Cracktoberfest Part Three: The Iran-Contra Affair

Gray's Anatomy and Station nineteen on on TV, but better. Yeah, they used to do this in the nineties, like sitcom eras all the time episode. Yeah, that's how technically the X Files and The Wire are in the same universe right there. Scully came through. Scully came through to get a get a get a nice, nice little bump of cracked. Speaking of crack. Yeah, that is a good introduction, and we'll get me off talking about what a fun crossover Holder and McNulty would have been. Um uh, yeah, we

are talking. We are getting behind the hood bastards because we're talking about the crack epidemic and the Central Intelligence Agency. It's like the perfect It's also a perfect crossover. A perfect crossover, would think you'd need. I mean it is. I will say I get a little frustrated, as we'll be getting into in in my episodes whenever people are like the C I a brock crack to the inner City because guys, the NSC was a big part of it too. Very you know, Ali North was not slacking

on this. Let's not give the CIA all the credit. This is what you will learn. You know what I'm saying. You need to give people put some respect on their name. The NSC needs respect. Respect right now, that's branding right there. Reverse You ready for this reverse Bastard? Ya say? I am ready. Let's do it? Brow Okay, Sophie. How you feel? I feel like I don't have a script, which means it's like a normal Bastards episode, because Robert doesn't send me the script when I asked him to send it

to me either. Listen, here's the thing. Uh, it's important. I don't know when this is coming out, but I think it's important to acknowledge that. Uh, this is the day after Queen Elizabeth passed and probably doubling as one of the greatest days on Black Twitter ever. Oh my god, black Twitter in Irish Twitter. We're both just listen a cylinders. It was just voltron of melanated people like people that seasonate food, just all got together, had a barbecue and

was roast in the hell. And it's almost like y'all asked for it, because did nobody ask y'all to make her the symbolic figurehead of all that is the British empire? Y'all made her debt. Yeah, people, people are doing this whole thing where they're like, well, but she didn't really do you know? She she she's not the one who did all of the colonialism. Was like number one, she was thirty one years old when her government put like

a million Kenyan people in concentration camp stern Uprising. Number one, let's talk about her. Watch some of that in fact, did happen while she wasn't charge. And number two, Uh, it's funny because she is representative of a terrible government and so let's laugh at it. And look, people are like, hey, your country doesn't have anywhere to talk. You guys made Donald Trump the president. Absolutely fine, Let's laugh when he

dies too. It will be also funny when he dies, it'll be and and I'm like, yes, you're right, and I would hope that you would participate in the jokes. The point I'm trying to make is it was like these were I saw a tweet that said, we're mourning more than the death of a woman, but the death of a world, and I was like, yeah, number one, we not. And that's our point. That's why we're cracking jokes. Pretty you made her the picture of six fifty years

of oppression. You did not me. So that's the case. Then we got something to say. Yeah, I am fairly certain that Ruyard Kipling, the poet laureate of the British Empire, wrote a whole poem about how that world wasn't very good. I'm pretty sure. I'm pretty sure. Yeah. Anyway, anyway, it was one of the greatest days on Twitter. Let's get back to what we're gonna talk about here. Uh so, I guess i'll try to get try to start in yo, he hey, uh, what do you know about what are

your feelings on cocaine? There? Uh? You know, look, I think it's not my favorite drug. I think it's a general rule overrated, certainly more expensive than over priced. Like, if I'm going to do a stimulant, right, if I really need to, like like keep myself wired, I'm gonna roll right on down to the old wall grains. I'm gonna get up pick up some Benza dregs and Hailer's, the ones that have Ben's a drain in them. I'm gonna pop that little cotton thing outside of the center.

