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Speaker 1: Welcome back to Behind the Hood Politics Bastards. Um, that's

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Speaker 1: the one. That is the one. So we left off

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Speaker 1: talking about Gary Webb's Dark Alliance article series. Um. And

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Speaker 1: the primary gotcha that the story had was that it

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Speaker 1: connected to right wing drug dealing Nicaraguans to the f

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Speaker 1: d N, which is a group of what the Reagan

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Speaker 1: administration called freedom fighters fighting against the left wing government

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Speaker 1: of Nicaragua. And it showed that these these guys tied

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Speaker 1: to the f d N had somewhat inexplicably escaped prosecution

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Speaker 1: for a weird number of crimes, all involving cocaine while

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Speaker 1: they were moving a bunch of cocaine into the US.

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Speaker 1: And boy, that seems a little bit sketchy, right, Um,

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Speaker 1: Now this is the point again where we have to

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Speaker 1: start talking about Nicaraguan history. So I'm gonna I'm gonna

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Speaker 1: peel us back a little bit from the swing in eighties,

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Speaker 1: well from the swinging nineties, I guess too, the also

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Speaker 1: swinging nineteen sixties. Um. This is the this is the

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Speaker 1: intersection of the two yes, other episodes we've done. Here's

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Speaker 1: where it. Yeah, yeah, this is where it intersects with

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Speaker 1: all well, all the norths coming up. But this is

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Speaker 1: the bad story towards what all these winds up doing.

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Speaker 1: And because episodes, Yeah yeah, because our episode starts in Iran.

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Speaker 1: Yeah yeah. So starting in nineteen thirty six, Nicaragua is

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Speaker 1: run by a family called the Samosas. Who is it's

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Speaker 1: one of these dictatorship families. It's essentially like royalty, right,

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Speaker 1: like that's what it is. They are right wing um.

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Speaker 1: They exist to help a lot of different foreign companies

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Speaker 1: extract Nicaraguan wealth h and hand some of it to

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Speaker 1: them while none of it goes to the people. And

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Speaker 1: they're in power forty three years. And the last Samosa

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Speaker 1: who is in power is an Astasio Samosa, who's around

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Speaker 1: from nineteen sixty seven is to nineteen seventy nine, is

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Speaker 1: the dictator um in total. Again, there Samoses are there

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Speaker 1: for like half a century, so you might think about

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Speaker 1: the Samosas is kind of like the Assad's right, and

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Speaker 1: Anastasia is a little bit like Bashar that he has

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Speaker 1: groomed to inherit the kingdom. Now, like most dictators, Samosa

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Speaker 1: assassinated political rivals, which included newspaper editors and people who

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Speaker 1: attempted to engage in Nicaragua was free and opened elections

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Speaker 1: in a way that he didn't like. As The Times

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Speaker 1: wrote in a contemporary article, quote, the machinery of government

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Speaker 1: was essentially geared to building up and ensuring the perpetuation

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Speaker 1: of the family's wealth and power. As a result, the

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Speaker 1: Samosa is not only control much of the Nicaraguan economy

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Speaker 1: with interest in construction, shipping, airlines, television and newspapers, farming, fishing, breweries,

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Speaker 1: and mining, but the president's uncle's brother, cousins, sons, and

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Speaker 1: nephews occupy key posts throughout the administration. Um. It's a kleptocracy, right,

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Speaker 1: we all, we're all familiar with this thing. Um. And eventually,

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Speaker 1: you know, people, what people really don't like is when

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Speaker 1: a specific family or a few families of assholes take

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Speaker 1: all of the money and run everything and murder anyone

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Speaker 1: who talks bad about it. Eventually, across the board in

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Speaker 1: every culture and time, people don't like this. People really

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Speaker 1: don't like that. And in in Nicaragua, once the people

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Speaker 1: decided they had had enough of this, there's a revolution

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Speaker 1: and a group of leftists known as the Sand and East.

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Speaker 1: As you know, starting is these kind of like guerilla

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Speaker 1: fighters and whatnot overthrow his ass and take power themselves. Now,

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Speaker 1: these guys are leftists, right, so being leftists? Who are

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Speaker 1: you being leftists in Nicaragua? What is a country You're

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Speaker 1: probably gonna want to have a good relationship with Cuba? Right? Um?

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Speaker 1: Pretty natural. Cuba has a similar history of this kleptocratic

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Speaker 1: dictator getting overthrown by a left wing revolution. Right. Um,

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Speaker 1: Cuba's familiar, you know, friendly ideologically, They've got access to

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Speaker 1: weapons and stuff through the Soviet Union sometimes that and

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Speaker 1: it's all of which and it is pretty close, all

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Speaker 1: of which is real good for the Sand and East.

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Speaker 1: Is so any normal person would be like, well, yeah,

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Speaker 1: of course they're kind of cozy up with Cuba. The

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Speaker 1: US security establishment loses their god damned minds when this

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Speaker 1: happens in like nineteen seventy nine. Um, they don't see

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Speaker 1: this is like, well, yeah, they just overthrew this government

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Speaker 1: who was friendly with I mean, the US had a

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Speaker 1: mixed relationship with Samosa. It's not entirely like but anyway, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we've just overthrown this dictator. These guys are our best

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Speaker 1: friends in the area. They can give us the stuff

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Speaker 1: we need to help kind of rebuild and take our

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Speaker 1: country back um. The US security establishment, these these paleo

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Speaker 1: conservatives who were fucking taken over with the Reagan administration

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Speaker 1: are like, this is communism taking hold in America's backyard.

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Speaker 1: It's one of the things people will talk about in

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Speaker 1: this period. There's this domino theory, right, that's why we

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Speaker 1: Vietnam people are so fucking committed. It's same thing with Korea.

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Speaker 1: Is this idea that like, well, if you let one

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Speaker 1: country become communists, then everyone around them will fall which

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Speaker 1: a couple of things. Number one, I don't think this

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Speaker 1: is actually true of state communism. But if there's an

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Speaker 1: ideology that's so attractive that once one country does that,

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Speaker 1: everyone around them starts doing it, perhaps that's a good thing.

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Speaker 1: Maybe it's not that bad, or maybe that's not the

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Speaker 1: way it because that's not the way it worked. Right Famously,

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Speaker 1: Vietnam the communists one, and you know what didn't happen

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Speaker 1: is all of Southeast Asia do exactly the same thing

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Speaker 1: as Vietnam in a lot of ways. Actually, Vietnam became

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Speaker 1: a stabilizing force because they're the ones who move into

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Speaker 1: fucking Cambodia and stuff. After the Kaimarus lose their minds.

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Speaker 1: So it's one of those things where the actual lived

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Speaker 1: history shows that this is a terrible way to think

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Speaker 1: of things because it leads you to commit to stuff

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Speaker 1: like the Vietnam War, which is a fucking disaster and

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Speaker 1: it's not accurate because countries can have left wing regimes

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Speaker 1: go into place and Vietnam big trading partner with the US,

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Speaker 1: biased weapons and stuff from US. Now, like it's not

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Speaker 1: you know, it's not that's but it's nothing contagious, It's fine.

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Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, nothing about this theory of how domino

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Speaker 1: like this, Nothing about this is right. And by nineteen

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Speaker 1: eighty it's obvious to everyone that it's not right because

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Speaker 1: there's a lot of Again, Vietnam are the ones who

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Speaker 1: like put an into the fucking Khmer rouge um whatever.

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Speaker 1: So the Reagan administration doesn't take it this way, and

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Speaker 1: they're like, no, no, no, we were never The only

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Speaker 1: thing that was wrong about Vietnam is that we didn't

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Speaker 1: stay in their love, which no, we just was good.

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Speaker 1: If if the American public would have been chill it

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Speaker 1: just let us do to ship, we'd be I. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And again this is not to whitewash anybody involved it's

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Speaker 1: just to point out that the theory of sucking the

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Speaker 1: domino theory is fucking nonsense, and they know it at

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Speaker 1: this point. Um. So that's the justification for why we

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Speaker 1: are need to back the group of kind of right

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Speaker 1: wing militias that start forming up in Nicaragua after the

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Speaker 1: Sandinistas take over. This is not a lot of guys, um,

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Speaker 1: there's really just a handful of different bands of right

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Speaker 1: wing you know, revolutionaries. A lot of them are trained

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Speaker 1: by the CIA and getting aid from the CIA. So

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Speaker 1: the CIA has dudes in there who were helping to

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Speaker 1: train these guys up and kind of broadly, these different

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Speaker 1: groups are known as the Contrast, which I think I

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Speaker 1: don't think I need to explain why they're called it, Like,

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Speaker 1: that's why they're called the contrast is because they're against

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Speaker 1: the fucking the Santinistas. So, which is the same year

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Speaker 1: that CRACK made its debut in the West Coast, members

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Speaker 1: of the Nicaraguan Revolutionary Democratic Alliance we're meeting with CIA

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Speaker 1: officers to plot the overthrow of their new government. One

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Speaker 1: of these officers sent a cable to CIA headquarters to

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Speaker 1: explain that the nation's new allies had opted to quote

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Speaker 1: engage in drug smuggling to the United States in order

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Speaker 1: to finance it's anti Sandinista operations. An initial trial run

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Speaker 1: had taken place in July of that year, with cocaine

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Speaker 1: being flown from to Miami from Nicaragua via plane. Now

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Speaker 1: this cable, this is not like a hey, great, our

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Speaker 1: plan worked, cable, right, this is framed as a warning.

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Speaker 1: So they're not saying, hey, this is awesome. They're saying like, hey,

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Speaker 1: by the way, you should know, Uh, Nicaraguan revolutionaries are

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Speaker 1: smuggling cocaine in the United States, and we have evidence

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Speaker 1: that this plane got sent there. Right. Um, it's it's

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Speaker 1: basically allegations of a wrongdoing within the intelligence establishment of

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Speaker 1: an ally of the CIA. So of course the CIA

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Speaker 1: does not do anything about these allegations, right because they

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Speaker 1: are fine with it, or at least there's factions. The

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Speaker 1: CIA is not a monolith. There's people, which is not

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Speaker 1: to say that there's people who don't like it because

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Speaker 1: they're good people. They don't like it because of other reasons.

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Speaker 1: But there's broadly speaking, because we're we'll talk about this

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Speaker 1: more later, but the CIA is kind of having a

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Speaker 1: culture crisis and this period to due to some ship

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Speaker 1: that's happened in the seventies. And so there's two big

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Speaker 1: broad groups within the agency at this point that are

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Speaker 1: kind of opposed to each other. One of them are

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Speaker 1: what the other group kind of call derogatorily the desk jockeys,

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Speaker 1: And they're the people who are like, ship can be

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Speaker 1: done remotely. We don't need to have fucking we shouldn't

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Speaker 1: be sending in people and specialists, we shouldn't be boots

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Speaker 1: on the ground, right, Like, there's other ways to influence ship,

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Speaker 1: Like that's how we'll do it. And then there's the

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Speaker 1: the cowboys, right, And I think it's obvious the cowboys

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Speaker 1: are the guys who want to do like James Bond shit, right,

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Speaker 1: they want to be machine gunning people and like having Yeah,

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Speaker 1: those are the two different kind of factions within the CIA,

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Speaker 1: and they are so again, this this warning isn't like

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Speaker 1: someone being coy. It's someone in the agency who's like,

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Speaker 1: I don't think this is good, and other people in

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Speaker 1: the agency are like, yeah, we're not going to do

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Speaker 1: shit about that, right, Like that's what's happening here. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and you know, uh, how much was how many moving

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Speaker 1: parts was happening in the story around this time, it's

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Speaker 1: like some fools just didn't even know she was going

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Speaker 1: on well, and and and and it's also we'll talk

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Speaker 1: about this more. It's a strategic decision to make sure

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Speaker 1: some fools don't know what's going on, because you want

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Speaker 1: people who are honestly ignorant that you can trot out

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Speaker 1: to answer questions, right, that's how you do this. So

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Speaker 1: there there are other allegations that start to filter out

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Speaker 1: around the same time. Five members of a group called

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Speaker 1: ADRIN a d R E N it's a it's an

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Speaker 1: acronym um. This is like a right wing group are

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Speaker 1: accused of working directly with Jorge Morales, who's a major

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Speaker 1: drug trafficker. Adrian is this kind of democratic alliance. That's

