WEBVTT - SYSK Selects: How Narco States Work 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:03.200 M Hey, everybody, this is Chuck Welcome to Stuff you 0:00:03.200 --> 0:00:06.760 Should Know Selects. Hope you had your morning cartoons and 0:00:06.760 --> 0:00:10.280 now you're ready to listen to Narco States How Narco 0:00:10.360 --> 0:00:13.280 States Works from December two thousand nine. I have no 0:00:13.400 --> 0:00:15.760 idea why we saw fit to release this so close 0:00:15.800 --> 0:00:18.320 to Christmas, way back in two thousand nine, but it's 0:00:18.360 --> 0:00:20.280 kind of funny that we did. But I just remember, 0:00:20.320 --> 0:00:23.479 this is a really good episode. Uh. Narco States is 0:00:23.480 --> 0:00:26.680 a very dense topic, and it's kind of thing where 0:00:26.960 --> 0:00:28.760 if you kind of throw some of this information around 0:00:28.760 --> 0:00:31.120 at dinner party, everyone is going to thank you. Are 0:00:31.160 --> 0:00:35.560 super cool. So please to enjoy How Narco States Work. 0:00:42.120 --> 0:00:45.600 Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from how Stuff Works 0:00:45.600 --> 0:00:54.080 dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh 0:00:54.160 --> 0:01:00.240 Clark with me as always as Charles W. Zonkers Bryant's Soners. Yeah, 0:01:00.520 --> 0:01:02.639 I'm always. I just sit here with wondering what you're 0:01:02.640 --> 0:01:04.960 gonna call me? How's it going? Great? Sir? Are you 0:01:05.880 --> 0:01:08.200 pretty good? He looked good. You're as good as you 0:01:08.240 --> 0:01:11.199 were ten minutes ago when he recorded that other podcast. Chuck, 0:01:11.240 --> 0:01:14.160 have you ever been to Mexico? I have been to Mexico. 0:01:14.360 --> 0:01:16.600 Have you been to t J. I've been to t 0:01:16.760 --> 0:01:19.720 J've been to Warez, No just t J and like 0:01:19.800 --> 0:01:23.400 the Baja area. Okay. Well, had you gone a little 0:01:23.640 --> 0:01:27.759 further east along the border to Warez, okay, you would 0:01:27.760 --> 0:01:32.000 have been in a narco state. Yes. And you know 0:01:32.040 --> 0:01:33.680 what I'm ashamed to say, Josh, that I did not 0:01:33.760 --> 0:01:36.560 know what an arco state was. Really. I've heard of it, 0:01:36.600 --> 0:01:38.840 but I didn't really know what it was. I can't 0:01:38.880 --> 0:01:41.040 remember if I pitched this one or if Channel did, 0:01:41.080 --> 0:01:44.280 but it's a good well done sir, Thank you very much, 0:01:44.319 --> 0:01:47.760 thank you. Yeah. Um, well, Chuck and I are talking 0:01:47.760 --> 0:01:50.320 about narco states, as you probably were tipped off by 0:01:50.360 --> 0:01:53.240 the title of this podcast. And for those of you 0:01:53.280 --> 0:01:57.560 who don't know what anarco state it is, uh, Josh, 0:01:57.560 --> 0:01:59.880 I'm just gonna give my own definition, which is, it 0:02:00.120 --> 0:02:05.600 is a country where they sort of allow drug trafficking 0:02:05.680 --> 0:02:09.440 and in some cases even participate in the drug trafficking. Yeah. 0:02:09.480 --> 0:02:14.680 And it's it's very very rarely an entire country. Um. 0:02:14.800 --> 0:02:17.000 Most of the time, it's like a real region of country, 0:02:17.480 --> 0:02:21.239 very small area city. Although there are cases where there 0:02:21.280 --> 0:02:24.919 have been narco states, like fully functioning countries that are 0:02:25.280 --> 0:02:28.600 run by drugs, Like the their gross domestic product is 0:02:28.639 --> 0:02:31.920 almost fully funded by drugs. The government's in on it, 0:02:32.280 --> 0:02:35.720 military is in on it. Um And right now, as 0:02:35.720 --> 0:02:39.040 far as I could tell, there's only one functioning narco 0:02:39.120 --> 0:02:43.959 state in the world. Afghanistan. No, it's close though, uh Guinea, 0:02:44.000 --> 0:02:47.240 bissauth Oh yeah sure. In Africa, yeah, West Africa. I 0:02:47.240 --> 0:02:50.800 can't wait to tell that story's good on so Okay. So, 0:02:50.840 --> 0:02:54.680 a narco state, as Chuck said, is basically any area 0:02:54.840 --> 0:02:58.640 where the government is either directly involved or turning a 0:02:58.680 --> 0:03:03.120 