I'm gonna dunk it in a water bottle, and I'm gonna drink me some Bin's a drinks, some like classic seventies speed, you know, and then I'm gonna drive for thirty seven and a half hours. Um. But if I want to, you know, I've had some good times on cocaine, don't get me wrong. Um. And if you get the opportunity to snort a line of cocaine off of somebody's ass,

you should take it. It's a worthwhile life experience. I mean, I feel like I feel like when you add all those additives, like this is my ass, I'm like, well, I mean that's the difference story by it by itself, I'd be like, ah, I mean, I'm from Los Angeles, so it's like you walk into somebody's party and they're like, hey, how you doing. What's up? Man? Welcome and make sure you take your shoes off, you know, because it's Hollywood party.

And they're like, hey, coffee's over there, bars over there, coke's over there. Will be cool. So it's like it's so ubiquitous growing up and I've been able to be like, oh cool on that room. I'm saying, I don't need to go to the coke room. But if you add that there's a booty to snort off. Yeah, there's we're gonna be snorting off of someone's. Sure that's an experience, right, Yeah, that's yeah. There's a thing like clubs in Berlin and stuff.

It's really fun to go to a club where you're gonna be there for like thirty hours and like periodically take trips to the bathroom you through your friends to do lines. But if I'm gonna be doing lines in like the bathroom of a club in Berlin, I would prefer they'd be lines of ketamine than cocaine. Um, that's where I stand on cocaine. You talk about drugs the way underground rappers talk about rap, just like it's the most obscure ship like what the what wait, guitar nerds

talk about like pedals and bands. The best place to snort drugs that I've ever snorted drugs is the kit Cat Club in Berlin. It goes down like five stories. It doesn't close for three or four days at a time. Great place to do lines in a bathroom. Absolutely number one word sound that sounds like quite an experience. Yeah, my German listeners are are nodding along and go yes. Absolutely, that's the part of that's the part of German culture.

Don't nobody tell you about why the nerds was Google stepping, you know what I'm saying. Yeah, it was downstairs running just hit and get bumps and rails. I actually think the club is made out of an old bomb shelter. But don't don't quote me. I don't quote you. So yeah, cocaine, you know, mixed opinions. Good. Well, Uh, I'm glad you think that, because we're gonna talk about I ran contra

and yes, which ends with uh. That's the hard part with with with with with Sometimes with the bastards thing is like trying to figure out one who the bastard is and uh and where to start the story, but we definitely know that this ends with the loss of Whitney Houston. This ends with, yeah, the destruction of South Central and New York and the total flooding of our prisons, So we know that it ends there, and it's it's kind of rank and I think this is probably how

we wind up having the episodes released. I Ran contrast kind of the middle of the story, right, because you have this period where the CIA is fucking around with some of the ideas that get turned into a Rand contra that honestly some of them start like thirty or forty years before this we'll talk about but yeah, this is kind of this is the middle, and it's it's the middle. So normally, I think, like it was difficult when I was plotting out my episodes because it doesn't

connect to directly to the crack trade. Or it does, but but it's hard to understand why it connects to it if you don't have the first and the end parts of it. But also, a Ran contra is a fucking crazy story on its own, and you have to tell it like that. So I think what we're doing is smart. People will get the full context. But yeah, let's let's dive in. I can't wait to talk about

my boy all the North. Oh man, we got something future bastard star so look so yeah so yeah, so crack attack this this this story what eventually cocaine Crack Cocaine, I ran contra all this stuff that he's talking about, Oliver North. It's almost like the at least for a hook politics, or for any sort of still living black or brown person that didn't necessarily live through like Jim Crow era or civil rights movement if you're somehow younger

than that. This is sort of like this is the backdrop that we all kind of underst and it basically laid the playground the map for almost everything we talk about.