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Speaker 1: what they're framed as right as democratic. So the sanitist

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Speaker 1: des aren't whatever who carried out the mission are disbanded

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Speaker 1: in like nineteen eighty two, but a lot of the

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Speaker 1: core people there joined the f d N, which we've

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Speaker 1: talked about before. That's the Nicaraguan Democratic Force, which makes

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Speaker 1: up the core of the contrast, Four of the five

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Speaker 1: ADREN members who had worked directly with cocaine smuggler Charles

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Speaker 1: Morales or Jorge Morales remain associated with him and the

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Speaker 1: CIA until nineteen eight seven. Right, So we're talking about

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Speaker 1: the kind of links. It's not as simple as like

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Speaker 1: this organism. It's not always as simple as this organization

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Speaker 1: has this relationship with the CIA. It's well, these guys

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Speaker 1: are in this organization that's backed by the CIA, and

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Speaker 1: they know this guy, and then they leave to this

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Speaker 1: other organization that's also backed by the CIA, and they

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Speaker 1: take their connection with him there, right, and he's moving

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Speaker 1: cocaine and like they're getting money through it. So in

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Speaker 1: the summer of nineteen eighty four, Marte Healey, who was

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Speaker 1: a wealthy Nicaraguan exile, she had she supported Samosa, She

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Speaker 1: was a big fan of that dictator. She holds a

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Speaker 1: meeting at her home in Miami with two CONTRA representatives

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Speaker 1: and or Hey Morales, who, by this point is to

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Speaker 1: indictment in the United States. I'm gonna quote from the

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Speaker 1: Washington Post here. The Contra representatives were Octaviano Saysar and

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Speaker 1: Adolpho Popo Tomorrow, Haley's ex husband. Both were working with

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Speaker 1: Eden Pastora, a Maverick revolutionary, trying to open a Southern

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Speaker 1: front and the Contra's guerrilla war from a base in

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Speaker 1: Costa Rica. In addition to the Contrast based in Honduras

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Speaker 1: and Nica, rob was northern border. The CIA had run

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Speaker 1: out of money to support either group of contrasts, and

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Speaker 1: Congress refused to provide more until the next year. Despite

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Speaker 1: their rift with the spy agency, Tomorrow and Czar said

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Speaker 1: they asked the CIA official if they could accept the

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Speaker 1: offer of airplanes and cash from the drug dealer. Morales,

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Speaker 1: I called our contact at the CIA. Of course I did,

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Speaker 1: Tomorrow said. Recently. The truth is we were still getting

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Speaker 1: some CIA money under the table, they said. Morales was fine. Yes,

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Speaker 1: I was like like yes, read like please if y'all

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Speaker 1: I don't know what order y'all here in these episodes.

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Speaker 1: I keep coming back to that, but like I think

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Speaker 1: this will be too and then yours will be three

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Speaker 1: in four and okay, cool, so then so then yeah,

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Speaker 1: so then y'all will see as we as we uh,

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Speaker 1: as this episode unfolds or this series unfolds, he has

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Speaker 1: he saying, yeah, you know the c I is, you know,

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Speaker 1: we getting money from them. We're not like we're not

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Speaker 1: supposed to be funding them yet. Like this like this

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Speaker 1: is all under the two Yeah, yeah, this is illegal,

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Speaker 1: Like get she in illegal? Was? Fuck? Yes? Has it

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Speaker 1: literally made loss? That said you can't fund him? All right?

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Speaker 1: I was like, no, we get the money. Yeah, so

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Speaker 1: that's fine, but we're not supposed to be paying them anyway.

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Speaker 1: So I mean, what the difference is it they passed

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Speaker 1: back and cry and the way this happens, it's like

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Speaker 1: there's this lady and she's rich and and she's got

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Speaker 1: some money and maybe she gets kicked some money on

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Speaker 1: the side by the CIA to help fund these guys

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Speaker 1: at a private party at her house, and you know

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Speaker 1: that's the way all this flows. Again, it's never as

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Speaker 1: they like. These guys are One of the things you

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Speaker 1: have to keep in mind, and we'll talk about this

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Speaker 1: in our Oliver North episodes. Prop is that a lot

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Speaker 1: of this is being done like the drug business, and

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Speaker 1: I'm talking about outside of the drugs. I'm talking about

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Speaker 1: the funding a militants where you've got all these different

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Speaker 1: streams and you want a lot of ship done in

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Speaker 1: cash and and your land laundering and filtering. One of

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Speaker 1: the main differences is that because these guys are the government,

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Speaker 1: they're all much worse at it than people in the

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Speaker 1: drug game are, which is why we know all of

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Speaker 1: this right, because they they do the thing that Stringer

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Speaker 1: Bell says you don't ever do, is they take they

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Speaker 1: all take notes on their criminal conspiracy. I just don't understand, Like,

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Speaker 1: how y'all just writing all his ship down. Well, I mean,

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Speaker 1: it's because they a lot most of them. You have

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Speaker 1: to one thing you have to keep in mind. And

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Speaker 1: this is again something I think that folks on the

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Speaker 1: left don't think about enough when they think about why

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Speaker 1: the CIA is the way it isn't what it does.

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Speaker 1: There's a lot of people, there's people, particularly at the top,

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Speaker 1: who are like soulless nightmare bureaucrats, but a lot of

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Speaker 1: them believe in what they're doing. A lot of these

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Speaker 1: agents believe they're fighting communism they're doing and so they're

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Speaker 1: taking notes and writing it down because they don't think

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Speaker 1: they're doing anything wrong, and they think that as government employees,

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Speaker 1: you are supposed to document the good things that you're doing. Um. Yeah, yeah.

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Speaker 1: So anyway, uh US officials who took part in joint

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Speaker 1: CIA contra operations argued against the version of events that

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Speaker 1: I have just related to you without actually refuting it right,

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Speaker 1: because they specifically can't argue against the facts. They just

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Speaker 1: argue that this does not mean that the CIA had

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Speaker 1: any role in the drug trade. Dwyane Clarridge, at the time,

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Speaker 1: the head of the CIA's Latin American division, said that

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Speaker 1: he quote certainly never dealt with Popo Chamorrow, but might

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Speaker 1: have met him and definitely didn't know Morales. When Congress

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Speaker 1: investigated this in nine seven, the CIA claimed that just

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Speaker 1: after this meeting, they decided never to work again with

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Speaker 1: Costa Rican based contrast, because they figured out they were

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Speaker 1: involved in the coke industry. So once it comes out

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Speaker 1: that there's these these very clear ties, they're like, oh,

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Speaker 1: and then we decided not to work with them anymore. Um,

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Speaker 1: you all really know that, dude. But he so we

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Speaker 1: we bounced ye yeah. So I was like no. Once

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Speaker 1: I found out, I was like, no, I gotta go

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Speaker 1: where yeah yeah. Which, again, the CIA are liars. It

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Speaker 1: is literally their job, right they are. The CIA know

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Speaker 1: it should be surprised by this, but it's worth delving

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Speaker 1: into precisely why they decided to get involved in cocaine now,

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Speaker 1: as we're going to discuss later. The agency has a

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Speaker 1: long history of using drug money to fund their sketchy

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Speaker 1: black opshit. They much preferred to get cash directly from

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Speaker 1: the federal government. The CIA doesn't like doing sketchy drug

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Speaker 1: things to fund stuff, because that's a lot harder than

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Speaker 1: the Congress just saying here's billions of dollars to do

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Speaker 1: sketchy ship. Right. The CIA was way happier after, for example,

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Speaker 1: nine eleven, when suddenly they just get this like pile

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Speaker 1: of funds. That's much better than doing fucking the coke

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Speaker 1: coke dealing. Yeah, but it is. They have a fucking

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Speaker 1: older than a lot of the people alive, you know,

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Speaker 1: making these decisions on the ground when the entra ship

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Speaker 1: comes up. The CIA has a very long history of

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Speaker 1: funding their operations with drug money. UM. So obviously um.

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Speaker 1: When Reagan took office, he called the death squatters of

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Speaker 1: the contrast the moral equivalent of the founding Fathers. Um.

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Speaker 1: And he made the argument again that like you've got

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Speaker 1: to you've got to stop the spread of communism by

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Speaker 1: supporting anti communist insurgencies. This becomes known as the Reagan doctrine,

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Speaker 1: which is just a repackaged uh fucking what you call it? More?

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Speaker 1: Uh No, the things that fall over. Yeah, I mean

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Speaker 1: it's that too. It is. It is kind of a

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Speaker 1: continuation of Monroe doctrine, but it's a domino theory theory.

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Speaker 1: It's just a repackaging of that um. And he does over.

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Speaker 1: He does argue for direct open aid rather than drug

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Speaker 1: like trying to fund the ship through drug money. Reagan

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Speaker 1: and the CIA want this ship to come straight through Congress.

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Speaker 1: But after he gets elected in nineteen eighty, the GOP like,

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Speaker 1: he has those first couple of years, which is when

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Speaker 1: a lot of this stuff starts to ramp up, right,

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Speaker 1: and the CIA is pumping a lot of money into

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Speaker 1: the contrast. But then in two the Republicans lose the

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Speaker 1: Senate in the House in the midterms, it goes really

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Speaker 1: fucking badly for them, and they immediately stick a big

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Speaker 1: rubber why did I say, a big rugger rubber cock

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Speaker 1: in the in the Reagan White House. They they immediately

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Speaker 1: decided to like stymy the Reagan White House, and they

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Speaker 1: passed something called the BOLB. I don't know, I was

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Speaker 1: the immediately the way I wrote this at like three

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Speaker 1: in the morning, the Lion as I originally wrote it was,

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Speaker 1: they immediately stuck a big rubber cock in the Reagan

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Speaker 1: White House plugged. I'm gonna be honest with holes, just

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Speaker 1: would a big old rubbery. I'm sure I had a

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Speaker 1: bit to extemp on this, but I have forgotten what

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Speaker 1: that was. Oh my lord, but theories to us on Twitter,

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Speaker 1: I would yeah, I mean I think I meant like

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Speaker 1: they fucked they fucked the Reagan White House. That's a

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Speaker 1: bad way to do it. God, what alaud what a

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Speaker 1: tragic funk? Up? I am? Um. So, so the bowl

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Speaker 1: in the minium, Yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll talk about that

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Speaker 1: more later, but basically for now, what you know, it

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Speaker 1: restricts the activity of the CIA and the d O

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Speaker 1: D in Foreign Wars Department of the Fifth So the

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Speaker 1: amendment is written with the Nicaragua, with Nicaragua specifically in mind, um,

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Speaker 1: and it makes it harder to fun things um. And

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Speaker 1: the justification for this is again the fact that at

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Speaker 1: the time, the justification as they're passing the Bowl in

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Speaker 1: Amendment is that contra funding comes in large part from

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Speaker 1: the Nicaraguan cocaine trade. And this is, as we talk

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Speaker 1: about in Part one two, this is when the crack

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Speaker 1: epidemic starting, right. So that's all very much tight into

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Speaker 1: this um and yeah, this is the stew of affairs

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Speaker 1: that in nineteen five, which is the first year that

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Speaker 1: the big study on crack babies is published, we get

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Speaker 1: the Iran contrast candle, and we're going to talk about

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Speaker 1: that in in your episodes problem, which you're gonna start

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Speaker 1: hearing tomorrow. I am going to peel back from that

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Speaker 1: for now. So again we're a little bit not completely

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Speaker 1: going along chronologically here because I Ran Contra deserves to

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Speaker 1: be talked about separately. We're going to get to that

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Speaker 1: in the next couple of episodes. What I want to

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Speaker 1: talk about now on our show is the CIA's history

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Speaker 1: dealing drugs to support their black ops, because this is

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Speaker 1: fucking cool ship. Actually yes, but you know what else

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Speaker 1: is cool ship? Prop Oh? Man, tell me what else?

