bad guy. I'm gonna tell you this is most people don't have the understanding. They haven't done the work, they've been informed by somebody who's not there to inform them, and that happens all the time. And so when you see news, and there's so many examples, and it goes in all political directions, so it's not which is not to say the IDF is perfect either.

SPEAKER_01 19:17

Of course not. No, no one, the US military isn't perfect, again, collateral damage, mistakes happen at times.

SPEAKER_00 19:27

Yeah, and and but do you try, do you try to limit civilian casualties? Right, yeah. And should we be getting involved in these things? That's another different different and very fair.

SPEAKER_01 19:39

Whole other debate again, yes, again, yeah, but in the war on terror vein, never chamberism I go into when terror strikes coming, right? Fortress America doesn't work. There's these things called ICBMs, balloon bombs, right? The China balloon bomb matters because the Japanese did hit us with balloon bombs in World War II and even took out the Manhattan Project for several days, taking the power out. We kept all that classified forever because we didn't want the enemy to know how successful they were, and we didn't want panic here. But NOCO or China can send a dirty nuke over on a balloon, and if we're not shooting it down, imagine the massive damage a dirty nuke of a balloon bomb would be.

SPEAKER_00 21:08

If you're asking me, you know, what do I think about Benin? I'm like, I don't know that I have enough. I have some knowledge, I have some world book level knowledge of you know, CIA world book knowledge of Benin. You at least know where it's at. I don't. Well, and if you ask me, like, what are its neighbors left and right, I'm pretty sure it's Nigeria, but if it was you know like Chad is kind of over there, but I don't think it touches the ocean.

SPEAKER_01 21:34

But most of the people on social media right now know anything and won't. I admit I don't know because I don't know, because I have honor and integrity. But let's move on because the time is flying by already. I know you have youtube.com slash Pete A Turner, part of that initial statement, combat spy turns podcast host. So what's the name of the show beyond just youtube.com slash Pete A Turner?

SPEAKER_00 22:09

It's the break it down show.

SPEAKER_01 22:12

The break it down show, okay.

Ukraine Corruption And The Hard Realities

SPEAKER_00 22:14

That's right, yeah, yeah. And you do what with it? I talk to interesting people doing fascinating things, sometimes it's spies, but just today, just right by I actually left a guy's house to come and do this show at my house. That he is a professional volleyball coach, former professional player, and so he lives in the Mecca for beach volleyball down at Hermosa Beach. And so I might talk to him, I might talk to an author. I've got a new person tomorrow, and you know, and so I just I get to talk to amazing people who have incredible tales. Some of them are famous, hyper, hyper, hyper famous. Some of them you just gotta know, and some I just adore, maybe old friends or whatever. I just I can't get enough, and you get this man. It there's so much power in these exchanges, and we can have these conversations. I'm not vying for a political party, I'm saying slow down. Maybe there was some wrongdoing. The military is going to investigate this. Should we trust that? Okay, no, let's. Not because they've lied to us before, too. So let's make sure that they do stand in front of Congress.

SPEAKER_01 23:12

Who's watching the watchers? Right. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:15

And and and look, I know you get this very good chance that in two weeks nobody cares about the outcome of this. They're just in a rage now.

SPEAKER_01 23:23

They moved on to the next crisis that they cannot let go to waste, as you know.

SPEAKER_00 23:29

I don't want to do that on my show. I want to develop friendships and talk about challenging things, sure, you know, but life is too sweet to be investing in something that's purposely poisoning us. And this is just the thing I'll say, and then I'll shut up about the news. The um, when you see headlines and it says the horrific, the grisly, the tragic, you are being manipulated. Can I say that any more clearly? It's not news, it's propaganda. Right, those adjectives are always there to trigger your emotional response. That's called information operations, influence operations, buyouts. Internally, yeah, they internally, those are each are individual psychological operations. That's what they do. So don't buy into that. Go see your grandkid, go for a walk, go write a piece of music, whatever it is. Well, they're not going to miss it.

SPEAKER_01 24:21

We need people to be informed, but yes, you need to know those informing you are indeed trying to, and all sides do it. In war, I like I talk about Ukraine and Russia again, not to position there, but all sides, the good side, the bad side, our side, their side, all sides engage in propaganda. All sides, period.

SPEAKER_00 24:50

Well, in because of what I do and the kind of work I do, I get to know a lot of these people who are involved in these things. And let me tell you, Ukraine is not an innocent player. Yes, Russia should not have invaded. Of course, the amount of corruption in Ukraine makes it hard to even see a future for them because you can't reliably if you and I had a bunch of money to invest in Ukraine, I would say, let's go somewhere else. Because you don't you you have to you have to pre-account for all of the greasing of palms that you have to do. Yeah. And there's always another hand out waiting for more grease. And so you're better off going to a place that look all places have corruption, but but it's so thick there. Like you can, this is a real thing, a real story. You can um have a legal case that you lose in Ukraine as a business person in the business world, and you say, you know what, there's a bunch of nonsense going on. I'm gonna take this to the you can exit that court and go to the European court and and elevate, and you'll get your positive thing. Like, yes, we see this is political, yes, we see this is illegal, yes, we see this is corruption. Finding in your favor, take that piece of paper, but legal document back to Ukraine. They're like, Yeah, enforce that. And you can't, right? Right. So and if you go in the Ukraine, if you stay in the Ukrainian court, it's money, money, money, money, and all that money is to buy the outcome. If the other guy has more money, you still you still put your money in and you compete and you see, you lose. So the corruption in Ukraine is unsustainable. Have they done things to improve? Yes. Am I at all surprised that some of Zelensky's closest advisors have had their hand in the till? No, matter of fact, me neither.

