The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 8

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Transcript

0:00 Good afternoon, Colonel. Good afternoon, Miss Bridget. I, through us, are the co-host. So hopefully you'll be along in a minute. We're going to go ahead and get started. And we are, there he comes. We are on part eight. And we left off with the Arkansas connections of WebHubble.

0:29 and Park on Meter yesterday. So we're going to pick up from there. And it starts off with there being another similarity between the weapons operations described that we covered yesterday with LaFrance and Reed. They both were involved in drug trafficking. And both of them appeared.

1:00 on the surface to be working for the U.S. government. A central figure related to Reed's dealing with the CIA was a CIA and DEA contract agent by the name of none other than Adler Berryman Seale. A former airline pilot, Seale moved in 1982 from Baton Rouge to a tiny airfield in Mena, Arkansas.

1:31 at the Intermountain Regional Airport, where he was running drugs up and weapons down. In the early 1980s, Barry Sill was one of the biggest cocaine and marijuana importers in the southern part of the United States. He flew loads directly for the meddling cartel, airdropping them at

2:01 precise locations throughout Louisiana, Arkansas, and a few other southern states. Seal detailed his cocaine smuggling activities in 81, 82, and 83. He testified to this that he was involved in at least 50 trips during those three years. IRS spokesman Henry Holmes told the Baton Rouge State Times in

2:31 In 1986, explaining a $29 million lien that the IRS filed against Seale for back taxes. A letter that year from Louisiana's Attorney General to U.S. Attorney General Edward Meese said Seale smuggled between $3 billion and $5 billion worth of drugs into the United States.

3:00 That's an actual quote. Seals Farm in Baton Rouge, according to a 1983 U.S. Customs report, was allegedly used as a drop site for cocaine and marijuana flown into the country in a DC-4 aircraft that was labeled N-90201. That same plane subsequently turned up flying supplies for the Contra in 1985 through

3:30 an air cargo company. The FDN hired that same company called Condo Carib Cargo Inc. The operator of Condo Carib record show was an FDN, meaning the Contras, leader Adolfo Calero's brother, Mario Calera. The Condo Carib's owner,

4:02 was also a pilot by the name of Frank Moss, who was later identified in 1989 Senate report as having been investigated, but not indicted for narcotics offenses by 10 different law enforcement agencies during a period of time. The report said Moss flew FDN supply missions for both.

4:30 in a Honduran air freight company called Setco. Huh, Setco. We've come across that company multiple times. That company was owned by a Honduran drug trafficker by the name of Juan Mata Balesteros. One DC-4 Moss used to ferry Contra supplies was seized by the DEA in March of 1987.

5:02 on a suspected drug run off the coast of Florida. Aboard the plane was marijuana residue and Moss's notes, which, according to a CIA cable, contained, quote, the names of two CIA officers and their telephone numbers, unquote. Also found was the phone number of Robert Owen, Oliver North's carrier in Central America.

5:31 In 1985, records show Owen reported to Oliver North that a DC-6 owned by Mario Calero, quote, which is being used for runs out of New Orleans, is probably used for drug runs into the United States, unquote. During that time, he was dealing with Terry Reed. Seal was also working for the DEA as an informant.

6:00 In 1984, he participated in a joint CIA-DEA sting operation in an attempt to snare Sandinista government officials in drug smuggling because they desperately wanted to shift all of their drug smuggling onto the Contras, which somehow seems very close to what's happening today. Congressional records show North...

6:30 was being regularly briefed by the CIA on Seale's sting operation, was supplied with some of the evidence it produced, and allegedly leaked the information to the press shortly before a critical vote on contra aid coming up in Congress. So in other words, North created a false narrative to blame drug smuggling on the Nicaraguan Sandinistas, hovering up.

7:02 for the CIA's drug trafficking with the Contras. North maintains that his only involvement in the seal sting against the Sandinistas was as an observer. Yeah, because that's what the NSC staff does. They just observe stuff. But a statement that he gave to the FBI in June of 86 suggests that his relationship with the traffickers was considerably more complex.

7:29 On February 17, 1986, Steele was murdered in New Orleans by a quote-unquote Colombian hitman. Four months later, in June, North called the FBI and claimed that there was an active measures program being directed against him by the Sandinistas. People were following him, he said, directing death threats and smears against him.

7:57 North expressed further concern that he may be targeted for elimination by organized crime due to his alleged involvement in gun running. It went on to say that North pointed to the murder on February 17, 1986, of a DEA agent, Steele, on the date prior to Steele's testifying against the Sandinistas for drug involvement.

8:29 Personal records showed him to be a contract CIA operative both before and during his years of drug running in MENA in the 80s. Historian Roger Morris, a former National Security Staffer, Security Council Staffer, wrote in a 1996 book called Partners in Power about Bill and Hillary Clinton. The same Senate subcommittee

8:56 that looked into the Contra's connections to Handu Karab in 1988 also poked around the MENA airport and concluded that associates of SEALs who operated aircraft services business at the MENA airport were also the targets of a grand jury probe into narcotics trafficking. Despite the availability of evidence sufficient for an indictment on money laundering charges,

9:23 and over the strong protests of state and federal law enforcement officials, the case was dropped. The apparent reason was that the prosecution would reveal national security information, courtesy of the CIA stamp. Clinton's critics have charged that it is impossible for the governor of Arkansas to have been unaware of SEAL's activities in MENA. Indeed, Reid and former

9:54 Arkansas State Trooper L.D. Brown and Larry Patterson, both of whom had been critical of Clinton, insist he knew quite a bit about it, including the fact that cocaine was involved. Patterson was a member of Governor Clinton's security detail. He testified that he and other troopers were aware that there were large quantities of drugs being flown into the MENA airport, large quantities of money.

10:23 large quantities of guns, and that there was an ongoing operation training foreign people in the area. It was a CIA operation. That was his statement. A mechanic at the MENA airport, John Bender, swore in a deposition that he saw Clinton there three times in 85. Ex-trooper Brown said that he confronted Clinton about the cocaine flight SEAL was involved in. Governor Clinton's reply, quote,

10:54 That's a Lasseter's deal, unquote, referring to his close friend and campaign contributor, Little Rock bond broker Danny Ray Lasseter. In 1986, Lasseter was indicted by a federal grand jury in Little Rock on drug charges, and Clinton's brother, Roger, a cocaine addict, was named as an unindicted co-conspirator. Lasseter pleaded guilty to drug trafficking. He received

11:23 received a 30-month prison sentence, but served only six months. Clinton pardoned him in 1990. Clinton supporters have maintained that Lassiter was no drug dealer, simply a high-flying businessman who got a little too caught up in the fast life. But that's not the way the FBI described it. In their 1988 report,

11:48 citing the Bureau's successful battles against major drug trafficking organizations. According to the FBI's description of its investigation, Lassiter was part of a huge drug ring. In December of 1986, the Little Rock, Arkansas office of the FBI concluded a four-year organized crime drug enforcement task force investigation involving cocaine trafficking activities of a prominent

12:17 Little Rock businessman who operated several banking investment firms and brokerages in Arkansas and Florida. The FBI report went on, quote, the investigation revealed that this businessman was the main supplier of cocaine to the investment banking and bond community in the Little Rock area, which has the largest bond community in the United States outside of New York City.

12:43 This task force investigation resulted in the conviction of this businessman and 24 co-defendants to jail sentences ranging from four months to 10 years, as well as the seizure of cocaine, marijuana, an automobile, an aircraft, and $77,000 in cash, unquote. Typically, investigations concluded by the task force units.

13:11 target top-level criminal organizations, not businessmen, who take a few totes every now and then. Researchers familiar with the Lassiter investigation say that the FBI's description of its Arkansas investigation goes far beyond anything that has ever been made public. Roger Moore's book, in fact, describes an investigation that was shut down prematurely and ended only with,

13:42 Lassiter's arrest, not that of the 24 others. But Morris also suggested that there was much more to the case than met the eye. Quote, whatever the limit or extent of Lassiter's cocaine trafficking or the nature of his other dealings, must believe that beyond him, the larger corruption in Little Rock and elsewhere pointed unmistakably to organized crime, not to mention the vast crimes of Mina, none of which were ever pursued.

14:11 Unquote. Morris went on to write, quote, in sworn testimony, a former staff member of the Arkansas State Police Intelligence Unit would describe a shredding party in which she ordered to purge the state's MENA files of nearly a thousand documents, including those referring specifically to Iran Contra conspirator Oliver North and SEAL associate Terry Reed. Unquote.

14:40 Reed claims that North, who was the National Security Council official overseeing the Contra project at the time, was his CIA contact for both the pilot training program and the machine tool company front. A Clinton spokesman called the reports of Clinton's alleged knowledge the darkest backwater of the right-wing conspiracy industry. North, who certainly knew about Barry Seale,

15:09 has denied anything about Terry Reed or what was going on at MENA. But something was certainly happening at the little airport, and it was far from routine. While denying that the CIA was involved in any illegal activities at MENA during the time Seal's drug smuggling operation was based there, the CIA's Inspector General Office confirmed in 1996

15:34 that the CIA ran a joint training operation with other federal agencies at the MENA airport. The IG report, which has never been publicly released, reportedly claims the exercise lasted only two weeks, but conveniently omits the year that it occurred. The CIA also used the MENA airport for routine aviation-related services on CIA-owned planes.