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Speaker 1: The products and services that support this podcast less than

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Speaker 1: twenty percent of which are the CIA. I'm trying to

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Speaker 1: tell you, man, maybe maybe not much less. I'm gonna

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Speaker 1: be honest with you. I mean it might be a

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Speaker 1: percentage of uh, rubber, Reagan clogging Cox maybe well. And look,

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Speaker 1: you know there's a lot of things that that that

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Speaker 1: the CIA gets their hands and including the VP. Well,

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Speaker 1: actually it was the FBI who created that VCS and

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Speaker 1: all those people. Uh, it is fun that they just

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Speaker 1: get to do all that kind of ship anyway, good,

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Speaker 1: good reason, but fly to that job. Look, nobody, nobody's

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Speaker 1: going to try to sell you a mattress to fund

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Speaker 1: the c I A, you're good on that one. Oh

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Speaker 1: we are be a que That's how you spell back

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Speaker 1: when you're feeling saucy. So like, if you have any

387
00:20:33,520 --> 00:20:36,359
Speaker 1: any analysis on what's going on with Robert, please please

388
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Speaker 1: please feeling Randy some of us, some of us are artists,

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Speaker 1: Sophie honestly, honestly is quite a word. Smith and I

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Speaker 1: still and also as as as just stated, I think

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Speaker 1: Randy needs to come back, as I agree as an

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Speaker 1: adjective Randy. And so I've made a big change. I

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Speaker 1: think now that we've come back from break, I can

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Speaker 1: talk about this because this is going to affect everybody,

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Speaker 1: both in my personal life and who listens to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: Probably I've decided I'm going to start using the phrase

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Speaker 1: cash money more often, particularly when people do something that's

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Speaker 1: not cool. I'm gonna be like, that's not very cash money,

399
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Speaker 1: of you, like, that's not very cash money, Sophie. Now Now,

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Speaker 1: what is your definition of that, because my definition of

401
00:21:21,000 --> 00:21:24,800
Speaker 1: that is not what you think it is. When you

402
00:21:24,840 --> 00:21:28,960
Speaker 1: say cash money, I think of like Lil Wayne Nicki

403
00:21:29,040 --> 00:21:35,560
Speaker 1: Mina was like cash money millionaire. That's that's like that

404
00:21:35,560 --> 00:21:37,879
Speaker 1: that that title has been taken, is what I'm telling you.

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Speaker 1: You really reigned on my parade here, Sophie, and that's

406
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Speaker 1: not very cash money of you. Wow wow, he used it. Agrees. Incredible.

407
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Speaker 1: So let's talk about the CIA's history selling drugs. From

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Speaker 1: nineteen forty seven to nineteen fifty one in France, the

409
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Speaker 1: c i A sent weapons and money to Corsican criminal

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Speaker 1: syndicates so that they would use violence and murder to

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Speaker 1: take control of labor unions in Corsica from the Communist

412
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Speaker 1: party center World War One end. Or they sent them huh,

413
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Speaker 1: they sent them cash money. They did send them cash

414
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Speaker 1: money and cash gunnates. Anyway, these Corsicans wound up in

415
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Speaker 1: total control of the city's docks. And when you run

416
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Speaker 1: the docks, what what happens when you can run the docks?

417
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Speaker 1: Who here remembers the Wire Season two, Right, you can

418
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Speaker 1: move a shipload to yoh right, you can get that

419
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Speaker 1: fucking blow rolling. It's very easy. So well, not just blow.

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Speaker 1: This is actually not blow in this case. But the

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Speaker 1: CIA is like, hey, we just funded these violent right

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Speaker 1: wing gangs to murder all of the labor unions in

423
00:22:42,960 --> 00:22:45,679
Speaker 1: order to take control of these docks. What if we

424
00:22:45,720 --> 00:22:49,200
Speaker 1: started moving a shipload of heroin? What if we partnered

425
00:22:49,240 --> 00:22:52,200
Speaker 1: with the Italian mob to move a bunch of heroin

426
00:22:52,400 --> 00:22:56,080
Speaker 1: through these docks, and then we made Marseilles the heroin

427
00:22:56,200 --> 00:22:58,359
Speaker 1: capital of all of Europe and maybe the world for

428
00:22:58,400 --> 00:23:02,240
Speaker 1: a while. Right, So the CIA is doing specifically because

429
00:23:02,240 --> 00:23:04,000
Speaker 1: there's a lot of fucking money in that and they've

430
00:23:04,040 --> 00:23:06,200
Speaker 1: just become an agency. They want to get that black

431
00:23:06,200 --> 00:23:09,120
Speaker 1: budget rolling. They got governed, they got fucking Patrice Lamumba

432
00:23:09,119 --> 00:23:11,240
Speaker 1: to murder in the Congo, They got all these things

433
00:23:11,280 --> 00:23:13,320
Speaker 1: to do. Um, we got we got a lot of

434
00:23:13,400 --> 00:23:15,520
Speaker 1: crime and to do, and we need to run our

435
00:23:15,520 --> 00:23:18,879
Speaker 1: crime syndicate in the same way crime syndicates run a

436
00:23:19,000 --> 00:23:23,760
Speaker 1: crime syndicate because there are literal business partners. Yes like this,

437
00:23:24,160 --> 00:23:28,360
Speaker 1: I cannot stress this enough. Behind the bastards listeners, Yeah,

438
00:23:28,600 --> 00:23:32,360
Speaker 1: these are the angel investors. Honestly, the the the heroin

439
00:23:32,520 --> 00:23:36,119
Speaker 1: trade that starts up in the late forties early fifties.

440
00:23:36,400 --> 00:23:38,280
Speaker 1: It's kind of the same thing as like, Okay, this

441
00:23:38,359 --> 00:23:40,360
Speaker 1: is going on before the CIA gets involved, but it's

442
00:23:40,359 --> 00:23:42,840
Speaker 1: a little bitty. It's like Facebook looking at Instagram and

443
00:23:42,880 --> 00:23:45,280
Speaker 1: going like, yeah, we're gonna buy us and make it big,

444
00:23:45,400 --> 00:23:49,520
Speaker 1: you know, like that that's what's happening here. Um, And like,

445
00:23:49,640 --> 00:23:52,359
Speaker 1: I mean, I should I want to apologize to the CIA.

446
00:23:52,440 --> 00:23:54,560
Speaker 1: Actually it's really unfair of me to compare them to

447
00:23:54,600 --> 00:23:57,560
Speaker 1: Mark Zuckerberg. Um, so I do, I do. I do

448
00:23:57,640 --> 00:24:00,119
Speaker 1: feel bad about that. That's a little bit unfair, just

449
00:24:00,200 --> 00:24:06,720
Speaker 1: kind of brutal, just lowering that. I'm not apologizing because

450
00:24:07,480 --> 00:24:12,160
Speaker 1: that was a joke. Apology anyway. So Marseille gets its

451
00:24:12,200 --> 00:24:15,440
Speaker 1: first heroin lab at that same time. That same year,

452
00:24:15,840 --> 00:24:19,959
Speaker 1: the Nationalist Chinese Army, which is a right wing military

453
00:24:20,000 --> 00:24:22,280
Speaker 1: force in China fighting in that whole thing, which the

454
00:24:22,359 --> 00:24:26,040
Speaker 1: CIA had helped to build. An arm becomes the primary

455
00:24:26,040 --> 00:24:28,800
Speaker 1: opium distributor for the Golden Triangle, right, which is this

456
00:24:28,880 --> 00:24:31,119
Speaker 1: chunk of Southeast Asia that at that point is the

457
00:24:31,160 --> 00:24:34,600
Speaker 1: source of the world's largest source of opium. So they've

458
00:24:34,640 --> 00:24:37,240
Speaker 1: got again when I say they're running this, they are

459
00:24:37,280 --> 00:24:42,720
Speaker 1: controlling everything from supply through the nationalist Chinese Army, which

460
00:24:42,720 --> 00:24:46,480
Speaker 1: they have an interest in, to smuggling, which the fucking

461
00:24:46,520 --> 00:24:49,880
Speaker 1: mafia that they have an interest in is doing. To distribution,

462
00:24:50,119 --> 00:24:52,440
Speaker 1: which they run the fucking docks, right or at least

463
00:24:52,440 --> 00:24:55,439
Speaker 1: there people do, right. So, in order to make this

464
00:24:55,560 --> 00:24:58,840
Speaker 1: even more direct and obvious, the CIA uses Air America,

465
00:24:59,000 --> 00:25:01,760
Speaker 1: which is an air line they own, to fly the

466
00:25:01,840 --> 00:25:05,280
Speaker 1: drugs through Burma, Thailand, Lao, etcetera, right and and into

467
00:25:05,320 --> 00:25:08,239
Speaker 1: other places. Right. So again this isn't just like they

468
00:25:08,280 --> 00:25:11,400
Speaker 1: have an interest. They're not just helping like a Nicaragua.

469
00:25:11,520 --> 00:25:14,480
Speaker 1: They're helping shift along right there, smoothing things, They're making

470
00:25:14,480 --> 00:25:17,639
Speaker 1: problems go away. At this point, they're just straight up

471
00:25:17,640 --> 00:25:20,159
Speaker 1: loading drugs with hair or loading planes with heroin, right,

472
00:25:20,240 --> 00:25:22,520
Speaker 1: look like just what their logo on the side. And

473
00:25:22,600 --> 00:25:25,240
Speaker 1: this is just this is also a bit part of

474
00:25:25,359 --> 00:25:27,400
Speaker 1: why they're doing this is this is how they're funding

475
00:25:27,440 --> 00:25:30,000
Speaker 1: this national Chinese force they're funding, right Like, this is

476
00:25:30,000 --> 00:25:32,480
Speaker 1: how they're funding I think a lot of Operation Gladiol,

477
00:25:32,560 --> 00:25:35,000
Speaker 1: which we'll talk about one day. All of this drug

478
00:25:35,040 --> 00:25:37,760
Speaker 1: money is being sprinkled out along a bunch of stuff.

479
00:25:37,800 --> 00:25:40,800
Speaker 1: But so things that this this does make a lot

480
00:25:40,840 --> 00:25:42,960
Speaker 1: of money for their black ops. But things don't go

481
00:25:43,040 --> 00:25:46,560
Speaker 1: really well for the nationalist Chinese army. Um that if

482
00:25:46,560 --> 00:25:49,480
Speaker 1: you might notice, that's not who winds up winning that

483
00:25:49,480 --> 00:25:52,400
Speaker 1: that whole conflict. Um. And over the next twenty years,

484
00:25:52,440 --> 00:25:55,560
Speaker 1: the U S steadily increased a series of disastrous military

485
00:25:55,600 --> 00:25:58,920
Speaker 1: commitments in the region, which is you know, Vietnam, Korea,

486
00:25:59,000 --> 00:26:02,199
Speaker 1: all that good stuff is kind of what happens after this,

487
00:26:02,200 --> 00:26:05,879
Speaker 1: this this false apart. So while many US soldiers became

488
00:26:05,920 --> 00:26:08,600
Speaker 1: hero heroin attics during their tours, that's a big thing

489
00:26:08,640 --> 00:26:11,720
Speaker 1: that happens in Vietnam. Right, You've got all these soldiers

490
00:26:11,720 --> 00:26:14,160
Speaker 1: go into the Golden Triangle, where the CIA had been

491
00:26:14,160 --> 00:26:17,120
Speaker 1: moving heroin out of in order to fund the nationalist

492
00:26:17,240 --> 00:26:19,960
Speaker 1: Chinese army. Now that's not a factor so much. But

493
00:26:20,000 --> 00:26:23,200
Speaker 1: you've got a shipload of US and other foreign soldiers

494
00:26:23,240 --> 00:26:26,320
Speaker 1: in Southeast Asia fighting, a lot of them are getting hurt,

495
00:26:26,480 --> 00:26:29,280
Speaker 1: and they're being given opium. And when when the morphine

496
00:26:29,320 --> 00:26:30,719
Speaker 1: runs out, when the docks aren't going to give them

497
00:26:30,720 --> 00:26:32,959
Speaker 1: any more of that, well, they're in the heroin capital

498
00:26:32,960 --> 00:26:36,000
Speaker 1: of the world. Um. And the CIA was not just

499
00:26:36,119 --> 00:26:40,359
Speaker 1: kind of a passive like overseer of that. They operated

500
00:26:40,400 --> 00:26:43,760
Speaker 1: a lab in law that refined heroin for profit, the

501
00:26:43,800 --> 00:26:46,840
Speaker 1: heroin that was being sold to US soldiers who came

502
00:26:46,840 --> 00:26:49,480
Speaker 1: back to the United States addicted. By the time we

503
00:26:49,560 --> 00:26:52,359
Speaker 1: pulled out of the region under Nixon, Southeast Asia was

504
00:26:52,400 --> 00:26:54,919
Speaker 1: the source of seventy of the world's opium and the

505
00:26:54,960 --> 00:26:58,480
Speaker 1: primary material driver of the US heroin market. And the

506
00:26:58,520 --> 00:27:02,280
Speaker 1: CIA had never been involved, right, they were, they were,

507
00:27:02,320 --> 00:27:05,359
Speaker 1: They were guys every step of the way. Now we

508
00:27:05,400 --> 00:27:08,399
Speaker 1: could talk about Afghanistan and heroin and how boy howdy,

509
00:27:08,520 --> 00:27:11,680
Speaker 1: the same thing happened there a few decades later. Huh,

510
00:27:11,760 --> 00:27:14,520
Speaker 1: that's wild. But I think the point is made. The

511
00:27:14,600 --> 00:27:18,480
Speaker 1: CIA does not what they're not doing. They're not introducing

512
00:27:18,560 --> 00:27:21,600
Speaker 1: drugs to populations in a concerted manner. The drugs are

513
00:27:21,640 --> 00:27:25,200
Speaker 1: not being used consciously as weapons. The drugs are being

514
00:27:25,240 --> 00:27:29,000
Speaker 1: produced and brought into places in order to buy weapons

515
00:27:29,000 --> 00:27:31,160
Speaker 1: that they then give to people who do other series

516
00:27:31,200 --> 00:27:34,200
Speaker 1: is of crimes. The fact that populations are getting addicted

517
00:27:34,240 --> 00:27:37,080
Speaker 1: and stuff is kind of a byproduct of the fact

518
00:27:37,080 --> 00:27:40,240
Speaker 1: that they're trying to fund all of these revolutions and assassinations.