For a number of reasons. It's almost like it's almost like how like in Game of Thrones, you've just accepted that there are dragons in their world, like you know what I'm saying, or you just or like like in Lord of the Rings, like Middle Earth is just the planet and there are things that like you know, the characters aren't necessarily pointing at, going oh yeah, yeah, there's such things as hobbits, you know what I'm saying, and you know, and orcs are because of Saramon and there

was actually an ancient history. Like this is just the map. So if for you to understand a lot of gang violence, crips, bloods, all this stuff in the inner city, like this is part of the map that's necessary. But what's so crazy about it is is how it's connected to geopolitics. But like like Roberts trying to lay out with y'all, is where do you start this story? Do you start it with World War two? Do you start it with the

Monroe doctor? Do you started with McCarthy? Is? Um, you know what I'm saying because all of this stuff, the reason why I ran contract had to happen is because of these other contexts. Right, So let's go ahead and dive in. You know, yes, yes, so uh, you know you're coming out of World War two starting the Cold War? Uh. And this might be reviewed for everybody, but you know, the Cold War was ultimately a war of ideas, Like whose idea gets to run the block? Right? Um, who's

gonna run the world? Whether it's you know, liberal democracies or communist socialist regimes, cripts, bloods, vice lords, nor Daniel Sennos, It don't make no difference. If you just live here. You know what I'm saying, y'all all gangsters, It don't make no difference, y'all just trying to run whatever turf

you have. And at the end of the day for us as like regular civilians, just like just like in the uds, like you really you repping where your mam would pay a rent, Like I didn't choose this neighborhood. We just happen to live here, you know what I'm saying. And if that's the case, right, if you running this blog, the last thing you want is the enemy to be able to set up too close to home, right, that's

the last thing you want. So the way that like yeah, you see, you see versions by the way of this logic, and like why Russia did what they did in Ukraine, right exactly this whole idea that you don't want the Yeah, you don't want the enemy setting up like and it's funked up what they're doing in Ukraine and what we're about to talk about the the same. It's that's the

whole thing about Like we can't have y'all join NATO. Yeah, you know what I'm saying, because that's the enemy, Like y'all can't be clicked up with these people literally right next door. You can't have that, which was ultimately what happened through the sixties, seventies, and eighties and central in South America. America was like, we can't be having no Communists on our soil. Yeah, you know what I'm saying.

That's too close to home now, granted, And it's so crazy because if you, if you, if you, you know, knowing your stories, doing your Cold War history, if you talk to Korean War, you know, Vietnam War, we was cool with like compromise. We was cool with like going places as long as it was over there. You know I'm saying right, because you know North Korea, South Korea, that was an agreement. It was like, okay, cool, y'all can have North, will take South. You know what I mean,

y'all support them. We'll see who the prophet is, We'll see how everything works out. And then but if full start feeling froggy, you know what I'm saying, then we're gonna come wrap our turf, right, which is the proxy wars of that time. But uh, at the end of the day, a lot of this situation stems from the idea of I just want to be the biggest dog on the blog. And I can't be letting nobody come into our turf, right, And these two operations I ran

in contra ultimately was actually a very brilliant hustle. But if you speaking in like criminal sense, it's pretty brilliant. But it should have landed Ronald Reagan and Georgia. But Senior in jail of other people did it? Yeah, a lot of people should have went to jail. Ye. So so look, so let's start, and this is the middle of the story. So let's start in the middle of the middle. Let's just get real weird here, get all Tarantino on this mud. So I'm gonna start at October five.

There's so there's this cargo plane, a Soviet bought plane with Soviet made a K forty seven's and mad weapons, flying over the Jungles and Nicarapola. And the plane had no plans on landing. It was just gonna drop its cargo and fly on off. And the guy that was flying it, um, we'll get to his name later because it's it's the most just white bread American name ever. Right, So he's flying over and he's about to drop these

weapons over this, uh, this jungle in Nicaragua. And there was a young man named Jose Alaman who sees him in the sky, reads the lick, and he like, you ain't supposed to be over here, shoots the plane down just from nick jungle. Probably shouldn't have done that. This might not well for anybody. Yes, shoots the planes down. Now the question is who is Jose rapping. Jose's repping the Sandinistas. Now. The Sandinisis are a socialist party in

