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May 31, 2023 - Doug Collins Podcast
33:08
The Dark Side
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Do you want to listen to a podcast?
By who?
Georgia GOP Congressman Doug Collins.
How is it?
The greatest thing I have ever heard in my whole life.
I could not believe my ears.
In this house, wherever the rules are disregarded, chaos and mob rule.
It has been said today, where is bravery?
I'll tell you where bravery is found and courage is found.
It's found in this minority who has lived through the last year of nothing but rules being broken, people being put down, questions not being answered, and this majority say, be damned with anything else.
We're going to impeach and do whatever we want to do.
Why?
Because we won an election.
I guarantee you, one day you'll be back in the minority and it ain't gonna be that fun.
Dan O'Connor is an author.
He's got a great book coming out.
We're going to talk about that a little bit.
But with the society today and somebody who's been in Congress, who dealt with the judiciary community, dealt with the intelligence community, I can't think of a better person to give just a little bit of background and the depth of the book that he's written, but also his fiction, but also just the course of where we're at.
So Dan, one, welcome to the podcast.
Glad to have you here.
Give us a little sense of your background in really the intelligence services, CIA, that kind of thing, as we get started here.
Very good.
Well, I was with the CIA for 26 years.
I had five different directors, each one going in or out of when they were on service.
And then there was also the deputy directors.
And I was responsible for making sure that they all stayed alive.
There you go.
They didn't get hurt.
And I had a whole crew that was very solid, worked very well.
We did a lot of stuff that's done long before we get the plane there.
And that's what my background was from almost the...
Two-thirds of my time at CIA. And part of it had to do with the different directors, had different styles, of course.
And a couple of times...
Can you name it?
Can you talk about the different directors that you served with?
Not really that I can give you an idea of what it would be like, but I don't really go around giving the names out.
Only because...
Only because if they're out and about and people are smart and they understand their situations, then it's easier to talk about them.
But with my background, when I wasn't doing protection of DCIs, I was in several portions around the world with regards to embassies.
And so I was in many of the embassies.
And for example, while I was there doing the work, and I was there Set to do two years or three years there.
And in some instances that occurred.
But a couple of directors, once I had left and was working out in the field permanently, they got on the phone and told me, no, you're going to come back home.
We want you back home doing this for us, for me.
And so I certainly did that.
It wasn't a request.
And so a lot of the time has been spent with the agency directors.
And the two different times where they called me in, one was Japan, and another was another location that I really couldn't talk about.
I understand.
I understand.
Sure.
Well, as much as we love to give away, we're not going to give away national secrets here, that's for sure, on the Doug Collins podcast, that's for sure.
I actually understand handling documents and handling information as someone who's been in the Air Force for 21 years.
Yeah, I get it.
But it is interesting, though, Dan, and I want to talk about this before we get into your book, and I'd love for you to talk about this book.
We share a publisher together, and it's a neat thing.
In the honesty of the moment, though, and I'd love to get your perspective on this, because you were in security, you know, maybe on the clandestine.
The intelligence communities over the past, especially few years, have went through a rough time.
There's been, you know, public perception-wise, and I'm not, you know, look, I have my own feelings, but I'm just going to say it's just an honest statement.
There's a lot of distrust among the agents.
As working for the agency, the CIA, for a number of years, I'm sure that bothers you, and I'd love to at Just get your take on that.
Sure.
I think that's correct, and it's been disappointing at some points in time.
But, of course, when things are done and they're not done the way they should be or to be sharp about them, then it makes it twice as hard.
I do believe that much of what's causing some of that It has to do with China, Russia, North Korea, and all of those coming about.
I could talk to you for a long time about those.
Well, we can go right ahead.
Because I think it lays the groundwork for your book, which is fiction, but it lays its groundwork.
Because you're not coming from this simply sitting in a back room saying, hey, I want to write a book about this.
You've got real world experience.
And let me ask you this.
Maybe this is a different way to put this.
Do you think that there is a...
How can you fix the perception of Because we've gotten into a world now to where you actually have young people who think spying is this arcane kind of thing we shouldn't be doing, yet they sit there with a phone that anybody in the world can follow them on.
Absolutely.
You may laugh at this.
You remember a few years ago when the controversy broke the documents, whatever, said that we were spying on or had docs on Germany and Merkel and all this.