519
00:27:40,960 --> 00:27:44,160
Speaker 1: So obviously all this ship we've talked about doesn't work

520
00:27:44,160 --> 00:27:46,280
Speaker 1: out great in China, where they don't win. Doesn't work

521
00:27:46,320 --> 00:27:49,359
Speaker 1: out great in Southeast Asia, where again things tend to

522
00:27:49,400 --> 00:27:52,760
Speaker 1: be pretty disastrous for for u S interests during this period.

523
00:27:53,160 --> 00:27:55,480
Speaker 1: But stuff had worked out really well in France for

524
00:27:55,520 --> 00:27:57,200
Speaker 1: a while. The CIA had gotten their way there and

525
00:27:57,200 --> 00:27:59,119
Speaker 1: they've funded a bunch of shady ship with the stuff

526
00:27:59,119 --> 00:28:02,080
Speaker 1: they were moving through our a um and the drugs. Again,

527
00:28:02,119 --> 00:28:05,320
Speaker 1: even in places where you know, Vietnam doesn't work out,

528
00:28:05,359 --> 00:28:07,920
Speaker 1: we lose, see, it still makes a funkload of money

529
00:28:07,960 --> 00:28:10,040
Speaker 1: which they used to do a funkload of shady stuff.

530
00:28:10,200 --> 00:28:13,240
Speaker 1: And it's money that can't that they can deny, right,

531
00:28:13,400 --> 00:28:15,520
Speaker 1: so they don't have to admit they've used it for anything.

532
00:28:15,560 --> 00:28:17,560
Speaker 1: They don't have to account for it. A lot of

533
00:28:17,560 --> 00:28:21,239
Speaker 1: it presumably winds up padding pockets and stuff. It's not

534
00:28:21,320 --> 00:28:24,600
Speaker 1: like congressional money, which there's a little bit more strings

535
00:28:24,600 --> 00:28:27,600
Speaker 1: attached to. So when the Reagan administration to get back

536
00:28:27,640 --> 00:28:30,800
Speaker 1: to the Bowland Amendment, when the Reagan administration is like, boy,

537
00:28:30,960 --> 00:28:33,080
Speaker 1: Congress does not want to give us the money we

538
00:28:33,160 --> 00:28:38,400
Speaker 1: need to overthrow governments and destroy you know, socialist movements,

539
00:28:38,640 --> 00:28:42,120
Speaker 1: the CIA is like, hey, guys, we know how to

540
00:28:42,120 --> 00:28:45,000
Speaker 1: make money. Hey, we know how to do that kind

541
00:28:45,040 --> 00:28:49,360
Speaker 1: of ship. Yeah. Yeah, now, of course that is uh,

542
00:28:49,400 --> 00:28:51,800
Speaker 1: that is where we get all the north, where we

543
00:28:51,880 --> 00:28:56,240
Speaker 1: get around Contra. We're gonna talk about that more, uh

544
00:28:56,400 --> 00:28:58,120
Speaker 1: later on. I do want to note a couple of

545
00:28:58,160 --> 00:29:00,840
Speaker 1: things about Ali that we don't get into your episodes,

546
00:29:01,920 --> 00:29:03,560
Speaker 1: one of which kind of makes the point of how

547
00:29:03,640 --> 00:29:06,720
Speaker 1: incest uous the US ruling class really is. We've just

548
00:29:06,720 --> 00:29:10,240
Speaker 1: talked about the samosas. Ali North, who goes to the U. S.

549
00:29:10,320 --> 00:29:13,120
Speaker 1: Naval Academy because he's a fancy boy to become an officer,

550
00:29:13,480 --> 00:29:17,480
Speaker 1: is close classmates with future Navy Secretary and Senator Jim Webb,

551
00:29:17,760 --> 00:29:20,800
Speaker 1: their boxing buddies, and Web of course, is a major

552
00:29:20,840 --> 00:29:23,360
Speaker 1: political figure during all of the stuff that we're happening,

553
00:29:23,440 --> 00:29:27,840
Speaker 1: that we're talking about is happening. Um. So I don't

554
00:29:27,840 --> 00:29:31,000
Speaker 1: know that's that's nifty. Um. I also wanted to talk

555
00:29:31,080 --> 00:29:33,680
Speaker 1: we don't talk much. We don't talk in your episodes

556
00:29:33,720 --> 00:29:38,080
Speaker 1: about Randy Herrod do we know? We don't, Okay, So Randy.

557
00:29:38,120 --> 00:29:41,280
Speaker 1: In Vietnam, Oliver North serves as a platoon commander. He

558
00:29:41,320 --> 00:29:44,200
Speaker 1: wins a couple of different awards for gallantry under fire.

559
00:29:44,520 --> 00:29:47,560
Speaker 1: He is a pretty good actual like combat soldier, from

560
00:29:47,600 --> 00:29:50,760
Speaker 1: everything I have read, um, But he's also gonna wind

561
00:29:50,840 --> 00:29:53,040
Speaker 1: up lying when when the stuff you talk about in

562
00:29:53,040 --> 00:29:56,200
Speaker 1: your episodes happens breaks and Iran Contra happens, He's gonna

563
00:29:56,200 --> 00:29:58,640
Speaker 1: wind up needing to puff his background up because he's

564
00:29:58,680 --> 00:30:00,400
Speaker 1: dealing with a lot of criticism. And I want to

565
00:30:00,440 --> 00:30:03,080
Speaker 1: quote from a nineteen eight seven Washington Post article on

566
00:30:03,200 --> 00:30:06,680
Speaker 1: North that comes after the Iran Contra stuff breaks. He

567
00:30:06,720 --> 00:30:09,560
Speaker 1: was aggressive when instinct told him to take cover, he charged.

568
00:30:09,600 --> 00:30:12,560
Speaker 1: He reminded machine gunner Randy Harrod of a Viking berserker,

569
00:30:12,800 --> 00:30:15,400
Speaker 1: a fighter who would go against extreme odds and battle

570
00:30:15,480 --> 00:30:19,200
Speaker 1: until he dropped. Now that sounds like badass, right, That

571
00:30:19,240 --> 00:30:22,160
Speaker 1: makes him sound cool? Yes, yes, if you don't know

572
00:30:22,160 --> 00:30:25,400
Speaker 1: who Randy Harrod is. At least so the Washington Post

573
00:30:25,440 --> 00:30:27,640
Speaker 1: is just talking to this guy and being like, boy,

574
00:30:27,880 --> 00:30:31,880
Speaker 1: Randy sure loves him. In nineteen seventy, Randy Harrod participated

575
00:30:31,920 --> 00:30:35,040
Speaker 1: in the Songtang massacre, in which a five man Marine

576
00:30:35,080 --> 00:30:38,360
Speaker 1: Hunter killer patrol gunned down seven women and nine children.

577
00:30:38,760 --> 00:30:41,600
Speaker 1: They reported these dead women and children as viet Cong

578
00:30:41,640 --> 00:30:44,120
Speaker 1: who had been killed in a firefight. They were court

579
00:30:44,160 --> 00:30:46,840
Speaker 1: martialed over this. Eventually, and all you or I flew

580
00:30:46,880 --> 00:30:49,280
Speaker 1: down to be a character witness to his buddy slash

581
00:30:49,320 --> 00:30:52,280
Speaker 1: mass murderer Randy Um. And then, of course, when Aligue

582
00:30:52,280 --> 00:30:54,480
Speaker 1: gets in trouble, Randy goes in front of the media

583
00:30:54,560 --> 00:30:56,800
Speaker 1: to do the same thing. He was free to do

584
00:30:56,840 --> 00:30:59,680
Speaker 1: that despite murdering a bunch of people because he'd been

585
00:30:59,720 --> 00:31:02,520
Speaker 1: at it it. Now he gets acquitted. The other guys

586
00:31:02,520 --> 00:31:04,640
Speaker 1: in his unit, two of them gets five years sentences

587
00:31:04,640 --> 00:31:08,080
Speaker 1: and one gets sentenced to life. So again, this happened, right,

588
00:31:08,160 --> 00:31:11,040
Speaker 1: This is a massacre he and his boys do. None

589
00:31:11,080 --> 00:31:13,280
Speaker 1: of them actually serve much time, though, because the major

590
00:31:13,400 --> 00:31:16,040
Speaker 1: a major general reduces their sentences to less than a

591
00:31:16,120 --> 00:31:19,600
Speaker 1: year um, which is pretty fucked up. But whatever. Anyway,

592
00:31:20,160 --> 00:31:27,320
Speaker 1: Um all the North, good man, real, Yeah, So I

593
00:31:27,360 --> 00:31:29,160
Speaker 1: just wanted to get over that stuff a bit, because

594
00:31:29,160 --> 00:31:31,640
Speaker 1: you can't not read about Ali North while you're reading

595
00:31:31,680 --> 00:31:34,120
Speaker 1: about how the CIA and the crack stuff happens. And

596
00:31:34,120 --> 00:31:36,000
Speaker 1: that brings us to an important point which we do

597
00:31:36,040 --> 00:31:38,240
Speaker 1: talk about in your episodes. This is not just the

598
00:31:38,320 --> 00:31:41,920
Speaker 1: CIA right now, Gary Webbs articles focus on the CIA,

599
00:31:42,440 --> 00:31:45,840
Speaker 1: the NSC, the National Security Council just as bad, just

600
00:31:45,960 --> 00:31:49,760
Speaker 1: as involved in this specific ship right now. In brief

601
00:31:50,080 --> 00:31:53,880
Speaker 1: the guy running the NFC, Bob McFarlane has centralized a

602
00:31:53,880 --> 00:31:57,320
Speaker 1: lot of intelligence corps like collection, and Ali North is

603
00:31:57,360 --> 00:31:59,960
Speaker 1: the guy who's in kind of the center of this point. Man.

604
00:32:00,320 --> 00:32:04,640
Speaker 1: Um yeah, yeah, so anyway that that that's probably um.

605
00:32:04,680 --> 00:32:07,400
Speaker 1: Ali winds up working well ahead of like any of

606
00:32:07,440 --> 00:32:11,720
Speaker 1: this stuff like happening um in nineteen eighty one. Right,

607
00:32:11,760 --> 00:32:14,240
Speaker 1: this is kind of right as the crack trade is

608
00:32:14,280 --> 00:32:17,480
Speaker 1: sort of starting and the contracts are funding themselves, and

609
00:32:17,760 --> 00:32:20,520
Speaker 1: Ali builds a really personal relationship with a lot of

610
00:32:20,560 --> 00:32:22,640
Speaker 1: these contract He does a lot of training and advising

611
00:32:22,640 --> 00:32:25,640
Speaker 1: to them himself, and whenever opportunities pop up, he's rabid

612
00:32:25,760 --> 00:32:28,240
Speaker 1: and urging the president to throw down with these folks.