SPEAKER_01 26:31

I don't support Zelensky, I support the innocent Ukrainian people who have been invaded upon because I know the history for the last hundred years of that region. And you could go back to the movie, Mr. Rogers does a great job of talking about the Stalin famine purposely starving Ukrainians. The Russians have always wanted Ukraine to be its breadbasket, it doesn't care about those people. But yeah, no, so I don't Zelensky, no, I don't support him, but Putin is corrupt as Zelensky also, and uh all the people Putin has put to death with polonium, and like to say Putin is not a dictator, oh please. But yeah, anyway.

SPEAKER_00 27:31

I gotta be fair about this and say too, like our side on the foreign policy side, on this on the national intelligence side, we struggle with Ukraine because we think they're a bunch of former Soviets, which they are, but also a lot of these folks are like, we just want to be Western, we want to finally have our own country, not be under someone else's influence, and we hate that. We want them so desperately to do exactly what we tell them to do, and that causes also this tumult.

SPEAKER_01 28:00

So, you know, but we're in this because of the Budapest Accord, most of which the online whiners have no idea what the hell that is.

Wrap Up And Subscribe Request

SPEAKER_00 28:11

And that's true, and also we tend to pick like I like to say, like we snap a chalk line across the country. Anybody on this side of the chalk line is bad, they're a Russian, whether that's true or not. But what we love to find the person that fits into the channel. The people are intermingled, yeah. Oh, for sure. And even some of the leadership, you know, you've got good business owners that are like, I don't care about that stuff, I'm here to do this. Now, are they gonna play political games because they're a high-level business player in that country? Yeah, of course, of course. But it doesn't make them a Soviet, doesn't make them a felon, you know. And we hear whenever you hear, so here's another one. When you hear the word oligarch, you're being manipulated. When you hear the word billionaire, you're being manipulated. Yeah, you want to see that negative response. Just think about business owner, right? And uh, do all these guys have sharp elbows?

SPEAKER_01 28:55

Yes, just like senators have sharp elbows, but we don't go the it's the same everywhere, yes, right, and they all do what right? Bernie drives me crazy. Oh, the oligarchy, when he's been in the Senate, how long? And three mansions, one of them a beachfront property, still trying to peddle climate alarmism, which his homie bought would be underwater by now if what they were saying were true, and a the quarter of a million dollar sports car. So he wants to tackle the billionaires. He doesn't say anything about millionaires anymore because he is a multimillionaire. But anyway, to wrap things up, people can find you at youtube.com slash Pete A. Turner. Thank you for stopping by, Pete. It was a good and back to your podcast. I mean, I do the same with it, despite my name, my Saturday monologues stick into the politics usually, but my weekday guest shows indeed can be like you said, can be just frivolous stuff, just interesting people to talk to. We can't talk about this stuff all the time.

SPEAKER_00 30:15

Yeah, and also we're not talking politics, we're talking policy and practice, right? And so you're asking me, Intel guy, about smuggling. I don't care who the president is, you know, that that's out of my control. But this is the policy that we're acting under. So how does that work? Well, as at our best, it works very responsibly and so do we, you know, do we make mistakes?

SPEAKER_01 30:34

And these are the laws that both Democrats and Republican over decades have passed into law and have been signed into law, and of course, complicating that street. Oh, I was gonna mention I saw the cat earlier. My cat was here up on the couch too. I shushed him off so he wouldn't be in the screen. But uh, give give your uh your cat a hug for me. I will.

SPEAKER_00 31:00

I will. She loves it. Yeah, no, I love I love my cat. She can do whatever she wants, and uh, if she wants to be in this window, then she's in that window.

SPEAKER_01 31:07

Yeah, she she's that's like she's not your pet, she has a house, and a human happens to live there, right?

SPEAKER_00 31:15

Yes, and she gets hugs and kisses and attention all the time. I love it, yeah. She puts a big smile on my face, though. That's her job, is put a smile on my face. Yeah, yeah. Well, I appreciate you, man. Thank you so much for having me on. It really means a lot to me. I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 31:28

All right, take care, God bless. Like and subscribe to Christitutionalist politics podcast and care episodes. We need your help. Thank you for having tuned into another Christitutionalist podcast show. I really appreciate that you stop by. Again, please like, share, subscribe. We need you to help spread the constitutionalist movement. Thank you again. Take care. God bless. Love you all.