The Colonels Corner Cocaine Death Squads & the War on Terror Part 5

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Transcript

0:00 Good morning, everybody. Hopefully, Bridget will be here in just a second. And we're going to go ahead and get started. As you guys know, we're going to be traveling today, so we're doing our show early today. Okay, we're going to move on. We are on Chapter 4, the Narco Cartel System, which...

0:28 spans the time of 1980 to 1993. We start off with the, there's SR, let me bring him up. SR, when you see Bridget, let me know. Okay, so the Colombian narco economies driving market force is consumption, of course, supply and demand. The heart

1:03 Of the target audience, of course, is the U.S. The critics say that it is impossible to eliminate drug cartels by targeting drug production and that ignoring the demand side fuels the market growth, specifically in the United States. Narcotics are produced, trafficked, and laundered in the United States.

1:35 has been cultivated for thousands of years, especially in the tri-state area in Latin America, meaning specifically Bolivia, Peru, and Colombia. However, if there is no demand for cocaine, the drug trade would dry up. The United States imposes repressive measures that punish drug offenders but does not target

2:08 the network, because of the money. The U.S. has been involved in counterinsurgency measures in the name of fighting drugs and terrorism in producer countries, yet neither have disappeared. The so-called war on drugs and the war on terror rhetoric mask the links between the narco elite, the drug cartels, and the Colombian economy, as well as the U.S. economy.

2:39 which drives this entire network, especially the CIA. The cocaine trade exploits those that produce the coca leaf in Colombia and marginalized consumers in the U.S., predominantly in the inner cities that use the drug cocaine trade to create a network to enrich themselves. Throughout the cocaine decade,

3:12 the U.S. demand for cocaine surged to unprecedented levels. Cocaine became basically a narco state. Between 70 and 87, Peruvian cocoa production rose from 15,000 tons, a ton being 2,000 pounds, to 191,000 tons. You know, all while we were trying to stop it.

3:46 While Bolivia's production rate kept pace, both fed the narco economy of Colombia. The number of seized laboratories recorded by the U.S. government almost tripled in 1984. By the late 80s, cocaine had became a major export commodity that was financially and legally institutionalized throughout the Colombia-U.S. economic relationship.

4:15 involving banks, corporations, investment properties, primarily in the United States, and other business ventures to launder the money. The cartel system was made up of regionally-based trafficking organizations that coalesced to rationalize the system of production, smuggling, and marketing cocaine.

4:42 Management decisions concerning the cocaine economy were left to contacts in the National Military Intelligence Network and the CIA. The aim was to maximize export volumes and profits while reducing risk, just like any other business, because they treated it as a business.

5:12 This involved co-financing and co-insurance schemes, as well as the schooling of services such as financial advisors, lawyers, counterinsurgencies, and security operatives. The larger participating organizations either own trafficking assets like planes, laboratories, shipping companies, submarines,

5:44 had exclusive access to them through their connections with the narco state. The principal cartels based in Medellin and Cali controlled 80%, sometimes more, of the cocaine exported from Colombia. Other quasi-independent groups centered in Bogota

6:09 or on the Atlantic coast, maintained loose associations with both the Medellin and Cali cartel, intended to follow their lead on issues both about the quantity of the drugs that could be exported from Colombia and the financial network. The transit, excuse me, the transshipment routes that could be used, including land, sea, and air,

6:37 and when a product could be exported. The wholesale price of cocaine per kilo sold in the United States was also agreed upon. This is just crazy. The price had to be approved by representatives of either the Medellin or the Cali cartel, and after distribution, the retail price of cocaine per grain was left to the discretion of the local dealers.

7:10 At their most powerful in the 1980s, the cartel earned combined annual revenues of at least $6 billion per year. $4 billion of a $6 billion sell was profit. They also coordinated trafficking the workforce of about 8 to 10,000 skilled workers and professionals.

7:41 like those that worked in the labs. The profits of cocaine placed an enormous concentration of economic power in the narco elite. To a certain extent, this was centralized power with leadership structure composed of the heads of the dominant trafficking organizations, each coalition within Colombia's cartel system. Cartel leaders such as Pablo Escobar and Medellin and Rodriguez

8:12 Or a who Ella brothers in the Cali cartel played a vital role in the national coordination of Columbia's narco economy and the cartels representatives in their political system. The cartel system was not simply a group of gangsters who ran around shooting people. It was a system, a network that was crucial.

8:43 to the economic stability of Colombia, and therefore was integrated in all aspects of the Colombian economy and political structure. A clear-headed picture of what a narco-economy entails is often blurred with numbers and statistics presented by official sources. For example, Peter Reuter of the RAND Corporation,

9:15 keep in mind Rand is directly associated with the CIA, said, quote, officials often use drug issues to build public support for their own agendas. Every statistic on drug, whether it's prices, volume, earnings, arrest, number of users, and addicts must be interpreted in this light. But although drug statistics are imprecise, they can point towards

9:45 reasonable generalizations, unquote. The private ownership of cocaine production and dangerous nature of the drug trade make it difficult to calculate accurately the exact size of the narco economy. Much of the available data provide approximations because there are no exact figures because it's done in cash, which is the benefit.

10:15 to intelligence agencies. Cocaine production increased so much that it became the most important economic activity in the Crystal Triangle. The huge sums of money rapidly accumulated under the cartel system, which led the cartels to invest their profits outside of Colombia in banks and corporations in the United States.

10:41 The profits generated by cocaine had an impact on land ownership in Colombia as well. The narco elite forcibly acquired an estimated 1 million hectares of farmland from a total of 13 million of land in 1989 because they had an organized effort.

11:10 to basically steal the land. The effect of this direct investment of capital from the increasingly influential narco elite and international sources of capital was apparent in escalating prices for farmland. Again, supply and demand. Between 1982 and 1984 and in 1989, the prices of land captured by paramilitary forces skyrocketed.

11:45 The price per hectare in some areas increased from $100,000 per unit to a million. So again, they've incentivized dealing land from the locals. And then the locals organized to fight back and they call them the terrorist or the communist or both.