613
00:32:28,560 --> 00:32:30,960
Speaker 1: At one point in North Korean freighter of guns is

614
00:32:31,000 --> 00:32:34,040
Speaker 1: headed to Nicaragua to arm the government's forces. The Sandinista

615
00:32:34,080 --> 00:32:37,200
Speaker 1: is because obviously North Korea Sandinistas have some interest in common.

616
00:32:37,440 --> 00:32:39,880
Speaker 1: The CIA and the NSC guys are all debating what

617
00:32:39,960 --> 00:32:42,120
Speaker 1: to do, so like they've got this. This is a

618
00:32:42,160 --> 00:32:45,000
Speaker 1: sovereign nation. North Korea is allowed to go and sell

619
00:32:45,000 --> 00:32:48,160
Speaker 1: guns to Nicaragua. Right. Um, again, not a fan of

620
00:32:48,200 --> 00:32:50,719
Speaker 1: North Korea, bad government, but this is a thing we do.

621
00:32:50,800 --> 00:32:53,120
Speaker 1: This why wouldn't they be allowed to They're a country too,

622
00:32:53,440 --> 00:32:56,080
Speaker 1: so they're selling guns to the Sandinistas, and the CIA

623
00:32:56,120 --> 00:33:00,520
Speaker 1: and the NFC are like, well shit, we were not, like,

624
00:33:00,680 --> 00:33:02,600
Speaker 1: we can't let this, Like what do we what can

625
00:33:02,640 --> 00:33:05,640
Speaker 1: we do to stop this? All the suggestion is let's

626
00:33:05,680 --> 00:33:09,680
Speaker 1: attack the freighter. Let's attack the freighter of a sovereign nation,

627
00:33:10,080 --> 00:33:12,520
Speaker 1: steal their guns and give their guns. To the contrast,

628
00:33:12,800 --> 00:33:16,000
Speaker 1: other people are like, Ali, that's literally just piracy, Like

629
00:33:16,080 --> 00:33:23,360
Speaker 1: that's just being a pirate. Yeah, yeah, two, yeah, that's this,

630
00:33:23,360 --> 00:33:25,320
Speaker 1: This is a problem if we do this, Ali, there

631
00:33:25,360 --> 00:33:29,520
Speaker 1: will be consequences if we just attack one of their boats. Um,

632
00:33:29,640 --> 00:33:32,959
Speaker 1: So nothing happens. Ali gets overruled because people are like,

633
00:33:33,080 --> 00:33:35,440
Speaker 1: that's kind of crazy. Oliver North like, you're kind of

634
00:33:35,440 --> 00:33:37,800
Speaker 1: a maniac here, maybe calling the funk down. Yeah. But

635
00:33:37,880 --> 00:33:40,920
Speaker 1: Ali builds a really good relationship with Ronald Reagan. And

636
00:33:40,960 --> 00:33:44,520
Speaker 1: the way he does this is he's he's incredible at lying. Um.

637
00:33:44,520 --> 00:33:46,960
Speaker 1: He lies about He gets Reagan to believe that he's

638
00:33:47,040 --> 00:33:50,840
Speaker 1: run a Special Operations Training Detachment UM in his like

639
00:33:51,080 --> 00:33:54,560
Speaker 1: during Vietnam and he was basically coordinating special forces. And

640
00:33:54,920 --> 00:33:57,880
Speaker 1: right this is the time Predator comes out right, all

641
00:33:57,880 --> 00:34:00,760
Speaker 1: of these movies Lionizing, the Seals, and the Green Berets

642
00:34:00,800 --> 00:34:03,440
Speaker 1: are coming out in this period. Special Forces is sexy.

643
00:34:03,560 --> 00:34:06,080
Speaker 1: Ronnie's a movie guy. So Ali is like, yeah, I

644
00:34:06,120 --> 00:34:09,879
Speaker 1: was running Special Forces and stuff. You see that movie

645
00:34:09,920 --> 00:34:14,080
Speaker 1: with the movie were like Rambo see the movie with

646
00:34:14,239 --> 00:34:16,719
Speaker 1: like you know his Force nigger, Like, yeah, I was.

647
00:34:16,880 --> 00:34:18,520
Speaker 1: I was in the ship man, I was over there. Bro,

648
00:34:19,080 --> 00:34:22,040
Speaker 1: those movies are about me and the homies. Yeah, that's

649
00:34:22,080 --> 00:34:26,040
Speaker 1: what he's telling Ray essentially. Yeah, And Reagan is a

650
00:34:26,080 --> 00:34:30,319
Speaker 1: guy who's very vulnerable to stories. Again, He's he's an actor, right,

651
00:34:30,400 --> 00:34:32,480
Speaker 1: Like this is the kind of brain that actors have.

652
00:34:32,600 --> 00:34:33,800
Speaker 1: That's not a good or it's a bad thing in

653
00:34:33,880 --> 00:34:36,200
Speaker 1: Ronnie's case, but it's just a thing. He's he's he's

654
00:34:36,200 --> 00:34:39,839
Speaker 1: a story and he just gets enraptured by all over North.

655
00:34:40,040 --> 00:34:42,960
Speaker 1: One of North's NSC colleagues later are called Ali was

656
00:34:43,000 --> 00:34:46,320
Speaker 1: about thirty to fifty bullshit. He was notorious for constantly

657
00:34:46,320 --> 00:34:48,879
Speaker 1: exaggerating his role in things. He was always coming from

658
00:34:48,880 --> 00:34:51,120
Speaker 1: a meeting with the vice president. We checked once and

659
00:34:51,120 --> 00:34:55,480
Speaker 1: he hadn't been to see the vice president at allow Um.

660
00:34:55,520 --> 00:34:57,760
Speaker 1: And one of the interesting things and we're talking about Ali.

661
00:34:58,520 --> 00:35:01,400
Speaker 1: We're talking to your episodes about Contra. This is about

662
00:35:01,440 --> 00:35:04,759
Speaker 1: the other smuggling he was into. That's extent, Like, that's

663
00:35:04,760 --> 00:35:08,200
Speaker 1: why I'm getting into this, yeah. Um. The Executive Secretary

664
00:35:08,200 --> 00:35:11,000
Speaker 1: of the NFC, Rodney McDaniel, described North as a man

665
00:35:11,080 --> 00:35:14,720
Speaker 1: of tremendous energy whose real talent, despite his action hero image,

666
00:35:14,920 --> 00:35:18,080
Speaker 1: was bureaucracy. He had quote a good voice, no self

667
00:35:18,120 --> 00:35:23,040
Speaker 1: doubts at all. You never thought about a thing. Yeah.

668
00:35:23,080 --> 00:35:25,520
Speaker 1: He was full of ship and felt great about it. Yeah.

669
00:35:25,640 --> 00:35:29,800
Speaker 1: And and knowing how many moving parts audist it has

670
00:35:30,360 --> 00:35:35,400
Speaker 1: and what he had to oversee, there's no way He's

671
00:35:35,440 --> 00:35:39,920
Speaker 1: not like a human Excel spreadsheet because he's it's too

672
00:35:40,040 --> 00:35:42,920
Speaker 1: much to keep it's too much to keep organized. Yeah,

673
00:35:43,000 --> 00:35:47,440
Speaker 1: and he's Ali is particularly committed to the contract ship, right.

674
00:35:47,480 --> 00:35:49,600
Speaker 1: The stuff is that he gets involved within Iran. That

675
00:35:49,719 --> 00:35:52,360
Speaker 1: secondary to what is his real motivation, which is helping

676
00:35:52,400 --> 00:35:54,760
Speaker 1: these guys. Yeah. Um. I don't know if that's because

677
00:35:54,800 --> 00:35:56,240
Speaker 1: he was tied to them and it was a career

678
00:35:56,280 --> 00:35:58,360
Speaker 1: thing or if he was. He's legitimately a true believer

679
00:35:58,560 --> 00:36:02,480
Speaker 1: and and sympathize with him. But North is is really

680
00:36:02,520 --> 00:36:05,440
Speaker 1: the driver of the whole administration's policy towards them. And

681
00:36:05,480 --> 00:36:09,560
Speaker 1: when Reagan takes office, there's like five contras tops, right,

682
00:36:09,840 --> 00:36:13,239
Speaker 1: very few of these dudes, not really a movement. By

683
00:36:13,239 --> 00:36:15,200
Speaker 1: the time North is in his first year at the NFC,

684
00:36:15,320 --> 00:36:17,440
Speaker 1: there were like five or six thousand of right. And

685
00:36:17,480 --> 00:36:19,719
Speaker 1: of course they now and now I should say this,

686
00:36:20,239 --> 00:36:23,239
Speaker 1: they're almost never very good. They're about bad, not a

687
00:36:23,280 --> 00:36:28,640
Speaker 1: good insurgent group. They're really ineffective. That sense. The amount

688
00:36:28,640 --> 00:36:32,400
Speaker 1: of money we legally and illegally pumped down there, you know,

689
00:36:32,600 --> 00:36:34,799
Speaker 1: saying over the amount of time that we was there,

690
00:36:34,880 --> 00:36:37,040
Speaker 1: they was better on a video game and they were

691
00:36:37,400 --> 00:36:42,000
Speaker 1: We didn't not get much. Yeah, yeah, uh So North

692
00:36:42,040 --> 00:36:45,080
Speaker 1: throws himself into the contract program. In the book Landslide

693
00:36:45,160 --> 00:36:48,600
Speaker 1: Jane Mayor, Mayor and Doyle McManus right, North's five years

694
00:36:48,600 --> 00:36:51,399
Speaker 1: at the NSC were composed of manic days, weekends at

695
00:36:51,400 --> 00:36:53,840
Speaker 1: his desk, and vacations not taken. On the fifth birthday

696
00:36:53,840 --> 00:36:56,239
Speaker 1: of his daughter dorn In, one friend called. She called

697
00:36:56,280 --> 00:36:58,440
Speaker 1: him three times at seven o'clock, at eight o'clock, and

698
00:36:58,480 --> 00:37:01,319
Speaker 1: at nine o'clock, and in essence said Daddy, when are

699
00:37:01,320 --> 00:37:04,440
Speaker 1: you coming home? And Ali said, don't worry, honey, Daddy's

700
00:37:04,480 --> 00:37:06,319
Speaker 1: coming home as soon as he can. I've just got

701
00:37:06,360 --> 00:37:08,480
Speaker 1: to finish this work. By the time he got home,

702
00:37:08,520 --> 00:37:10,759
Speaker 1: she was already asleep. But he was willing to take

703
00:37:10,800 --> 00:37:13,919
Speaker 1: time to get the job done. Not everyone admired this trade.

704
00:37:14,160 --> 00:37:16,920
Speaker 1: He was always scheduling meetings on Sundays just to distress

705
00:37:16,960 --> 00:37:20,759
Speaker 1: everyone else. CIA analyst John Horton grumbled. Others worried less

706
00:37:20,760 --> 00:37:23,839
Speaker 1: about his workaholic devotion than his manic intensity. I used

707
00:37:23,880 --> 00:37:26,480
Speaker 1: to keep Alie out of Reagan's office because he was dangerous,

708
00:37:26,480 --> 00:37:29,000
Speaker 1: Michael Deaver recalled. He scared me. He'd fly to Bay Route,

709
00:37:29,040 --> 00:37:31,160
Speaker 1: be back twenty four hours later and brief the president.

710
00:37:31,360 --> 00:37:35,200
Speaker 1: Reagan loved him, loved the style. And again, there's factions

711
00:37:35,200 --> 00:37:37,799
Speaker 1: in here, right, everybody's not on the same fucking end

712
00:37:37,800 --> 00:37:41,759
Speaker 1: of things. Um, so we're condensing a lot here. But

713
00:37:41,840 --> 00:37:44,400
Speaker 1: as the years go by, despite all this money to fight,

714
00:37:44,480 --> 00:37:46,880
Speaker 1: despite how many of these fucking dudes there are, ship

715
00:37:47,040 --> 00:37:50,160
Speaker 1: doesn't go well the war. They don't take any cities,

716
00:37:50,200 --> 00:37:54,640
Speaker 1: they don't take any serious territory. They're not winning battlefield victories,

717
00:37:54,880 --> 00:37:58,360
Speaker 1: and Congress keeps stopping the administration from sending the money.