blind eye to drug traffic. Yes, and Central Mexico, Central America, 0:03:03.200 --> 0:03:06.320 South America always known as being rife with this kind 0:03:06.320 --> 0:03:09.480 of thing, because chances are, if you're doing drugs in 0:03:09.520 --> 0:03:12.919 the US, chances are it did not come from inside 0:03:12.960 --> 0:03:16.600 the United States. No, unless it was meth or pot. Yeah, 0:03:16.639 --> 0:03:19.800 and even then, chances are it probably didn't, although there 0:03:19.880 --> 0:03:22.680 was a lot of domestic U meth labs and and 0:03:22.800 --> 0:03:25.360 pot farms and stuff like that. Yeah, but yeah, the 0:03:25.480 --> 0:03:28.360 chances are it came through Mexico. If not from Mexico, 0:03:28.800 --> 0:03:32.440 Mexico didn't used to be nearly as violent, you know, Warez, 0:03:32.520 --> 0:03:35.280 which we were talking about, Um had I think three 0:03:35.360 --> 0:03:38.520 hundred murders in two thousand seven, and then all of 0:03:38.560 --> 0:03:41.680 a sudden there was a drug war starter that's still 0:03:41.720 --> 0:03:43.960 going on now. And in two thousand and eight they 0:03:43.960 --> 0:03:47.320 had murders. Yeah, that's a heck of a stat Yeah. Yeah, 0:03:47.400 --> 0:03:50.360 Detroit had like less than three hundred murders in two 0:03:50.400 --> 0:03:54.640 thousand seven. To Detroit safer than someplace. This is safer 0:03:54.680 --> 0:03:57.040 than Warez. Believe it or not, Well, thank god for that. 0:03:57.760 --> 0:03:59.560 I didn't get the stats on temped though, so I 0:03:59.560 --> 0:04:03.080 can't say right. Yeah, so um. One of the reasons 0:04:03.120 --> 0:04:07.120 why uh, And we'll see that American intervention one way 0:04:07.200 --> 0:04:10.560 or another, UH usually has an impact on the formation 0:04:10.600 --> 0:04:12.160 of a narco state. But one of the reasons why 0:04:12.240 --> 0:04:15.600 Warez and some of the other border towns along Mexico 0:04:15.640 --> 0:04:19.599 have turned into narco states, UH is because the Coast 0:04:19.600 --> 0:04:22.000 Guard in the d e A effectively shut down the 0:04:22.040 --> 0:04:25.400 Caribbean in the nineties. That was the main route from 0:04:25.720 --> 0:04:30.919 um South America to the US for coke, and Americans 0:04:31.120 --> 0:04:35.080 love coke. A lot of the world does. And one 0:04:35.120 --> 0:04:37.040 thing that I learned from reading this article and just 0:04:37.080 --> 0:04:39.760 by living as a human in the world is that 0:04:40.680 --> 0:04:43.239 drugs will find a way to get into the country, 0:04:43.400 --> 0:04:45.640 they definitely will. Like for example, when the Caribean was 0:04:45.640 --> 0:04:48.640 shut down, they started moving in through Central American through 0:04:48.680 --> 0:04:51.240 Mexico came another run way or another. And the reason 0:04:51.279 --> 0:04:54.359 why is um, Well, like I said, Americans love cocaine. 0:04:54.480 --> 0:04:57.640 We consume fort of the global supply of it every year. 0:04:58.640 --> 0:05:01.760 Does a lot of cocaine loves the junk too? Oh? No, 0:05:01.880 --> 0:05:05.400 Europe is the heroine. Yeah, they have eleven percent of 0:05:05.440 --> 0:05:09.400 the global population in Europe, but they have one third 0:05:09.440 --> 0:05:13.240 of the world's heroin addict. Big deal. Yeah, it's weird 0:05:13.240 --> 0:05:15.159 how it's localized like that. It is, But think about it. 0:05:15.200 --> 0:05:17.159 Let's think about how much closer Europe is to the 0:05:17.160 --> 0:05:20.440 heroin producing countries of the South Asia, and think about 0:05:20.440 --> 0:05:23.840 how close we are to the cocaine producing countries of 0:05:23.880 --> 0:05:27.640 South America, which affects the price. Of course it definitely does. Um, 0:05:27.680 --> 0:05:30.440 you want to give them that stat Josh, a kilogram 0:05:30.440 --> 0:05:33.840 of uncut cocaine, as you hear on the cop shows, 0:05:34.520 --> 0:05:39.720 has it goes for dollars? That same kilo fetches uh 0:05:39.839 --> 0:05:43.080 about a hundred and twenty thousand dollars in Moscow. That's 0:05:43.120 --> 0:05:45.919 a big markup. It's a huge markup, is that street 0:05:46.000 --> 0:05:48.040 