12:13 The narco elite capitalized on Colombia's long tradition of smuggling and trading in contraband goods that dated back to the Spanish colonial rule. Colombia's narco state undertook extraordinary measures to industrialize coca cultivation and cocaine production, and the trafficking process included large-scale smuggling by boats, planes, and container ships.

12:42 The narco elite included some of Colombia's oldest families, with lineage back to the Spanish conquest. The Davalos and Diez Grandados, two of the better-known families, are from departments on the northern Atlantic coast, notably Cesar, Bojera, Magdalena, and Bolivar.

13:15 Many regional and local political systems in Colombia became intertwined with the drug trade, especially when individuals from these well-established families served as mayors, senators, and governors and could provide political protection to the drug trafficking network that was enriching them and the drug cartel. In contrast to these well-established individuals, Pablo Escobar,

13:46 came from a low economic background, like most traffickers from Medellin. Although investigative journalism tended to dwell on his personality, his political rise illuminates many aspects of the Colombian state's relationship with cocaine. As a teenage delinquent,

14:11 Pablo Escobar's nationalist and vehemently anti-American political views were shaped by class struggle in Colombia. A study of 20 middle and top ranking drug traffickers from Medellin and other areas in that area in 1988 revealed their class origins. 70% was from the countryside, basically lower middle class and below.

14:42 made up 40%. And 30% of the 70 was from urban lower class. So in other words, definitely 70% of the Medellin cartel was from lower middle class and below. 55% of the people had only primary education, while 35% had secondary education. 10%

15:12 had attended any college university. On the other hand, traffickers from the rival Cali cartel came from privileged background. They were nicknamed Los Caballeros, the gentlemen of Cali, as opposed to the hoodlums of Medellin. Large portions of the Medellin cartel drug profits were invested conspicuously

15:42 into social development projects such as building housing for the poor, drilling water wells, building sports facilities, and even installing satellite TV dishes in poor communities. Defying the Colombian status quo, these cocaine-funded development projects were said to extend across the border into Peru, providing monies to repair local roads, docks,

16:11 the schools, and medical clinics. Escobar established the political movement called Good Citizenship on the March, which sponsored various civic programs. These social endeavors were belittled by the U.S. government spokespersons and scholars, and according to Escobar, they frightened the Colombian politicians and bureaucrats because it made

16:40 him more popular than them because they were taking all of their profits and investing them in the U.S. One of Escobar's first contacts with the Colombian elite was a property dealer and politician from one of the leading families. His name was Diego Ladondo White. Through him, Escobar sought to invest his profits in land. White was already a friend of the Oka,

17:11 brothers, high-ranking members of the Medellin cartel, and was the local area coordinator for the conservative party candidate, Basilaro Batancor's presidential campaign. Neither of Colombia's two major parties, the conservatives and the liberals, was discriminating when it came to drug money. They both used it.

17:40 Political campaigns need a lot of finance, and politicians look for money wherever they can get it. White said that in an interview in the 1990s. A colleague of White's contended, quote, The traffickers financed the presidential campaigns of

18:10 liberal candidate Julio Cesar Turbay Ayala, who won the decision in 1978. Exchange houses, real estate agencies, and various financial corporations began to pop up everywhere, offering high returns and tailor-made services to the cocaine traffickers.

18:37 The Federal Reserve Bank of Miami reported a cash surplus of $5.5 billion, greater than the total surplus of all other Federal Reserve Bank branches in the United States in 1979. Remarkably, a connection between the drug cartels and this cash was never established. The Central Bank of Columbia figures indicated that the construction in Medellin,

19:07 quadrupled between 75 and 81, accounting for 28% of the national total. At least half the finance was established to come from the drug cartels. Escobar invested his money in land and buildings inside of Colombia. The cartels had joined Colombia's elite business in landowning, Narco Elite, and they too became...

19:38 Military targets for kidnapping and extortion by the resistance we now know as the FARC. Escobar made his first trip to Bolivia sometime in early 1980, where he met with Roberto Suarez, then a major single supplier of the cocoa paste. They agreed that Escobar could buy the cocoa paste from Bolivia.

20:06 and process it into powdered cocaine in Colombian laboratories. Anxious to see his cartel members legitimized as businessmen, Escobar forged an alliance with Colombia's business elite, the army and politicians. In other words, he was buying people. Cocaine money funded areas where the state had failed, particularly in housing and urban development, sports and recreation, and public works. Indeed,

20:36 Mario Arango, a Colombian historian, said, quote, the moral rejection of so-called hot money is not so much that it comes from illicit activities, but that it has enabled the rise of a new economic sector coming mainly from the lowest social levels, unquote. Escobar's politics and market share in the cocaine trade came into conflict with the Miami-based Cuban.

21:06 mafia, whose political links to the anti-Castro Cubans and the Bush family in Florida played a significant role in the events leading up to Escobar's conflict with the Colombian state and eventually his assassination. In 1984, Jeb Bush began a close association with Camilo Padreta, a former intelligence officer

21:34 with the Batista dictatorship overthrown by Fidel Castro. But the association dates back to the recruitment of Cuban exiles into the CIA's political activities in Latin America in the 1960s, which of course we've covered extensively. In 1978 and 1979, South Florida experienced what became known as the Cocaine Wars, where

22:00 Rival Colombian traffickers and the Cuban mafia fought for control of the state's lucrative drug market. The conflicts peaked in 1981 and was not resolved until 1993 with Escobar's death. Bruce Bagley is quoted as saying, In the process, the Medellin cartel systematically exterminated the Cuban Americans and others who were involved in the trade on the U.S. side by eliminating these middlemen.

22:31 and installing their own, the Colombians not only improved their profit margin, but also disposed of many Cuban informants tied directly to the CIA and other U.S. law enforcement agencies lowering their risk inside the United States. So, Pablo Escobar came to the United States and poked his finger in the eye of the CIA by killing the network they were using.