16:03 according to a declassified summary of the report. So again, you are left with the fact that the CIA is running their drug operation, or the CIA is present while a drug operation is running that they don't know anything about. Coincidentally, it was SEAL's drug hauling aircraft, a Fairchild C-123K, called the Fat Lady.

16:32 that a Sandinista soldier blew out of the sky over Nicaragua in 1986 with a SAM-7 missile, breaking open the Iran-Contra scandal. The plane was based at MENA before SEAL sold it and it began flying weapons hauling missions for Oliver North and the FDN. Morse wrote that SEAL also had worked for the Pentagon spy service, the DIA, where coded records reportedly showed he was on the payroll.

17:02 beginning in 1982. Tim LaFrance told LA journalist Nick Hsiao that DIA was also involved in Ronald Lister's weapon manufacturing plant in El Salvador. That's the one we talked about yesterday, that the owner of the San Diego plant went down to build one in El Salvador. And that the meetings that Lister and his associates had with the death squad commander,

17:31 Abushun, happened because the DIA wanted them to happen. Records found in Donald Lister's house in 1986 raid disclosed connections between Lister and a DIA subcontractor. Another man involved in Lister's Salvadoran weapons operation, LaFrance said, was a guy by the name of Richard Wilker, a former Laguna Beach resident, whom LaFrance described

18:01 as an ex-CIA agent. Wilker appears as the technical director on Pyramid International's proposal of the security project to the Sandinista government. The biography section of the proposal boasts that the company had technicians with Central Intelligence Agency in physical security for 20 years. Laguna Beach. Didn't we just talk about Laguna Beach?

18:29 Guna Beach and the guy that was the cop that then went to work at Pyramid International? Yes, we did yesterday. I met Lister through Wilker, LaFrance said. Wilker had heard about my stuff from the agency. He said he was a friend who wanted to talk about a deal. I called to check and Langley said, Wilker.

19:00 was still working for the CIA. So I started doing business with Wilker and Lister. Lister was not an official CIA employee, according to LaFrance. He wasn't getting a paycheck from them. He may have said he did, but his connection was with Wilker. Very few people work directly for the agency because they have to maintain plausible deniability. Former CIA official,

19:30 John Vanderwerker, who once employed Wilker as a salesman, said he knew Lister and Wilker were involved in some business activities in El Salvador. It was kind of touchy as far as getting in and out of that country. He did not elaborate. Coincidentally, Vanderwerker's name was found in a notebook of investigative reporter Danny Casalero after his death in connection with

19:59 the Indian reservation we talked about yesterday. Pyramid was eventually tossed out of El Salvador at the urging of the U.S. Army, which took over the weapons plant that he and Pyramid had started, LaFrance said. Lister dismisses any suggestion that he was knowingly working for the CIA. In an interview with police in 1996, he claims, quote, that if he were affiliated with an organization like the CIA, he wouldn't talk about it.

20:30 Unquote. So he probably had an NDA and had to lie. He confirmed, the detectives said, that he had been a security consultant, had dealings with offices in El Salvador. Lister said that he had a munitions control permit at the time and was involved in legal arms sales. The detectives noted that Lister did display some knowledge of the U.S. intelligence community during his interview.

21:01 Danielle Blanton met Lister early through the FDN's organization in Los Angeles and began associating with him. And that would last until the late 1980s. Lister and a partner named Bill Downing, Blanton would say, went to the meeting that we had with the Contras, the meeting that we have every week. And they offered us, they showed us, you know.

21:31 They showed us a demonstration of the weapons. They showed us machine guns and other weapons. They have the license to sell them. Lister never sold guns directly to the Contras, Blanton said, but not entirely accurate. Norwin Menendez said during a 1996 interview, quote, we in fact did make arrangements to sell arms to the Contras, but the FDN couldn't collect sufficient funds in order to finalize the deal.

22:03 Unquote. So Menendez, Blanton and Lister traveled to Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador to make arrangements with local governments for donations so they could send the guns. Lister and Blanton then continued their mission in South America without me, Danielle said. Or excuse me, that was Lister. So Blanton. Hold on.

22:34 Lister and Blanton went on to other countries. And let's see, Menendez then says, I know Danielle said that the weapons he got through Ronnie Lister, but that isn't true. If I told you where we got them, the governments would fall. He goes on to say, this is Menendez, I'm not going to do that while I'm in this place.

23:05 because he was currently being held in a Nicaraguan prison. Menendez's own involvement in the Contra gun running was confirmed in 1996 by none other than the New York Times, which quoted an unnamed Clinton administration official saying that Menendez had contacts with the Contras in Honduras in 82, 83, and 84, and that he believed then

23:35 to have had involvement in gun smuggling as well as money laundering and drugs. The Times also quoted two other unnamed government officials saying, quote, intelligence reports show that Mr. Menendez was thought to have sent some weapons to the Contras on at least one occasion, but the size and nature of the shipments are unclear, unquote. There is a mention of weapons with him, but not an indication of whether it was.

24:03 A standard long-term pipeline, the New York Times said. The Los Angeles Times in 1996 profile portrayed Lister as a loudmouth who told lies. Confirmed Menendez's statement that Lister was involved in weapons transactions with him. Quoting an unidentified former business associate of Lister's, the paper wrote that

24:32 Lister, quote, led a sales team on a futile mission to Civil War-wracked El Salvador in the summer of 1982 to market surplus American arms, military equipment, and use school buses to the Salvadoran military. The trip was financed, the associate said, with an investment of at least $20,000 from Menendez.

25:02 The trip was a failure, according to the Los Angeles Times, because Lister tried to arrange the deal through an unnamed leader of an unnamed political party, meaning they were dealing with the Salvadoran government and the death squads. Later, Lister tried to get involved in the cocaine business with Menendez, but the drug kingpin allegedly turned him down, supposedly because Menendez regarded Lister as a loose cannon.

25:32 The story did not explain how or where Lister would have picked up enough, quote unquote, surplus American arms to approach the Salvadoran military without making a weapons deal. The entire thing's a lie. When defense attorneys tried in 1996 to quiz Blanton about Lister's alleged relationship with the CIA, a federal prosecutor immediately objected and the jury was ordered out of the courtroom.

26:02 During a whispered conversation with the judge, the prosecutor said that while it was true that Lister made a claim that he was an employee of the CIA, the government believed it was false, made only to impress illegal business partners, and was an attempt to deter prosecution. Nonetheless, the prosecutor asked the judge to halt the line of inquiry because it was muddying the waters.

26:30 that since Blanton had denied that Lister worked for the government, there was no need to pursue that line of questioning. An internal CIA investigation in 1996 declared that Lister had no relationship with the agency, which, of course, they always say. Chris Moore, who regarded Lister's claims of CIA connection with skepticism, said Lister told him that he had a big CIA contact.

26:59 at the Orange County Company, meaning Pyramid, which is probably the guy we were talking about yesterday. I can't remember his name, but Ron was always running off to meetings with him. Ron said the guy was a former deputy director of operations or something, real high up. All I know is that the supposed contact of his was working at Floor, F-L-U-O-R Corporation.

27:27 an international construction company based in Orange County, because I had to call Ron out there a couple of times. In an interview with the Justice Department, Blanton recalled hearing Lister say that he was involved with the CIA and that he knew someone high up in the CIA who was getting him some license so that he could sell weapons to Iran. Blanton said he never believed Lister because he lied too much.

27:55 And this is coming from Blanton, who has lied about everything. Years later, however, evidence would surface suggesting Lister's claims of having a big CIA contact were not wild-eyed. In many ways, the relationship between Lister and ex-cop's weapons dealer and Blanton, the cocaine dealer, was symbiotic. Lister, when he first met Blanton, knew nothing about narcotics and could not tell you coke from flour.

28:26 He was quoted as saying, I've never seen this yet. But after Lister returned from his Central American travels, his former San Diego attorney said he appeared to be an expert on cocaine. When he came back, he seemed to know a lot about what was going on with the Colombian drug trafficking. I thought it was interesting because in the mid 1980s, no one knew anything about cartels. And this guy seemed to know everything about them. I can remember one incident in particular.

28:56 in the papers at the time, where all of a sudden there were these stories about the Medellin cartel. And Ron just kind of said out loud, what the hell is with the news media? There are all these stories about the Medellin cartel and nothing about the Cali cartel. Huh? Isn't that what I've been saying the whole time? The media wants to condemn the Medellin cartel because the Cali cartel is a state narco organization.

29:26 Ron said that the Cali cartel is where all the power is concentrated. That's where the power structure is, and no one is even bothering them. They're getting ready to expand their market to Europe. They're buying cargo ships and airplanes. Well, I had never heard of the Cali cartel at that point. Subsequent events certainly proved him right. Of course they did. The attorney surmised that Lister

29:53 could have gained this information from the CIA or through his work with them. He knew some pretty damn good details and professed to being through that area. Now, I have traveled extensively through Central America, and the only thing I can tell you is his information about the area was spot on. I know he'd been there. Lister told CIA inspectors that he'd been to Columbia with Blanton and observed Blanton negotiating drug deals with the Columbians.