value as they call it. And I'm sure those are 0:05:48.120 --> 0:05:49.920 way off. I'm sure you could get a kilo for 0:05:49.960 --> 0:05:53.680 a lot less or pature or whatever. But um, one 0:05:53.680 --> 0:05:55.480 of the things that FEDS like to do is pump 0:05:55.560 --> 0:05:57.880 up their numbers. Yeah, yeah, so that they can get 0:05:58.080 --> 0:06:01.679 more funding. But yeah, you can definitely get a kilo 0:06:01.720 --> 0:06:04.159 of cocaine in America a lot cheaper than you can 0:06:04.720 --> 0:06:09.240 uma in Russia. Yeah, so Chuck, Um, all of that, 0:06:09.400 --> 0:06:12.400 all of those kilos add up pretty quickly. And the 0:06:12.520 --> 0:06:16.640 drug trade, the global drug trade UM makes an estimated 0:06:16.720 --> 0:06:20.520 three hundred billion dollars a year. That's nuts. That is 0:06:20.560 --> 0:06:22.440 a lot of casts. You could bail out two A 0:06:22.560 --> 0:06:25.040 I G s for that. So, Chuck, we talked about, 0:06:25.160 --> 0:06:29.400 um the narco state being ah an area where government's 0:06:29.440 --> 0:06:32.240 either looking the other way, or selling drugs directly or 0:06:32.279 --> 0:06:35.320 helping them out, maybe just hating them. Um, there's a 0:06:35.360 --> 0:06:38.360 big problem with this, I would say so. But well, 0:06:38.440 --> 0:06:39.880 I mean you just think about it. You're like, oh, 0:06:39.920 --> 0:06:41.880 the government is not supposed to do that. To stop 0:06:41.920 --> 0:06:45.279 and think why why the why the government's not supposed 0:06:45.279 --> 0:06:47.400 to do that? Yeah, Well, because they're supposed to protect 0:06:47.440 --> 0:06:50.640 their citizens. Yeah, there's something that um Thomas Hobbs called 0:06:50.640 --> 0:06:53.799 the social contract, and basically it said, like in exchange 0:06:53.800 --> 0:06:55.880 for certain freedoms, like we can't just do anything we 0:06:55.960 --> 0:06:58.800 want to write that we give to the government, We're 0:06:58.800 --> 0:07:00.600 going to give that power to the government. One of 0:07:00.640 --> 0:07:03.800 those things is the state violent the state monopoly on violence, 0:07:04.680 --> 0:07:07.599 where like the government can put you in jail, the 0:07:07.680 --> 0:07:11.560 government can um kill you, execute you, but the government 0:07:11.680 --> 0:07:13.240 is supposed to be the only one who does it. 0:07:13.320 --> 0:07:15.960 So if somebody, you know, shoot your kid, you don't 0:07:16.000 --> 0:07:18.040 go shoot them in the head. You can get the 0:07:18.080 --> 0:07:21.480 government to go after this guy and incarceraate or kill him. Right. Yeah, 0:07:21.520 --> 0:07:23.720 And in the civilized world, the social contract is kind 0:07:23.720 --> 0:07:26.840 of how we developed as nations of the world, and 0:07:26.920 --> 0:07:29.280 it works pretty well for the most part, we'll say, 0:07:29.320 --> 0:07:31.520 I mean, that's a whole other podcast right there. But 0:07:31.560 --> 0:07:33.720 in Narco States, it's a little different because that's a 0:07:33.760 --> 0:07:36.320 little bit of a sham. They kind of have that 0:07:36.400 --> 0:07:39.560 contract as long as it doesn't interfere with the drug trade. Right, 0:07:39.600 --> 0:07:44.000 the government's given it's uh, it's power to drug traffickers 0:07:44.720 --> 0:07:46.920 at the expense of the people. They're supposed to be 0:07:46.920 --> 0:07:50.680 protecting and representing, So that's number one. Right, So how 0:07:50.720 --> 0:07:54.960 does this happen? Right? Well, one reason why that might happen. 