The Colonels Corner The Invisible Soldiers by Hagedorn Part 2

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0:00 Hello, Bridget SR 71. How are you? Oh, I threw SR 71 the co-host. Good afternoon, Colonel. Good afternoon. OK, let's. Oh, there he's got it. All right. Me, too. All right. Let's get started. This chapter is called Out of the Shadows. It starts in.

0:33 1995, talking about three men at a restaurant at a meeting in London. One of the men was named Anthony Buckingham. Oh, Bridget's already been booted. And Anthony Buckingham at the time was head of a British oil concern.

1:06 that managed more than a dozen subsidiaries engaged in oil drilling, diamond mining, and copper mining. Kind of fits right into our storyline. He also owned private military services. Another of the gentlemen there was Simon Mann, M-A-N-N. He was the son of a famous cricket player and a fifth...

1:36 generation graduate of Eaton, which was a private school in England known to be, it's basically kind of like our Yale. He was also a former SAS commander, a former lieutenant in the British Army's Scots Guard Unit, and one of Buckingham's partners in bringing executive outcomes to the

2:07 UK, because remember, it was created in South America. The third man's name was Tim Spicer. We're going to hear a lot about Tim Spicer. He was a former lieutenant colonel in the Scots Guard as well. Spicer had no man for many years, but he had never met Buckingham. Man who was in business with Buckingham.

2:36 wanted the two men to meet for a variety of reasons. A few weeks before, a reporter at The Observer had exposed ties between Buckingham's parent company, Heritage Oil, and executive outcomes. The reporter noted that a high-level British politician, in fact, the former head of the Liberal Party, David Steele,

3:06 was a non-executive director at Heritage, and that Heritage owned an enterprise shrouded in mystery. Executive Outcomes had served as a front company to evade arms embargoes against South Africa and to facilitate the shipment of illegal weapons into South Africa, which, again, we've come upon in several of our stories.

3:35 like with the Angola war that the CIA was engaged in, where they trafficked arms through Israel into South Africa. And executive outcomes, as it turns out, was mentioned in several of those stories. In recent months, the article reported some of executive outcomes young recruits had been covertly working.

4:06 in the Angolan government to defeat the quote-unquote insurgents, which were actually the party that the US and the UK didn't want to control the country. They were not insurgents. They were people that lived there that wanted to decide their own destiny.

4:36 At least for Buckingham and Mann, the article alleged that executive outcome had bartered its military services in exchange for natural resources, hence an accumulation of heritage mineral subsidies. Just like we learned yesterday, they give their services and in exchange, they get a percentage of the loot that these governments extract out of the country that they're attacking.

5:06 In fact, the suspicion swirling around executive outcomes alleged allegations that on at least two occasions, employees of the company had provoked conflicts in nations where Heritage was seeking mineral acquisitions, which again is the pattern that we've established over and over and over again. These oligarchs

5:33 want resources and they go in and create the havoc so that they can send in their mercenaries to secure the resources and install potentially a dictator that they own. Which, if you guys don't understand how huge this is, this is not the military.

6:02 This is not the special forces in a lot of the stories that we've covered. These are literally mercenaries that are hired by these companies. It was not surprising that part of the conversation that day was how to spin, market, or improve their image. How to avoid the quicksand

6:32 of suspicion in a business typically associated with mercenaries and brokering arms deals? How to prevent the exodus of executive outcomes clients? How to rebrand executive outcomes? Was the solution to create another company that would be used and put it basically use the executive outcomes roller decks?

7:05 in order to pretend like they were a brand new company, kind of like what Blackwater did later. Spicer noted later in his autobiography that he, Buckingham, and Mann discussed the creation of a properly organized professional company marketing military skills as a commercial operation. The idea was that this company

7:32 would be a company working only for legitimate government. It would be more conventional, more public, and less secretive than executive outcomes had been. They agreed that there was a significant market for these companies. Spicer, as he later wrote, even knew of specific work then available and fitting for the company they were defining. There were legitimate governments that needed help, and when friendly nations refused to supply,

8:03 they would eventually turn in desperation to the private sector. Because remember, the typical government would turn to the Soviet Union as a last-ditch help when they were being attacked. Now, they are looking for the destabilization to happen, and then there's a waiting.

8:33 this executive outcome point two that is going to run to their assistant. And we end up in the same place that we've been so many times where you're basically funding both sides of all of these wars. The company would have a new name, though not discussed that day. It would eventually become Saline International. Same people, same purpose.

9:04 Just a new name. They also discussed retaining a public relations firm in London, you know, because just like the CIA, you have to have a PR firm. And they talked about fresh ways to describe the business in general to leave behind the mercenary label. No more soldier of fortune or hired guns. We were looking for a new PR campaign. There was no official name change that day and no announcement to the press.

9:37 Still, this was a critical step in the process of building a new industry. That day on King's Road, three men peered over the horizon, took notes, and came up with a concept that would gradually move their business closer to respectability by repositioning a company too tarnished to prosper in its current environment. They were going to transform a decades-old mercenary image into a crisp new

10:06 Reputable look, using Sandline as their model. London PR relation consultant Sarah Pearson, P-E-A-R-S-O-N, would work for Spicer at Sandline. She later said that the new term private military company took a lot of emotion out of the situation. In the years to come, the significance of the name change would become evident.

10:35 The first use of the term private military company in the press occurred barely a month after the meeting. In an article from a French news agency reporting on the Civil War in Angola and referring to executive outcomes. Later, after Mann and Buckingham were no longer involved in the business, Spicer would be credited in the British press as the man behind the change.

11:04 As British journalist Stephen Armstrong later wrote, the public face of a PR campaign soon selling political elites and the media, especially in America, on the concept of private military companies. For a business that had defined itself in a tradition of secrecy, bringing in PR experts to describe the company's services to the public and even to distribute press releases was new.

11:34 crucial to marketing its services to government and multinational organizations, the oligarchs. It was brilliant, as the years ahead would show. Soon, former special ops, known for mounting coups and running sabotage maneuvers, would appear to be business professionals simply securing and developing the commerce on a global scale. Their industry group would be called International Peace Operations Association.

12:04 So again, they're following all of the models that the late 1800s did because you have to have a trade association. So why not create one and control it yourself? It legitimizes the quote unquote occupation. So that's what they did. It promoted its services in the name of peacekeeping. Talk about Orwellian.

12:33 Their origins in special forces and covert armies would be obscured by a swirl of big money and new wars that would leave behind the label mercenary. In the early years of the new century, however, despite the privatization push in the Balkans, the industry was still barely visible.