718
00:37:58,600 --> 00:38:01,040
Speaker 1: They develop all sorts of fun up workarounds. At one

719
00:38:01,040 --> 00:38:03,160
Speaker 1: point they get the Saudi Royal family to cough up

720
00:38:03,200 --> 00:38:05,239
Speaker 1: a bunch of money. They convinced the Israelis to send

721
00:38:05,239 --> 00:38:08,800
Speaker 1: them arms, but it's not enough. And of course that

722
00:38:08,800 --> 00:38:11,880
Speaker 1: that brings us to Iran Contra, but it also brings

723
00:38:11,960 --> 00:38:14,479
Speaker 1: us to another series of decisions that all the North

724
00:38:14,560 --> 00:38:18,120
Speaker 1: makes outside of Iran Contra that are maybe sketchy here,

725
00:38:18,200 --> 00:38:23,480
Speaker 1: and we're going to talk about that. But first, prop products, props.

726
00:38:26,080 --> 00:38:29,880
Speaker 1: Maybe maybe I can't guarantee anything. I'm not the president,

727
00:38:30,400 --> 00:38:33,839
Speaker 1: but not the North Man. You're not delivering drugs. I'm

728
00:38:33,880 --> 00:38:36,319
Speaker 1: gonna twist some arms I've been I've been arming some

729
00:38:36,400 --> 00:38:38,719
Speaker 1: militant groups in the jungle that I'm hoping we'll be

730
00:38:38,760 --> 00:38:42,359
Speaker 1: advertising on our on our podcast soon, So check out

731
00:38:42,400 --> 00:38:45,239
Speaker 1: for that. UM, not really sure which jungle. I've just

732
00:38:45,280 --> 00:38:52,120
Speaker 1: been dropping dropping cash one of these zoom what happens? Yes, Um,

733
00:38:52,160 --> 00:39:02,160
Speaker 1: all right, here's ads. So we're and we have through

734
00:39:02,200 --> 00:39:05,719
Speaker 1: this meandering story. The machinery of Iran contrast we'll talk about,

735
00:39:05,800 --> 00:39:09,319
Speaker 1: is starting up in this period. But Ali, separately from

736
00:39:09,360 --> 00:39:11,080
Speaker 1: anything that's going on in Iran, is trying to figure

737
00:39:11,120 --> 00:39:13,320
Speaker 1: out how do I keep getting money to my guys,

738
00:39:13,800 --> 00:39:16,960
Speaker 1: and the most obvious way to do that is cocaine.

739
00:39:17,360 --> 00:39:19,759
Speaker 1: A good example of this is the case of Carlos

740
00:39:19,800 --> 00:39:23,520
Speaker 1: Albert Amadora, a former pilot for the Southern Front Contrast,

741
00:39:23,760 --> 00:39:26,399
Speaker 1: who flew secret missions for years out of the Illopango

742
00:39:26,480 --> 00:39:29,759
Speaker 1: Air Base in San Salvador. In nineteen eighty five, the

743
00:39:29,840 --> 00:39:32,640
Speaker 1: d e A becomes aware that that this guy Amador

744
00:39:32,800 --> 00:39:36,200
Speaker 1: is also transporting huge amounts of cocaine to Miami via

745
00:39:36,280 --> 00:39:39,759
Speaker 1: Costa Rica. A CIA cable at the time quoted a

746
00:39:39,880 --> 00:39:42,680
Speaker 1: d e A source who quote stated that Amador was

747
00:39:42,760 --> 00:39:45,759
Speaker 1: probably picking up cocaine and San Salvador to flight a

748
00:39:45,840 --> 00:39:48,640
Speaker 1: Grand Cayman and then to South Florida. So the d

749
00:39:48,680 --> 00:39:51,080
Speaker 1: e A their job is to stop drugs from entering

750
00:39:51,080 --> 00:39:52,920
Speaker 1: the country, right, Like, that's what the d e A

751
00:39:53,040 --> 00:39:56,279
Speaker 1: is supposed to do. Um again, not an agency, I like,

752
00:39:56,400 --> 00:39:58,759
Speaker 1: but they they they actually didn't want to take this

753
00:39:58,800 --> 00:40:00,759
Speaker 1: guy down. They want to stop this guy because he's

754
00:40:00,760 --> 00:40:02,440
Speaker 1: moving blow into the country and their job is to

755
00:40:02,440 --> 00:40:05,640
Speaker 1: stop this guy. So they announced their intent through the

756
00:40:05,640 --> 00:40:09,359
Speaker 1: different kind of um connections that law enforcement has that like,

757
00:40:09,600 --> 00:40:13,560
Speaker 1: we are going to have local police and this is

758
00:40:13,600 --> 00:40:15,560
Speaker 1: like in because he's he's flying out of San Salvador.

759
00:40:15,560 --> 00:40:18,000
Speaker 1: We're gonna have local police in San Salvador look into

760
00:40:18,000 --> 00:40:19,719
Speaker 1: this guy, and we're going to help them, and this

761
00:40:19,760 --> 00:40:21,320
Speaker 1: is going to be We're going to try and bust

762
00:40:21,360 --> 00:40:23,879
Speaker 1: this and stop this. Right, But the hangar in San

763
00:40:23,960 --> 00:40:26,919
Speaker 1: Salvador that Amador is flying out is Hangar number four.

764
00:40:27,640 --> 00:40:29,600
Speaker 1: Do you want to know who owns Hangar number four?

765
00:40:30,160 --> 00:40:36,719
Speaker 1: Who owns Hangar number four? Holy North? Ali North is

766
00:40:36,719 --> 00:40:39,239
Speaker 1: the guy through the NSC right, is the guy who

767
00:40:39,400 --> 00:40:44,120
Speaker 1: who controls hangar for Amador has to ask permission in

768
00:40:44,200 --> 00:40:46,439
Speaker 1: order to use it, which he gets. I'm gonna quote

769
00:40:46,440 --> 00:40:49,120
Speaker 1: from a rite up by PBS here when the CIA

770
00:40:49,239 --> 00:40:51,680
Speaker 1: headquarters responded to the cable, This is from the d

771
00:40:51,760 --> 00:40:53,759
Speaker 1: e A asking can we go after this guy? It

772
00:40:53,840 --> 00:40:57,080
Speaker 1: told it's local local station that it would appreciate station

773
00:40:57,200 --> 00:40:59,840
Speaker 1: advising d e A not to make any inquiries to

774
00:41:00,000 --> 00:41:04,640
Speaker 1: anyone ari Hangar number four at Ilopango since only legitimate

775
00:41:04,680 --> 00:41:08,640
Speaker 1: supported operations were conducted from this facility. Now, since we

776
00:41:08,800 --> 00:41:12,000
Speaker 1: know Amaur was flowing flying cocaine out of this facility

777
00:41:12,280 --> 00:41:16,120
Speaker 1: and only supported operations were conducted from this facility, what

778
00:41:16,400 --> 00:41:22,080
Speaker 1: is that mean? Hey? What does that mean. I wonder, Hey,

779
00:41:22,120 --> 00:41:24,440
Speaker 1: look everybody, when you when you all research and do

780
00:41:24,520 --> 00:41:27,480
Speaker 1: your background checks on all the hangars, just skipped number

781
00:41:27,480 --> 00:41:30,319
Speaker 1: four because it's already cool. Yeah number five. Look into

782
00:41:30,360 --> 00:41:33,839
Speaker 1: that ship. It's like mambo number five and a little

783
00:41:33,840 --> 00:41:37,279
Speaker 1: bit of rita. Yeah, do auditories every well before, it's

784
00:41:37,280 --> 00:41:39,520
Speaker 1: cool to worry about it. Anyway. I think it would

785
00:41:39,560 --> 00:41:45,040
Speaker 1: be so funny and like I'm imagining like an SNL

786
00:41:45,239 --> 00:41:51,600
Speaker 1: style like roundtable sort of just stupid, like weekly office meeting.

787
00:41:52,200 --> 00:41:55,040
Speaker 1: And it's like the N S C, C I A

788
00:41:55,680 --> 00:41:59,239
Speaker 1: D A right and Oliver North they're just sitting down

789
00:41:59,320 --> 00:42:02,440
Speaker 1: going through like fine items, just like yep, uh we

790
00:42:02,480 --> 00:42:06,960
Speaker 1: got anything. He's like, yeah, actually, man um, we noticed

791
00:42:07,320 --> 00:42:10,440
Speaker 1: this plane coming in from Salad, Salvador and uh I

792
00:42:10,480 --> 00:42:13,080
Speaker 1: was carrying gang of drugs stopped in Florida, soult a

793
00:42:13,160 --> 00:42:15,120
Speaker 1: cocaine actually a little cocaine and that thing. So I

794
00:42:15,160 --> 00:42:17,320
Speaker 1: think we got a guy. We're probably gonna announce on Monday.

795
00:42:17,719 --> 00:42:19,759
Speaker 1: You know that this is the guy's face and we're

796
00:42:19,760 --> 00:42:21,879
Speaker 1: looking for him. You guys cool with that? And then

797
00:42:21,920 --> 00:42:24,160
Speaker 1: the c I A going yeah wait what yeah that

798
00:42:24,280 --> 00:42:26,640
Speaker 1: that's actually gonna be a problem. Yeah, wait wait nah,

799
00:42:26,760 --> 00:42:29,200
Speaker 1: and they're like what what uh you know what I'm saying,

800
00:42:29,200 --> 00:42:32,160
Speaker 1: And it was like, yeah, it's in hanging number four.

801
00:42:32,160 --> 00:42:33,680
Speaker 1: You guys know who hanger number four is it is?

802
00:42:33,719 --> 00:42:37,000
Speaker 1: That guy's wait what, No, it's not mine? Well yet

803
00:42:37,200 --> 00:42:41,879
Speaker 1: wait number four in Florida. Yeah oh no, no, no, yeah,

804
00:42:42,040 --> 00:42:44,440
Speaker 1: no you don't go in there. Yeah yeah no, I

805
00:42:44,480 --> 00:42:46,440
Speaker 1: don't know, man, I think that's mine. But yeah, we're

806
00:42:46,440 --> 00:42:50,600
Speaker 1: gonna take down crime. Wait what like just like no,

807
00:42:50,800 --> 00:42:53,080
Speaker 1: you can. He gets to one of the things. One

808
00:42:53,080 --> 00:42:54,880
Speaker 1: of the things that's important to understand about the U. S.

809
00:42:54,880 --> 00:42:59,480
Speaker 1: Security establishment, right, is that um again kind of it's

810
00:42:59,520 --> 00:43:02,680
Speaker 1: often aimed as this there's there's this unified conspiracy to

811
00:43:02,800 --> 00:43:05,320
Speaker 1: like do all of this fund up ship. These guys

812
00:43:05,360 --> 00:43:07,080
Speaker 1: a lot of them hate each other because their their

813
00:43:07,160 --> 00:43:10,719
Speaker 1: interests are contra to each other. Right. The d A

814
00:43:10,760 --> 00:43:14,240
Speaker 1: lot of the information we have about how the CIA

815
00:43:14,440 --> 00:43:17,359
Speaker 1: and the NSC helped fuel the crack epidemic and how

816
00:43:17,400 --> 00:43:19,799
Speaker 1: they brought drugs in and to the United States, a

817
00:43:19,880 --> 00:43:22,440
Speaker 1: lot of that comes from d E A agents who,

818
00:43:22,520 --> 00:43:24,560
Speaker 1: like some of them, wrote books. Some of those books

819
00:43:24,560 --> 00:43:26,719
Speaker 1: are questionable, but like it's a bunch of d E

820
00:43:26,800 --> 00:43:29,319
Speaker 1: agents go and like blow the whistle on this, not

821
00:43:29,440 --> 00:43:33,680
Speaker 1: because they're heroic individuals, but because their careers and success

822
00:43:33,760 --> 00:43:36,520
Speaker 1: relies on bringing in cocaine and the CIA was stopping

823
00:43:36,560 --> 00:43:40,800
Speaker 1: them for busting people resources. It takes time and money

824
00:43:41,000 --> 00:43:42,920
Speaker 1: to track to figure out who's doing it, where the

825
00:43:43,040 --> 00:43:46,080
Speaker 1: where they like it. They spend resources and sometimes even

826
00:43:46,160 --> 00:43:49,200
Speaker 1: lives going after this stuff and then kind of at