0:07:55.280 --> 0:07:57.280 There's a bunch of different ways that could happen. But 0:07:57.520 --> 0:08:02.040 one reason is if, um, say, you're in Colombia and 0:08:02.040 --> 0:08:05.120 all of a sudden, you've heard the term Columbian necktie, 0:08:05.520 --> 0:08:07.720 I have. Yeah, all of a sudden, your judges in 0:08:07.800 --> 0:08:11.520 your council people, and your and your politicians are getting 0:08:12.200 --> 0:08:15.920 knifed and executed in back alleys by the dozens. All 0:08:15.920 --> 0:08:18.440 of a sudden, the government might say, wait a minute, 0:08:18.440 --> 0:08:21.440 we might want to not go after these drug traffickers, 0:08:21.520 --> 0:08:24.320 right because if the state is doesn't have a monopoly 0:08:24.360 --> 0:08:27.760 on violence any longer, if you know, paramilitary groups affiliated 0:08:27.760 --> 0:08:31.080 with drug traffickers do, yeah, then yeah. Apparently in Colombia 0:08:31.360 --> 0:08:34.920 they came at the justice building with tanks. Yeah. This 0:08:35.040 --> 0:08:38.280 wasn't the military, This was a rebel faction. Yeah. I 0:08:38.600 --> 0:08:40.960 think it was Fark that did it, right, Josh Fark. 0:08:41.120 --> 0:08:43.040 That is f a r C. That stands for the 0:08:43.080 --> 0:08:48.360 Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia translated into English. Uh. And 0:08:48.400 --> 0:08:52.839 they're actually a communist guerrilla group, an army. They are 0:08:53.000 --> 0:08:57.559 and um, they actually got into drug trafficking in the eighties, 0:08:57.600 --> 0:09:01.839 I think indeed. Um, So okay, So you have a huge, armed, 0:09:01.920 --> 0:09:07.800 guerrilla army attacking your justice department in the country's capital. 0:09:08.240 --> 0:09:10.440 That's a good way to get a narco state started, right. 0:09:10.720 --> 0:09:14.240 Sometimes you're bribed into it. That's another one too. All 0:09:14.240 --> 0:09:17.040 of a sudden, if your coffers are being filled, a 0:09:17.080 --> 0:09:19.920 lot of politicians are willing to look the other way. Um. 0:09:19.960 --> 0:09:26.680 And also, if your intelligence services become compromised by drug traffickers, 0:09:26.720 --> 0:09:29.360 you're in big trouble. Yea. If those are corrupted, you're finished. Yeah, 0:09:29.360 --> 0:09:32.320 because the intelligence services are usually towards the top of 0:09:32.360 --> 0:09:35.800 the military hierarchy, and if they're corrupted, they can turn 0:09:35.840 --> 0:09:40.199 the entire military against you know, the government, which there 0:09:40.240 --> 0:09:45.199 is a division. Um. And after that happens again, you're 0:09:45.240 --> 0:09:47.880 in big trouble in a narco state. Conform Yeah, plus state. 0:09:47.920 --> 0:09:51.840 They know a lot about smuggling, the intelligence community, and 0:09:52.000 --> 0:09:53.839 if all of a sudden they're on your side, then 0:09:53.840 --> 0:09:56.560 all of a sudden, you know a lot about smuggling, right, Yeah, 0:09:56.640 --> 0:09:59.040 it's it's uh. You have to know how to get 0:09:59.120 --> 0:10:01.800 people or arms or something in and out of countries 0:10:01.880 --> 0:10:04.679 about being detected. So you know where all the airfields are, 0:10:04.960 --> 0:10:06.960 you have access to planes and boats and stuff. You 0:10:07.080 --> 0:10:09.240 just start throwing kilos a coke in there, and all 0:10:09.280 --> 0:10:12.840 of a sudden, you're a drug smuggler. Yeah. Um. And 0:10:12.880 --> 0:10:14.520 it's kind of tough for us to think about this 0:10:14.559 --> 0:10:17.600 in the United States because we've had a pretty stable 0:10:17.720 --> 0:10:21.600 government for the last couple of hundred years. But uh, 0:10:21.679 --> 0:10:25.000 in in areas, in countries where there's been high government 0:10:25.000 --> 0:10:30.800 turnover and lots of internal conflict. Um, let's say, infrastructure 0:10:30.840 --> 0:10:34.640 like roads, bridges, water, electricity, these things have been cut 0:10:34.679 --> 0:10:37.600 throughout these civil wars and the government's too poor to 0:10:37.960 --> 0:10:41.400 fix them. All of a sudden, the government's delegitimized, and 0:10:41.920 --> 0:10:45.959 another like a rebel faction can step in and say, hey, 0:10:46.280 --> 0:10:49.240 we're taken over, and by the way, we love drug traffic. 0:11:20.160 --> 0:11:22.360 I got a couple of stats for you along those lines. 