12:58 To be sure, the 9-11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon instigated a rush of contracts out of the Department of Defense and the CIA as part of their counterterrorism strategies in Afghanistan and Pakistan. And as early as 2002, the soon-to-be notorious American firm Blackwater was assisting the CIA in Afghanistan.

13:22 at first protecting its bases, then directly participating in CIA missions. But the unveiling of the private military security companies would occur in Iraq. By the time the Iraq invasion happened on March 30, 2003, the U.S. government was devising security and defense strategies depending on the services of many CIA contractors.

13:55 I would argue that that wasn't a miscalculation at all. It was on purpose. It was a turning point in the evolution of the private military security companies. A few months before the invasion in December 2002, two dozen or more specialists in military strategy, diplomacy, and intelligence convened at the Army War College.

14:23 on behalf of the Pentagon to discuss Iraq's fragile economy, its years of misrule by the CIA-installed guy, Saddam Hussein, and the potential impact of an invasion on such conditions, including the expansion of insurgent forces. The possibility of the United States winning the war and losing the peace is real and serious, they said.

14:49 Thinking about the war now and occupations later is not an acceptable solution. Consistent with this reasoning, Army Chief of Staff General Eric Shinseki said in February 2003 that to occupy Iraq would require several hundred thousand soldiers, a figure that he put at 400,000. Although Shinseki's estimate was largely based on models and analysis from Kosovo and Bosnia,

15:19 Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz admitted and adamantly disagreed. While Wolfowitz had demanded 250,000 troops for the invasion, he insisted that only 75,000 would be needed for the occupation. Key figures in the administration of George W. Bush supported Wolfowitz and disavowed Shinseki's estimate.

15:45 By May 1st of 2003, when Bush stood on the deck of the aircraft carrier and announced to the world the invasion of Iraq was a success, the possibility of losing the peace was looming. Rampant looting, street violence were escalating, and so were the number of insurgents. Later in May, when Paul Brimmer, the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority,

16:09 which was the new governing body in Iraq following the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, issued several orders that would make everything worse. And just so that you guys know, the original guy that was chosen to show up in Iraq was Lieutenant General Garner. And I know General Garner, Jay Garner.

16:38 He's the guy that I was the aid for in northern Iraq. And he basically shared Shinseki's thought that if you are going to secure Iraq, you're going to need much more than 250,000 people. And he was immediately removed and they sent Paul Bremer in. So and wait till you hear what Bremer does right off the bat.

17:05 They know, because of this meeting at Army War College, what they need to succeed. They're going to purposely fail. Why? Because it's going to grow this private military industrial complex that they're all going to get rich off of. The first thing that he did was the debathification of Iraqi society order.

17:35 meaning that the top levels of Saddam Hussein's bad party would be banned in all of the new government. This was a move that affected at least 85,000 Iraqis. They were immediately out of a job. And they were the people who knew everything that was going on. They knew where the good guys, bad guys were, everything. They completely dismantled it.

18:04 They also got rid of 40,000 school teachers that had been part of the party only because they had to be. In order to get a job, you had to join the bath party. They fired all of them. Brimmer signed this order on May 16th. Then one week later, he signed order number two, which called for the complete disillusionment of

18:32 Saddam's security and intelligence forces, including everybody in the armed forces, which was 385,000 people overnight out of a job. In their interior ministry, there was 285,000 people and 50,000 in the presidential security unit. Well over half a million people had been fired.

19:01 almost overnight. Although the plan was to train thousands of the demobilized soldiers into a new Iraqi army, order two would add hundreds of thousands of Iraqi citizens to the nations already unemployed, many of them armed, trained, and potentially dangerous to the guy that just fired them.

19:32 They were humiliated and angry at the U.S. The deputy chief of planning at the Pentagon Central Command would later say that on the day order number two was issued, we snatched defeat from the jaws of victory and created the insurgency. And I would argue that was the entire purpose of it.

20:02 If you guys, I had just left Central Command. I left in 2002. There was lots of talk about from the J5 on if we were to do this, what would be necessary? And one of the things they were very adamant about is because we've done this before. We know how it ends. Don't do that. Don't get rid of the entire government.

20:31 You're setting yourself up for failure. But I know everybody likes to tout the quote unquote civilian control of the military. This is what it gets you. The civilian control of the military don't just work for the military. They work for the military industrial complex. And they are setting themselves up to get rich off the bodies of dead military people in Iraq, along with a lot of Iraqis.

21:01 in these decisions that they made. The decisions for both orders were made over the objections of high-ranking intelligence and military officers, and I can personally attest to that. Later, there would be considerable buck passing in the quest to establish exactly who issued the commands for the orders. In Brimmer's memoir, My Year in Iraq, he wrote that on his last day before leaving Iraq, Rumsfeld sent him a memo stressing the

21:32 Quote, the coalition will actively oppose Saddam Hussein's old enforcers. We will make clear that the coalition will eliminate the remnants of the Saddam's regime. Unquote. That same morning, according to Bremer, the undersecretary of defense, Douglas Faith, Faith, F-E-I-T-H, showed him a draft of order number one. The providence of order number two was a bit more slippery.

22:01 though from Brimmer's account, the demobilization decision appeared to have come from Wolfowitz as well. So you have Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz is basically his number two guy at the Pentagon. All civilians, all done against military advice. The implications of Order 1 and 2 would prove to be a key moment in the private military security company's evolution. After all, at the intersection of too few troops and too many insurgents,

22:37 What options did you have? See how they create their own cottage industry on the backs of dead bodies? To ask Congress for more troops would have been irrefutable evidence that the invasion of Iraq was not planned well. Other than leaving the country, the only alternative was to turn to private sector. And thus a silent strategy was set in motion and soon private military security companies

23:06 would be in greater demand in Iraq than ever before in any conflict. Iraq would be known as the first contractor's war. Even Brimmer, as head of the legislative, judicial, and executive authority in Iraq, was himself a civilian contractor. This was another first, a private contractor running a military occupation of a foreign government.

23:36 And before the coalition headquarters was shut down, Brimmer would initiate more orders, including one at the very end of his regime, Order No. 17, which gave all foreign contractors operating in Iraq immunity from the Iraqi legal process, meaning immunity from any kind of suit, civil or criminal, for their actions.

24:04 While Order No. 1 and 2 created the need for the private sector, Order No. 17 ensured that they would be there with immunity as if they were working for the State Department. In the Balkans, the ratio of traditional military to privatized defense had been 50 to 1, unprecedented at the time. But in Iraq, the ratio would soon be 10 to 1 or even 1 to 1.