30:22 In 1982, towards the end, Blanton's cocaine trafficking business in Los Angeles exploded almost overnight. It appears he went from receiving a little one or two kilo package that could be tucked away in a lunchbox to conducting multimillion dollar loads that wouldn't even fit in a wheelbarrow. I'd go over to Blanton's house, take my Mercedes over there.

30:51 Put three U-Haul boxes, which will cover about 100 kilos of about 33 per box. Plus, you could squeeze in the trunk and then go over to South L.A., Lister told the police. It would be the slickest deal you'd ever seen. There were interrelated reasons for this large expansion of Blanton's cocaine trafficking.

31:21 much ridiculed epidemic that we talked about in the first part of this book, had arrived in L.A. and courtesy of a guy whose nickname is Freeway Rick, who Alpha and I talked about last night on the show, the cocaine business in Los Angeles was about ready to explode. And Blanton was going to be the guy that benefited from that.

31:52 This takes us to the next chapter, which is dedicated to Freeway Rick. He would become the L.A. crack king slash cocaine king in Los Angeles. His real name was Ricky Donnell Ross. And originally, he had no idea about anything to do with drugs.

32:23 Nothing. He wasn't like a kid that grew up in a drug infested neighborhood. There were gangs. It was a very poor part of Los Angeles. But he didn't necessarily grow up around cocaine. At 19, he was going to get exposed to this big time. He has, and I'm not going to go through all of his background because there's a lot here.

32:54 But basically, he's a black kid that had been passed through all school, elementary, junior high and senior high. And he couldn't read. He couldn't write. He just they just kept passing him through. But he was a very, very good tennis player. And so there were two men who kind of adopted him and giving him.

33:22 tennis equipment, taking him to tennis lessons, tennis competitions. And his big dream was to play to get a scholarship and be one of the first persons in his family to go to college and play tennis. Well, when it was finally discovered that he couldn't read or write, he basically was told.

33:51 that he had no future in the tennis arena because he wasn't really, really good like, you know, John McEnroe good, but he was good. He was good enough to play in a college league, which he eventually does get into a vocational school that had a college equivalent tennis. And he did do very well.

34:20 He was demoralized when he found out that there was no way that he was ever going to be able to succeed playing tennis in college. So he's looking around for something to do. And him and a buddy. And this is around the time, for those of you who's old enough to remember this, that Richard Pryor sets himself on fire.

34:51 doing cocaine. And the thing to do at that time was take cocaine and heat it up and make crack cocaine. That's kind of what the next evolution of the drug is. And of course, we know Richard Pryor had been doing cocaine.

35:20 And then the free base kind of cocaine, which involves, you know, heating it up with fire. And then decides he runs out of cocaine to start drinking rum. And he basically sets himself on fire. So all of that stuff's going on. And Ricky has a very, very strict mom. Very, very strict. And so.

35:52 As he's doing some not great things, so he learns how to chop up cars. And he's doing this while his mom, because he was big into shop and repairing cars and stuff like that from high school. But he's really fencing cars. He's stealing cars and selling off the pieces. And he actually gets in trouble for doing that.

36:19 His mom was one of those moms that would, while they were gone, would go through his room just to make sure that he didn't have any gang paraphernalia or anything like that. And so when he starts this, he doesn't have a whole lot of money. He's not making a whole lot of money initially. The money that he did make, he had to hide. And he found all kinds of creative places to hide this money. So his mom didn't find it because she would want to know where it was.

36:49 Well, eventually his mom finds out kind of what he's doing on a small scale and she kicks him out of the house. So he's living in her garage. But at this point and the need to do the crack cocaine requires a kitchen and all this other stuff. So he leaves the garage.

37:17 and makes his way over to a relative's apartment. And that's kind of the beginning of his ascent into being the central biggest cocaine slash crack dealer in Los Angeles. And of course, Blanton is...

37:50 is his supplier. And there's a whole echelon. He gets to Blanton. He doesn't start off with Blanton. And I'll give you a couple of those data points. So let me get to that part. There's also a part in here that talks about Carlos Leder.

38:23 L-E-H-D-E-R, who, if you guys recall when we were doing the Columbia book, he was in the meddling cartel. And he basically, they go through a short little part about how they came into the United States, as we well know, to create their own network. They were using places like the Bahamas and Miami.

38:55 and we're bringing them in. And there's a few excerpts in here about how all of that works, but I'm not going to go into detail about that since we've already covered that in our last book. But there's a guy, the guy that recruits him into the vocational school is a guy whose last name is Fisher. And Fisher,

39:24 was dealing a little cocaine on the side to pay for his own habit. So Fisher decides that he can get Ricky cocaine and make a few bucks because he's now going to be basically a wholesaler to Ricky. And that kind of is what launched his career.

39:53 this vocational school teacher. And so there was a guy that was involved in that whose name was Ivan. And he was the supplier to Mr. Fisher. So Ivan goes missing. And his whereabouts were not a mystery to Daniello Blanton. He had been observing Ivan's dealings with Ricky Ross for a while.

40:24 Despite all of the work that he'd been doing for Menendez personally, keeping the books, helping the Contras, you know, his what was me story. Every few months, Blanton would drive all the way to Menendez's house and pick up his cocaine to sell in Los Angeles area. Blanton had been hitting up other car salesmen he knew, helping other cocaine dealers.

40:54 through dry spells. But Ivan Argules, another Nicaraguan exile, scuttling around LA to sell cocaine, had found this kid in South Central, Ricky Ross, and they were really starting to move powder. Blanton knew Ivan, who also used the name Claudio Valencio.

41:24 because they shared heritage with this new profession. He sold Ivan a little cocaine every once in a while when he couldn't find it at other places. The Torres brothers, the two giant guys with the car lot, also had gotten into the cocaine business around the same time. It was Blanton surmising that they are the ones that were supplying Ricky Ross. I suppose...

41:55 That's where Ricky got his start, Blanton said. I know them well. You know, all of the Nicaraguan people. When I saw them getting rich, getting money, I wanted in too. If the Torres brothers were dealing with Ross, as Blanton claims, it is likely that they were doing it as Ivan's suppliers because Ross said he never met the Torres brothers face-to-face long after Ivan disappeared.

42:25 Blanton had no other sources. He was stuck with Menendez, who was squeezing him for the Contras. And then he talks about basically he didn't even have his own car. He had to rent a car to go up to San Francisco. That's why Ivan's deal with Ricky Ross looks so good to Blanton. This little kid was a mover. He was getting bigger all the time. I wished I could have known Ricky because all the time.

42:54 I grew up in this business, Blanton said. He, Ivan, and his brother-in-law, Henry, were selling to Rick, so I wish I could have known him. Blanton got his wish. Ivan Argoulas caught a bullet in the spine that crippled him from the waist down. He was hospitalized for months and forced to quit the cocaine business while he recuperated. He got shot by his wife. I'm sorry, I shouldn't laugh at that.

43:23 He's paralyzed right now. That was a tough break. But it was a break for Danielle Blanton, who had been waiting for Ivan's customers to, he'd been trying to cut in on the business. All right. So he said that his brother-in-law, who was in business with Ivan, Henry Corrales, was a knucklehead. He was a nice guy who wanted to party all the time. He didn't know what he was doing.

43:55 Blanton agreed when he, Ivan, got in his quote unquote accident, it started Henry Corrales' getting in the business. Henry was running the business because his brother-in-law was in the hospital. And when that guy got paralyzed, he lost cocaine contacts and Henry didn't have any contacts other than his brother-in-law. So connections is what the cocaine business is all about.

44:26 Henry Corrales was hurting. Ivan's people expected him to deliver. And where the hell was he going to come up with that amount of cocaine to give to the black community? So Blanton came by to offer his sympathies and some help. So he just casually says, if you don't have any sources, I have some you can use.

44:56 Henry was so grateful for Blanton's help that he agreed to share his profits on the kilos that he sold 50-50. We split the commission, Blanton said, but he couldn't remember how much that was. I was selling to Henry Corrales and Henry Corrales was selling to Ricky. Henry would come to me and pick it up. Ross denied.

45:23 He was receiving that much cocaine from Henry when he started his relationship with him. He and Ollie, which is his childhood friend, were still dealing mostly ounces at that point. He was in the multi-ounce lot, to be sure. They'd buy four to eight ounces a day, but he didn't graduate to buying kilos until later. Blanton said he knew how much Ross had been buying.

45:52 from Ivan because the quantity he sold determined the price. So you can just do the math backwards. Ross said he did not know that Danielle Blanton had adopted him as a customer just as he hadn't known where Ivan got his coke from because it didn't matter to him. In the cocaine business, serious dealers had good reason to cut out their wholesalers and buy directly from the source.

46:19 The closer they got to the source, the better the price. All Ricky knew was that once he started dealing with Henry, his cocaine prices fell. Maybe Ivan's disappearance wasn't going to be a bad deal for Ricky. Ross started noticing a slight change in the cocaine market around South Central. Some of his customers taking the cocaine powder he was selling.

