point [inaudible conversations] and now we re going p to get to this dog, conan, that the president has referred to, who helped kill al-baghdadi, the terrorist. and now there are actually some military veterans who are saying, guess what? the dog should get the purple heart. this, apparently, would be unprecedented. here s michael bulger, a former army ranger, do i believe conan should get a purple heart? absolutely. they re out there with us every step of the way. jedediah: we also heard from james, purple heart recipient in the new york post, i think that the k-9 is the most valuable asset on the ground. i don t think you can replicate through technology or any sort of weaponry what the k-9 is capable of. pete: listen, what that dog did is legit. the asset of a dog on the battlefield is unbelievable. i will admit a blind spot in my knowledge of military awards, i don t know if dogs actually get
decimating isis. and he s already put into action plans that have destroyed the caliphate, that have ousted them from 99% of their land, taken away their funding source in the oil fields, taken out not only al-baghdadi, but his number two. and his commitment and do the united states commitment to protecting american citizens from terrorism is unparalleled. pete: isn t what the president s doing more critique of an establishment that didn t get it right for a long time? i mean, you re from arizona, former senator john mccain went there and met with syrian freedom fighters, many of which turned out to not be on our side. he s saying, hey, let s try it differently. we killed baghdadi, they cannot handle that. moderator: they cannot handle it, you re exactly right. the foreign policy of the past is one of nation-building and being the police of the world,
documents. if the president did nothing wrong in this case, why are you not cooperating with the investigation? well, because, look, we re not going to let democrats lead us down another rabbit hole here. first it was russia, now it s ukraine? what this is all about, change the name of the country, if you will, what this is all about is unhappiness with the election. don t take it from me, take it from the washington post which said the impeachment effort began on january 20, 2017, when democrats began trying to impeach this president. always been their design. we re not going to follow down this rabbit hole. instead, the president s going to create jobs, create great trade deals around the country, kill the top terrorist, al-baghdadi, and win for americn people. ed: to your point, i wanted to challenge you on the investigation, but big picture on 2020 you certainly seem right that the money is pouring in, the enthusiasm for the president on your side. brad parskell writes this: na
head of the taliban in 2016 and they re alive more than ever. in 2016 they killed the leader of al qaeda in iraq. that doesn t do anything to improve the situation in iraq. it did everything to raise up al-baghdadi. we may be seeing a resurgence of the islamic tastate. they ve been restaging more terrorist attacks. now the way we managed to defeat the caliphate was through the u.s./kurdish alliance and that s dead because president trump has very foolishly pulled u.s. troops out of most of syria and abandoned the kurds. that s the alliance that made it possible to defeat the caliphate and kill al-baghdadi. now trump is disbanding that alliance at a moment when there s an opportunity for an isis resurgence despite the
western europe and, god forbid, in the united states some time in the future. i think that s what we ought to be looking out for. general, given what you ve heard so far, what stands out to you as to how this operation played out? wow. i ve been covering these operations for many years. this is clearly the most dangerous and i think the most complex that jsoc has pulled off in the last 20 years. a couple of quick points. a 700-kilometer approach march and return march by air at low altitude, flying through separate air defense zones. one controlled bit syrians, the russians and the turks. take down in the middle of the night, transporting 70 special operators who had to break down thick stone walls in order to get to their target, kill al baghdadi and his hinchmen and get away with zero casualties. that is profoundly different than what we ve seen in the