Nicaragua who overthrew a dictatorship in nineteen seventy nine. Why this was such an issue was because this dictatorship was really cool with the US Reagan and them like really clicked with him. It was it was everything worked out. You did Joe part I did mine. Everything was cool. They were super supportive like that dude. But then the Sandinistas came in, over threw this dude, and San Denisa's crime,

as far as America's concerned, is day socialists. And that's too close, you too close, you too close to ourhood. You can't be doing those socialist stuff over here, right, So the Sandinistas were the ones that shot this fool down, right. So the fool gets shot down. Uh, Jose Alaman turns him into his big homies, the big homies. The Sandinistas put this fool on TV right after he gets set down. So they put this fool on TV in Nicaragua, and they was like all right, hey, yo, gonna say y

I'm you know what I mean? Like, what's your name? Tell the folk's your name? He was like, gene hass And Foss. That's not a real name. Boy day was gene Hassen Foss. That's not a real name. Crop with me. They was like, like, like where you from? He was like Wisconsin. Like mother hassing Foss from Wisconsin was getting the fun out of there. You're not supposed to be in Nicara. Well what do you do? Was flying a

plane for the cargo weapons over a jungle Nicaragua. They was like, uh so, why don't you tell the people why are you here? Gene Hassa Foss from Wisconsin goes, well, the CIA told me to come here and drop off these weapons for the contrast. He just tells him exactly why you're right now. Your next question should be, uh,

who are the contrast now? If you are around my age? Uh, the first time you ever heard of the term contrast was a video game where you was gonna ep up left left, up, up, down down left right left right b A B A select start. Remember this, Robert, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I's tell you get thirty men on the Contra game. Who knew that Contra was that? I have that tattooed and a part of my body I can't talk about on the on the go. It was a really important

moment in history. It's like you learned how to hack a game like three men. Any Way, So the Contras were the group of people who were trying to overthrow the Sandinistas. They were a pro democracy, anti socialists, rebels, right, So so this they where they build themselves as pro democracy.

Let's let's say the story. Yeah, yeah, that's that's the claim they're making at this point in the story that even though the Sandinistas have overthrown a dictatorship and the government they put in place is going to have some problems too, but the fucking Contra is a big part of what they're doing. Is like, well, let's go back to the way things were they when we had that dictator. Because the dictator it was one of those dictator where you've got elections but they're not real. You all know

the story. Yeah, it's it's kind of like, Okay, so you're having problems at school, right with with some some dudes, right, and you go ask the last person you should go ask, like, you know, your cousin Mark. You know what I'm saying, Your cousin Marks, like, are you need help? We'll get your help. Yeah, do you hope to say? Here? But it's like is this help? Is this juice worth the squeeze? Right? Your cousin Mark is saying, Hey, I'm just doing this

because I'm your cousin. Man. I love y'all said everything straight. Now, Cousin Mark is not necessarily the person you should be clicking with. So anyway, Cousin Mark maybe expected Cousin Mark maybe come back for a favor later. You know what I'm saying. There's some phone calls you don't make because they're gonna cost more than they're giving you. Right. Yeah. So anyway, so they put the boy on on TV. He was like, Yo, the c I A uh told

me to drop this stuff off. Now. I don't know how familiar you are with civics laws or anything like that, but that's pretty illegal. You can't just be you can't just be dropping off weapons in a country like that. Right. Uh so so wants to say, Ninisa's put this man on TV for everybody to see. They like, all right, America, you got something to say. Look, here go your boy. Right. So the US Secretary of State a man named George Saltz, who we will talk about a lot later. Oh boy,

yes we will, board member George. Don't you dare forget it? Yes, this man comes to the podium and it's like, I'm sorry for that man, but I don't know who he is he was. It was like, uh, first of all, if if a government official, this is any government comes up after something like this happens and says we don't know who that if they specifically go up to say we don't know that man, that's their man. That that's the way that all we know it. Right, Yeah, come on, man,

that's their guy. That's the boy. Yeah, he was like that man a list? Did he have no military idea on him? Was he part of the CIA? That's a private citizen. That man decided on his own and he's a free will to have military grade weapons that he could fly over a country on a plane among us not inspired. Yes, of course that's a lie, right, But the NSC, which we will again talk about later, had a code name called Project Democracy, which is what was

actually happening at that moment. And the leader and again that we mentioned before, future pod star Oliver north Um, knows that this is all CAPP and he's actually in charge with all of this, and that is absolutely our guns, that's absolutely our money, and that's absolutely what's happening. We was giving weapons to the contract. Yeah, we got to back up to figure out how we got there. So let's introduce some players here. Uh, you know Robert Bud McFarland.