24:34 Eventually, the number of contractors would exceed military forces as it would in Afghanistan. In a matter of months, private security in Iraq went from a fledgling cottage industry to a multibillion dollar industry. At first, the most lucrative contracts went to the inner circle of American companies, among them well-established players and a few aggressive newcomers.

25:02 There was Vice President Dick Cheney's former employer, Halliburton, whose subsidiary KBR, Inc., formerly Kellogg, Brown & Root, would eventually earn more than $40 billion, with a B, in Iraq. And then there was MPRI, which by the time of the invasion had five divisions, all headed by retired generals or former...

25:30 Department of Defense officials. There was also Vinnell, V-I-N-N-E-L-L Corporation, owned by Northrop Drummond by that time. Both recently having trained the Saudi Arabia National Guard, Vinnell would now be in charge of training the Iraqi army and would subcontract to several other companies, including MPRI. And there was DynCorp,

26:01 a firm that got its start in the air cargo business in the 1940s and later developed a reputation of serving America in dangerous areas. They were a favorite of the CIA. DynCorp had supplied former police officers for the International Police Force, where it drew attention when U.S. Army investigations revealed that the number of DynCorp's private contractors were holding women and girls as ex-sex slaves.

26:31 That actually happened in the Bosnia area. DynCorp was best known, though, for running U.S.-authorized paramilitary operations in Colombia to fumigate supposedly coca crops. But as it turns out, they only exterminated the ones that the CIA didn't control. In Iraq, the DOD contractors contracted

27:02 DynCorp to train the Iraqi police. DynCorp was also under contract by the State Department for security needs in Afghanistan, among other hotspots. And it subcontracted its Iraq work for the State Department to Blackwater. Now what you're going to notice is this layering.

27:23 There will be a primary contractor and then they layer in subcontractors. So there's this ambiguity when things go wrong that they can point fingers and hold no one accountable. And this will happen over and over again. There were several new American firms, including Triple Canopy and Custer Battles, which both came out of special forces.

27:53 following the British model. Triple Canopy was a 2003 startup, you know, right at the same time that they're deciding that they're going to basically do Iraq and then Afghanistan by contract. It was founded in Chicago by Special Forces veterans and initially staffed by former SEALs, Rangers, and Delta Force. Custer Battles, which supplied the armed guards to secure the Baghdad airport,

28:21 was one of the several firms that began shortly after 9-11. Its founder was a former Army Ranger and, conveniently, a former CIA agent. But the most visible of the newcomers would be Blackwater, which would easily qualify as a bona fide mercenary company. Seven years before the Iraqi invasion, it was founded by former Navy SEAL Eric Prince.

28:48 Blackwater was located on a 7,000-acre training base in North Carolina. It was not like any other American firm, old or new. It was more of the footprint of executive outcomes that was set up in South Africa. It was a company composed of many parts, Blackwater Airships, and those are the balloons that are located off the coast of, well, on the coast.

29:16 Just outside of the what's the name of it? The Coast Guard station where they filmed the big famous Coast Guard show. Crap. It's it's in North Carolina, kind of in the northern eastern section. I was just there a couple of years ago because my friend who was a retired Air Force colonel.

29:45 intelligence officer worked for Blackwater at that facility where they had what looked like hot air balloons or blimps, and they used them to fly and collect intelligence. And the hangar next to Blackwater hangar is a CIA hangar with the same stuff in it.

30:10 We took the boat and went around and looked inside the hangars because you can see them off the coast of the water. And that day that we were out in the water, it just so happened that one of the Blackwater Bay's hangars was open. So you could actually see some of the blimp looking things in there. Okay. They also had Blackwater Canine, Blackwater Aviation, Blackwater Target Systems, and Blackwater Grizzlies.

30:43 which was a customized armored tank-like brigade that they had. In 2002, Blackwater's federal contracts for the U.S. were already over $3.4 million. Two years into the Iraqi occupation, its contracts would exceed $350 million, on the way to billions.

31:11 At least $20 million of that was for the job of guarding Brimmer. $20 million. They got a contract for $20 million to guard Brimmer. The detail comprised of gunners, helicopters, two canine teams, and three dozen armed guards on duty at all times to include armored trucks with swivel mounts for machine guns.

31:39 From the start in Iraq, a large percentage of contracts were for logistics support, which freed the traditional troops for combat duty. Because of the big names like Halliburton, it was typically what the media noticed during the early years of the occupation. But what would make Iraq stand out was that nearly every function of the contingency operation would eventually be outsourced.

32:09 armed as well as unarmed operational support and training. In fact, private sector personnel in Iraq would undertake the broadest range of tasks in military history, including gathering intelligence, training soldiers, police, escorting convoys, flying planes, repairing weapons, conducting risk analysis, and armed security. And indeed, it was largely the immense demand for armed security

32:36 That would cause the unprecedented expansion of private military security companies in Iraq. Every company involved in the reconstruction of Iraq had to protect its employees, and many subcontractors had to hire their own armed security, conveniently from the same companies. Most DoD contracts for logistics reconstruction work and a wide range of jobs required U.S. Army to provide some form of protection.

33:06 but subcontractors were not always covered. Considering the large jobs were sometimes executed through several layers of subcontractors, it meant big money. By late 2003, the historic shift in defense operations to the private sector was underway. There were at least 60 military and security companies in Iraq with at least 20,000 employees.

33:35 But equally groundbreaking was the transition from a national to an international force, with contractors and subcontractors from South Asia, Latin America, and Africa. The private military security companies were often founded by former military officers and ran by them. And some of the more sophisticated high-risk military work, including intelligence and interrogations, VIP security details,

34:05 was performed by highly trained experts from America, Britain, Israel, and even South Africa. But there were other classes of contractors, like host country nationals and third country nationals. Expats, typically mentioned in the media, were at the top level of the hierarchy and had salaries five or six times that of the military assigned there. Host country nationals were cheaper to employ,

34:36 and often worked as translators or guides. But they also were less appealing to the companies because of security concerns and because they were accountable to local laws. And we must not have that. To save money and diminish legal liability and accountability, companies frequently hired third country nationals. The scope of their work was vast, from truck drivers to cooks to protection, including...

35:05 air transportation, yet they were paid the least of anyone there. They oftentimes were put in very poor living conditions as well. The Iraqi occupation would alter not only the face of war, but also the nature of American and British military and security firms. American companies, the new and the established, would now more frequently follow the British model for capitalizing on special forces.