23:01 That reminds me an awful lot of the Corsican Mafia, Sicilian Mafia competition, where Nixon took out the entire Corsican Mafia so that the Sicilian Mafia, which was controlled by the CIA, could take over the trade. That's crazy. The Medellin cartel enforced their political power.

23:27 By liquidating rival competitors in Miami, New York, and all along the east coast of the U.S. As they assassinated opponents, police officers, judges, journalists who could not be bought by Colombian money. Now, when I first read this book, I went back and did some research on local papers down in Miami. And during this time frame of the late...

23:56 70s and early 80s. Now, I graduated from high school in 1979. We were very aware of all of the shit going on down in South Florida. As a matter of fact, it was commonly referred to as North Cuba. If you went anywhere south,

24:18 of Lake Okeechobee. Everybody jokingly called that North Cuba because of all the Cuban exiles and the mafia-type tactics that you would find people dead in trunks, dead in barrels floating in the water. It was like a war zone down there. The Medellin cartel enforced their political power. Let's see. In 1979, extradition treaties between

24:49 Colombia and the U.S. was negotiated not to address the drug problem and the violence it brought to the two countries, but in relation to Pablo Escobar's political activities, and in particular, his social development projects. So, we're not going to address the industry. We are going to address the guy who's operating outside the CIA's control. That's why I kept saying that. This is crazy.

25:17 And again, it's a pattern. The meddling cartel assassinated Minister of Justice Rodrigo Lara Bonilla, a leading campaigner against Escobar and a vocal advocate for Escobar's extradition.

25:40 A co-founder of the Medellin cartel denounced the extradition treaty as a plot negotiated by the DEA and CIA to target the Medellin cartel for political reasons rather than drug trafficking charges. In a newspaper founded by Escobar's uncle and financed by Escobar himself, the Medellin Civic, the editor argued the nation's face.

26:08 has been disfigured by the imperialist boot of the treaty. The treaty became highly controversial in Colombian politics as the question of Colombian sovereignty was raised in parliament debates and in the media. Escobar campaigned publicly against it. In 82, he was elected to Congress as an alternative representative.

26:34 from his local area, which ensured his immunity from arrest and extradition. As a prominent member of parliament, Escobar rallied considerable support against the extradition treaty at a time when the narco elite were undecided in their support. The Medellin Civic

26:54 newspaper editorials portrayed Escobar as a public-spirited man who contrasted sharply with the selfish, hypercritical Colombian political establishment. Conversely, the Cali cartel, meanwhile, showed no interest in social issues at all because they were investing all of their money in the U.S. They didn't give a crap about what was happening in Colombia. The Cali cartel cleaners

27:24 killed urban vagrants, thieves, prostitutes, drug addicts, and even beggars. The bodies of these disposable people, which is what they were called, were usually found wearing signs reading, Cali clean, Cali beautiful. So they were just exterminating people. In many cases, the bodies were dumped in local rivers, which began being called River of Death.

27:51 Meanwhile, the Medellin cartel co-founder, Carlos Lader, established a political party called the National Latin Movement, MLN. The party's ideology opposed imperialism, communism, neocolonialism, and Zionism. Its aims included the nationalization of banks, transport, and the assets of multinational

28:21 So, in other words, they just signed their death warrant because, of course, they're going to oppose Zionism. And you wonder why that got thrown in, because remember earlier we discovered that Israel is intimately involved in this drug network by providing arms. They go so far as to build a.

28:48 munitions manufacturing company of both military arms and ammunition in Colombia. And it's exported throughout all of Latin America to the death squads. So yeah, they didn't like them very much. Escobar donated 5,000 toys every Christmas to children of needy families in his area where his family estate was. Carlos

29:21 later distributed cash and medical supplies to the inhabitants of another local area in 1983 that had suffered an earthquake. More politically significant than acts of charity was the Medellin's cartel contributions to the development of poor communities in the region. They built a housing project in San Julian.

29:49 outside of Armenia, the capital of that province. Literacy campaigns were sponsored in some of the rural areas by high-ranking members of the Medellin cartel. They restored the facade of local businesses that had been destroyed and built large outdoor recreation centers to include basketball courts and soccer stadiums in local towns.

30:19 Escobar's image as a modern-day Robin Hood by Medellin residents was greatly enhanced through his campaign called Medellin Without Slums. It was set up in 1982 to build 2,000 new housing units for poor families in several cities.

30:45 However, only 500 dwellings were completed because of Escobar's conflict with the state. He also built 80 illuminated sports arenas in the local area. 80! In another major project, Escobar and some of his relatives linked to the Medellin cartel built an immense zoological park on his estate that was open to the public.

31:15 and free. The fact that the zoo belongs not to us, but to the Colombian people, and the people cannot pay to visit it when they own it, was his motto. At the zoo's front entrance was an old Piper Cub airplane mounted on a concrete arch. The plane was reportedly used to fly some of the first shipments of Colombia cocaine into the United States.

31:45 Escobar's newspaper praised his social programs and his populism. Here's a quote from one of them. 50,000 trees planted in 50 boroughs of meddling. Schools built with plenty of space with an eye to beauty and function. Broken sewers repaired to protect residents from contaminated water and from epidemics.

32:15 a health hazard that the government ignored for years. Basketball courts, skating rinks, multi-sport arenas, thousands of bricks to expand the houses of the poor, to finish buildings, churches, and wings of schools. Illumination of barrios trapped in darkness because of indifferent bureaucrats and politicians who do not keep their promises. So, now he's poked an eye in the CIA's face.

32:43 He's poked a finger in the United States space, and he poked a finger in the Colombian government space. Nothing like racking up enemies. The narco elite was unable to control Escobar, and they could no longer afford to publicly associate themselves with him because he had already been declared an enemy of the state by both Colombia and the United States.

33:14 Medellin authorities accused Escobar of taking matters into his own hands. The Secretary of Education, Recreation, and Culture wrote that Escobar's efforts to refit a sports arena in one section of Medellin reflected a scorn for order and procedure. In other words, he was doing their job for them, and they didn't like it.

