Delta Force Spy on Hunting Bin Laden, Warlords & Double Agents | Gary Harrington • 311
Julian Dorey · 17 Jun 2025 · 2h 41m
Guest: Gary Harrington · Host: Joey Def, Julian Dorey
Gary Harrington, a former Marine, Delta Force operator, and CIA case officer, walks through the arc of his career from a self-described anxious, rule-breaking Southern kid to a man who spent years running clandestine operations in Afghanistan, Beirut, and beyond. He describes a formative religious experience as a teenager, an unlikely dare-driven path into the Marine Corps, and his early deployment to Beirut in 1982 during the Israeli offensive, including a confrontation with a US ambassador over fortifying Marine positions before the barracks bombing. Much of the conversation covers his time helping stand up CIA bases in Afghanistan after 9/11, including Jalalabad, Khost (where Nate Chapman was killed), and Orgun, and the improvised, high-risk tradecraft involved—turning Taliban fighters, running informants who moved bomb components, and negotiating infiltration routes with locals who had never seen Americans. He recounts weighing whether to kill the warlord believed responsible for Chapman's death, the legal and moral reasoning he used to justify lethal force under military rules of engagement, and how that plan was ultimately overruled by a case officer. Throughout, he reflects candidly on the psychological toll of operating in life-or-death environments for years, the absurd bureaucratic constraints imposed by Washington on field decisions, and the loyalty he built with Afghan villagers by sharing their physical hardships and risks, including riding in trucks loaded with unstable ordnance.
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Timestamps link into the episode on YouTube.
- Childhood anxiety and skipping school
- Religious experience on the mountain
- Recruited into the Marine Corps
- First deployment to Beirut, 1982
- Sabra and Shatila massacre aftermath
- Standoff with the US ambassador over sandbag bunkers
- Joining CIA operations and case officer culture
- Turning 29 Taliban fighters at Torkham Gate
- Setting up the CIA base at Khost after Nate Chapman's death
- Plan to kill warlord Pacha Khan
Said on this episode
Quoted from the auto-generated transcript, which mishears names and technical terms. podcite.com reports what a show said; it does not endorse or fact-check it.
“I feel threatened. I can use deadly force. And we were at this mountain pass. Pasha Khan is sitting to my left and I started yelling at him and he wore a pistol in a shoulder host. I'm going to kill him right here.”
“tough is not how much you can deal out, it's how much you can take.”
“My boots are brown and the holster is black.”