46:47 kept saying they were taking it and turning it into rocks. And Ricky at first thought that was weird. He says, at first, nobody wanted those rocks. Nobody wanted to mess with cocaine that didn't look like cocaine. Secondly, the price was too low. How could anything claiming to be cocaine sell so cheap? But Ricky vividly recalled his Christmastime experience.

47:20 with the pimp a couple of years back when a man had smoked a rock and come running back waving a $100 bill. If this stuff catches on, Ross considered, it may be worth looking into. Then one of his customers asked him if he had any rock to sell and Ross got the message. Know what I got? It's chemistry, Ross said. I got an F. He got an F in everything, I think.

47:50 First, when he first started out, I was paying someone to cook it. But everybody always used to make it more complicated than it was. Like the cookers never wanted you to know how to cook it. So everybody had to keep coming to them. In truth, rock cocaine is easy to make. But cocaine powder in a pan, add some water and baking soda and heat it until it starts cracking. Dope. In November 1979,

48:20 Tennyson Geyer's Select Committee Investigating Cocaine provided the first public airing of the ingredients needed to turn powder into crack. A saucer, a glass, a paper towel, arm and hammer baking soda are about all you needed, he said. In 1981, an author named T. Davison published a pamphlet, The Natural Progress, Base Ick.

48:52 instruction in baking soda recipe. It was produced out of Orange County, California. And basically it was instructions on how to make crack cocaine. So Ricky decides, what the heck, I'm going to try it. So you can do that too. So we started cooking it ourselves. We started selling what we cooked. He would crumble it up.

49:21 and decided that he would sell it in like different sizes because obviously the smaller it is, the easier it is to transport. And what was interesting about this, and I talked a little bit about it with Alpha, because it was new, the cops didn't even know what it was. So instead of carrying this baggie of white powder around, which the cops knew what it was, they had these rocks.

49:49 And it was easy to if you had them like in the glass vial or whatever, to drop them on the ground and step on them. And then it appears like they're nothing. So it was much safer for the drug sales and the drug users to transition over to crack cocaine. Because number one, it was a novelty and cops didn't even know how to recognize it initially. And number two, it was much easier to.

50:18 dispose of that if you got caught so kind of a very interesting transition there so anyway moving on the book goes in and basically this entire area is just talking about the rise of Ricky's success in the

50:49 drug market. It doesn't go a long way in kind of furthering our CIA line until we move into the next section. And I do want to get to this before we open it up, because this part's crazy. Just as the South Central crack market began flourishing with political exiles from Nicaragua,

51:25 raising money, obviously. The Miami crack market didn't really take off until political exiles from Jamaica moved in, which is why I went through Jamaica last night with Alpha, because this part fascinated me. The intelligence division of the Drug Enforcement Administration in 1994

51:50 Report on crack cocaine offered a startling explanation for the evolution of Jamaican posses, which is their name for gangs, kind of that wild, wild west thing. Literally, that's where they got the name. Offered a startling explanation for the evolution, saying that, let's see, quote,

52:19 one of the most effective trafficking groups in relation to the posses in the United States, rivaled only by the Crips and Bloods in L.A. Since the 1970s, Jamaica had been run by a socialist government headed by Michael Manley. He was a graduate of the London School of Economics who immediately angered U.S. officials because

52:46 He sided himself with the Sandinistas. He traded expertise with the Cubans, inviting Cuban doctors into Jamaica. And that, of course, pissed off the entire warmongering Washington, D.C. crowd. And so immediately, you know, he's branded a communist. And he even sent.

53:15 some of the Jamaican military over to fight against the CIA-backed UNITA in Angola. That really pissed them off. So in 1977, two investigative reporters exposed a destabilization program against Manley's government, reportedly being ran by the CIA's station chief, Norman Descatu. The campaign included covert shipments of arms.

53:44 to Manley's opponents, the use of selective violence, bombings, and assassinations, covert funding aid to conservative Jamaican Labor Party, the opposing party, and fomenting labor unrest through bribery. You know, the standard shit. One of the CIA agents who would later play a key role in the Contra Project, Luis Posato.

54:15 a Cuban Bay of Pigs veteran, they just keep popping up, with a history of engaging in arms for drugs deals, was cited in Jamaica next to one of the bombings, according to the reporter. He actually got a picture of him. During the course of a bitter election campaign in 1980 between Manley and the CIA-backed Jamaican Labor Party candidate,

54:44 Rival political gangs killed more than 700 people, according to the reporters. Dan Lee lost the election. What happened next was, in many ways, a carbon copy of exactly what happened in Nicaragua to Los Angeles.

55:11 A year earlier, despite the fact that there was political changing of the guards and roughly the reverse of Nicaraguan's situation, following the election, many of the political gunmen left Jamaica and came to the United States. So it's the same thing with the Hmong and all of these other groups that get kicked out. In this case,

55:39 These were just temporary assassins that they trained. And while they weren't necessarily kicked out of the country, the new Jamaican leader didn't want them there. The CIA thought it'd be a great idea to bring them here because they need a distribution network for the drugs because they're going to start using Jamaica as a drop off point. So if you've got Jamaica in the mix, what better way to create that network than to bring them here?

56:07 Which is exactly what we did with El Salvador after the fact as well. So there you have it. So what goes on next? The following, let's see. In the early 1980s, the U.S. posse leaders maintained a sense of allegiance to their political parties in Jamaica, sending weapons and drug profits back home.

56:39 Eventually, the DEA said that Jamaican traffickers in the U.S. evolved into a nationwide cocaine and crack disposition or distribution. The political leanings of Miami and South Central major cocaine suppliers were not known to the lower level dealers or hustlers who probably wouldn't have cared anyway. Dope was dope.

57:08 Politics was politics. And there it was that at the top of the cocaine business, the world intersected. Ricky Ross had no political interests at all and never would. His worldview was limited to South Central and how much cocaine he could move. He was concerned in 1982, or all he was concerned about in 1982 was the new crack market.

57:40 And the book takes us back to basically the beginning of the book where the Yale professor had said, if you recall at the very beginning, that the heating up of the cocaine that was occurring down, I think he was in Peru at the time, was if that ever comes to the United States.

58:10 Basically, you're lost forever because he was observing all of the stuff that you now associate with crack. The people in that dazed, you know, kind of skeleton look frozen in weird positions and all that stuff. He observed all of that and came back and warned years before all of this that that can't be allowed here. So the CIA brought it here.

58:37 So that's a good place to stop. I just wanted to get to the Jamaican part of it before we stop today so we could tie all those pieces together. So, Bridget, go ahead. I am confident that the ones who started this whole bringing it here are rotting in a lower part of hell. That's the only reassurance I get from that. You know, these people are.

59:10 so freaking evil. You know? I'm just flabbergasted. Even though I already we've been through this how many times it still just pisses me off. That's all I got to say. You're welcome. SR, go ahead. Thank you, Colonel, and thank everyone for attending on Rumble Inherent Spaces. I'm just looking at all of this and it's finally come into view for me going through everything that we've been through with you, Colonel.

59:42 The systematic destruction and distribution of drugs in the U.S. We started in New York and Miami, and now we're on the West Coast. We also hit Louisiana. And all parts in between, because when the Jamaicans got here...

1:00:04 And it was already there. But the Jamaicans formalized Chicago because the cocaine was already in Chicago. But the the Jamaicans really set up a very extensive posse network. They ended up with over like 50 of them. And they did deal.

1:00:28 more in crack than they did cocaine, but they were in Kansas city. They were in Denver. They're in Houston. They're in Dallas. They create, and they were evil. I mean, you guys heard me last night. They would use, if you're an enemy, they'd use a chainsaw on you. Yeah. It's crazy. All along, all along. Go ahead. Okay. Colonel, I just want to,

1:01:12 Mention regarding your comment on the Jamaican posses and their connection to this trade, because there's an interesting novel by this British novelist. No, I'm sorry. He actually lives in Minneapolis. He's born in Jamaica, and he wrote a book called A Short History of Seven Killings.

1:01:40 Yes, I was skimming through that. Normally I wouldn't mention a work of fiction like this, because I know it's not really the concern here. But what's unique about this... What happened? We lost you. Let me get him back up here. Okay, sounds good. That book that he's talking about, The Seven Killings, I was skimming through that last night before the show.

1:02:16 He says it's a fiction. It's not a fiction. It's actually a nonfiction book. So you cut out all along. It's a nonfiction book. And if you look at it online, it actually gives you the translation of who the actual players were. It was a nonfiction book written as a fiction book with made up names, but it is in reality real. Go ahead all along. Right. Yeah. You keep cutting out.

1:02:53 Right. And I mean, I think you're exactly right, because, you know, in the beginning, he's got all of these names there. And you can tell that you can tell that he in the beginning, he has all these names there. And you can tell he knows the major players of CIA around the world. And a lot of the positions are described in such a way.

1:03:21 that you know who he really means, but he changes the name. There's only one name that he keeps and keeps the actual name, which is the name of a very key and pivotal Middle East CIA dude who is the father of the rock and roll band called The Police. His drummer, his dad was in real life.

1:03:50 A key dude in Middle East CIA, very high level. The name is escaping me now, but you've all heard everyone here has heard his name. You've heard his name a million times. But anyway, it just struck me as interesting that that seemed to be the only guy whose name was literally kept by the author. And it does describe how the neighborhood posses in Jamaica.