33:39 Escobar wrote back stating that the project and others like it filled a vacuum created by the indifference, apathy, and negligence of the municipal administration. Escobar's self-promoting populism created tension within the Colombian establishment. As a supporter wrote in Escobar's newspaper, quote, there exists in Colombia two classes of elite.

34:05 That of the, and they name a whole bunch of them, who earned their capital at the expense of labor of millions and millions of Colombians only to invest it in North America or Europe, and the other elite class which invest in Colombia out of concern for the misery of the masses and their desperate struggle for survival. To the second class belongs Pablo Escobar, unquote.

34:30 Escobar ran on the Liberal Party ticket for the House of Representatives in 1982 for a seat in the local area. His campaign centered largely on civic and social programs. Escobar was elected as an assistant parliamentarian to Hario Ortega, despite the increasing tension within the Colombian ruling class.

34:56 By mid-1987, a conservative party leader issued a public statement denouncing the, quote, strange political movements that seemed to be in vogue, unquote, and called for an investigation into the aims and sources of funding. Copies of the declaration was sent to the president, the ministers of government, and defense and attorney general in the local area. Escobar was accused of complicity in the assassination of the administration.

35:25 minister of justice, and was denounced as a major drug lord. Now, they've got a crap ton of major drug lords in Colombia, but they get someone to accuse Escobar of funding nefarious things. That's hilarious. Old trafficking charges were reactivated. This was when the U.S. government requested Escobar's extradition for conspiring to induce cocaine into the United States.

35:58 And get this, via Nicaragua, Nicaragua, where in the 80s we were aiding the Contras to attack Nicaragua. Just like we see today where everything is focused on Venezuela, where we've established unequivocally that Colombia

36:26 was trafficking cocaine through Venezuela with the knowledge of the CIA so they could blame Venezuela for the trafficking, even though it was being done by the CIA and primarily the Cali cartel, which is exactly what happened in Afghanistan, where it was Al Qaeda and the Mujahideen that was growing the opium.

36:56 but the CIA blamed the Taliban. And it's exactly what happened in Southeast Asia, where they were blaming mainland China when it was actually Taiwan doing it. See how that works? That, folks, is what we call a pattern. Okay, the Colombian government issued a warrant at the request of the U.S. for Escobar's arrest, not for drug trafficking or murder.

37:35 Because they were all doing that. But for contraband, from his zoo, he had a rhinoceros and 85 exotic birds, which he had imported to stock his zoo. So they're going to accuse him of contraband. They can't accuse him of narco-trafficking because everybody in Columbia is in on it.

38:05 A long and bloody bombing campaign directed by Escobar began immediately. The highly esteemed Colombian author Gabriel Garcia Marquez criticized Escobar, but wrote explaining that Escobar had not forgotten past insults, which fueled his all-out war against the Colombian state, who was trying to cooperate with the CIA and the U.S. to target him.

38:34 Escobar was blamed by Colombian authorities for assassinating three of the five candidates running in the Colombian presidential campaign in 1989. The campaign spread to the U.S., where Escobar's hitmen were suspected of killing Barry Sill, an American drug trafficker and CIA asset who had become a key government witness. And Pablo Escobar didn't have anything to do with Barry Sill's murder. He was inconvenient to the CIA.

39:03 When forces allied to Escobar blew up an airliner in Colombia, his war with the Colombian narco state in Washington intensified. And that aircraft that was targeted is very suspicious. The CIA and the Bush family had their own reasons for targeting the Medellin cartel. The Florida distribution of cocaine

39:32 and money laundering had been largely in the hands of CIA's Cuban Americans, not Colombians, until Escobar. The CIA's Cuban Americans connections in Miami included a network of agents and informants who ran the South Florida Task Force or were members of the Cuban Mafia. This network was traceable.

39:57 directly to then CIA Director George H.W. Bush. Republicans in Washington were bound to respond to a powerful Cuban lobby in Florida. Just like we had the China lobby for Chiang Kai-shek, we have a Cuban lobby for Colombia and the CIA. CIA is involved in both of them. They set up their own lobbying campaigns to attack.

40:28 Anybody that's a threat. Bush's son, Jeb, strongly supported with his own connections to the anti-Castro politics, including ex-CIA Cubans residing in Miami. Jeb Bush was in on all of this. And he, of course, later on goes on to be governor of Florida. Jeb Bush had numerous dealings with the Miami branch of BCCI.

40:59 You know, the CIA's drug trafficking, money laundering bank that originated out of Pakistan, ran out of London. Yeah. And his dad, George H.W. Bush, had an account that's been confirmed in the BCCI bank. So he used the Miami branch of the BCCI bank for real estate investments.

41:30 including one with a company controlled by a BCCI customer who was later sent to prison for defrauding BCCI and other U.S. banks. But nothing happened to the Bushes. Since support for Escobar was widespread in Colombia, sectors of the state armed forces, namely the narco-military, were reluctant to move against him, which created a bigger problem for the U.S.

41:58 and other enemies of Escobar in Colombia. The military's reluctance to move against Escobar had social, political, ideological, and pragmatic foundations. Many of the rank-and-file soldiers were drawn from the same social base as the drug traffickers, which were peasants and lower urban class. And they all regarded Pablo Escobar as Robin Hood.

42:29 According to local police forces, Pablo Escobar and some other traffickers in the Medellin cartel were seen by the poor as generous good men, simple, and were persecuted because of their origins from a humble class of people like themselves. The military's reluctance to move against Escobar can

42:57 also be attributed to the political culture that rose around cocaine trafficking, which accepted contraband and money laundering as normal business practices in Colombia. They knew he was being politically persecuted because they didn't charge him with drug trafficking because they were all doing it. Instead, he was charged with importing a rhinoceros.

43:25 In 1989, President George Bush authorized a covert operation to track down the Medellin cartel, just like Nixon had done with the Corsican mafia. In the same year, another important relationship in the U.S. was terminated. The U.S. invaded Panama and Noriega's government, which had close financial ties to Escobar.