0:11:22.920 --> 0:11:27.240 Guatemala endured a thirty six year long civil war, El 0:11:27.280 --> 0:11:30.800 Salvador in a twelve year long civil war. In Nicaragua 0:11:30.840 --> 0:11:33.480 had one that lasted nineteen years. And so what this 0:11:33.559 --> 0:11:37.760 means is it's a very unstable region, easily swayed by 0:11:37.920 --> 0:11:41.280 whoever has the power drug traffickers or the government. And 0:11:41.320 --> 0:11:44.600 it also means there's a lot of guns. Yeah, and 0:11:44.679 --> 0:11:47.920 a lot of former veterans that are out of work, 0:11:48.000 --> 0:11:50.800 but you know how to use those guns and can 0:11:50.920 --> 0:11:52.920 serve as a guerrilla army. Yeah. And a lot of 0:11:52.920 --> 0:11:55.000 times these are poor countries too. So in fact, I 0:11:55.040 --> 0:11:57.959 would say almost every time it's a poor country, and 0:11:58.040 --> 0:11:59.880 it's it's you don't have to be genius to figure 0:12:00.000 --> 0:12:02.880 out you got guns, you got these former military guys, 0:12:02.920 --> 0:12:05.160 you've got really poor people, and you have loads of drugs. 0:12:05.240 --> 0:12:07.520 It's worth a lot of money. It's really not too 0:12:07.520 --> 0:12:10.400 hard to devolve into a narco state. No, it's not. Uh, 0:12:10.440 --> 0:12:13.600 And of course the root of all narco states is money, 0:12:14.120 --> 0:12:17.640 either like Chuck said, bribes that kind of thing, or 0:12:17.760 --> 0:12:22.680 um the GDP Afghanistan um, apparently their g d P 0:12:22.880 --> 0:12:26.840 is like six billion annually, which what's the United States? 0:12:26.880 --> 0:12:30.880 I think has fourteen trillion GDP? That um, So it's 0:12:30.960 --> 0:12:32.880 kind of like, holy cow, how do you live like that? 0:12:32.920 --> 0:12:36.080 They've been doing pretty good, but half of that has 0:12:36.120 --> 0:12:41.560 been through heroin. So cars I hummed cars, I who 0:12:41.600 --> 0:12:45.800 was Um, I'm gonna make air quotes elected president of 0:12:45.840 --> 0:12:53.000 Afghanistan twice. I made air quotes again, right, yeah, re elected. Um. 0:12:53.120 --> 0:12:55.920 He has is well known for turning a blind eye 0:12:55.920 --> 0:12:58.800 while saying we need to get rid of these poppies. Um. 0:12:58.840 --> 0:13:00.760 And the US is like, Okay, we'll let us spray, 0:13:00.800 --> 0:13:02.000 and he's like, non't no, we have to do it 0:13:02.040 --> 0:13:08.719 all by hand. Um. And apparently the American forces over there, Um, 0:13:08.800 --> 0:13:11.320 I have to well, the d e as over there 0:13:11.320 --> 0:13:15.400 as well, but the American commanders of the armed forces 0:13:15.440 --> 0:13:18.520 in Afghanistan don't let the d e A in at all. 0:13:18.920 --> 0:13:21.720 And they're frustrated pulling their hair out because they're not 0:13:21.760 --> 0:13:26.040 getting any support whatsoever. And it's kind of one of 0:13:26.040 --> 0:13:29.040 those things, like everybody knows that Afghanistan produces poppies. As 0:13:28.960 --> 0:13:32.480 a matter of fact, in two thousand and six, they 0:13:32.559 --> 0:13:38.599 produced the highest poppy harvest in recorded human history just 0:13:38.640 --> 0:13:41.280 a couple of years ago. It was double what it 0:13:41.320 --> 0:13:44.200 had been the year before. So clearly they're not pulling 0:13:44.280 --> 0:13:47.360 enough by hand. No, because cars I won't let them 0:13:47.400 --> 0:13:50.000 spray overhead. Yeah, which is I should explain that that's 0:13:50.000 --> 0:13:52.800 a common method to uh, like you crop dust fields 0:13:52.840 --> 0:13:55.040 to to put chemicals on them. You do the same 0:13:55.040 --> 0:13:56.920 thing if you want to eradicate and kill them, right, 0:13:57.080 --> 0:14:00.400 and it is very effective. It's worked in Colombia. Lumbia, 0:14:00.640 --> 0:14:03.560 Uh finally has a president. I shouldn't say finally, but 0:14:03.600 --> 0:14:06.520 Columbia as a president is very sympathetic and friendly to 0:14:06.559 --> 0:14:08.240 the US and he's let the d e A in 0:14:08.280 --> 0:14:11.920 there and they have eradicated a lot of um cocoa 0:14:12.080 --> 0:14:16.080 fields using that that method. Yeah, so it does work. 0:14:16.120 --> 0:14:18.240 But cards I was like no, And apparently there's been 0:14:18.280 --> 0:14:21.520 more and more and more reports of the people who 0:14:21.560 --> 0:14:24.880 are involved in the central government are all drug lords 0:14:24.960 --> 0:14:27.080 or most of them are drug lords too. So Afghanistan 0:14:27.160 --> 0:14:30.359 is teetering right on the edge of being a narcostate, 0:14:30.480 --> 0:14:34.760 if it's not already so contributing to half of your GDP. 0:14:34.960 --> 0:14:37.480 That's another reason for a narco state to develop. Yeah, 0:14:37.520 --> 0:14:39.680 and well, since we're on money, another thing that money 0:14:39.760 --> 0:14:43.040 brings is uh, bribes and corruption like we were talking about. 