35:37 The UK companies, which in 2003 still reaped most of their profits through commercial clients, would add more government contracts than ever before. Despite such shifts, however, by the end of the first year of the occupation, the British had a relatively minor presence in Iraq. To be sure, the British were getting crumbs from the Bonneville feast in the military security business. That changed in 2004.

36:05 It was then that the U.S. government awarded a very small, little-known, London-based firm the biggest security contract ever in Iraq. The Boston Globe described it as the largest single piece of private security pie in Iraq so far handed out by Washington. This was a contract that would one day

36:33 be seen as central to the new military privatization, making 2004 a defining year for private military security companies. And because of the company that won it, the contract would also represent a milestone in the modern history of mercenaries and perhaps the best proof of power of rebranding that Tim Spicer undertook. Because guess who got it? Sandline.

37:03 Now, I have to stop here for just a second and say the US government's contracts are paid with American tax dollars. Now, again, I did not know this. I had no idea that the US government used our tax dollars in the biggest private military security company contract of all times at that point was given.

37:33 to the UK, who barely had any presence militarily in Iraq at all. Why would that occur? There were other contractors, as we're going to see, that bid on that contract. In the early months of 2004, the US government began issuing terrorist alerts, and all of this was done as a ruse to justify

38:03 and further expenditures in the quote-unquote war on terror. So they've got a PR campaign going on in America. Homeland Security Tim Ridge would be so bold as to name places that were security risk, like New York, Newark, New Jersey, Washington, D.C., and this was all to create a

38:33 fear of terrorism in the United States. Then they went on and said, oh my gosh, not only is it here, there's a threat to all shipping. So now we want to put armed security on all of the ships too at UNI's expense. So we're going to have to have contracts for that as well. And it just so happens, conveniently,

39:04 that there was a bombing of a ferry in the Philippines that killed 100 people. And they used that, along with Lloyds of London, who, as I explained earlier, is intricate to this entire operation, to justify adding even more contracts for private military security contracts.

39:33 One of the reports said, we believe Al Qaeda, again, a CIA creation, and its associates may be planning a maritime spectacular. An analyst from the British firm Aegis Defense Services, it in itself is the defense, private military defense contractor. So they're issuing a quote unquote intelligence alert.

40:00 So that they can drive business to their company. You just can't make this shit up. So we have a bombing over in the Philippines of a ferry. And all of a sudden, now they have everything that they want in order to justify more expenses. Okay. By the spring, anxiety was permeating everywhere, especially in Iraq.

40:34 Their news broke about the abuse of the Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib. Once a notorious prison and torture center during the rule of Saddam Hussein, it was then the word waterboarding as a method of torture became known. Also, there was news reports of harsh interrogations.

41:00 and the 26-year-old American contractor named Nicholas Berg from Pennsylvania was beheaded in retaliation for the treatment of the inmates. Berg's killers videotaped it. Equally dark and startling was what happened in Fallujah, a city west of Baghdad, considered to be dangerous and off-limits because the activities of insurgent jihadi groups. There, on March 31st,

41:27 An Iraqi mob shot and killed and mutilated four American civilians working as contractors for Blackwater. Now, I want to make sure you guys connect the dots. The CIA and other contractors were in Abu Ghraib prison torturing people, just like we saw the tortures happening in Latin America under Operation Condor. Those same torture.

41:56 were used there. And it pissed off the local people. And the local people knew who was doing it. So four civilian contractors for Blackwater was killed. We saw horrifying scenes, the torching of bodies, dragging them through the streets. That all happened. And it happened in the immediate aftermath of the exposure.

42:28 of the torture of prisoners. When the U.S. media broadcast it, the world became aware for the first time of the Pentagon's use of armed civilians employed by private military companies in Iraq and of the fact that private contractors as well as traditional troops were risking their lives. In the days that followed, President Bush ordered a major assault on Fallujah, Operation Vigilant Resolve, a bloody street-by-street revenge.

43:00 That resulted in the death of at least 600 Iraqi civilians and over 200 insurgents, as well as 36 U.S. military people. In the weeks after Fallujah, the news surfaced that at least 22 of the interrogators accused of torture of the inmates in Abu Ghraib were private military contractors. As news escalated, the violence in Iraq escalated.

43:30 and the number of Iraqi attacks on American forces would average 87 a day, the highest level since the beginning of the war, a figure that did not include attacks against private military security. In other words, they hid those. None of those were ever advertised, just the military ones. Among the shocking details about Fallujah tragedy was the fact that the contractors working for another private military company

44:02 had warned the victim's supervisors not to send them into Fallujah. It was a route always fraught with danger. And earlier that morning, there had been intelligence about cells of insurgents gathering in Fallujah to ambush Americans. There was a safer route. It was slower. But the warning never reached the four young men that had chosen that road. Thus, one of the immediate ramifications of the tragedy came out.

44:32 Coming out of the U.S., government was the concept of establishing a coordination hub for all of the security contractors that would be responsible for gathering and disseminating information. Because these people are operating independent. They're not being tasked by the military commanders on site. They are given their own missions by their corporate headquarters.

44:57 And they're not sharing intelligence. There's not a single coordination going on. And this is unlike anything that any military doctrine would ever allow to happen. The idea developed in the 2004 contract known as Project Matrix. Jointly devised by the Pentagon and the Coalition Provisional Authority, Project Matrix required the winner.

45:26 to create and manage a coordination center for more than 50 other private military and security companies throughout Iraq. The company in charge thus would have the power to oversee and coordinate security over Iraq, including the exchange of military and civilian information between British and American security contractors and the military. So they're going to run their own command post, and we're going to pay for it.

45:54 Because we already have a command post under U.S. Central Command that was supposed to be in charge. The contract also called for security personnel trained in mobile vehicle warfare, counter sniping, that type of thing. And it goes through a little bit of the details of what it was, the capabilities like armored vehicles and that type of thing. It says in there.

46:25 that they were going to protect the U.S. staff overseeing reconstruction projects and officials from companies operating the oil field at our expense. And there was a hidden aspect to the contract. Tucked away in its 700 pages was a provision that included intelligence work. The contract specifically called for the analysis of foreign intelligence services, terrorist organizations, and their surrogates.

46:56 targeting Department of Defense personnel, resources, and facilities, and for the task of advising other contractors on intelligence. In short, the job was to safeguard all contractors working on reconstruction beyond the lifespan of the soon-to-be-dissolved Coalition Provisional Authority. It would be shut down in June, transferring sovereignty to the new Iraqi interim government.

47:22 It also effectively handed over power to the company running the security web, Matrix. On the surface, the shift in authority to the Iraqi administration would appear to be a positive sign, indicating Iraqis rebuilding. This was what the American had promised the American people.