43:55 They overthrew Noriega's government because he was side-dealing with Escobar, and that wasn't allowed. Noriega was detained as a prisoner of war and taken to the U.S., where he was convicted under federal charges of cocaine trafficking, racketeering, and money laundering. Noriega claimed that his real crime was refusing requests by Colonel Roberto

44:21 de Osborne of El Salvador to restrict the movements of leaders of the FMLN in Panama, and more important, failing to comply with the demands of Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North to provide military assistance to the Nicaraguan Contras. Noriega insists that his refusal to meet North's demand was the basis for the invasion and his removal

44:49 because he, too, was a CIA asset. He just didn't do what they wanted him to do. The codename for the U.S. manhunt for Escobar was called Heavy Shadow. Centra Spike, a top-secret U.S. Army unit that specialized in tracking, monitored Escobar's...

45:13 telephone and radio calls, which was covertly sent to Colombian intelligence. The sophistication involved in Escobar's surveillance forced him into hiding and a life on the run. He surrendered to Colombian authorities in 1991 after negotiating a deal that would allow him to live with his close associates in a comfortable prison built for him in his hometown of Medellin.

45:41 Escobar soon fled the prison, which compelled Colombian President Cesar Gaviria to ask the U.S. to expand the mission. Bush authorized the clandestine deployment of Delta Force and other U.S. armed forces, which continued as a multi-million dollar operation under Clinton. Delta Force, along with Army electronic surveillance teams, tracked the movements of Escobar and his associates to

46:11 and help plan raids for special Colombian police units called search blocks. Morris Busby, the U.S. ambassador to Colombia, directed the U.S. effort with assistance from the CIA, DEA, FBI, and NSA. Again, we have an ambassador functioning as a combatant commander of an operation on behalf of the CIA.

46:38 This again is a pattern that we've seen over and over again. The State Department is just as guilty as the CIA in these operations. They know exactly what's going on. They know that Escobar is a threat to the CIA and is being targeted for elimination. And they are running these operations.

47:07 The investigation conducted by Amnesty International in 2001 led to a lawsuit to obtain CIA records of Las Pepas peoples persecuted by Pablo Escobar, a vigilante group set up by Carlos Castano and backed by the Cali cartel. So again, the competitors taking out Escobar.

47:31 Its findings pointed to, quote, an extremely suspect relationship between the U.S. government and the Castano family at a time when the U.S. government was well aware that the family's involvement in paramilitary violence, i.e. death squads, and narcotics trafficking, unquote. So there are preferred customers, so we're going to eliminate their competition. Carlos?

47:59 Castano was instrumental in bringing down Escobar by collaborating with the CIA while working directly as the leader of the Cali cartel. By 1989, the Cali cartel had become the principal source of information to all of the Colombian security agencies. The Castanos did the dirty work.

48:26 for their backers in Bogota and Washington based on CIA information, which, according to Mark Bowden, a reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer, was transmitted via special squad of the Colombian National Police, who, by the way, is trained by the Office of Public Safety, i.e. the State Department, USAID, in conjunction with the CIA. So it's CIA, CIA, CIA attacking Escobar.

48:55 you can keep track of what's going on. Okay. Intelligence reports later confirmed that Los Pepes had in fact been created by the Cali cartel. Los Pepes fraternized with at least two DEA agents.

49:15 and gave one of them a gold watch. Escobar's last stand was on December 3, 1993, on a rooftop in the home city of Medellin. Gun blazing, Escobar was easily outnumbered. He was shot by a train of bullets and plummeted from the rooftop onto the ground. Who fired the fatal shot that killed him is still debated. But an unnamed senior Pentagon official described it.

49:44 Pablo Escobar stood on top of a powerful mountain and the only way to get him was to take down the mountain, one person at a time, until there was no place to hide. President Graveria was given worldwide credit for Escobar's downfall. He contended that the battle against Pablo Escobar was never primarily about stopping drug smuggling. He was a very serious problem because he was violent. Moreover,

50:12 he was a threat to the state. That's actually a quote. The level of terrorism he had to live with was something awful. So he became a threat to the narco state, so they took him out with help from his competitor. Miguel Antonio Gomez Padilla, the longtime Colombian National Police Director, resigned over increasing levels of corruption after Escobar's demise.

50:43 According to a declassified State Department cable and the U.S. Embassy in Bogota, Padilla was especially disturbed over the influence of the Cali cartel in numerous levels of government, and as a result, had simply had enough of the situation. The Cali cartel, and this is huge, because that's the guy that USAID, Office of Public Safety, trained. It got so disgusting that their guy quits.

51:12 The Cali cartel simply took over Escobar's market share and a new era of trafficking was established and linked to the narco elite, the Colombian state, and the U.S. This became ever more apparent under President Alvaro Uribe Velez. And again, just as a reminder, Uribe...

51:36 grandson, I believe it is, is the guy that was shot in June and just died a couple of weeks ago, running for president too. So this is the family of drug traffickers posing as politicians. So under Uribe, who released the Cali cartel's founders, Galberto and Miguel Rodriguez Orgelia,

52:04 almost immediately after his inauguration as president in November 2002. So, they don't really care about narco-trafficking. The brothers, their services no longer required, were later extradited to the U.S. Business assets worth $2 billion.

52:28 were given up to U.S. authorities and 28 family members of the Cali cartel were given immunity from prosecution because they're not going to get rid of their network. Alvaro Uribe relied heavily on the new version of the narco-military network, which was consolidated under Clinton's plan, Columbia, which I wrote an entire thread about. It was a farce, too.

52:56 It was just a way of channeling more money down there for their death squads. Pablo Escobar, as a force in Colombian politics and a cartel kingpin, strained relations with the U.S. and Colombia. In a desperate battle waged by Escobar and the Medellin cartel, the narco elite

53:13 was effectively split over his place in high society. The involvement of the US in the downfall of Pablo Escobar did not end cocaine production in Colombia or its export to the US. The prominence that cocaine had achieved in Colombian political economy only deepened its relationship with the US now that they'd gotten the thorn in their side out of the way. Joe Toft, then a DEA chief in Colombia, said this, quote,

53:45 I don't know what the lesson of the story is. I hope it's not that the end justifies the means. Colombians need functioning institutions capable of protecting them, a police and judiciary that aren't.