827
00:43:49,280 --> 00:43:51,520
Speaker 1: like the last moment, get told no, no, no, don't

828
00:43:51,560 --> 00:43:55,120
Speaker 1: go do that because this guy. Yeah, you're at the

829
00:43:55,239 --> 00:43:59,600
Speaker 1: street level. You're in shootouts, your under loose friends that

830
00:43:59,680 --> 00:44:04,719
Speaker 1: help ste like again, but you get why they're angry. Yes,

831
00:44:04,840 --> 00:44:07,040
Speaker 1: you're trying to get this ship off the street. You're

832
00:44:07,040 --> 00:44:10,440
Speaker 1: in shootouts with these dudes. And then you're like wait, wait, wait, wait,

833
00:44:10,719 --> 00:44:14,319
Speaker 1: you to plug. You didn't tell me the whole time

834
00:44:14,360 --> 00:44:16,839
Speaker 1: you to plug. Yeah, oh yeah that was us. Sorry

835
00:44:16,840 --> 00:44:18,799
Speaker 1: about your best friend, but like, yeah, that's been us

836
00:44:18,800 --> 00:44:23,759
Speaker 1: the whole time. Anyway. So the job, the job got great. Great,

837
00:44:23,760 --> 00:44:26,879
Speaker 1: we're catching our guy. We thought he was pretty well

838
00:44:26,880 --> 00:44:29,319
Speaker 1: but now you you found him. We just locked up

839
00:44:29,360 --> 00:44:33,960
Speaker 1: a thousand melanated people. You're doing a great job. Um. Now,

840
00:44:33,960 --> 00:44:36,680
Speaker 1: of course, the CIA denies any of this field agent

841
00:44:36,840 --> 00:44:39,919
Speaker 1: Needs in I E v E s, who We're gonna

842
00:44:40,000 --> 00:44:43,000
Speaker 1: hear about a little later tells PBS, you know later

843
00:44:43,040 --> 00:44:44,840
Speaker 1: when this article I just quoted from has written that

844
00:44:44,880 --> 00:44:47,360
Speaker 1: there is no way that the CIA would ever have

845
00:44:47,480 --> 00:44:50,160
Speaker 1: overruled the d e A on something like this quote

846
00:44:50,239 --> 00:44:53,080
Speaker 1: this is this is from Needs. I was given carte

847
00:44:53,120 --> 00:44:55,399
Speaker 1: blanche to do my job. Never once did anybody say

848
00:44:55,400 --> 00:44:57,239
Speaker 1: anything to me about anything I was doing that was

849
00:44:57,280 --> 00:44:59,600
Speaker 1: nothing but supportive. There was no interference, there was no

850
00:45:00,000 --> 00:45:02,839
Speaker 1: there was no overriding priority, there was no competition, there

851
00:45:02,880 --> 00:45:04,600
Speaker 1: was no anything except for support of the d e

852
00:45:04,640 --> 00:45:07,200
Speaker 1: a's mission. And that's a fact. That's a d e

853
00:45:07,280 --> 00:45:09,960
Speaker 1: A guy being like no. There was never anohing like

854
00:45:10,239 --> 00:45:12,160
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, that's a CIA giving like no. There was

855
00:45:12,239 --> 00:45:13,840
Speaker 1: never anything but support for the c I We we

856
00:45:14,040 --> 00:45:17,600
Speaker 1: never did anything like that. D e A agent Hector Barrella's,

857
00:45:17,640 --> 00:45:19,560
Speaker 1: who was also a field agent in the area at

858
00:45:19,600 --> 00:45:22,840
Speaker 1: the same time, says this is bullshit. Votes I know

859
00:45:22,960 --> 00:45:25,800
Speaker 1: specifically that some of the CIA contract workers, meaning some

860
00:45:25,920 --> 00:45:27,960
Speaker 1: of the pilots, were in fact bringing drugs into the

861
00:45:28,040 --> 00:45:30,080
Speaker 1: US and landing some of these drugs in the government

862
00:45:30,120 --> 00:45:32,480
Speaker 1: air bases. I know so because I was told by

863
00:45:32,560 --> 00:45:34,600
Speaker 1: some of these pilots that in fact they had done that.

864
00:45:36,680 --> 00:45:39,680
Speaker 1: It's like I'm telling you been, tell you uses, what

865
00:45:39,760 --> 00:45:42,439
Speaker 1: you gotta, what you gotta, netta, what you gotta plenty,

866
00:45:42,440 --> 00:45:45,520
Speaker 1: I'll bringing in US cocaine. Wait, well a cocaine, c

867
00:45:45,719 --> 00:45:48,400
Speaker 1: I S s coke. Yeah, ce I A sent me

868
00:45:48,480 --> 00:45:50,000
Speaker 1: down there, you know. Let me just came out a

869
00:45:50,040 --> 00:45:52,320
Speaker 1: few weeks since Salvador took the kids that came in.

870
00:45:52,360 --> 00:45:56,319
Speaker 1: Now I'm on my way back. Yep, yep. Now we're

871
00:45:56,320 --> 00:45:59,279
Speaker 1: gonna hear a number of very entertaining denials from c

872
00:45:59,400 --> 00:46:01,279
Speaker 1: I agent over the course of this in the next

873
00:46:01,320 --> 00:46:03,600
Speaker 1: episode that I do, but one of the best comes

874
00:46:03,640 --> 00:46:07,000
Speaker 1: from the specific story the tale of Ali North's Hangar.

875
00:46:07,520 --> 00:46:11,280
Speaker 1: Former US Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics Matters

876
00:46:11,400 --> 00:46:15,719
Speaker 1: Jonathan Weener Winer told PBS, if it's your job to

877
00:46:15,840 --> 00:46:18,879
Speaker 1: check out food at the supermarket, you're not worrying about

878
00:46:18,920 --> 00:46:21,160
Speaker 1: the person who's supposed to be stocking the shelves. It's

879
00:46:21,200 --> 00:46:23,319
Speaker 1: not your job, right, That's why he's saying, no, there

880
00:46:23,400 --> 00:46:25,840
Speaker 1: was no conspiracy here, right, Like they just you just

881
00:46:26,000 --> 00:46:28,120
Speaker 1: missed stuff. Right. If you're as the as the c

882
00:46:28,239 --> 00:46:30,800
Speaker 1: I A we didn't know this guy was flying crack cocaine.

883
00:46:30,840 --> 00:46:33,040
Speaker 1: He was also flying other stuff for us, and we

884
00:46:33,200 --> 00:46:35,480
Speaker 1: just didn't realize he was flying cocaine out of the

885
00:46:35,560 --> 00:46:38,239
Speaker 1: same facility that he was flying guns for us from. Right, Yeah,

886
00:46:38,320 --> 00:46:40,759
Speaker 1: we and we were our job. It's the CIA. We're

887
00:46:40,760 --> 00:46:42,719
Speaker 1: not a drug interdiction agency. It's not our job to

888
00:46:42,800 --> 00:46:45,560
Speaker 1: know about that. How could we have possibly been aware? Right,

889
00:46:45,680 --> 00:46:48,680
Speaker 1: that's literally what he's saying. Um, I was supposed to

890
00:46:48,760 --> 00:46:52,279
Speaker 1: know that. Other How could I have known? Wasn't guns? Yeah?

891
00:46:53,120 --> 00:46:56,200
Speaker 1: Now there was a knox that said guns and there

892
00:46:56,280 --> 00:46:59,520
Speaker 1: was a box that said other M. I'm looking for

893
00:46:59,640 --> 00:47:02,120
Speaker 1: the gun and box. What did you expect from me?

894
00:47:02,800 --> 00:47:07,680
Speaker 1: We are we are here? Or the seafood? Yeah? The

895
00:47:08,080 --> 00:47:11,600
Speaker 1: beef that's somebody else's department. Yeah. How could I know

896
00:47:11,719 --> 00:47:14,120
Speaker 1: that there's beef there? Um? Just because it's next to

897
00:47:14,200 --> 00:47:16,760
Speaker 1: the seafood and both of them are very clearly visible

898
00:47:16,840 --> 00:47:19,960
Speaker 1: in the hangar that I own. That's okay for This

899
00:47:20,200 --> 00:47:22,120
Speaker 1: is not the only fun all the North plot that

900
00:47:22,200 --> 00:47:25,800
Speaker 1: involves moving Hella blow. Jose bi Rosa was a general

901
00:47:25,880 --> 00:47:29,279
Speaker 1: from Honduras who had helped make things easier for the contrast, because, again,

902
00:47:29,480 --> 00:47:31,360
Speaker 1: a lot of the Contras are based out of Honduras

903
00:47:31,400 --> 00:47:33,640
Speaker 1: and based out of Costa Rica because it's it's easier

904
00:47:33,760 --> 00:47:36,319
Speaker 1: because the Sandinista is a pretty good at keeping their

905
00:47:36,360 --> 00:47:39,840
Speaker 1: own ground. Anyway, he had also while he was helping

906
00:47:39,880 --> 00:47:42,200
Speaker 1: out the Contras and giving them space to operate, and

907
00:47:42,600 --> 00:47:47,120
Speaker 1: shipped a truly titanic amount of cocaine into the United States.

908
00:47:47,360 --> 00:47:51,040
Speaker 1: And again he's like running the Honduran military, right, that's

909
00:47:51,120 --> 00:47:53,719
Speaker 1: that's that's Boissa Rosa, which is getting funding from the

910
00:47:53,840 --> 00:47:57,279
Speaker 1: United States. In nineteen eighty four, he's caught trying to

911
00:47:57,360 --> 00:48:01,320
Speaker 1: assassinate the president of Honduras. Was a plot which was

912
00:48:01,400 --> 00:48:04,800
Speaker 1: meant to be funded with forty million dollars in cocaine

913
00:48:04,880 --> 00:48:08,279
Speaker 1: sales to the United States. When when this guy gets

914
00:48:08,360 --> 00:48:12,240
Speaker 1: fucking caught, Ali North starts reaching out to people above

915
00:48:12,360 --> 00:48:14,680
Speaker 1: him in the White House to beg for him to

916
00:48:14,760 --> 00:48:17,759
Speaker 1: get leniency, to be like, please push on Honduras to

917
00:48:17,840 --> 00:48:22,600
Speaker 1: not punish this guy, and and yeah, well, because he's

918
00:48:22,600 --> 00:48:24,840
Speaker 1: gonna talk and guess what. Rosa, who has shipped a

919
00:48:24,880 --> 00:48:27,439
Speaker 1: shipload of cocaine into the United States tens a million

920
00:48:27,480 --> 00:48:29,239
Speaker 1: dollars worth, and trying to kill the president of his

921
00:48:29,280 --> 00:48:33,000
Speaker 1: country guess what his guess what his sentence is five

922
00:48:33,080 --> 00:48:38,440
Speaker 1: years at Club fed five years. Baby, that's right, baby, Listen, listen, listen,

923
00:48:38,920 --> 00:48:41,960
Speaker 1: and now think about this. If you watched Narcos on Netflix,

924
00:48:42,000 --> 00:48:44,080
Speaker 1: if you Pablo Escobar, this is all happened at the

925
00:48:44,120 --> 00:48:46,640
Speaker 1: same time you in Colombia. It's not like you don't

926
00:48:46,680 --> 00:48:49,799
Speaker 1: know all this ship So you like, I'm worried at all?

927
00:48:49,920 --> 00:48:53,200
Speaker 1: SENTI something. Yes, we sent in this to Miami. What

928
00:48:53,280 --> 00:48:58,320
Speaker 1: they're gonna say, yep, yep, yeah. Now thanks to the

929
00:48:58,400 --> 00:49:00,560
Speaker 1: fact that we know all of this. By the way,

930
00:49:00,960 --> 00:49:03,520
Speaker 1: most of this information comes from the fact that all

931
00:49:03,560 --> 00:49:06,960
Speaker 1: the North kept a diary which is now declassified and

932
00:49:07,040 --> 00:49:09,280
Speaker 1: where all of this is written in. In his attempt

933
00:49:09,360 --> 00:49:11,719
Speaker 1: to protect Boiso, we know he urged other U S

934
00:49:11,760 --> 00:49:16,200
Speaker 1: officials to quote Cabal quietly all these words to secure

935
00:49:16,280 --> 00:49:20,440
Speaker 1: him a pardon. Now, Norths focus here was nothing to

936
00:49:20,480 --> 00:49:23,200
Speaker 1: do with with loyalty. Again, Rosa knew a lot about

937
00:49:23,239 --> 00:49:25,960
Speaker 1: the CIA's funding and arming of the contrast, and Ali

938
00:49:26,120 --> 00:49:29,239
Speaker 1: wrote specifically that he was worried about Rosa spilling the

939
00:49:29,360 --> 00:49:32,040
Speaker 1: beans on the war and the narcotics funding behind it.