0:14:43.440 --> 0:14:45.600 And I have to mention this because you uncovered this 0:14:45.640 --> 0:14:50.160 great fact from Guatemala. The federal judge that's just hard 0:14:50.200 --> 0:14:53.920 to believe. The federal judge was accused of accepting thousands 0:14:53.960 --> 0:14:57.480 of dollars in bribes to dismiss a drug trafficking case 0:14:58.080 --> 0:15:00.320 and at the end of the SEED dismissed the case. 0:15:00.360 --> 0:15:02.400 At the end of this trial, Uh, this judge was 0:15:02.440 --> 0:15:06.040 seen driving the defendant from court. Yeah, so it goes 0:15:06.120 --> 0:15:09.960 pretty deep. Yeah, And Guatemala UM is a de facto 0:15:10.280 --> 0:15:14.200 narco state right now, UM and in Central America itself, 0:15:14.240 --> 0:15:17.400 which is, like we said, since the UM, since the 0:15:17.440 --> 0:15:20.000 Caribbean has been shut down, Central America started play a 0:15:20.040 --> 0:15:23.360 really key role as a as a supply line between 0:15:23.360 --> 0:15:28.240 South America and North America. UM. And actually, because of 0:15:28.240 --> 0:15:31.640 all those conflicts that you mentioned earlier, there's now a 0:15:31.960 --> 0:15:37.160 ratio of five to one illegal unregistered guns to guns 0:15:37.200 --> 0:15:41.920 held by UM legitimate police and armed forces. So let's 0:15:42.000 --> 0:15:45.000 keep an eye on Central America. That means trouble is coming. Okay, 0:15:45.000 --> 0:15:48.680 So Central America UM again we talked about how it's 0:15:48.720 --> 0:15:54.120 been destabilized by conflict. There's tons of guns, there's terrible infrastructure, 0:15:54.600 --> 0:15:58.000 there's plenty of drugs and narco states and you know 0:15:58.000 --> 0:16:02.680 what else did in Guatemala. They have corrupt government officials 0:16:02.680 --> 0:16:07.120 there have drafted legislation that prevents UM extradition, and as 0:16:07.160 --> 0:16:10.440 we know, extradition is a really valuable tool for us 0:16:10.440 --> 0:16:13.760 when we're trying to prosecute these drug lords and they 0:16:13.800 --> 0:16:16.440 said he can't do it. So that kind of says, 0:16:16.560 --> 0:16:20.320 right there, let us make our money. Yeah, us stay 0:16:20.320 --> 0:16:22.240 out of her hair. Once you have the Congress, in 0:16:22.280 --> 0:16:25.560 the judiciary in your pocket, that's even more valuable in 0:16:25.640 --> 0:16:29.080 the military, although the military is a really good first step. Yeah, 0:16:29.080 --> 0:16:31.960 that's true. Um all right, so Chuck. One of the 0:16:32.000 --> 0:16:35.440 reasons why you might notice that UM Central and South 0:16:35.440 --> 0:16:38.280 America keep popping up. One of the reasons why is 0:16:38.320 --> 0:16:44.040 because UM Central America specifically was a Cold War battleground 0:16:44.360 --> 0:16:46.360 where the U S and the U s SR fought 0:16:46.360 --> 0:16:51.320 one another in proxy wars UM through throughout the Cold War. Basically, 0:16:51.360 --> 0:16:55.640 both countries just completely used nations in Central and South 0:16:55.680 --> 0:16:58.520 America to fight, fight one another, try to bleed one 0:16:58.560 --> 0:17:01.480 another out. You know what that means. What that means 0:17:01.560 --> 0:17:04.600 that these people that live there being trained by either 0:17:05.000 --> 0:17:09.399 Russian or American military. They're being supplied with guns and 0:17:09.520 --> 0:17:12.719 ammunition and all the things that you need. Once you 0:17:12.840 --> 0:17:15.800 stop and say could wars over all those guns and 0:17:15.800 --> 0:17:18.200 trained dudes are still there, right, and they're like, well, 0:17:18.240 --> 0:17:20.960 what should we do with all this stuff. Yeah, and 0:17:20.960 --> 0:17:23.199 not only that, we are not getting funding from the 