53:59 owned by criminals who buy political protection. The U.S. does its allies no service by looking the other way while they pursue expedient but counterproductive policies. It could contribute more by blowing the whistle early on and above all by curbing its own insatiable appetite for drugs, unquote. A rare, honest assessment. With the elimination of Escobar and his brand of populism,

54:28 The cartels was able to permeate all sections of the Colombian economy with the assistance of Castano's paramilitary militias. The narco military network was groomed to perform its task of defending the narco class interest without compromise, which would eventually turn the Colombian narco state into something well beyond anything Escobar could have ever done.

54:59 That's crazy. That's absolutely crazy. All right, SR71, you still there? Well, good morning, Colonel. It is bright and early this morning. I know some people are early risers, but I think some people also like to sleep till noon. I'm not one of those, by the way. But thank you all for attending Spaces this morning and Rumble. I know it's early. I know it's...

55:37 very early for Shelly in Rumble since she's in New Zealand, but it's amazing to me. And what we're seeing going on here with Pablo Escobar and what they did with him. And when you turn around and you take a look at it, and they really didn't do anything about his drug involvement to get him out of the picture, it says a lot. Having the Cubans

56:08 Nicaragua and everybody else involved in this and how they pulled it off is just unbelievable. It really is crazy if you go back and you read the articles, because you guys know I've made a big deal recently of the demonization of the Taliban. And you're seeing the exact same thing play out. The Taliban.

56:33 And again, I'm not saying Escobar was a good guy. He was not. He was a drug trafficker, okay? But the selective outrage of manipulating the United States public to justify the execution of some people while lying to us about those people, mainly for the protection of their networks.

57:05 But Afghanistan, it was the Taliban. And that was, I don't know how many of you guys watched the movie, I forget the name of it, that Badlands did last night. I did watch it. And it was not a main point. It was an excellent done movie. I love the movie. They did a great job. But the casual lumping of the Taliban.

57:33 Taliban in with al-Qaeda is just wrong. Codex 911. Thank you, McModern. I highly recommend everybody go watch that. The Taliban is not al-Qaeda. The Taliban was not created by the CIA. Al-Qaeda and ISIS were created by the CIA. And it was the Taliban who made the misstep of eliminating opium.

58:03 that got them attacked after 9-11. One of the entire justifications for going into Afghanistan is CIA plant Osama bin Laden was rumored to be in Afghanistan when, in fact, he was in Pakistan where all of the heroin labs were. And because of that,

58:28 We went back into Afghanistan, took over the opium production, and it skyrocketed, even more than what it had been when we were there before in the 80s. So this purposeful manipulation of who the bad guy is with created intelligence that in no way reflects what's going on. And again, I'm not saying Taliban is good. Not saying that. I'm just saying.

58:56 that they have to have a boogeyman. And we are seeing today, with the likes of that Sarah Adams dumbass, that they are demonizing the Taliban. And as portrayed in that movie, when you see the pattern of them demonizing something and coming up with a narrative and it just be forced down your throat.

59:23 They are going to do something and blame that entity. That's what we are watching right now. She is out there constantly bashing the Taliban. So you know that the Taliban is going to be part of an operation with these convenient passports that get left behind magically and these magic suitcases that don't get destroyed.

59:52 or checked or whatever, with all of the documents laid out to implicate whoever they want to implicate. And that's exactly what they did with Pablo Escobar. And again, that doesn't make him good. It just makes him part of the narrative. And when he goes against the system, as did Noriega, then they're going to take you out and they're going to lie to us. And we need to not be okay with that. Agreed?

1:00:27 Because it really comes back to we can do two things at the same time. We can condemn the Taliban and then also condemn the CIA for using the Taliban at the same time. We can condemn Escobar for being a drug trafficker while at the same time condemning the CIA for taking out the drug trafficker of choice, not.

1:00:56 to disrupt the drug trafficking, but because he's not playing their ballgame. Both of those things can be true at the same time. Both of those are bad. But we know 100% the CIA does absolutely nothing to lessen drug trafficking, and they do everything they can to promote it, as well as weapons trafficking, as long as it's under their control.

1:01:26 That's the moral of the story. Exactly, Colonel. It's what benefits them the most. That's how I see it. Yes, 100%. They want the illicit activity under their control. They don't want the same illicit activity that they don't control. Eliminate the competition. And we can all agree the competition is just as bad, but...

1:02:01 at least acknowledge what it is and acknowledge that our government's lying to us. So if they can target Escobar as the bad guy, it allows them to create things like playing Columbia, to marshal billions of dollars of our money to attack Escobar when in fact they're advertising it as attacking or creating a war on drugs. That's false advertising.

1:02:30 There was never a war on drugs. There was a war on Escobar. And the fact that they do this to manipulate us is unconscionable because meanwhile, while they're not stemming the flow of drugs or even addressing it at all, they're stealing billions of our dollars to create death squads. And the part this book does not address at all.

1:02:59 All of these death squads that we created through sending Columbia up to the Hemispheric School, to Leavenworth, to Fort Bragg, the equipping of them with Israeli rifles and ammunition, all of this, all of this was done on our dime. They now have in excess of 20,000 trained paramilitary fighters.

1:03:28 Just like with the Cuban exiles, they deploy all over the world to orchestrate. They're in Ukraine right now. They're all over Africa. They are subcontractors to all of the private military security companies. Colombia is one of the, so they used our money.

1:03:54 to train assassin terrorists to unleash on the world. And they're using our money via private contracts from the CIA, Department of Defense, and State Department to employ those trained killers all over the world. So we are literally paying for this every way you look at it. We pay to train them. We're paying to employ them under all of these lies, this misguided.