1:04:21 Down at the utterest micro level are controlled by, you know, Zogadon posses that are literally the instruments of CIA. Yeah. And it's very if you guys haven't ever heard about that book, just kind of search it on the index, though, because you get much better articles on the index. And the it it evolves around the.

1:04:50 the assassination attempt on Bob Marley when he was visiting Jamaica. Very interesting book. Yeah. So thank you for bringing that up. That was one of the things that I read because when I was looking at articles preparing for the show last night, that book was one of the very first. And I'm glad you reminded me of that Colonel. Are you still there?

1:05:29 Because of the assassination attempt on Bob Marley, because the other major ingredient that the novel lifts straight out of CIA history and U.S. history is, yeah, Colby's son is there doing a documentary at the actual time of the Bob Marley first assassination attempt at Sunsplash in early December 1976. Yeah.

1:05:59 You can't make this shit up. This is, you know, the most disputed and pivotal CIA figure in history, and his son is literally making a documentary at the Sunsplash. And, you know, it's a convergence of media, music history, and literal CIA history, as in Mr. Pivot himself, Colby, as in Colby, quote, unquote, versus Angleton.

1:06:28 You can't make this shit up. You can't. And did you know that one of Colby's grandson is in the administration right now? He is. Crazy. Yep. Very, very crazy. Anyway, SR, go ahead. Thank you, Colonel. Just to add to all along's deal here, if this is wrong, you can go ahead and call it wrong. But the drummer for the band,

1:07:10 The police was Stuart Copeland, and his father was Miles Copeland Jr. Yep, that's true. Another celebrity agent. No, that's true. Absolutely. Yep. They just keep crossing paths, don't they? Bridget, go ahead. Okay, I know you generally do not like to speculate. However, the news about Hegseth calling all these generals together tomorrow? Yep.

1:07:51 If you were to speculate, hypothetically, what would you... I know what I personally think is getting ready to happen, chopping block. But I could be skewed just because that's what I'm hoping is getting ready to happen. Well, I mean, obviously, there's been a lot of work done on who the good guys and bad guys are. We know that.

1:08:19 If you're going to do something significant in the not too distant future, having everybody in a room. Now, I'm already on record saying that what I would like to see done is every one of them show up and be fired in front of their peers, the really bad ones. And then after they leave the room, tell the rest of the people in there that.

1:08:50 We will continue to do this until only the people that pledge their allegiance to the Constitution are remaining among the senior officers of our military. And I would go through. I would make the person stand up. I would tell them why they're being relieved of command in front of all of their peers and perp walk their ass right out of the building. That's what I would do.

1:09:18 which is why they would never put me in a position like that. So I'm right there with you. But if they don't go that far, because of course, you know, people, I would love the meltdown too. I would love, love, love to watch the meltdown. Because of course, we've seen it done before in the past. And so I love pointing out the hypocrisy. However, if you're bringing them together to basically give them

1:09:47 the warning order that that is exactly what's going to happen. And that they are charged with going back and purging these gleeful assassination people out of their units and that you will not tolerate anyone celebrating the death of an American. And they're put on notice because

1:10:16 Generally speaking, there's always a warning order given and it's better to do it in person. And then you start tracking communication and see who communicates with what and what's being said. So I do believe that the purpose of it is.

1:10:39 the aftermath of the flagrant violations and celebrations of death of Americans. But anyway, that's what I would do. And has this ever, has it ever happened before that you're aware of? I mean, I know they say this is not a common thing. Here's the thing. As far as like.

1:11:03 A massive purge, I guess is what I mean. Well, there's been purges before, yes. They are not common because it is very rare that you have an entire generation of officers that are so far off the compass as far as the Constitution goes. So just so that you guys know, every year, sometimes twice a year, depending on what's going on,

1:11:33 In the Air Force, it was called Corona. All of the top Air Force commanders meet and there's a whole curriculum of things that are talked about. It's basically kind of like a status of forces update on it's closed door. It's very.

1:12:00 They used to host it at MacDill. They had the winter one at MacDill every year, which is why I know a lot about it. And I also was the exec officer for a guy that had to go to every one of them. So I know what the preparation is. I know what the general topics are. And so there is annual meetings of service people.

1:12:28 And this is just one that's in a joint of all services of basically those same people. And so you generally have them when you are changing vectors. And this, of course, would be force wide. But that's kind of what you do if you're going to implement a big policy. The there's like one of the parts is the proposal for.

1:12:58 new things. And I'm trying to be as generic as I can. And so you get the feedback from the senior leadership of that service in the cases that I'm familiar with to be able to craft the policy because you want buy-in, you know, you don't want to just sit up there and like, I'll give you an example because it's a generic example. We had

1:13:24 an asshole that was the chief of the Air Force. And he decided one day that he wanted to change the service uniform. He wanted to change the entire design of our service uniform. And he brought that up. And everybody that was at the meeting, according to what we've heard in the Air Force, and again, this is just public knowledge, there was a lot of pushback.

1:13:55 Because, number one, what he wanted to change it to was stupid. And it required basically all of us. Now, the enlisted uniform is done a little different than officers. But it required all of us to go out and basically buy new uniforms. It was the stupidest thing to ever do. And it made officers look like they were pilots for an airline. That's how stupid it looked.

1:14:21 And in short order, he did it anyway. He didn't give a shit what people said because he was an asshole. And yeah, please keep your mic muted. And so eventually when the new guy got in, they changed the uniforms back. But it caused a lot of disruption in the Air Force. And those are the kind of the topics of.

1:14:47 that you do this type of thing. Like monumental changes deserve that type of audience so that you can get buy-in to whatever it is you're going to do and address the concerns because that's one of the major things that those guys would represent. What are the concerns of doing something monumental? SR and then Ron.

1:15:15 Thank you, Colonel. I'll let Ron and Southern speak and I'll offer my thoughts after. All right, Ron, go ahead. I just wanted to say, if that ever happened, you know, how you would... If I were ever in charge? If you were ever in charge and you did a purging, I would absolutely, I would pay money to see that. That's why I won't tell you. I think they ought to put it on pay-per-view and they'd wipe out the debt. Yeah.

1:15:46 So that's all I wanted to say. I thought that was a brilliant idea. I honestly think, and this is more philosophical than anything, but I think that in our society, we don't have enough shaming. There's not enough shame out there. If there was more shaming, people wouldn't act a fool. Well, you must listen to my husband and I's conversations because my husband is a big advocate of that.

1:16:15 And not shaming from a derisive type of right. But the whole thing about food stamps, shame provides a motivation to lift yourself up. Back in the day when I was a kid and you went to the grocery store and you actually had to have food stamps, kids and parents who fell on hard times that use food stamps.

1:16:45 were motivated by the shame of using them at cash registers, back when you actually used a checkout person, to motivate themselves to not subject themselves and their children to that happening. It's embarrassing. Right. And that serves as a cultural motivation.

1:17:10 to pull yourself up by the bootstraps and do something. That's the same thing with me. Growing up, because I lived on a dirt road in a trailer, I didn't want to invite. Most of my friends were very well off. We live in a town that's Publix headquarters. And I went to school with all of their kids because we have.

1:17:32 And literally what was considered public space housing where all the executives lived was right across the street from our high school. So I went to school with all of those people. I went to house, to sleepovers, all of that stuff. They all had pools and stuff like that. I didn't want to invite them to my house. And maybe that's the reason that I knew my way out of the situation that I was in was to get a college degree and get a good job and make something of myself. And that's exactly what I did.

1:18:01 Um, it took a lot of hard work, um, to do that. It took me several years to do that, but I look around at those people now because I'm here with them now. They're my age. Um, and I'm as well off as any of them are. And, um, I'm probably a lot happier than they are as well. Um, psychologically, but that, that provides the motivation. I think, uh, um, and to your point,

1:18:31 You know, with this leftist mentality that has been brought over, what we do is they, you know, oh, well, we can't have the kids fail because if they fail, I mean, Ricky Ross is a perfect example. They just keep him going through because if you fail him, then you're going to hurt his feelings. And it's why they, you know, the whole things with participation trophies and all this other stuff. So it's, you know, I mean, this is it's.

1:18:59 It's it's been a very slow cultural rot. And that's why I think, you know, to your point. Yes. And I didn't. I think you understood that. I meant that it wasn't to understand as well. Yes, I knew exactly what you meant. Go ahead, Southern. Hey, Colonel. It's so good to be back on your space. I think I finally can get control of my time with my company. So I'm working it out to carve this out because.

1:19:30 You do a space that teaches us and we have to know the history so we know how to manage forward. And when you're educated, we can move mountains and we can share it. So thank you. And also just talking about taking the people you want to get out and put them up against the wall and just embarrass them. No, I don't want to embarrass them. I want to hold them accountable. Well.

1:20:00 In my industry, I own a medical and pharmaceuticals executive search firm. When we recruit outside the industry because we need more complex selling experience out of certain markets, they will take them to their desk with security like they're being fired. And everybody's looking at them going, oh, my God, they were headhunted out.