47:45 But behind the scenes, a large complex of military private military security companies would soon be in place to help reconstruct Iraq, coordinated by the winner of the Matrix contract. This was no small job nor a small contract. It was on the winner's shoulders to assure that the that replacing the coalition provisional authority that the job still got done.

48:12 That meant armed contractors and collection of sensitive information. By some accounts, the contractor's importance was that it funded a coordination hub that could prove to be the invisible spine of the new Iraq. The sending and receiving of messages vital to rebirth the nation. Amid the mounting fears and persistent high-profile terror alerts, the Call for Matrix contract went almost unnoticed in America.

48:41 There were six bidders, three in America, DynCorp, Custer Battles, and Triple Canopy, and three from UK, Armor Group, Aranis, and Aegis Defense Services. Of those six, three were already in Iraq. DynCorp, the longstanding client of the U.S. government, was training the nation's police force.

49:10 Custer battles were guarding the Baghdad airport, and Aranus was protecting oil installations in southern Iraq. The winner, though, would be a small British company that had provided security for Disney Cruise Line, you know, maritime security, Aegis Defense Services. While the company's background was short and unremarkable, and the firm was barely known even in Britain,

49:42 The resume of the CEO, none other than Tim Spicer, was long, deeply linking the firm to the industry's origins of mercenary. In Britain, Spicer was as well known as his firm was little known. In fact, Spicer and his friend Simon Mann were, by some accounts, two of the world's most notorious mercenaries. In the spring of 2004, both Mann and Spicer made headlines.

50:12 for separate events. While Spicer was seeking a lucrative U.S. contract for his latest company, Mann was planning a coup in another country. In March, a Boeing 727 loaded with 60 men and $180,000 in cash and crates of guns was stopped minutes before taking off from a military air base in Zimbabwe. The men were mercenaries and their destination was Equatorial Guinea.

50:44 They had planned to overthrow the government of President Mbosago, who had ruled there since 1979. Equatorial Guinea was the third largest oil producer in Africa. In exchange for orchestrating the coup, the leaders of the plot would gain an oil concession from the new regime they were going to install. These leaders allegedly were man.

51:13 The guy, man, as well as a few coup plotting colleagues such as Mark Thatcher. Yeah. The son of Margaret Thatcher. Same guy. And Nick Dutoit, legendary for his work in apartheid South African special forces. Several of the hired guns arrested on the runway that day were former members of South Africans.

51:46 military groups. The plot that catapulted Mann into a jail cell in Zimbabwe was a classic mercenary operation that seemed to be real-life adaptation of Dogs of War. Spicer and Mann had been partners and compatriots in the private military world for many years, but in 2004, as Mann hoped that his connections in high places would get him out of jail, Spicer was using his own connections and won

52:17 The $293 million contract for Matrix. They're partners. And that brings us to the conclusion of chapters two and three. So as you can see, we're talking about real life mercenaries running these private military companies and being fed. And this just goes into that whole diagram.

52:48 that I charted out a while back of how we've just offshored all of the CIA and military operations to these private entities. And they all feed back to the international syndicate each and every time. So that's it for today. You got anything? That's just crazy. Yeah. So the two guys.

53:19 that are going to get this contract. One's out doing a coup and the other one with Margaret Thatcher's son. And how is that any different than Kermit Roosevelt overthrowing Iran, right? You just can't make this shit up. It just, the interlinkedness of, I mean, that we keep coming across, but that this book particularly illustrates so well in these paramilitary units.

53:52 It's just crazy. I mean, yeah, if anybody was paying attention when it happened. Yeah, I mean, it's just. But again, if you don't understand Operation Gladio and Operation Condor, Abu Ghraib sticks out as an anomaly. Right. Watching it. I went back and just recently read.

54:17 A book that was written by the general that there was an army general inspector that was sent over to do a quote unquote impartial review of how all that unfolded. And he was basically fired as a result of his review because he did do it impartially and put the attribution where it deserved to be. And he was shunned inside the army for doing that.

54:46 Again, if you read the details, and there was some pretty gory details in the book, that torture that was done inside of that prison looks exactly like the torture that we described in Hidden Terrors. So for the American people, that's the reason why they censor this information. They don't want us putting two and two together. And the whole national security thing.

55:17 is nothing more than a cover for all these covert, I mean, again, you know, how do you operate a war without congressional approval? How do you overthrow countries without the perfect, they found the perfect linchpin is we'll use paramilitary. I mean, but our own little private for hire. And what's interesting is the transition that 9-11 provided for them.

55:48 And because that's the reason why I drew that diagram. You know, there's been a three part to this. They went from mercenaries before World War II. Then they turned it into the special forces in the military and the CIA, us paying for it. But around 9-11, there was this huge transition to outsourcing those to private military security systems.

56:16 which were created separately, but then all bought up by the same oligarchs that used to have their own paramilitary. The only difference is we're paying for all of it now. And it can be done without even the CIA fingerprints on it or the military's fingerprints on it because it's being done through these private military security companies. It's just, it's crazy once you get your head wrapped around it. SR-71.

56:47 Thank you, Colonel, and thank everyone for attending the space today, as well as those on Rumble. There are two things that really struck me while we're talking about this. Number one is you have to wonder what our military services are actually doing at this point in time. The other thing I have to wonder about, or I did do a little digging into, is since

57:16 We've hired all these private contractors, these PMCs. I posed a question to Grok to find out whether or not they got military benefits. Well, they don't. However, all of their benefits are covered under something called the, what is it again? I had it just a second ago.

57:44 the Defense Base Act for work-related injuries or deaths. So not only are we paying for them, we're also paying for anything else that goes on while they're there. So not all of them are covered, by the way. We're going to get to that in a little bit, but there's a huge gap because there's still, first of all,

58:14 You have to think of the layering. OK, so DynCorp gets a contract and then they contract to Blackwater and they contract to one of those others. And that triple canopy, triple canopy will go to Colombia and Africa and get some of the paramilitary, the CIA train there, you know, 10 years ago. And they pick them all up. They fly them into Iraq.

58:43 They don't speak Arabic or Farsi or anything. They're not able to communicate with anyone. And they're there to carry a gun. And if they get injured, and a lot of them did, there's no accounting for any of them. They're just dead. Their bodies are buried, generally not even returned to their home country. They're just dead. And there's no accounting for any of it. None.

59:12 So we have no idea because of the layers of contracting that is involved in these operations and their use of third country nationals, what the death toll is. We don't know how they died. We don't know anything about these people. It's crazy. Even the one guy that we started off the Kamal or whatever his name was that we started off the book with, he'll come up a little bit later.