1:04:24 Not misguided evil network that has been set up that propagandize us and ends up using our own money against us because these drugs flow in here and kill our loved ones. Exactly, Colonel. And what I don't think a lot of people look at at this point is both of these cartels, the Cali cartel and the Medellin cartel were located.

1:04:59 in Colombia, both of them in the same country. And as things went on and things got really bad, all of a sudden things shifted from, of course, Medellin to Cali, and now it's the Mexican cartels. So not only do we keep getting closer to our own shores, we ensure that what they want, they get one way or the other. Correct.

1:05:29 Thank you, Colonel. Absolutely correct. That's the bottom line. And the only way to stop it is to get rid of the CIA as a first step. A lot more steps involved, but that's the first step. All right. That's going to do it for today. I'm going to jump off here. We are moving up to the local Columbus, Ohio area today.

1:05:57 And we've got several shows this week that we will be doing. I'll put out a schedule sometime today as to what those are. And we're going to do another show tomorrow at 8 o'clock in the morning. But that show is going to be with Warhamster. And I think you guys are really going to like it. Because, again, there's information that is put out that is basically limited hangout.

1:06:26 It only goes so far and no further. And we're going to kind of illustrate that tomorrow as it relates to the education system. And weirdly enough, you're going to find out that a lot of this traces back to the Fabian Society Hegelian dialect that has permeated every piece.

1:06:56 of Strategy of Tension and Operation Gladio from the beginning. Stay away from Cincinnati. Yeah, we're not going anywhere near Cincinnati. Thank you, Elwood. Nope, not going there. But anyway, thanks a lot for joining us this early morning. And I will see you tomorrow morning. Take care.

1:07:21 Colonel, I did post a link to Codex 911 in both the pill and over on Rumble for anybody that wants to watch it. Awesome. Thank you very much for doing that. I do recommend you guys watch that. I did put out a note yesterday or last night of a couple of things that I would add to that commentary.

1:07:48 That goes right along with it and our studies here. So yeah, definitely go watch that movie. Okay. Take care, everybody. See you tomorrow.

Entities here

Colombia25 Pablo Escobar25 United States25 Cali Cartel14 Medellin Cartel9 Taliban8 Narco Cartel System5 Manuel Noriega4 Carlos Castano4 Afghanistan4 U.S. State Department4 Medellín4 USAID4 George H.W. Bush4 Nicaragua3 Brigade 25063 BCCI3 Mafia3 Al Qaeda3 Codex 9112 Los Pepes2 Ochoa Brothers2 Jeb Bush2 Venezuela2 Cesar Gaviria2 Pakistan2 Bogotá2 Liberal Party2 Contras2 Miguel Antonio Gomez Padilla2 Alvaro Uribe2 Plan Colombia2 Colombian National Police2 Panama2 Conservative Party of Ontario2 Miami2 Carlos Lehder2 RAND Corporation1 Delta Force1 Fort Bragg1

Claims made here

Medellin Cartel headed Pablo Escobar host_asserted ▶ 8:12

“Or a who Ella brothers in the Cali cartel played a vital role in the national coordination of Columbia's narco economy and the cartels representatives in their political system. The cartel system was …”

Cali Cartel headed Ochoa Brothers host_asserted ▶ 8:12

Peter Reuter member_of RAND Corporation host_asserted ▶ 8:43

“to the economic stability of Colombia, and therefore was integrated in all aspects of the Colombian economy and political structure. A clear-headed picture of what a narco-economy entails is often blu…”

Pablo Escobar funded Diego Ladondo White host_asserted ▶ 16:40

“him more popular than them because they were taking all of their profits and investing them in the U.S. One of Escobar's first contacts with the Colombian elite was a property dealer and politician fr…”

Diego Ladondo White member_of Conservative Party of Ontario host_asserted ▶ 17:11

“brothers, high-ranking members of the Medellin cartel, and was the local area coordinator for the conservative party candidate, Basilaro Batancor's presidential campaign. Neither of Colombia's two maj…”

Medellin Cartel funded Julio Cesar Turbay Ayala host_asserted ▶ 18:10

“liberal candidate Julio Cesar Turbay Ayala, who won the decision in 1978. Exchange houses, real estate agencies, and various financial corporations began to pop up everywhere, offering high returns an…”

Medellin Cartel laundered_money_for Federal Reserve host_asserted ▶ 18:37

“The Federal Reserve Bank of Miami reported a cash surplus of $5.5 billion, greater than the total surplus of all other Federal Reserve Bank branches in the United States in 1979. Remarkably, a connect…”

Pablo Escobar recruited Roberto Suarez host_asserted ▶ 19:38

“Military targets for kidnapping and extortion by the resistance we now know as the FARC. Escobar made his first trip to Bolivia sometime in early 1980, where he met with Roberto Suarez, then a major s…”

FARC targeted_for_regime_change Pablo Escobar host_asserted ▶ 19:38

Jeb Bush recruited Camilo Padreda host_asserted ▶ 21:06

“mafia, whose political links to the anti-Castro Cubans and the Bush family in Florida played a significant role in the events leading up to Escobar's conflict with the Colombian state and eventually h…”

Medellin Cartel assassinated Mafia host_asserted ▶ 22:00

“Rival Colombian traffickers and the Cuban mafia fought for control of the state's lucrative drug market. The conflicts peaked in 1981 and was not resolved until 1993 with Escobar's death. Bruce Bagley…”

Medellin Cartel assassinated Rodrigo Lara Bonilla host_asserted ▶ 25:17

“And again, it's a pattern. The meddling cartel assassinated Minister of Justice Rodrigo Lara Bonilla, a leading campaigner against Escobar and a vocal advocate for Escobar's extradition.…”

Pablo Escobar funded Medellin Civic host_asserted ▶ 25:40

“A co-founder of the Medellin cartel denounced the extradition treaty as a plot negotiated by the DEA and CIA to target the Medellin cartel for political reasons rather than drug trafficking charges. I…”