And I was asked on an interview about, I can't remember, the Fox CNN or somebody.
They said, what do you think about it?
I said, well, that's what they're supposed to be doing.
I mean, and yet they said, well, that's our allies.
I said, they're spying on us.
I said, you know, give me a break.
Get this whitewashed world out of your thing.
How can we get back to understanding the true nature of what intelligence actually gives us?
Well, I would use this as a simple example, is when we do have situations like you're describing, it doesn't necessarily have to be perfect after they had the problems.
What can be done, say, in China or Russia, when you're sending something to them, you know, the balloons not too long ago, this kind of stuff, that What they receive, once it's been sent to them, isn't always exactly what has been put in there.
And therefore, it takes them some time to realize that we actually made some changes, made some differences, and what they thought they got when it was sent back to them was not exactly.
So that's something that is a good style and a good way, and it's all about keeping people safe.
Well, and I think that's the part that, you know, it's interesting to me, and I'm going to make a very elementary kind of discussion here.
We accept that you study film.
You go and try and gain intelligence in things like football and baseball.
But yet, when it comes to statecraft, I want to know what Israel's thinking.
I want to know what Germany's thinking.
Just as much as I want to know what Iran and North Korea and these others are thinking.
Because the better I have intelligence-wise, the better I can prepare.
And like I said, if someone's been in the military for 20 plus years, I mean, we need that for our plan of action.
And we've seen where it went bad.
Yes.
And I think what you just finished saying is that it's spot on.
That is exactly what needs to be done.
And in many instances when we're having some problems, we have to not necessarily broadcast them.
But at the same time, you have to acknowledge that some things have occurred and not occurred.
So it's like that.
One of the things I would mention to you, too, with my background is that I've been around the world, literally, period.
It was, I'm so much now that I've been out of it, I'm so surprised at how many places I've been, but particularly countries around the world.
It's much easier for me to point to five or six countries and all the others I've been to already because the director's got to get out.
People don't realize that.
They do go out, they do, and we try to keep that low-key.
Try to use the right planes for it, not necessarily looking like what other planes would look like.
You know, in a given period of time, 10 days, we'd be on the road, 10 days, and certainly all my guys and gals would be up front, ready, already, good to go, while in that location, and then the other locations.
So at 10 days, you'd get like five or six different places you have to move quickly and without making a lot of noise, so to speak.
Yeah, and I think that, you know, one of the things, and I'd love to get your take on this, one of the things I think that is very disturbing is many times people have a myopic view of the world are the very ones who never go out and see the world.
That's right.
Yeah, I mean, because I've learned so much.
I mean, I'm a North Georgia boy.
I still live in North Georgia.
I've gone around the world, Iraq, China, everywhere.
But it's amazing to me.
My perception changes, you know, and when I understand cultures that I was not raised in.
And when you start, and I think that's actually very good for us.
And are you concerned with the closing off, it seems like, of especially some in the U.S. right now, we just don't want to be involved in the world.
I think that's a 1920s, 1930s kind of mentality right now.
I think that's exactly right.
Whether you want to or not, this is coming down the road.
And it is both for the United States, but also for the world at large.
There's a lot of difficult things coming down the road and it's not going to be easy.
And places like Xi Jinping and China, There's a coin I would describe him as.
On one side of the coin, he's a brilliant guy.
He's doing a lot, getting a lot.
On the other side of the coin, what he's all about is saving face, regardless of circumstances, as is CCP, but also he really doesn't care that much about his people.
And many, many numbers lose, you know, they die quickly.
And many of them are very old.
And there are really no places where they have...
Different things that would give them some leeway, some understanding and some food.
But I think that Xi Jinping considers himself the new leader of the universe.
And this is hard to understand how he's thinking that in the back of his head.
And really believes in it versus the part where he's a bright guy.
And you go to Putin and think about him with...
One thing I would say right off the bat was back in February, the end of that, and now it's been, you know, of course, 12 months to six months more.
But he thought he'd be able to do the whole thing with Ukraine for about three, four hours.
That's it.
Right?
So he ends up, during that timeframe back in February of that year, he ends up mentioning that with the nuclear weapons that they have, he will use those against Europe, and if he has to, he'll use those against the US. And when I listened to it, and it was on TV, it was radio, and what I found fascinating about that is from that moment forward, I thought, thank you very much.