59:46 He never got accountability. They kept moving his court. We'll read a little bit more about it later in the book. The jurisdiction of, you know, whether it was going to be in D.C., but the company, because it was originally a U.K. company and they didn't open their affiliate.

1:00:07 arm of it until two years after his injury in the United States. Who do you sue? The US court system doesn't have authority over a UK company. They do all of this on purpose. So the awarding of this contract to the UK has deep implications because it allows the US government to not be held accountable if they totally screw it up, which of course they did.

1:00:36 There's no way to sue him because the company's not here. The U.S. court system has no jurisdiction. This was all done on purpose. It's crazy. Well, the only saving grace at this point in time and the way I see it is it's all coming out. And boy, Trump's got a lot on his plate. And we expose more every day. Miles, go ahead. Colonel, you ever watch the movie Shooter with Mark Wahlberg?

1:01:17 Miles, how many times do I have to tell you I don't watch movies? You should watch that. It came out in 2007. And it's all about what we're talking about constantly. These people that are contracted to go into Africa wipe out tribes because they found some oil or some minerals. And then they take our soldiers, and he was a sniper.

1:01:45 To cover the retreat of the bad guys killing and massacring all these people in this village. But they didn't know that. I know they don't know that. They're told the guys that are doing the killing are the good guys. Well, he finds out. And there's one senator that's involved. Now, his big beef is because they killed his dog. And they wanted to set him up on another assassination attempt.

1:02:16 spoiler alert, that they thought they were going to shoot the president, but they kill a bishop. And it was done on purpose because he was a good guy. So you might, I know you don't watch movies, but this is one of my favorite revenge movies because he takes down the bad guys. It's unrealistic that one guy, actually he...

1:02:42 He saves an FBI agent that was looking into it. So there's actually two guys that go after everybody. But it's really a good movie. And since it was done in 2007, they've been trying to tell us that this has been happening forever. It has been happening for a very long time. And it is being done in our name with our dollars. And that has to stop.

1:03:12 I'm not sure how you take down the entire network, but it has to stop. So anyway, what was the name of the movie? Shooter with Mark Wahlberg. OK, I'm writing it down. I'm not guaranteeing anything all along. So, Colonel, your description of the transition under Brummer in some ways reminded me of.

1:03:50 Two other incidents from world history, namely when the seaport mutiny in India, as you remember, was like a key point at which like the private running of India by the East India Company was replaced by, you know, the British military formally. Right. And also another.

1:04:19 glorious moment in our hero David Halberstam's career as a New York Times reporter in South Vietnam and Saigon in November of 1963 during the coup of Dem, which is a really, you know, befuddled, in my opinion, deliberately befuddled, you know, period of transition. Now, what you're seen to be describing is

1:04:47 you know, a transition in Iraq under Bremer from, to some extent, government to privatization with all of these military contractors. Now, in Vietnam, basically, it's JFK was, you know, to some extent, trying to deny that things were going as badly in Vietnam because he knew that the reason

1:05:16 That the CIA wanted a coup in Vietnam was so that they could go ahead and use that as a new political base that would be strong enough to support basically U.S. ground troops in Vietnam, which JFK was unequivocally opposed to. Right. And so there's a lot of confusion about that. But anyway, it's it's it just struck me as like three.

1:05:45 You know, obviously there are differences, but transition moments in these conflicts that, you know, perhaps could be especially the media coverage of those three. Yeah, I was very surprised at the amount of civilians in Vietnam as early as the 60s when when I found out about the Office of Public Safety being there and the bringing in of Michigan State University to train the national police.

1:06:15 Under the Office of Public Safety and the embedding of CIA agents into that professor core, they were all over there as, quote unquote, civilians. And there was there was a large I mean, to that point in the early 60s, that kind of set the benchmark for having civilian participation in this, even though.

1:06:43 You have to really dig down in order to understand the presence of the Office of Public Safety. And that brings up another point. What you're going to find is a significant amount of the private military security contracts are not issued by the Department of Defense. They are issued by the State Department and they are issued by USAID.

1:07:11 That gets illustrated a little later in the book, but that's profound because you have the State Department hiring mercenaries directly, not the CIA, although they're involved as well. But the State Department contracts are hiring mercenary companies to go in and do work.

1:07:35 eventually get shoved off into USAID where they're doing it directly. But yeah, it's quite profound. SR71? Thank you, Colonel. As I recall, it was Hillary Clinton who was Secretary of State. So I guess if you follow the money, it only makes sense. Well, not yet. We're going to get to her. This is in during the Bush administration so far.

1:08:07 She has a big role later. Follow along? Yeah, just, Colonel, one follow-up point. Sorry, can you hear me, Colonel? I can hear you. Okay, the number of total U.S. dead between 1945 and November 22, 1963 was 147.

1:08:37 From 45 until November 26, 63. So that is a figure that is kind of shocking. And it's kind of illustrative, in my opinion, that that number is so, so, so rarely stated. Because, you know, especially on the fake controlled left, which does goes through hell's high water, which is privatized, I think, to prevent the left from looking at the JFK assassination.

1:09:08 that they never, ever, ever mention that, and neither does the big MSM. So again, look at where the fake left and the MSM overlap, and they both cooperatively censor, and that's triple moating. It's critically important that, in other words, the so-called left not be our actual left by looking at the consequences of the JFK assassination for the Vietnam War.

1:09:36 Much less his younger brother, RFK, when all three were assassinated to prevent the second half of the Vietnam Memorial. But never mind that. That shall remain conspiracy theory forever because of triple moating by the CIA. Yep. Good point. All right. Anybody else? Nope. All right.

1:10:04 We are done officially with part two of our series. We're up to chapter four. And again, the book will go fairly fast. So thanks, everybody, for being here. I appreciate it. And we will be back. I do have a couple of schedule changes. Let me figure out what they are. Tomorrow's fine. Thursday is going to be.

1:10:34 a little off. So Warhamster and I will not be doing the part two on Thursday. We're going to do that on Friday. And I am going to be on a podcast on Thursday around this time. So we will not have a four o'clock on Thursday. And I'll put the information out on that podcast as soon as I get it.

1:11:04 So there's going to be a podcast. It's just not going to be mine around this same time. So also, let's see, then we'll be back at our regular time on Friday as well. OK, that's it. So thanks for being here and I'll see you tomorrow.