Carlos Lehder founded National Student Movement host_asserted ▶ 27:51

“Meanwhile, the Medellin cartel co-founder, Carlos Lader, established a political party called the National Latin Movement, MLN. The party's ideology opposed imperialism, communism, neocolonialism, and…”

Pablo Escobar member_of Liberal Party host_asserted ▶ 34:30

“Escobar ran on the Liberal Party ticket for the House of Representatives in 1982 for a seat in the local area. His campaign centered largely on civic and social programs. Escobar was elected as an ass…”

Pablo Escobar ordered_assassination_of Barry Seal host_asserted ▶ 38:34

“Escobar was blamed by Colombian authorities for assassinating three of the five candidates running in the Colombian presidential campaign in 1989. The campaign spread to the U.S., where Escobar's hitm…”

Jeb Bush member_of BCCI host_asserted ▶ 40:28

“Anybody that's a threat. Bush's son, Jeb, strongly supported with his own connections to the anti-Castro politics, including ex-CIA Cubans residing in Miami. Jeb Bush was in on all of this. And he, of…”

George H.W. Bush laundered_money_for BCCI host_asserted ▶ 40:59

“You know, the CIA's drug trafficking, money laundering bank that originated out of Pakistan, ran out of London. Yeah. And his dad, George H.W. Bush, had an account that's been confirmed in the BCCI ba…”

George H.W. Bush ordered_assassination_of Medellin Cartel host_asserted ▶ 43:25

“In 1989, President George Bush authorized a covert operation to track down the Medellin cartel, just like Nixon had done with the Corsican mafia. In the same year, another important relationship in th…”

Manuel Noriega financed_via Pablo Escobar host_asserted ▶ 43:25

United States overthrew Manuel Noriega host_asserted ▶ 43:55

“They overthrew Noriega's government because he was side-dealing with Escobar, and that wasn't allowed. Noriega was detained as a prisoner of war and taken to the U.S., where he was convicted under fed…”

Oliver North supplied_arms_to Contras host_asserted ▶ 44:21

“de Osborne of El Salvador to restrict the movements of leaders of the FMLN in Panama, and more important, failing to comply with the demands of Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North to provide military assi…”

Manuel Noriega removed_from_power Oliver North host_asserted ▶ 44:21

United States funded Operation Heavy Shadow host_asserted ▶ 44:49

“because he, too, was a CIA asset. He just didn't do what they wanted him to do. The codename for the U.S. manhunt for Escobar was called Heavy Shadow. Centra Spike, a top-secret U.S. Army unit that sp…”

Centra Spike spied_on Pablo Escobar host_asserted ▶ 44:49

Delta Force spied_on Pablo Escobar host_asserted ▶ 45:41

“Escobar soon fled the prison, which compelled Colombian President Cesar Gaviria to ask the U.S. to expand the mission. Bush authorized the clandestine deployment of Delta Force and other U.S. armed fo…”

George H.W. Bush funded Delta Force host_asserted ▶ 45:41

Carlos Castano founded Los Pepes host_asserted ▶ 47:07

“The investigation conducted by Amnesty International in 2001 led to a lawsuit to obtain CIA records of Las Pepas peoples persecuted by Pablo Escobar, a vigilante group set up by Carlos Castano and bac…”

Cali Cartel funded Los Pepes host_asserted ▶ 47:07

Amnesty International exposed Los Pepes host_asserted ▶ 47:07

United States covered_up Carlos Castano host_asserted ▶ 47:31

“Its findings pointed to, quote, an extremely suspect relationship between the U.S. government and the Castano family at a time when the U.S. government was well aware that the family's involvement in …”

Carlos Castano member_of Cali Cartel host_asserted ▶ 47:59

“Castano was instrumental in bringing down Escobar by collaborating with the CIA while working directly as the leader of the Cali cartel. By 1989, the Cali cartel had become the principal source of inf…”

Cesar Gaviria exposed Pablo Escobar host_asserted ▶ 49:44

“Pablo Escobar stood on top of a powerful mountain and the only way to get him was to take down the mountain, one person at a time, until there was no place to hide. President Graveria was given worldw…”

Miguel Antonio Gomez Padilla removed_from_power Colombian National Police host_asserted ▶ 50:12

“he was a threat to the state. That's actually a quote. The level of terrorism he had to live with was something awful. So he became a threat to the narco state, so they took him out with help from his…”

USAID trained Cali Cartel host_asserted ▶ 50:43

“According to a declassified State Department cable and the U.S. Embassy in Bogota, Padilla was especially disturbed over the influence of the Cali cartel in numerous levels of government, and as a res…”

Cali Cartel succeeded Medellin Cartel host_asserted ▶ 51:12

“The Cali cartel simply took over Escobar's market share and a new era of trafficking was established and linked to the narco elite, the Colombian state, and the U.S. This became ever more apparent und…”

Alvaro Uribe pardoned Miguel Rodriguez Orejuela host_asserted ▶ 51:36

“grandson, I believe it is, is the guy that was shot in June and just died a couple of weeks ago, running for president too. So this is the family of drug traffickers posing as politicians. So under Ur…”

United States funded Plan Colombia host_asserted ▶ 52:28

“were given up to U.S. authorities and 28 family members of the Cali cartel were given immunity from prosecution because they're not going to get rid of their network. Alvaro Uribe relied heavily on th…”

Pablo Escobar targeted_for_regime_change United States host_asserted ▶ 52:56

“It was just a way of channeling more money down there for their death squads. Pablo Escobar, as a force in Colombian politics and a cartel kingpin, strained relations with the U.S. and Colombia. In a …”

United States overthrew Taliban host_asserted ▶ 58:28

“We went back into Afghanistan, took over the opium production, and it skyrocketed, even more than what it had been when we were there before in the 80s. So this purposeful manipulation of who the bad …”

Fabian Society founded Operation Gladio host_asserted ▶ 1:06:26

“It only goes so far and no further. And we're going to kind of illustrate that tomorrow as it relates to the education system. And weirdly enough, you're going to find out that a lot of this traces ba…”

Fabian Society founded Strategy of tension host_asserted ▶ 1:06:26