And the reason why I'm saying thank you very much, Putin, is that we, as a result of what you just told us, are going to have everything in place.
That if something's really going to happen from a nuclear perspective, We have people ready now, ready to go.
We have people in place.
So that was real helpful to us.
He doesn't realize it.
And then what's occurred between what he's not being able to do and his people, they despise him.
You have three, four million people and they're all trying to get rid of him.
So those are two areas there that they allegedly link together, Xi Jinping and Putin.
I think with what's happening with Putin, well, it might be that Xi Jinping's thinking, I could take your property, too.
I don't think that's off base very much at all.
I mean, one of the things, and I appreciate your history here, because I'm tired of a microwave society that believes that the only thing that happened was yesterday.
Folks, if you get into China and you get into Xi Jinping, think about this.
His father, I mean, some history, this is public knowledge.
His father was arising in the Communist Party.
He was purred by Mao.
He...
Ping had to come from a very hard...
I mean, it's not like winning elections here.
He had to fight, literally, to get to where he is at.
And now he's at a position, especially for the last few years, where he has no equal, so to speak, in China.
So it is all of this, I was raised this way, revenge this way, and we are the dominants.
We have a 3,000-year culture.
Think about that, folks.
The United States is 260-plus years old.
They're 3,000 years old.
And I think, Dan, you've probably seen this from writing the book or just historical kind of things.
They still view what happened to them in the late 1800s and 1900s with the Europe and Russia and Japan sort of just picking them apart.
They view that as a very much of a disgrace that they've got to overcome.
I think you're exactly right.
And I think you have a lot of pieces that put together a puzzle.
But pieces and puzzles often get turned around, kicked away, that kind of thing.
But sometimes people ask me, what do you think is the most severe in terms of what we have to worry about?
With regards to overseas.
And so far right now, I would say it's Xi Jinping and China, what they're about to do and how they're doing it.
Taiwan's a great example for it.
Right, exactly.
Well, and I think right now, I think as the world has seen, Russia was not what we thought it was, which is really interesting going back to the intelligence community.
I mean, this is, again, public reporting here, not saying anything out of classified.
Public reporting, I mean, there was a perception, hey, Russia's pretty good.
They flew out real quickly.
But an interesting one, and I got to get your take, for somebody who's been involved in this so long and you look at it with different lens, I made a comment the other day in discussions.
I said China is one we've got to watch.
I mean, they're near peer.
I mean, they're where we are.
But I think that also brings different, interesting, from my personal opinion, now they're Do I risk losing this because we finally got here economically and where we want to be?
Do we risk losing this by pushing it or just continue where we are being just a grumble?
What concerns me, and I would love to get your take on this, is I'm concerned about something that's falling off the radar a little bit, and that is Afghanistan and Iran.
Afghanistan, Iran, the Pakistan issue right there.
But Afghanistan, I mean, they're back in 1998 mode Except better equipped.
And that one to me, and then you take the Iran issue with the nuclear, and Israel is not going to let that stand.
I mean, we're just waiting for the moment.
How do you see that playing into asymmetrical, which is the intelligence community and everything else, as opposed to what you almost have to treat China as a near-peer superpower.
They're not asymmetrical.
They're going to come at you the way we've always envisioned Russia coming at us, kind of thing.
Right, right.
So, just curious from an intelligence in a book right here, just your perspective, I may be getting in your next book, but I mean, where do you see that?
Does that concern you as much as it does some of us?
It does to a degree, like the Israelis and the numbers with Ukraine.
They have sent a lot of their military top drawer to help Ukraine.
But I think it's also some angles that are being used that are actually very smart.
One would be that these are guys that are 100% SEAL team type and green beret.
These are special people.
And they're in the place there partly because they're watching...
Putin.
And they're thinking, okay, we'll keep paying attention, we'll keep having things move, and one day he's going to not have what he thinks he has.
And with regards to that, I appreciate what you're saying about the Middle East.
And I think that there's, again, going back to Israel, It's very different and we're virtually in a very change in the world order and everything that people have thought about and people that are experts and they're considering and they're realizing that this is completely changing the world order, period.
So It's very challenging.