You heard it his dude, Oh yes, yes, Robert Bud McFarland. He's the the NSC chair. He's the NSC chair. Yeah. He used to work for Kissinger and Nixon and was like totally admired them. And he is a he is a when we talk about cold warriors, this man is a hard core cold warrior. A you like, whatever you have to do to stop the spread of communism is justified kind of guy. Not a dude does not give a shit about elections. You've given how you get it? How you we out here. Yeah, And McFarland is also

one of the things that's interesting about him. He is the guy, the first guy to centralize UM U S intelligence like information UH to like through a computer system effectively, Like they have this system of terminals UM in the White House, and I believe also in the Pentagon that every all UH like basically all intelligence from every agency is getting routed through And he's the first guy who

does that. And when he centralizes the flow of that information, he's also centralizing power for U S intelligence operations in the NSC in a way that it hadn't been for a while. And and yeah, and it's partially because of this debacle. Yeah, it was like exactly what the left hand doesn't know what the right is doing. Right, And they're not, by the by the way, because we're so used to these people lying all the time. When like guys like Schultz get up and say, well, I don't

we don't know that guy, they're not always lying. You're not always lying that they don't know that guy, because that's a smart way to do it, right, if you're the CIA or whatever, you don't necessarily want the fucking UH sect deaf or the chief of staff the NSC had to know what all your guys are doing. It's better if they can honestly be like, yeah, I don't know. And you also, we'll talk about this more in my episodes.

There's guys in the CIA who can honestly say, no, we were not doing this because in there, from what they know, they don't know that that's going on. Because all of these people are lying to everyone, including each other. That's the way that the intelligence industry works exactly. Yeah, and it's yeah, it's plausible deniability. And listen, how I survived living in the cities I've lived in was that was like, don't tell me. I don't know, so I don't want to know. Don't tell me, Like I don't

know how this food got here. I don't know how you paid for that. I don't know why that like, I don't know. You know what I'm saying, So when you ask, it's an honest truth. I don't know who that is. I never met that man. Yes, so who Actually another a little tidbit about Bud McFarland actually took his own life later on. Good for him. I mean, I don't know how is he was gonna get out of it it is critical support. Yeah. So but let's back up even from this point. So we got Robert McFarland

or Bud McFarland as he's called. Uh. And you got Ronald Reagan, you Oliver North, you got George was Senior. But let's go back to October three in Beyrout, Okay. And on this day, there's this marine barrack that's in the middle of Lebanon right in bay that's just kind of posted up to air quotes keep the Peace during the Lebanese series Civil War. And it does a great job of that. It does a great job. Yeah, yeah, because by Routes, you know, since we got there, never

had any problems. You know, it was fine, right, doing great. Today it's doing great, you know. And as a side note with this story, I uh, man, I'm so off the rails, but I think this is what I love about this show. So it's speaking of how well they've done it keeping peace in Beyroute. I remember I was at this event up in the Colorado Mountains like this, Like I was performing for these freakishly wealthy people. It

was a dope thing. It was like entrepreneurship for good like, so these people are not like annoying wealthy, they're just like wealthy wealthy, you know what I'm saying, like kind of like the like oh you still work for money kind of wealthy like that, that type of wealthy. Right.