1:20:29 Because the company wanted to kind of push back on the other, saying, whoa, I don't want that happening to me. And it worked. We had to prepare candidates in the future, once we learned that, to prepare for that. Because it was an awful feeling when you're number one in the country and you're being walked out of your building like you stole something. It was humiliating. I've had to do that to a couple of people for security.

1:20:59 violations. I know exactly what the long-term effect of that is, especially on your junior enlisted people. It builds in the necessary precautions for you to pay attention to what you're doing because there are some security violations or job activity.

1:21:27 That so egregious that they can no longer be in the facility that they're in. And that's exactly what happens when the information is brought to the commander's attention. You get security. They go to that person's desk and they walk that person out of the building and then you retrieve their credentials. They cannot get back in the building. I've had the unfortunate.

1:21:58 responsibility to have to do that. And I can tell you what the long-term effect of that is, not just on myself, but everybody around them watching that happen. And of course, one of the most important things to do is to explain. You can't just let that hang in the air. You explain to them when possible, after the proceedings are done, exactly why that happened.

1:22:26 And it then puts a seed in their brain that they don't ever want that to happen to them. And so they take extra precautions to make sure that doesn't happen to them. It's a very big learning tool. Yeah. Thanks for sharing that, Southern. SR, go ahead. Thank you, Colonel. I was thinking along the same lines you were. And if we see people coming out of there in handcuffs, so much the better. But more importantly.

1:22:58 I want to know how many are going to be no shows. Nobody. Nobody will be a no show. That's not allowed. So, I mean, if your mother died, maybe you don't go. But if you are summonsed to the Pentagon by the SEC, there's no no shows, period. Because I can tell you when they had the Air Force version of that, you plan your leave around that. There's no one that's a no show.

1:23:35 That's not even an option. And I think that's something that most people don't understand in the military. And I say this with the understanding the way civilians take this. The military owns you. You do not have freedom. You don't have freedom of speech. You don't have any of the freedoms. I'm not even allowed to walk on a military base with a gun. And I have a concealed carry permit.

1:24:01 None of your freedoms are recognized in the military. You live by the UCMJ. That's your freedom document. And it doesn't offer you a whole lot of freedom. And I don't think people understand that very well. You don't have freedom to say whatever you want, even when you're not on duty, because you're always on duty. And that comes from the time you enlist until you retire. If you want to celebrate someone's death,

1:24:30 Get your ass out of the military. You don't have that freedom in a uniform. You just don't. And I think, Colonel, I think the crucial component there is in uniform. I think you can do certain things out of uniform, but if you have a uniform on, whether it be from BDU to dress, it doesn't matter. If you're representing the United States military, you are restricted.

1:25:00 Very restricted. If I was out of uniform and went to a political rally as a senior officer, that would have been contentious. That's the reason why people, while they're on, I don't think it's in uniform. It's while you're on active duty is the demarcation line. If you are on active duty, you live by the UCMJ.

1:25:30 and the Constitution, you do not live by whatever the civil norms are in society. You just don't. And I was not free to advocate for a political position while I was on active duty. Even, like I said, in my own quote-unquote op...

1:25:57 in civilian clothes, I would have never even considered as a wing commander to attend a political rally because half the people that I work for doesn't necessarily align with my political views. And that would have driven a wedge between me and the people that I had a responsibility to command. You just don't do that.

1:26:27 It wasn't even a second thought because that stuff is drilled into you that you are apolitical from the time you're on active duty until you resign or retire. You don't do those things. So I just looked it up. Restrictions while in uniform on duty. Service members may not engage in partisan political activity in uniform.

1:26:52 They may not use their rank position or authority to influence or interfere in elections. They are prohibited from running or holding partisan offices. They cannot distribute a distribution of partisan materials.

1:27:07 Permitted political expression out of uniform is voting, joining a political party or a club, making monetary contributions, expressing personal views on candidates and issues as private citizens, not as representatives of the military. The key caveats being they should not make it appear as though the views represent the DOD.

1:27:29 or I guess it's D-O-W now. Ron, Ron, I understand what it says. I'm telling you the practical piece of this. As a senior officer, you don't participate in partisan politics. You just don't.

1:27:44 And I was never a senior officer. I only got to E4. And my understanding is what I was. So you're right. As an officer, it's probably a whole other level. And I would say that's the same thing with like a chief or a senior master sergeant, like an E8. You don't do those things.

1:28:07 Was I always a registered Republican? Could anybody look up my political registration because they're online? Absolutely. And I was a registered Republican the entire time that I served on active duty. But I never participated. And I will tell you this firsthand. When I retired in 2008, I opened a Facebook account. And I will never forget this.

1:28:33 I don't even remember what the issue was, but it was something that Obama had said. And it wasn't even partisan. It was something that I vehemently disagreed with. And when I did so, because, of course, quite a few of the people that I had commanded, especially my last duty station, followed me. I remained friends with them for years after that. Every time I went through Warner Robins, Georgia, a lot of them were still there. I would meet with them for.

1:29:02 lunch on my way anywhere because I loved them to death. I had several of those people shocked that I was a Republican. There was no way in hell that they believed that I was a Republican. Some of them had offended. I didn't give a shit at that point. But that's how apolitical you need to be in order to be in charge of a unit that consists of all political parties.

1:29:33 So anyway, I don't know who's next. Bridget, who was next? I don't know. Guru, go ahead. You haven't talked yet. No, sure. Yeah. Guru, go ahead. Yeah, sorry. I'll be quick, guys. But I just got a question, and I think I know the answer to it, but I'd just like to put it out there, Colonel, and that is, you know, you're talking about how in the military you give your life away. You have no rights to nothing.

1:30:03 So let's go back where that come from. And was that a fighting technique to have our troops do what they need to do? Or is this a planned event from the cabal to actually, you know, from way back to actually contain and manipulate our troops, knowing that what the military industrial complex was going to get up to in the future? So I'm just wondering where that avenue come from. It probably would have been laid out that this is for our fighting techniques, et cetera, et cetera, our psychological.

1:30:31 But really, in the background, was it a ploy to control the military? So originally, the intent is to erase your individual identity by shaving your head.

1:30:48 conforming to haircuts, everybody wearing the exact same thing. So you coalesce around a unit and an identity as a Marine, an airman, a soldier, or a sailor. That's the intent. You cannot go to war if you have internal strife. And so by making everybody the same and applying a very strict standard of conduct,

1:31:14 It allows you to conduct very complex military operations. Having said that, because we are all taught to conform, could someone use that for evil? Absolutely. I did not ever experience that.

1:31:40 blowback if you go against the grain of a particular policy or whatever and you speak your mind. Does it have a drawback in building too much conformity? Yes. But when you go to battle, the stress of being deployed doesn't allow you the autonomy to get a vote because you don't get a vote. You do whatever your boss tells you to do.

1:32:10 So the intended purpose is to create a lethal fighting machine. But as we have seen in some of the nefarious shit that some of the like the JSOC guys who literally are taught to go in and be paramilitary and kill people.

1:32:31 Can that psychological profile be a bad thing? Absolutely. But that's basically what you have to have in order to have the cohesiveness to do some really death-defying things in battle. It's like, you know, I talk about the Air Force, obviously, because that's what I know best. In a flying squadron, if you...

1:32:59 go out every day and you fly with the same people and you know exactly how your wingman is going to react, you are able to do amazing things. What you can't have is somebody that goes, you know what, I don't really think that's the right thing to do. In a planning session, when you're strategizing for an air campaign, everybody's free to speak their mind. When the commander says,

1:33:27 This is our air campaign. Go out and fly it. You just lost all your votes. So I can see how evil people could try to use that. But it was never intended for that. I hope that answers your question. Thanks, Colonel. Yeah. And I'm sorry if I jumped in front. I think Southern could have had a hand up before me. But, yeah, I apologize.

1:33:56 No, that's a problem. We haven't heard from you yet. That's fine. Southern, go ahead. I just wanted to add, we work a lot with executives. We get their hiring contracts. There is a professional conduct clause in there, and it has a lot of layers in it. So there is free speech, but there is a line in the sand. It's called professional conduct. And we have seen people in executive levels.

1:34:28 that should be fired for what they said about Charlie Kirk publicly. They were very proud. One from the NASDAQ got on a microphone in front of a big group of people and publicly threw up the finger about Charlie Kirk. They have contracts that prohibit them from that type behavior. So it's going to be interesting to see if they're going to be held accountable. We are seeing people getting fired.

1:34:57 So this will be interesting as we walk through this next year or so. Yeah, good point. All along. Go ahead. Yeah, Colonel. I just want to bring up two names, John Bolton and Nicole Wallace. And they're kind of symbolic of the overall general climate change that I think we could describe as like MSNBCIA's America. In other words, both of them.

1:35:28 Nicole Wallace was originally in the W. Bush White House, who significantly was targeted with convincing Democratic resistance to support the Iraq war in 2003. So she was a Republican. To these people, it really doesn't matter whether you're a Republican or Democrat. The point is you're serving CIA. You're doing rudder work for agency, right?

1:35:55 And so when a Nicole Wallace is a Democrat or Republican is really beyond the point because they're at a level upstream from vote, upstream from votes and upstream. They are the real election because they control the mediation. Like whether we're going to actually look at whether Paul Wellstone's plane crash was an accident. You know, whether anyone is going to ever mention that Wellstone's sons.