One of the things I think was very useful for the White House, to give them some credit, is that when we sent stuff into Ukraine so we could have that happen, and the Ukrainians were phenomenal about it,
that Then Ukraine has done such success with what our equipment is that we'll send and this kind of thing that China and Russia thought they were walking in the park and now they found out that that's not the case.
But they not only found out because of Ukraine and how that's happening the way we would want it to happen.
They also get a very good look at the level that we have of different situations and U.S. military capabilities.
So, you know, they were originally thinking this would be a piece of cake.
And, you know, Putin...
At the time, before he started this whole thing and messed up his entire country, a lot of people thought, well, that's probably the second or third best military in the globe.
It took not very long to find out that The people out there, they haven't had any training.
And when they have training, they're just being killed right away, this kind of thing.
But the beauty of White House with regard to showing, allowing it to be, it was very good because I think it really took Xi Jinping and Putin and they were kind of looking at saying, this isn't what we were anticipating.
Right.
Well, also, you've got the issue that, again, you've got to dig into Ukrainian and Russian history.
That's a huge issue as well.
I mean, you almost, and it's not a civil war, but in many ways, it can be pinned that way because, I mean, they're crossing the border, the languages, I mean, it's very similar.
I want to jump real quick, and we'll finish up this conversation because it ends up, because your book ends up in the Middle East, and I think that's a great place.
An interesting...
I'm a historian.
I'm a history buff.
I'm beginning to see a lot of parallels, at least, and I thought about putting this in paper, to Spain in the early 30s and late 20s, the Civil War, where you had German troops being basically battle-tested in there.
You had Italy and everything else.
We're seeing that with Iran, too, not just Israel, but you're seeing Iran capabilities, drone capabilities, other things in Ukraine, and fighters gaining experience What works?
Unfortunately, War fighters only understand and get better in war.
And the capabilities of equipment are only understood under the conditions of war.
We don't ever want to have that.
But truly, that's when you understand, is this actually a good piece of equipment or not a good piece of equipment when it's actually under war?
We're seeing that.
So it's going to be interesting coming on, especially if this drags on.
And I'm not seeing the big up front.
I mean, we're starting to see some of this spring offensive, so to speak.
But it's going a little slower than I think they thought it was.
Right, right.
Also, with North Korea, and I believe that Xi Jinping rules that location.
And that area with the missiles going back and forth, it's not very...
No, no, no.
Yeah.
So he thinks he's got Kim Jong-un in place and going to do everything he ever says.
But Kim Jong-un's a fat guy that doesn't really know that much.
Yeah, exactly.
Look, it's almost like, and I know that they would be highly offended by this, but it's the big brother, little brother relationship.
They'll let them go, let them go, let them go until that's as far as you're going.
You know, you need me far more than I need you, and I can take you at any time.
Yeah, that thing is it.
Well, let's turn to this, because the Middle East, you wrote a book, the book called A True American Patriot.
Got some big names, a preview for it, a band spray, Robert Gates, and many other soldiers.
It starts off in the Middle East.
Give us, without giving it away, because we're going to put a link to your book, because it just came out, I guess, last week.
Tell us a little bit of, I mean, what made you want to be the next Tom Clancy here?
I'm not sure I'll ever be Tom Clancy.
I'm going to put you on a high level here, buddy.
I mean, you're up there, yeah?
Yeah, really.
But first, it is fictional, that's for sure.
The true American patriot is the right answer.
One of the ways I would mention this to you is that with the book itself, these are the directions and the different chapters that are involved in several ways.
One would be terrorism, and that's along the lines of what you mentioned.
Another would be espionage, and next is U.S. military.
And then the last one is humor, just some laughs.
So that's kind of the makeup of it.
But what I would mention about, say, the first chapter, and it is the Middle East, that when you're going in that particular chapter, it's the first, there'll be a boom or two or a couple of things that occur that are not anticipated.
And then it moves through.
And so those areas, the terrorism, espionage, military, it's all very...
It is amazing how much...
I think of it as a window.
You open the window, you close the window.
If you're not busy and you really have things you've done, but it really doesn't go much, then it's difficult.
But what's happening around the world is real, and the window is open.
And so the amount of this has such a connection between the two.
So it's an interesting book.
I think it's fast-paced and it has kinds of things that people could look at and I think enjoy.
Several people that have put out, I'll be real quick on this.
Several people that have put out, the first thing they told me is, yeah, I got it.
I saw it.