Entities here

United States26 Iran26 United Kingdom20 Blackwater15 Executive Outcomes13 Paul Bremer10 Simon Mann9 Department of Defense9 Tim Spicer8 Disbanding of Iraqi Security Forces7 South Africa7 Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse6 Iran-Iraq War6 U.S. Army6 Saddam Hussein6 DynCorp6 Tony Buckingham6 Project Matrix6 U.S. State Department6 Killing of Blackwater contractors in Fallujah5 Debaathification5 Afghanistan4 Coalition Provisional Authority4 Triple Canopy4 Abu Ghraib4 USAID4 Vietnam4 Fallujah4 Custer Battles4 2004 Equatorial Guinea coup attempt3 Angola3 Congo3 Eric Shinseki3 Aegis Defense Services3 Operation Gladio3 Robert Kennedy assassination3 Baghdad3 United States Central Command3 Sandline International3 U.S. Army Special Forces2

Claims made here

Tony Buckingham headed Heritage Oil documented ▶ 0:33

“1995, talking about three men at a restaurant at a meeting in London. One of the men was named Anthony Buckingham. Oh, Bridget's already been booted. And Anthony Buckingham at the time was head of a B…”

Tony Buckingham founded Executive Outcomes documented ▶ 1:06

“that managed more than a dozen subsidiaries engaged in oil drilling, diamond mining, and copper mining. Kind of fits right into our storyline. He also owned private military services. Another of the g…”

Simon Mann member_of Executive Outcomes documented ▶ 1:36

“generation graduate of Eaton, which was a private school in England known to be, it's basically kind of like our Yale. He was also a former SAS commander, a former lieutenant in the British Army's Sco…”

Tim Spicer member_of Executive Outcomes documented ▶ 1:36

David Steele member_of Heritage Oil documented ▶ 2:36

“wanted the two men to meet for a variety of reasons. A few weeks before, a reporter at The Observer had exposed ties between Buckingham's parent company, Heritage Oil, and executive outcomes. The repo…”

Executive Outcomes front_for Heritage Oil documented ▶ 3:06

“was a non-executive director at Heritage, and that Heritage owned an enterprise shrouded in mystery. Executive Outcomes had served as a front company to evade arms embargoes against South Africa and t…”

Executive Outcomes supplied_arms_to Angola documented ▶ 4:06

“in the Angolan government to defeat the quote-unquote insurgents, which were actually the party that the US and the UK didn't want to control the country. They were not insurgents. They were people th…”

Simon Mann founded Sandline International documented ▶ 8:33

“this executive outcome point two that is going to run to their assistant. And we end up in the same place that we've been so many times where you're basically funding both sides of all of these wars. …”

Tony Buckingham founded Sandline International documented ▶ 8:33

Tim Spicer founded Sandline International documented ▶ 8:33

Sarah Pearson worked_for Sandline International documented ▶ 10:06

“Reputable look, using Sandline as their model. London PR relation consultant Sarah Pearson, P-E-A-R-S-O-N, would work for Spicer at Sandline. She later said that the new term private military company …”

Paul Wolfowitz ordered_assassination_of Saddam Hussein host_asserted ▶ 15:19

“Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz admitted and adamantly disagreed. While Wolfowitz had demanded 250,000 troops for the invasion, he insisted that only 75,000 would be needed for the occupation. Key fi…”

Paul Bremer headed Coalition Provisional Authority documented ▶ 15:45

“By May 1st of 2003, when Bush stood on the deck of the aircraft carrier and announced to the world the invasion of Iraq was a success, the possibility of losing the peace was looming. Rampant looting,…”

Paul Bremer removed_from_power Jay Garner host_asserted ▶ 16:38

“He's the guy that I was the aid for in northern Iraq. And he basically shared Shinseki's thought that if you are going to secure Iraq, you're going to need much more than 250,000 people. And he was im…”

Paul Bremer issued Disbanding of Iraqi Security Forces documented ▶ 18:04

“They also got rid of 40,000 school teachers that had been part of the party only because they had to be. In order to get a job, you had to join the bath party. They fired all of them. Brimmer signed t…”

Paul Bremer issued Debaathification documented ▶ 18:04

Douglas Feith ordered_assassination_of Saddam Hussein book_quoted ▶ 21:32

“Quote, the coalition will actively oppose Saddam Hussein's old enforcers. We will make clear that the coalition will eliminate the remnants of the Saddam's regime. Unquote. That same morning, accordin…”

Donald Rumsfeld ordered_assassination_of Saddam Hussein book_quoted ▶ 21:32

Paul Wolfowitz ordered_assassination_of Saddam Hussein book_quoted ▶ 22:01

“though from Brimmer's account, the demobilization decision appeared to have come from Wolfowitz as well. So you have Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz is basically his number two guy at the Pentagon. All civili…”

Paul Bremer issued Contractor Immunity Order documented ▶ 23:36

“And before the coalition headquarters was shut down, Brimmer would initiate more orders, including one at the very end of his regime, Order No. 17, which gave all foreign contractors operating in Iraq…”

Halliburton financed_via KBR, Inc. documented ▶ 25:02

“There was Vice President Dick Cheney's former employer, Halliburton, whose subsidiary KBR, Inc., formerly Kellogg, Brown & Root, would eventually earn more than $40 billion, with a B, in Iraq. And the…”

Vinnell Corporation trained Saudi Arabia National Guard documented ▶ 25:30

“Department of Defense officials. There was also Vinnell, V-I-N-N-E-L-L Corporation, owned by Northrop Drummond by that time. Both recently having trained the Saudi Arabia National Guard, Vinnell would…”

Vinnell Corporation trained Iraqi Army documented ▶ 25:30

DynCorp supplied_arms_to Colombia documented ▶ 26:31

“That actually happened in the Bosnia area. DynCorp was best known, though, for running U.S.-authorized paramilitary operations in Colombia to fumigate supposedly coca crops. But as it turns out, they …”

DynCorp subcontracted_to Blackwater documented ▶ 27:02

“DynCorp to train the Iraqi police. DynCorp was also under contract by the State Department for security needs in Afghanistan, among other hotspots. And it subcontracted its Iraq work for the State Dep…”

DynCorp trained Iraqi secret police documented ▶ 27:02

Custer Battles supplied_arms_to Baghdad documented ▶ 27:53

“following the British model. Triple Canopy was a 2003 startup, you know, right at the same time that they're deciding that they're going to basically do Iraq and then Afghanistan by contract. It was f…”

Blackwater founded Erik Prince documented ▶ 28:21

“was one of the several firms that began shortly after 9-11. Its founder was a former Army Ranger and, conveniently, a former CIA agent. But the most visible of the newcomers would be Blackwater, which…”