So we were talking about I think it was like either right before the pandemic, so it was like early um and we were talking about what was happening on the Syrian Iraq border with the Kurds and you know, and just like some stuff was going on and I was like, dang, that's crazy. And then it was this one lady was like, wait, what are you talking about? And she was clearly Arab. She's like, what are you talking about? And I was like, well, dang, like you know,

what's what's happening in Syrian around border? And she was like what, I haven't heard of that? And I was like in my head, I completely judged her. And I was like, see, you know what wealth, when you just get rich man, you just like you just you just don't never know what else is going on. And she was like, oh no, I don't think you understand. I'm from bay Rout. She was like there's always this. We've we've been in Civil War my whole and it's always

like this. So I thought this was something that just wasn't what it always was. And I definitely got corrected because I was like, man, I judged this lady. She didn't live through some of the worst, the worst. It's another fucking fight on the block for her, And like the knacks are different, It's another fight on the goddamn block. Right, it's East el A shooting out, shooting out, fireworks. It's like,

that's just I don't even noticed anymore. So but during this time, uh, one day, early in the morning, truck comes barreling through their gates, boom, crashes into their barrack, pounds of T n T blows the whole ship up, at least two people dead. Right, total asymmetrical warfare, something that like America hadn't seen before uh at the time, right, And it was clearly obvious who did it. It was like the most the worst kept secret in the world.

Hes blood, they hiding right there in that valley data ones who did this, right and asymmetrical warfare For everybody who doesn't understand it's it's it's a very simple situation that like all of us in our lives have had to do this at some point where you have somebody that's just towering bigger than you, it's ridiculous to try to square up with them. Yeah, you're not gonna You're not Hesbah is not gonna like take on a couple

of hundred marines fully suited up with air support. But if you m a fucking bomb under the erics, you can achieve the same ends. If you works pretty well, it works pretty well. Listen, if you were to mouth off so bad and it would never happen. But if you were a mouth off so bad to Sophie, and Sophie decided, Okay, you know what, I'm gonna have to fund this dude up right, which would never happen. But Sophie,

I would not tell I would. My suggestion to you would be, you need to bite, you need to kick, you need to grab bats. There is no such thing as playing fair. He is twice show size. This is asymmetrical. You do what you gotta do. You know what I'm saying again, this would never happen. This is why Sophie keeps that ryder truck packed full of explosives outside of

my house just in case, Just in case, that's right. Yeah, so I also do have a lot of United States Marines quartered in my home right on the other side of that screen, one of them just like bro uh so so yeah, so blew it up, did this and like we said, Bud McFarland, former Marine super Cold Warrior, is like, uh, we can't let this ride. Well and fucking Reagan. So Reagan has just come to office after pushing Carter out, and the thing he runs on is all of these guys got captured in Iran and Carter

couldn't get him out, right, they had you attempt. He's weak. He's made America Week on the national stage, and I'm gonna I'm gonna make sure that Americans are protected overseas. Right, this is a huge deal. And this is not the only thing that Reagan's dealing with. There's like an unprecedented surgeon attacks on US embassies when Reagan is in office,

I think more than under any other president. Like it's going like this is a real problem for him because he's he's staring at re election and this is like fucking It's not a nine eleven level thing, but for people of that era, it was like pretty close. This is like a huge fucking deal. This was absurd. Yeah, like that because because it was so, it was more like the disrespect, like this is the audacity dog like

y'all don't no one respects your gangster no more. Right, So, like you said, Bug mcfar in, George Schultz, we talked about before. They all agree, They're like, man, we can't let this, we can't let this ride. But there was some dissenting voices. Defense Secretary Casper Weinberger, Right, he was like, listen, y'all got a reasonable man in the administer the most reason. He was like, listen, y'all gotta chi do y'all remember Vietnam? Like do you like, do you really think America is

gonna let us go fight somebody else's war again? Like I don't remember this ship went Vietnam, which has been over for like ten years at this point. Yeah, like it's very recent. You'll remember these boys. They was like burning there was burning a draft cards like it was a thing. Like, honestly, it's about as far it's about for them. It's about the end of Vietnam is about as far as the end of Like um, the US occupation of Iraq on a big scalect isn't there, Just

like it's really really recent for them. Yeah. So they're like listen, Dog, like, you can't just we just can't do this without the public support. Right. So oh, Ronnie is like, all right, I feel you. Uh, maybe we should just bounce in. But Bud is like, listen, if we bitch out, it's gonna happen again. Right, we cannot bitch out like this. Uh. And so Bud continues to stay in Reagan's ear and he's like, listen, I'm trying to tell you we can't we we can't do this.