I'm reading it and I can't put it away.
That's exactly right.
And that's my analogy for you with Clancy and others.
Even Mark, the new writers who've taken up for Clancy, I still read the books.
I get in and I can read 30, 40, 50 pages in a sitting.
But what made you decide to write this?
And this is your first foray into publishing.
That is correct.
Give us a little bit, without giving it away, you got Professor and Doc, is my understanding here.
Hopefully those are going to become very well-known figures as we go along.
What made you determine those names, I guess?
Well, when I was talking to someone at the very beginning, and I told them I was thinking about this, I gave them a chapter or two, and they looked at it, and this was a specialist.
She said, okay, you're not going to do just this book.
And I said, well, I haven't even started yet.
And they said, no, it's going to be a trilogy.
And that's pretty much how it's working out in that the book that we have now, the second portion as part of that trilogy, I've already done the vast majority of it.
And then there'll be a third one, and that'll be the three different over time.
But to go back to your question as to what made me think about it in a sense, when I traveled internationally with the directors and with all my colleagues and all, it was the kind of thing where if you're 10 days going country to country to country, quickly, quietly, and getting the business the director gets and needs to handle people.
When that was occurring, I realized that all the military that I saw, U.S. military that I saw, and we interacted with quite often from time to time, we were like, every day of the 10 days, we were about three times that we could say, okay, I just got some rest.
In the military, U.S. military, especially, we have 125 U.S. military bases.
Some are very small.
Some are very large.
Most are very large.
And this is around the world.
So what I realized is they're doing this not just for 10 days.
They're doing this for every day.
And they have a similar situation where they get about three hours or four hours of sleep, and then it's up and ready to go again.
So that moved me a bit.
And I thought that it's important to let people have more than that.
And one way you can do it is have them read something that keeps their mind out of everything that's going on.
That is someone who's been deployed like you.
I mean, those books that...
And I call it...
I've used this before and I can't wait to dig into yours.
I've just got a few pieces of it.
I'm looking forward to it because I call them cotton candy.
I read a lot of stuff, okay?
But books like yours, like, you know, the Clancy's, the others of the world, you know, they'll call it.
They take you away, and for a few minutes, I'm in another place, and I can still remember where I read books.
Like, if I remember, I was sitting on the beach when I read this, when I was sitting in this airport when I was reading this, and I'm looking forward to this.
I want to read something for all the listeners here.
This is off the promo for the book.
The Threats Are Many.
When the professor and doc are attacked in Abu Dhabi, it feels like the whole world has changed in an instant.
In reality, the threat has been there and growing for a long time.
The day was simply the day they failed to prevent it.
Few security operations are fully prepared to prevent the unprecedented and highly sophisticated threats that the world's leaders are facing.
They're coming from unusually organized and adept criminals and terrorists whose goal is to find that one wrinkle in your operations.
Our goal is to find the first.
Great stuff here.
And again, I would encourage everybody to go about it.
Dan, you and I will be friends.
We'll do this more, especially as the other books come out as well.
You've inspired me to get onto my second book as well a little bit here.
I'm not where this might be.
I'm not sure.
I did...
I may go to fiction because right now life in reality is almost fiction as it is.
Where can people get the books?
Are you planning any signing parties or anything like that that we can get out for?
I used to be, and I end up signing anyone that someone would like to have.
So I would do that.
If you would like to get a copy of the book, I will very much enjoy just signing it for you.
But it's being put out relatively soon.
It's been about a week and a half, two weeks.
And what I've been hearing, as I said earlier, is that the individuals that pick it up and they start looking at it, They, especially the guys, but gals as well, they indicate that after the first few chapters, they just want to keep going.
And a couple said to me, I need to get some sleep.
I love it.
I love it.
That is great.
Well, I know this will be on where everybody gets your books.
No matter where you get them, you'll be able to get it.
Go online, Amazon, everywhere else.
We'll put a link.
We'll get a link.
We'll put a link on the show notes here for the Doug Collins Podcast so you can go get this book.
Dan, just a real pleasure having you on today.
Thanks for being a part of the podcast.
I'm looking forward to True American Patriot.
It's going to be a good time.
And thanks also for just the conversation over everything else.
Folks, that's the Doug Collins Podcast for today.
Look forward to talking to you again soon.
Thank you, sir.
All right, be welcome.
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