1:36:19 you know, specifically requested that Dick Cheney not attend the funeral. And then later it's completely forgotten by all of the media, especially the fake left and Dick Cheney endorses Kamala Harris. Surprise, surprise. So it's like, and John Bolton, we know how, you know, in the nineties or, or odds is whatever, you know, he was considered pretty an out there kind of guy in terms of pro military policy. And of course he's, you know, very in.

1:36:48 And yet this is now the view of MSNBC. What's the point here if there is one? At the same time, we've seen the Democrats, you know, like it would have been unheard of to have a Democratic senator like Slotkin be overtly CIA. You know, it's like the CIA Democrats have expanded almost without commentary and especially it's noteworthy on the controlled left. Right. So I guess what I'm trying to suggest here.

1:37:18 is in relationship to your discussion or our discussion of this doctrine, sort of informal doctrine that people pretty much understand of no politics in the military or no politics in the Pentagon. It's always been said traditionally of ideologies that the best ideology is invisible to those who embody that ideology or rather who the ideology is affecting them.

1:37:48 You don't think that you're operating under an ideology because the ideology has almost become an invisible hand that that is affecting your thinking in ways you don't realize. And just so I think the Democrats have become kind of the CIA is so old now. It's had that much longer to get into The Washington Post, to get into every nook and cranny. And when I say CIA, you know what I mean. I'm not saying it has to be car gearing member because.

1:38:17 We know what happens with that. Right. So that in essence, what we see in Trump in the Trump years is the entire media is embodying the internationalist cartel values of the CIA. And there's a D next to it. But it's not called political because it's been become so invisible because the CIA has so permeated all academia, all press that it's like the invisible hand. So it's, in fact, utterly political. Yet it's.

1:38:46 shown more by corporate controlled media that it seems like it's not political. It's extremely dangerous and tyrannical. I can't agree, disagree with any of that. S.R., go ahead. Thank you, Colonel. I just want to reiterate what you said about being absent and also what goes on in the military concerning how you get a cohesive unit together, even from boot camp and the day that you show up.

1:39:17 Before you know it, you're ball-headed and everybody else is there with you in the same manner, same place, same how. But given all of that and looking at what's going on, I can also say as an E6, if you were ever late for anything, when you were told to be there, you better have a damn good excuse. Wow.

1:39:45 An accident or something like that, that's tolerable. But other than that, there is no excuse. Yeah. Back in the day, if you didn't have a reason that involved blood, there was no excuse. You were never late to anything. Being late to anything left you on details. And that meant you gave away your entire weekend.

1:40:12 um to do manual labor so it is drilled into you from the get-go that you are not late to anything ever and i am still not late to anything ever and it's kind of a running joke in my family um when i would come home for the holidays um my normally thanksgiving we my dad and i would joke about that my dad was never late to anything either

1:40:40 We would tell my sisters if we wanted to eat at one, be there at noon and they'd be there by one. If we wanted to eat at one, you had to or at two, you had to tell them that it was actually one o'clock because only then would they be there at two. So, yeah, it's it's there's so much stuff involved in military life that is so different than civilian life.

1:41:09 that it's hard to explain all of that to people who've never served. I try to, but there really isn't a lot of similarities to, for those of you who have served to civilian life. It's very interesting. But anyway, I love being in the military. I second that, Colonel.

1:41:38 I second that. You know what? I mean, to SR's point and to your point, there were times when it was like, eh, if you were a minute late or whatever, it wasn't that big a deal. It really predicated on the situation and what was going on. If we were in port after doing a deployment and you were a couple of minutes late, big deal. But if you're, you know, you couldn't be late late.

1:42:06 There were definitely repercussions for doing that. The one thing that you have to realize is that the military is the military, but it's also made up of human beings that are governing stuff. And humans can take into consideration certain things. But that all being said, the discipline and the rigidity of the military, you can't compare that with anything.

1:42:32 In civilian life, I absolutely agree. Although I wonder how much of that discipline went out the window during the Obama years. So I don't know. Well, it is a completely different. I have my girlfriend that lives near me. She was my deputy at CENTCOM when we were both stationed at McDill together. Her sons are still in the military.

1:42:58 Several of the people that I mentored along the way that came in late in my career are still on active duty. It really depends. It is not like it used to be. I'll just say that. It is not like it used to be. Can I say something about your book? Obviously, it piques my interest. This may have been mentioned, and if it has, I apologize.

1:43:25 There's actually a pretty good movie out there called Kill the Messenger. It's about this book. So if you guys want to watch something, obviously it's really condensed. But it talks about Danilo Bandone and Norman Manessis and all that stuff. It's actually pretty well done. So with Jeremy Renner called Kill the Messenger. Thank you.

1:43:54 All right. I don't see any more hands. So if we're done, I'm going to go ahead and close the space. I appreciate everybody being here as usual. If you're over on Rumble, please give us a thumbs up and we will be back tomorrow. Thanks for being here, everybody.

Entities here

CIA29 Daniel Blanton25 Ron Lister25 United States Armed Forces25 Floyd "Freeway" Rick Ross25 Barry Seal20 United States15 Jamaica13 Arkansas13 Los Angeles12 Oliver North11 Ivan Arguelles10 Norwin Menendez8 FDN8 Nicaragua7 Bill Clinton7 Danny Ray Lasseter6 Intermountain Regional Airport6 El Salvador6 Richard Wilker5 Henry Corrales5 U.S. Air Force5 Miami4 Roger Morris4 Pyramid International4 Little Rock4 Michael Townley4 Terry Reed4 Nicole Wallace3 A Short History of Seven Killings3 Honduras3 Colombia3 Richard Pryor self-immolation3 Miles Copeland3 The New York Times3 Irving Fisher3 Baton Rouge3 Frank Moss3 Contras2 Richard Helms2

Claims made here

Barry Seal member_of CIA documented ▶ 1:00

“on the surface to be working for the U.S. government. A central figure related to Reed's dealing with the CIA was a CIA and DEA contract agent by the name of none other than Adler Berryman Seale. A fo…”

Barry Seal trafficked Medellin Cartel documented ▶ 1:31

“at the Intermountain Regional Airport, where he was running drugs up and weapons down. In the early 1980s, Barry Sill was one of the biggest cocaine and marijuana importers in the southern part of the…”

Barry Seal trafficked United States documented ▶ 2:31

“In 1986, explaining a $29 million lien that the IRS filed against Seale for back taxes. A letter that year from Louisiana's Attorney General to U.S. Attorney General Edward Meese said Seale smuggled b…”

Condo Carib Cargo Inc. supplied_arms_to FDN documented ▶ 3:00

“That's an actual quote. Seals Farm in Baton Rouge, according to a 1983 U.S. Customs report, was allegedly used as a drop site for cocaine and marijuana flown into the country in a DC-4 aircraft that w…”

Mario Calero headed Condo Carib Cargo Inc. documented ▶ 3:30

“an air cargo company. The FDN hired that same company called Condo Carib Cargo Inc. The operator of Condo Carib record show was an FDN, meaning the Contras, leader Adolfo Calero's brother, Mario Caler…”

Frank Moss supplied_arms_to FDN documented ▶ 4:02

“was also a pilot by the name of Frank Moss, who was later identified in 1989 Senate report as having been investigated, but not indicted for narcotics offenses by 10 different law enforcement agencies…”

Frank Moss member_of Setco documented ▶ 4:30

“in a Honduran air freight company called Setco. Huh, Setco. We've come across that company multiple times. That company was owned by a Honduran drug trafficker by the name of Juan Mata Balesteros. One…”

Rob Owens member_of National Security Council documented ▶ 5:02

“on a suspected drug run off the coast of Florida. Aboard the plane was marijuana residue and Moss's notes, which, according to a CIA cable, contained, quote, the names of two CIA officers and their te…”

Mario Calero trafficked United States documented ▶ 5:31

“In 1985, records show Owen reported to Oliver North that a DC-6 owned by Mario Calero, quote, which is being used for runs out of New Orleans, is probably used for drug runs into the United States, un…”

CIA carried_out_attack Nicaragua documented ▶ 6:00

“In 1984, he participated in a joint CIA-DEA sting operation in an attempt to snare Sandinista government officials in drug smuggling because they desperately wanted to shift all of their drug smugglin…”

Oliver North covered_up CIA host_asserted ▶ 6:30

“was being regularly briefed by the CIA on Seale's sting operation, was supplied with some of the evidence it produced, and allegedly leaked the information to the press shortly before a critical vote …”

Oliver North exposed CIA documented ▶ 6:30

Barry Seal assassinated Colombia documented ▶ 7:29

“On February 17, 1986, Steele was murdered in New Orleans by a quote-unquote Colombian hitman. Four months later, in June, North called the FBI and claimed that there was an active measures program bei…”

Oliver North targeted_for_regime_change Nicaragua guest_asserted ▶ 7:29

Barry Seal member_of CIA documented ▶ 8:29

“Personal records showed him to be a contract CIA operative both before and during his years of drug running in MENA in the 80s. Historian Roger Morris, a former National Security Staffer, Security Cou…”