But Ronnie's like, nah, they right, I'm up for reelection, like you said, like, let's go ahead and fall back, right, So why they So they fall back, right, but when America falls back, we don't really fall back, you know what I'm saying. Like, so we may have removed the Marines, but the c I a state because remember we still had hostages out there, right, we still had hostages in Iran and that were held by hesblah and hesblah. Again. Worst kept secret is totally supported by the Irani government.

I had totally holmany right, Like it's just like it's not a secret it's out in the open secret ye like to day, like heah is is armed to a significant extent and often functions is like an extension of the Iranian military. It's a whole it's a whole thing, right, it's a whole them are we all got our proxies um, which doesn't mean that they're also like that there aren't conflicts between like hesblah and the Iranian government because like

none of these are. The fact that someone's a proxy doesn't mean that like they don't have their own ship that they're doing the world is the world anyway? Whatever? Yeah, they still and it's all it's worth note. One of

the fun things. There's a really wonderful book called Landslide by my probably favorite journalist who writes books, Jane Mayer, about the Reagan administration in this period, and one of the things she'll point out is that, like, especially once you hit like three four five, Reagan is starting to have the early effects of Alzheimer's. And he's also just because of his he's kind of his personality. He's kind of this like amiable like man and not a very

intellectual guy. And so one of the things he's known for by the people that he brings into his white house. Is that like the most important thing is to kind of be the last guy talking to him, because often

do so. There are conflicts between McFarlane and Weinberger and Schultz where they're all like just like primarily the thing they're doing is like scheming to get the most time in their schedules sitting and having like five minute meetings with Ronnie because the more of those you can pack in, the better you can do of like getting it into his little brain whatever it is you want him to do. Like McFarland's calling him on the phone when he's not

supposed to be calling him on the phone. It's very funny, dude, It's so funny. I got some of those stories in my script here. We're just they they're doing exactly that, Like, uh, do you talk to me? You know I'm about to talk to right now, you know, because you know I'm gonna'm gonna get it. I'm gonna get in there. Yeah yeah, yeah, no, I'll send a note right now. Yeah. It's because you want to be the last dude to give him the idea.

So yeah, so they're like, yo, if we bitch up, you know what I'm saying, it's just like the shut the funk up, you ain't gonna do ship. Like if we don't do ship, they don't do it again. Right, And five months later they absolutely did it again. So in March of eighty four, there was a marine named William Casey and was a Casey. Yeah, you know, William Buckley. My fault. Sorry, Casey is the the he's the head of CIA, William Buckley. So, William, but there's a lot

of these fucking guys, a lot of dudes. It's hard to keep them together. But yeah, So William Buckley was one of the CIA agents that stayed back after Air Quotes America left and it was his job to work with the special the Special Forces of Israel to try to go get our hostages from Hesbllah out of Iran. Right, So that was his role, right, and then one day, right, And it's the specifics of this is what makes it

so beautiful. Everybody knows, or everybody should know. Like, if you a spot, you probably shouldn't drive your own car to work, you know what I'm saying, You should probably like, you know, spend the block a couple of times, like figure out other ways to go. You know what I'm saying, you know, need to notice is a fucking bike. Yes, yes, you should know that the streets is watching. You should just know right well, the streets was watching this fool train.