Blackwater supplied_arms_to Paul Bremer documented ▶ 31:11

“At least $20 million of that was for the job of guarding Brimmer. $20 million. They got a contract for $20 million to guard Brimmer. The detail comprised of gunners, helicopters, two canine teams, and…”

Sandline International front_for Tim Spicer host_asserted ▶ 36:33

“be seen as central to the new military privatization, making 2004 a defining year for private military security companies. And because of the company that won it, the contract would also represent a m…”

United States funded Sandline International host_asserted ▶ 37:03

“Now, I have to stop here for just a second and say the US government's contracts are paid with American tax dollars. Now, again, I did not know this. I had no idea that the US government used our tax …”

United States funded Blackwater host_asserted ▶ 37:03

Tom Ridge headed U.S. Department of Homeland Security documented ▶ 38:03

“and further expenditures in the quote-unquote war on terror. So they've got a PR campaign going on in America. Homeland Security Tim Ridge would be so bold as to name places that were security risk, l…”

Al Qaeda carried_out_attack Philippines host_asserted ▶ 39:33

“One of the reports said, we believe Al Qaeda, again, a CIA creation, and its associates may be planning a maritime spectacular. An analyst from the British firm Aegis Defense Services, it in itself is…”

Blackwater member_of Killing of Blackwater contractors in Fallujah documented ▶ 41:27

“An Iraqi mob shot and killed and mutilated four American civilians working as contractors for Blackwater. Now, I want to make sure you guys connect the dots. The CIA and other contractors were in Abu …”

Operation Vigilant Resolve carried_out_attack Fallujah documented ▶ 42:28

“of the torture of prisoners. When the U.S. media broadcast it, the world became aware for the first time of the Pentagon's use of armed civilians employed by private military companies in Iraq and of …”

United States ordered_assassination_of Fallujah documented ▶ 42:28

Operation Vigilant Resolve assassinated Iran documented ▶ 43:00

“That resulted in the death of at least 600 Iraqi civilians and over 200 insurgents, as well as 36 U.S. military people. In the weeks after Fallujah, the news surfaced that at least 22 of the interroga…”

Pentagon funded Project Matrix documented ▶ 44:57

“And they're not sharing intelligence. There's not a single coordination going on. And this is unlike anything that any military doctrine would ever allow to happen. The idea developed in the 2004 cont…”

Coalition Provisional Authority funded Project Matrix documented ▶ 44:57

United States funded Triple Canopy documented ▶ 48:41

“There were six bidders, three in America, DynCorp, Custer Battles, and Triple Canopy, and three from UK, Armor Group, Aranis, and Aegis Defense Services. Of those six, three were already in Iraq. DynC…”

DynCorp trained Iran documented ▶ 48:41

United States funded Custer Battles documented ▶ 48:41

United States funded Aegis Defense Services documented ▶ 48:41

United States funded Armor Group documented ▶ 48:41

United States funded DynCorp documented ▶ 48:41

United States funded Aegis Defense Services documented ▶ 49:10

“Custer battles were guarding the Baghdad airport, and Aranus was protecting oil installations in southern Iraq. The winner, though, would be a small British company that had provided security for Disn…”

Aegis Defense Services carried_out_attack Iran documented ▶ 49:10

Custer Battles carried_out_attack Baghdad documented ▶ 49:10

United States funded Sandline International host_asserted ▶ 49:10

United States funded Armor Group host_asserted ▶ 49:10

United States funded Custer Battles documented ▶ 49:10

Tim Spicer headed Aegis Defense Services documented ▶ 49:42

“The resume of the CEO, none other than Tim Spicer, was long, deeply linking the firm to the industry's origins of mercenary. In Britain, Spicer was as well known as his firm was little known. In fact,…”

Aegis Defense Services front_for Tim Spicer host_asserted ▶ 49:42

Simon Mann attempted_coup_against Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo documented ▶ 50:44

“They had planned to overthrow the government of President Mbosago, who had ruled there since 1979. Equatorial Guinea was the third largest oil producer in Africa. In exchange for orchestrating the cou…”

Simon Mann member_of 2004 Equatorial Guinea coup attempt documented ▶ 50:44

Nick du Toit member_of 2004 Equatorial Guinea coup attempt documented ▶ 51:13

“The guy, man, as well as a few coup plotting colleagues such as Mark Thatcher. Yeah. The son of Margaret Thatcher. Same guy. And Nick Dutoit, legendary for his work in apartheid South African special …”

Mark Thatcher member_of 2004 Equatorial Guinea coup attempt documented ▶ 51:13

Simon Mann member_of Sandline International host_asserted ▶ 51:46

“military groups. The plot that catapulted Mann into a jail cell in Zimbabwe was a classic mercenary operation that seemed to be real-life adaptation of Dogs of War. Spicer and Mann had been partners a…”

Tim Spicer member_of Sandline International host_asserted ▶ 51:46

Tim Spicer funded Project Matrix documented ▶ 51:46

Kermit Roosevelt overthrew Iran host_asserted ▶ 53:19

“that are going to get this contract. One's out doing a coup and the other one with Margaret Thatcher's son. And how is that any different than Kermit Roosevelt overthrowing Iran, right? You just can't…”

United States funded Triple Canopy host_asserted ▶ 58:14

“You have to think of the layering. OK, so DynCorp gets a contract and then they contract to Blackwater and they contract to one of those others. And that triple canopy, triple canopy will go to Colomb…”

United Kingdom overthrew India host_asserted ▶ 1:03:50

“Two other incidents from world history, namely when the seaport mutiny in India, as you remember, was like a key point at which like the private running of India by the East India Company was replaced…”

East India Company overthrew India host_asserted ▶ 1:03:50

David Halberstam member_of The New York Times documented ▶ 1:04:19

“glorious moment in our hero David Halberstam's career as a New York Times reporter in South Vietnam and Saigon in November of 1963 during the coup of Dem, which is a really, you know, befuddled, in my…”

USAID trained Vietnam host_asserted ▶ 1:05:45

“You know, obviously there are differences, but transition moments in these conflicts that, you know, perhaps could be especially the media coverage of those three. Yeah, I was very surprised at the am…”

U.S. State Department funded Aegis Defense Services host_asserted ▶ 1:06:43

“You have to really dig down in order to understand the presence of the Office of Public Safety. And that brings up another point. What you're going to find is a significant amount of the private milit…”

USAID funded Aegis Defense Services host_asserted ▶ 1:07:11

“That gets illustrated a little later in the book, but that's profound because you have the State Department hiring mercenaries directly, not the CIA, although they're involved as well. But the State D…”