0:17:23.200 --> 0:17:26.960 Soviets of the Americans anymore, but we still the war 0:17:27.000 --> 0:17:29.679 didn't end for them. The conflict didn't end for them, 0:17:29.680 --> 0:17:31.720 The power struggle didn't end for them, just because the 0:17:31.720 --> 0:17:34.760 Americans and the Soviets suddenly lost interest. It's still going 0:17:34.800 --> 0:17:38.040 on and there they are funding it through drugs right 0:17:38.640 --> 0:17:43.200 um and also uh, the US backed right wing paramilitary 0:17:43.200 --> 0:17:47.520 groups or right wing um dictatorships, and the Soviets of 0:17:47.560 --> 0:17:51.200 course backed left wing groups like farc Um. And farc 0:17:51.480 --> 0:17:55.840 has a reputation for being extremely brutal. They use child soldiers, 0:17:55.880 --> 0:17:59.920 they engage in kidnappings, bombings, um kill their own people. Sure, 0:18:00.320 --> 0:18:04.159 at one point, um they offered a thousand dollars to 0:18:04.240 --> 0:18:07.199 anybody who killed the government official. So they were outsourcing 0:18:07.200 --> 0:18:09.919 their terrorism and their communists, and they were supported by 0:18:09.920 --> 0:18:12.720 the Soviet So of course they're horrible. The US supported 0:18:12.800 --> 0:18:17.720 equally brutal regimes and groups like Lack of Frida. You 0:18:17.720 --> 0:18:21.679 know about them there Guatemala. Yes, they were very much 0:18:21.720 --> 0:18:24.640 supported by the US and they helped kill as many 0:18:24.680 --> 0:18:27.119 as two hundred thousand of their own people during that 0:18:27.359 --> 0:18:31.080 civil war. Josh Lacka Frida wasn't the only one, right. 0:18:31.400 --> 0:18:34.560 Remember the nineteen eighties when President Reagan launched the War 0:18:34.600 --> 0:18:36.840 on drugs? You know what was going on. At the 0:18:36.840 --> 0:18:40.359 same time, we were providing funding and weapons for the 0:18:40.400 --> 0:18:45.800 same anti communist paramilitary groups that were producing and distributing 0:18:45.840 --> 0:18:48.760 this cocaine. Yeah right, at the same time. Yea, Yet 0:18:48.800 --> 0:18:51.000 we were fighting a war on drugs. Ye doesn't add up, 0:18:51.040 --> 0:18:54.040 doesn't Not only that, you remember Manuel Noriega and we 0:18:54.080 --> 0:18:57.600 went down to Panama in nine nine. Delta Force was 0:18:57.720 --> 0:19:02.360 their special forces was there, um, and we captured him 0:19:02.400 --> 0:19:04.399 and then put him in prison in Miami for a 0:19:04.440 --> 0:19:08.320 couple of decades. He was a CIA asset for eight years. Yeah, 0:19:08.320 --> 0:19:11.960 he was operating a narco state under our supervision. Yeah, 0:19:12.000 --> 0:19:15.000 you could say. Uh. And then once news leaked out 0:19:15.040 --> 0:19:18.280 to the general public that he was a drug dealer, Um, 0:19:18.359 --> 0:19:20.719 we went down and reroved him from power, right and 0:19:20.760 --> 0:19:22.920 gave I believe he's still in prison, right, No, he 0:19:23.080 --> 0:19:25.480 just got out really yeah, okay, like a year ago 0:19:25.560 --> 0:19:27.760 or something like that. Good for him. And again, this 0:19:27.840 --> 0:19:31.200 is the same thing that's going on right now in Afghanistan. Um, 0:19:31.440 --> 0:19:34.280 we're well aware that cars I is totally cool. With 0:19:34.320 --> 0:19:37.800 the heroin production in that nation, which by the way, 0:19:37.920 --> 0:19:40.840 is far and away the largest producer of heroin or 0:19:40.880 --> 0:19:46.240 opium poppies um in the world. So it's still going on. Yeah, 0:19:46.359 --> 0:19:48.520 although we we donated a lot of are donated, I 0:19:48.520 --> 0:19:50.280 guess that's not the right word, but we gave them 0:19:50.359 --> 0:19:54.320 close to eight hundred million dollars for counter narcotics operations 0:19:54.320 --> 0:19:57.760 and measures. I'm sure every penny went to that scene. Um. 0:19:57.840 --> 0:20:01.400 So it's still going on, but we The reason why 0:20:01.520 --> 0:20:04.040 it's really disturbing that this is still going on is 0:20:04.080 --> 0:20:06.760 because we haven't learned a very clear lesson from this, 0:20:06.840 --> 0:20:10.800 and that's when we support