940
00:49:32,320 --> 00:49:38,680
Speaker 1: He wrote this in a diary that not a conspiracy theory.

941
00:49:39,000 --> 00:49:42,720
Speaker 1: Just a guy taking notes on his crimes. Dear Diary,

942
00:49:43,400 --> 00:49:47,359
Speaker 1: Today was a very interesting day my connecting. Honduras tried

943
00:49:47,400 --> 00:49:50,440
Speaker 1: to kill his president. Now that he's faced a trial,

944
00:49:50,880 --> 00:49:56,399
Speaker 1: I'm worried he's gone snitch. So I'm wishing on a star.

945
00:49:57,560 --> 00:50:00,640
Speaker 1: He doesn't tell everybody about the crimes are country has

946
00:50:00,680 --> 00:50:04,160
Speaker 1: committed in Cahos with him. Are you there, God, it's

947
00:50:04,239 --> 00:50:16,120
Speaker 1: me Ali Everything. Let me write out the crimes I'm

948
00:50:16,160 --> 00:50:19,880
Speaker 1: committing in detail. Um Now, everything that's happening here is

949
00:50:19,880 --> 00:50:21,799
Speaker 1: a big old deal for Ali North, Right, he has

950
00:50:21,800 --> 00:50:25,720
Speaker 1: staked his career on the contras. It's also a huge

951
00:50:25,920 --> 00:50:29,520
Speaker 1: deal for people in Nicaragua. It is intermittently kind of

952
00:50:29,560 --> 00:50:32,960
Speaker 1: a distraction for other people in the security agencies, right,

953
00:50:33,280 --> 00:50:36,279
Speaker 1: the c I a head Casey, the the NSC had McFarland.

954
00:50:36,560 --> 00:50:39,200
Speaker 1: They support the contrast generally, but there's also times where

955
00:50:39,200 --> 00:50:41,040
Speaker 1: they're like, look, we got other ship to do, and

956
00:50:41,200 --> 00:50:44,200
Speaker 1: like we like we we can't be focusing entirely on

957
00:50:44,320 --> 00:50:47,239
Speaker 1: this stuff. So while this is all going on, and

958
00:50:47,320 --> 00:50:50,000
Speaker 1: this is the period that the contrast stuff is starting

959
00:50:50,040 --> 00:50:52,239
Speaker 1: to spin up, and at the early stages that's more

960
00:50:52,280 --> 00:50:54,520
Speaker 1: on McFarland and Casey side than North. He's going to

961
00:50:54,560 --> 00:50:57,239
Speaker 1: be central to this, but he's managing contrast ship, right,

962
00:50:57,280 --> 00:50:59,400
Speaker 1: so he doesn't come in quite yet, or he's not

963
00:50:59,480 --> 00:51:02,000
Speaker 1: at least as as involved in it yet. We'll get

964
00:51:02,040 --> 00:51:04,279
Speaker 1: to that in your episodes. But one of the things

965
00:51:04,320 --> 00:51:07,320
Speaker 1: that's happening big picture here is that there's this constant

966
00:51:07,400 --> 00:51:09,759
Speaker 1: kind of trickle of stories coming out in Nicaragua coming

967
00:51:09,760 --> 00:51:11,880
Speaker 1: out about US support for the contrast, coming about how

968
00:51:11,960 --> 00:51:15,839
Speaker 1: bad they are. Crimes, they've committed, villages, they've executed, all

969
00:51:15,840 --> 00:51:18,319
Speaker 1: sorts of fund up ship. And one of the things

970
00:51:18,400 --> 00:51:21,760
Speaker 1: that's happening is that Reagan always very into the contrast,

971
00:51:22,000 --> 00:51:26,120
Speaker 1: um never loses his luster for these American founding fathers

972
00:51:26,239 --> 00:51:29,240
Speaker 1: like dudes in his words, but the smart guys largely

973
00:51:29,280 --> 00:51:32,280
Speaker 1: his chief of staff, Donald Reagan, recognized that the contrasts

974
00:51:32,280 --> 00:51:36,000
Speaker 1: are fucking losing proposition for the Reagan administration every they

975
00:51:36,080 --> 00:51:38,200
Speaker 1: can see in the polls. Every time he talks about

976
00:51:38,200 --> 00:51:41,279
Speaker 1: the contrast, his support goes down, right. So that's kind

977
00:51:41,280 --> 00:51:45,600
Speaker 1: of what's happening UM as the Reagan administration starts to

978
00:51:45,719 --> 00:51:48,080
Speaker 1: encounter other issues and realize that it's bigger fish to Fry,

979
00:51:48,160 --> 00:51:50,760
Speaker 1: which leads us into all of the stuff around kidnapped

980
00:51:50,800 --> 00:51:53,840
Speaker 1: Americans and the Rand contra, which we're gonna talk about

981
00:51:54,280 --> 00:51:59,799
Speaker 1: tomorrow on hood Politics Bastards behind. So gear up, get

982
00:52:00,080 --> 00:52:02,640
Speaker 1: Eddie to listen to hear stories from some of your

983
00:52:02,800 --> 00:52:06,960
Speaker 1: favorite Reagan administrations. Prop Not only are we gonna get

984
00:52:07,000 --> 00:52:08,960
Speaker 1: a little bit more all the North, we're gonna hear

985
00:52:09,000 --> 00:52:12,560
Speaker 1: from Secretary of State George Schultz future the NOS board member,

986
00:52:13,160 --> 00:52:17,520
Speaker 1: Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger. What a name, of course,

987
00:52:17,880 --> 00:52:20,440
Speaker 1: everybody's favorite guy with a name you didn't think was

988
00:52:20,480 --> 00:52:23,680
Speaker 1: his real name until you learned that it was John Poindexter.

989
00:52:24,160 --> 00:52:28,560
Speaker 1: John porn Dexter's a real name. M hmm you did

990
00:52:29,400 --> 00:52:31,920
Speaker 1: you did? Just call him porn Dexter. YO is about

991
00:52:31,920 --> 00:52:35,239
Speaker 1: to get so Yeah, you were standing on the wall

992
00:52:35,360 --> 00:52:38,000
Speaker 1: like you was Poindexter. You know that one? You know

993
00:52:38,080 --> 00:52:43,760
Speaker 1: that one? Right? Oh? Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely? Do you really? No? Okay,

994
00:52:47,840 --> 00:52:50,840
Speaker 1: I made a decision when you started doing the references

995
00:52:50,880 --> 00:52:53,480
Speaker 1: that I wasn't going to get to try to try

996
00:52:53,520 --> 00:52:57,680
Speaker 1: to hold up under screw. I shattered. I shattered like

997
00:52:57,840 --> 00:53:04,319
Speaker 1: the wall underneath because what kid? What what teenager? Has

998
00:53:04,520 --> 00:53:08,000
Speaker 1: not pretended and full ground adult has not pretended to

999
00:53:08,120 --> 00:53:12,600
Speaker 1: know the obscure band you're talking about. We absolutely the

1000
00:53:13,120 --> 00:53:16,200
Speaker 1: dire Straits or Strokes or whatever. Yeah, for sure. Bands.

1001
00:53:16,280 --> 00:53:19,720
Speaker 1: Yeah you have. You have multiple times names some bands

1002
00:53:19,760 --> 00:53:23,080
Speaker 1: that I was like, Nope, no, there's there's there's too

1003
00:53:23,120 --> 00:53:26,560
Speaker 1: many bands, look, yeah, too many bands. Yeah, we gotta

1004
00:53:26,719 --> 00:53:29,359
Speaker 1: gotta trim it down to four. Yes, I was giving

1005
00:53:29,400 --> 00:53:31,399
Speaker 1: you a little bus to move, bust, a little young

1006
00:53:31,520 --> 00:53:34,200
Speaker 1: MC bus to move. You're standing on the wall like

1007
00:53:34,280 --> 00:53:37,759
Speaker 1: you was point dexter next. Now I have heard of

1008
00:53:37,880 --> 00:53:41,080
Speaker 1: herk Um the guy who does the first hip hop

1009
00:53:41,320 --> 00:53:44,239
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah cool h yeah yeah cool horse. Yes, I

1010
00:53:44,320 --> 00:53:46,160
Speaker 1: think for a cracked article that I wrote, which is

1011
00:53:46,200 --> 00:53:48,399
Speaker 1: the nerdiest way to know Pip. I was like, wow,

1012
00:53:48,440 --> 00:53:52,800
Speaker 1: don't okay you told me? Okay, God damn it prop

1013
00:53:53,239 --> 00:53:56,719
Speaker 1: speaking of hip hop history. Yes, let's talk about your

1014
00:53:56,719 --> 00:54:00,920
Speaker 1: plug doubles. Yes, uh yeah, properly pop dot com. I

1015
00:54:00,960 --> 00:54:04,200
Speaker 1: got some new music out right now, uh super dops

1016
00:54:04,239 --> 00:54:06,440
Speaker 1: called the soil EP. That's a part of the terraform

1017
00:54:07,160 --> 00:54:12,200
Speaker 1: uh whole universe of poetry and and send a music

1018
00:54:12,320 --> 00:54:15,000
Speaker 1: units verse of poetry. Short story. It's a book. It's

1019
00:54:15,040 --> 00:54:19,160
Speaker 1: also a coffee Um which important for Hispanic Heritage Month

1020
00:54:19,280 --> 00:54:23,680
Speaker 1: or Latino Heritage Month. Um. The black and brown unity

1021
00:54:24,160 --> 00:54:25,920
Speaker 1: you know coming out of when you look at the

1022
00:54:26,320 --> 00:54:29,120
Speaker 1: Queen Mother on the cover of the coffee can, that's

1023
00:54:29,120 --> 00:54:31,560
Speaker 1: an Indigenous woman and an African woman. You know what

1024
00:54:31,600 --> 00:54:33,719
Speaker 1: I'm saying, Black brown unity is there. But you know

1025
00:54:33,760 --> 00:54:37,239
Speaker 1: what I'm trying to say, Terraform, cold Brew, uh dot com,

1026
00:54:37,719 --> 00:54:41,520
Speaker 1: and prop hit pop politics, it's all up in there.

1027
00:54:41,600 --> 00:54:43,399
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying, We out think, we out,

1028
00:54:43,680 --> 00:54:45,439
Speaker 1: we out, we out this man. You know what I'm saying.

1029
00:54:45,440 --> 00:54:47,040
Speaker 1: I couldn't even finish the slang reference. You know what

1030
00:54:47,040 --> 00:54:51,319
Speaker 1: I'm saying, port core outside anyway, Well, check out prop,

1031
00:54:51,440 --> 00:54:56,520
Speaker 1: checkout Terraform, checkout props Coffee, checkout hood politics. Tomorrow when

1032
00:54:56,560 --> 00:54:59,640
Speaker 1: we talk about around Contra for two days, and then

1033
00:54:59,680 --> 00:55:02,759
Speaker 1: we will be concluding with an episode of Bastards, your

1034
00:55:02,880 --> 00:55:05,880
Speaker 1: fifth episode of our shows for the week, where we

1035
00:55:05,960 --> 00:55:10,080
Speaker 1: will talk about what happens after Iran Contra, what happens

1036
00:55:10,160 --> 00:55:14,440
Speaker 1: after Gary Webb's Dark Alliance series breaks into the mainstream

1037
00:55:14,480 --> 00:55:17,040
Speaker 1: and all of the funked up fuccory that follows. You

1038
00:55:17,120 --> 00:55:20,000
Speaker 1: can find me. I have a book called After the Revolution.

1039
00:55:20,440 --> 00:55:22,840
Speaker 1: Google it with a K Press and you'll find my

1040
00:55:22,920 --> 00:55:25,719
Speaker 1: publisher's website, or just type it into Amazon or whatever

1041
00:55:25,800 --> 00:55:28,879
Speaker 1: the funk and you can buy copies of it. Buy