Roger Morris exposed Barry Seal book_quoted ▶ 8:56

“that looked into the Contra's connections to Handu Karab in 1988 also poked around the MENA airport and concluded that associates of SEALs who operated aircraft services business at the MENA airport w…”

Roger Clinton member_of Danny Ray Lasseter documented ▶ 10:54

“That's a Lasseter's deal, unquote, referring to his close friend and campaign contributor, Little Rock bond broker Danny Ray Lasseter. In 1986, Lasseter was indicted by a federal grand jury in Little …”

Danny Ray Lasseter trafficked Little Rock documented ▶ 10:54

Bill Clinton pardoned Danny Ray Lasseter documented ▶ 11:23

“received a 30-month prison sentence, but served only six months. Clinton pardoned him in 1990. Clinton supporters have maintained that Lassiter was no drug dealer, simply a high-flying businessman who…”

Danny Ray Lasseter trafficked Little Rock documented ▶ 12:17

“Little Rock businessman who operated several banking investment firms and brokerages in Arkansas and Florida. The FBI report went on, quote, the investigation revealed that this businessman was the ma…”

Roger Morris exposed Danny Ray Lasseter book_quoted ▶ 13:11

“target top-level criminal organizations, not businessmen, who take a few totes every now and then. Researchers familiar with the Lassiter investigation say that the FBI's description of its Arkansas i…”

Roger Morris exposed CIA book_quoted ▶ 14:11

“Unquote. Morris went on to write, quote, in sworn testimony, a former staff member of the Arkansas State Police Intelligence Unit would describe a shredding party in which she ordered to purge the sta…”

Terry Reed member_of CIA guest_asserted ▶ 14:40

“Reed claims that North, who was the National Security Council official overseeing the Contra project at the time, was his CIA contact for both the pilot training program and the machine tool company f…”

CIA trained Arkansas documented ▶ 15:09

“has denied anything about Terry Reed or what was going on at MENA. But something was certainly happening at the little airport, and it was far from routine. While denying that the CIA was involved in …”

Barry Seal supplied_arms_to FDN documented ▶ 16:32

“that a Sandinista soldier blew out of the sky over Nicaragua in 1986 with a SAM-7 missile, breaking open the Iran-Contra scandal. The plane was based at MENA before SEAL sold it and it began flying we…”

Richard Wilker member_of Pyramid International documented ▶ 18:01

“as an ex-CIA agent. Wilker appears as the technical director on Pyramid International's proposal of the security project to the Sandinista government. The biography section of the proposal boasts that…”

Richard Wilker member_of CIA documented ▶ 18:01

Ron Lister supplied_arms_to FDN guest_asserted ▶ 21:31

“They showed us a demonstration of the weapons. They showed us machine guns and other weapons. They have the license to sell them. Lister never sold guns directly to the Contras, Blanton said, but not …”

Norwin Menendez financed_via Ron Lister documented ▶ 24:32

“Lister, quote, led a sales team on a futile mission to Civil War-wracked El Salvador in the summer of 1982 to market surplus American arms, military equipment, and use school buses to the Salvadoran m…”

Ron Lister supplied_arms_to El Salvador documented ▶ 24:32

Ron Lister member_of CIA guest_asserted ▶ 27:27

“an international construction company based in Orange County, because I had to call Ron out there a couple of times. In an interview with the Justice Department, Blanton recalled hearing Lister say th…”

Ron Lister trafficked Daniel Blanton documented ▶ 29:53

“could have gained this information from the CIA or through his work with them. He knew some pretty damn good details and professed to being through that area. Now, I have traveled extensively through …”

Daniel Blanton trafficked Los Angeles documented ▶ 30:22

“In 1982, towards the end, Blanton's cocaine trafficking business in Los Angeles exploded almost overnight. It appears he went from receiving a little one or two kilo package that could be tucked away …”

Irving Fisher recruited Floyd "Freeway" Rick Ross book_quoted ▶ 38:55

“and we're bringing them in. And there's a few excerpts in here about how all of that works, but I'm not going to go into detail about that since we've already covered that in our last book. But there'…”

Irving Fisher supplied_arms_to Floyd "Freeway" Rick Ross book_quoted ▶ 39:24

“was dealing a little cocaine on the side to pay for his own habit. So Fisher decides that he can get Ricky cocaine and make a few bucks because he's now going to be basically a wholesaler to Ricky. An…”

Ivan Arguelles supplied_arms_to Irving Fisher book_quoted ▶ 39:53

“this vocational school teacher. And so there was a guy that was involved in that whose name was Ivan. And he was the supplier to Mr. Fisher. So Ivan goes missing. And his whereabouts were not a myster…”

Daniel Blanton paid John Menendez book_quoted ▶ 40:24

“Despite all of the work that he'd been doing for Menendez personally, keeping the books, helping the Contras, you know, his what was me story. Every few months, Blanton would drive all the way to Mene…”

Daniel Blanton supplied_arms_to Contras book_quoted ▶ 40:24

Ivan Arguelles supplied_arms_to Floyd "Freeway" Rick Ross book_quoted ▶ 40:54

“through dry spells. But Ivan Argules, another Nicaraguan exile, scuttling around LA to sell cocaine, had found this kid in South Central, Ricky Ross, and they were really starting to move powder. Blan…”

Daniel Blanton supplied_arms_to Ivan Arguelles book_quoted ▶ 41:24

“because they shared heritage with this new profession. He sold Ivan a little cocaine every once in a while when he couldn't find it at other places. The Torres brothers, the two giant guys with the ca…”

Torres brothers supplied_arms_to Floyd "Freeway" Rick Ross book_quoted ▶ 41:24

Henry Corrales supplied_arms_to Floyd "Freeway" Rick Ross book_quoted ▶ 44:56

“Henry was so grateful for Blanton's help that he agreed to share his profits on the kilos that he sold 50-50. We split the commission, Blanton said, but he couldn't remember how much that was. I was s…”

Daniel Blanton supplied_arms_to Henry Corrales book_quoted ▶ 44:56

Michael Townley traded_network_to Cuba book_quoted ▶ 52:46

“He sided himself with the Sandinistas. He traded expertise with the Cubans, inviting Cuban doctors into Jamaica. And that, of course, pissed off the entire warmongering Washington, D.C. crowd. And so …”

Michael Townley member_of Sandinistas book_quoted ▶ 52:46

CIA supplied_arms_to Jamaican Labor Party book_quoted ▶ 53:15

“some of the Jamaican military over to fight against the CIA-backed UNITA in Angola. That really pissed them off. So in 1977, two investigative reporters exposed a destabilization program against Manle…”

Jamaica supplied_arms_to UNITA book_quoted ▶ 53:15

Norman Descatu headed CIA book_quoted ▶ 53:15

CIA funded UNITA book_quoted ▶ 53:15

CIA funded Jamaican Labor Party book_quoted ▶ 53:44

“to Manley's opponents, the use of selective violence, bombings, and assassinations, covert funding aid to conservative Jamaican Labor Party, the opposing party, and fomenting labor unrest through brib…”

Luis Posada Carriles member_of CIA book_quoted ▶ 53:44

Miles Copeland member_of CIA host_asserted ▶ 1:03:50

“A key dude in Middle East CIA, very high level. The name is escaping me now, but you've all heard everyone here has heard his name. You've heard his name a million times. But anyway, it just struck me…”

Richard Helms member_of CIA host_asserted ▶ 1:05:59

“You can't make this shit up. This is, you know, the most disputed and pivotal CIA figure in history, and his son is literally making a documentary at the Sunsplash. And, you know, it's a convergence o…”

Nicole Wallace member_of Trump administration host_asserted ▶ 1:35:28

“Nicole Wallace was originally in the W. Bush White House, who significantly was targeted with convincing Democratic resistance to support the Iraq war in 2003. So she was a Republican. To these people…”

Nicole Wallace member_of CIA host_asserted ▶ 1:35:28

CIA covered_up Paul Wellstone plane crash host_asserted ▶ 1:35:55

“And so when a Nicole Wallace is a Democrat or Republican is really beyond the point because they're at a level upstream from vote, upstream from votes and upstream. They are the real election because …”

Dick Cheney targeted_for_regime_change Paul Wellstone host_asserted ▶ 1:36:19

“you know, specifically requested that Dick Cheney not attend the funeral. And then later it's completely forgotten by all of the media, especially the fake left and Dick Cheney endorses Kamala Harris.…”

Dick Cheney member_of CIA host_asserted ▶ 1:36:19

John Bolton member_of CIA host_asserted ▶ 1:36:19

Elissa Slotkin member_of CIA host_asserted ▶ 1:36:48

“And yet this is now the view of MSNBC. What's the point here if there is one? At the same time, we've seen the Democrats, you know, like it would have been unheard of to have a Democratic senator like…”

CIA member_of The Washington Post host_asserted ▶ 1:37:48

“You don't think that you're operating under an ideology because the ideology has almost become an invisible hand that that is affecting your thinking in ways you don't realize. And just so I think the…”

CIA member_of MSNBC host_asserted ▶ 1:38:17

“We know what happens with that. Right. So that in essence, what we see in Trump in the Trump years is the entire media is embodying the internationalist cartel values of the CIA. And there's a D next …”