groups that engage in drug trafficking, 0:20:10.960 --> 0:20:15.280 it invariably comes back to bite us in the ass um. 0:20:15.480 --> 0:20:20.840 Like I mentioned Laco Frida in Guatemala. The two guys 0:20:20.880 --> 0:20:24.720 who are running that show, running Guatemala as a narco state, 0:20:25.119 --> 0:20:28.320 we're both trained by the United States at the School 0:20:28.320 --> 0:20:31.480 of the America's Fort Benning, I think, yeah, right here 0:20:31.480 --> 0:20:36.000 in Georgia. Yeah, it's where they trained foreign people, no 0:20:36.160 --> 0:20:40.600 specifically South Latin America, Latin Americans specifically to train them. 0:20:40.920 --> 0:20:45.600 Pretty controversial, Yeah, because they trained them in assassination in 0:20:45.600 --> 0:20:49.520 assembling guerilla armies and destabilizing central governments, that kind of stuff. 0:20:49.640 --> 0:20:51.439 So we're training these guys to go fight the serviews. 0:20:51.480 --> 0:20:53.760 But then again, after the Cold Wars over, these guys 0:20:53.760 --> 0:20:57.600 are still going. They're still around. Um. The Mexican Gulf Cartel, 0:20:58.200 --> 0:21:02.720 which has become hugely violent and kind of big UM 0:21:03.200 --> 0:21:05.280 is run by a couple of guys who were also 0:21:05.320 --> 0:21:07.960 trained at the School of the America's So basically the 0:21:08.000 --> 0:21:12.159 world's biggest drug dealers were trained by the United States 0:21:12.160 --> 0:21:14.720 and the art of smuggling and all sorts of other stuff. 0:21:14.760 --> 0:21:16.879 They were trained in their craft. And I think the 0:21:16.960 --> 0:21:22.120 Russians used Escobar, right yeah, to to help guard their 0:21:22.119 --> 0:21:25.640 poppy fields, is that right? Yeah. Farc actually started out 0:21:25.720 --> 0:21:31.040 um guarding Escobar's cocoa fields in Colombia for the Median cartel, 0:21:31.119 --> 0:21:33.840 right yeah. And then apparently they're like, Wow, this guy 0:21:33.880 --> 0:21:35.560 is making a bunch of money. We're gonna go out 0:21:35.600 --> 0:21:38.879 on our own, and they became rivals. And then again 0:21:38.960 --> 0:21:44.920 Delta Force goes down there and oversees the assassination of Umar, 0:21:45.359 --> 0:21:47.399 which I don't mean to sound paranoid, like I really 0:21:47.440 --> 0:21:51.520 researched this article and all this is fact. Everything that 0:21:51.720 --> 0:21:54.280 is in fact. I've made like verbal air quotes with 0:21:55.000 --> 0:21:57.600 like this is this is documented stuff and so much 0:21:57.640 --> 0:22:01.600 money and legitimate publications. You know, it's all about the greenbacks. 0:22:02.240 --> 0:22:04.800 So much money at stake. So let's talk about Africa, man, 0:22:04.880 --> 0:22:07.640 that's the place to be these days. Well, if you're 0:22:07.640 --> 0:22:10.880 in the narco state. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, Africa has really 0:22:10.920 --> 0:22:13.560 risen since the mid eighties. That was the first sign 0:22:13.600 --> 0:22:17.480 of a drug presence in Africa and Zombia, although it 0:22:17.560 --> 0:22:20.600 was marijuana in uh in Zombia at the time. That's 0:22:20.640 --> 0:22:23.400 how it started out, at least the gateway drug. Even 0:22:23.400 --> 0:22:26.440 when you're talking narco states. Sure, yeah, it's funny. So 0:22:26.800 --> 0:22:31.359 Zambia goes um Is exposes a narco state. Apparently the 0:22:31.400 --> 0:22:33.679 government wasn't aware of this one, but a group of 0:22:33.720 --> 0:22:37.840 prominent citizens were operating like a sub state. Yeah, sub 0:22:37.920 --> 0:22:41.159 narco state, just under the noses of the functioning government. 0:22:41.280 --> 0:22:44.600 And again very poor people, which is key. That's Yeah. 0:22:44.840 --> 0:22:46.240 If people don't have any money and all of a 0:22:46.280 --> 0:22:48.400 sudden people come and give them gobs of money, they'll 0:22:48.640 --> 0:22:51.040 you know, you want to be a drug mule, We'll 0:22:51.080 --> 0:23:16.480 give you this much money. Problem um so Zambia was 0:23:16.480 --> 0:23:19.879 the first to start in Africa and then the nineties. UM. 0:23:20.240 --> 0:23:22.879