You know. Everybody has off days, messed around and on his way to work. The day that they was gonna go run, they sting operation to get their folks out that day. He gets captured. Rights, but it captures that fool that day. Put the homie on camera, sends it now to William Casey, the head of c i A, and he like, what now, homie, what y'all gonna do? Right? You know what I'm saying, y'all need to y'all need

to go head on home, you know. And the CIA sees it, sends it to Old Ronnie and Bud McFarland is, like I told Joe, asked, this is what was gonna happen, right, We need to figure out what the funk to do, you know, and they have this idea. Bud McFarland actually has the idea. Bud goes, Okay, listen, there's nowhere in the world. Everybody in Iran fuck with the Ayatollah and there's no way they have to have enemies out there, right, So if that's the case, what if we just tap

in with those people? Right? And while no one can agree on what to do, a year past, six more people get kidnapped, right while they trying to figure out what the hell to do? Mad people are getting kidnapped. Right, No one can figure out what to do. So so

they're like, Okay, well we gotta we gotta figure out something. Right, Maybe there's somebody out there, like they said, that doesn't really mess with them, right, So this food but in July gets a call from one of his homies, one of his homies that that is like tapped in in Israel. This guy named who is probably my favorite character in this story, good Boni far right, my favorite character. He is such a beautiful con man and he has the

United Yeah, I'm so excited for this. Yes, oh so yeah, so good Bota fart of me is like did you see that did y'all see that Denzel Washington movie where he was a pilot and he was always an alcoholic

and connected John Goodman, John Goodman so good in that movie. Yes, the movie itself kind of but Midman as as a drug dealer, Oh my gosh right or take so take that image and and compare it and connected to the image of Adam Sandler in that Jeweler movie where you're just like just jumpy and like just like always got us to grows weirdo. Yeah. Yeah, but somehow, obviously it's been able to deliver you know what I'm saying, by the skin of his teeth. Again, that's a call you

don't want to make unless you actually have to make it. Right. So he was like, Yo, I heard about your situation. I gotta connect from some people out there in Iran that don't really mess with Hornanian them. So I kind of feel like there's a way we could get your hostages. I found them that said, Yo, we we mess with y'all. We're gonna get you all hostages, but we're gonna need something in return. Yeah, and Robert wants tell them what they need in return. Well, you know, so they're around

is fighting. There's this whole war with the Rock and it's not going great. Um, it's it's not going It's actually the most similar war to the Irana Rock Wars probably what's going on in Ukraine right now. Um and Iran. You know, they get invaded, and they're on their back foot for a while, but they start pushing the Iraqis back with these human wave attacks and so then there's this reverse in the war. But they can't really break all the way through the Iraqi lines because Iraq has

pretty competent tank battalions and so they need. What they're gonna need is fucking anti tank missiles. They're gonna need these like new fucking badass anti tank and anti aircraft missiles, these things called hawks um that can knock Iraqi bombers

out of this guy. Because Iraq is bombing Tehran on a daily basis during the US right right now, we need fucking and when we talk about like missiles, that's the missiles they mean, it's the stuff that we're sending Ukraine right now, right it's man portable anti armor and anti aircraft missiles. We need heaters, We need Blicky's. We need heaters you right, like, because like we got our own situation here, we had no boy scouts fam handling the heaters that like you only get from the United

or the Soviet Union directly, their own versions of this stuff. Exactly, y'all got the good ship. We need the good ship. Right, so they're like, so they have so good Bonnafarre like, look, they got him, but you gotta sell them these weapons, right, And if you're paying attention, which I'm pretty sure you are, that kind of sound like we trade in West weapons

for hostages. It does sound a little bit of sound like that, right, But the boy Bonafar is like, no, no, no, no no no no no no no no no no, no, no no no, that's not what y'all doing. You're not giving weapons. You're not trading weapons for hostages. Fam Listen, it'll work like this, will sell them the weapons, and you just tighten us up on the back end. And not wrong with you selling us weapons. We are homies, like everybody know we sell it. Alleger gonna look the same, bro.

Listen they listen, it ain't gonna be It's no big deal. Gone chill, everybody, relax it, relax, listen, sell sell us the weapons, and that's what the paper will say. And then we listen. It runs our homies. We could do whatever we want with the weapons. You sell them. The Alleger gonna look fine, bro, don't even trip. Nobody will know. Everything cool, Everybody cool, everybody cool. Okay, good, right, So the idea is like it will work, like this is real.

We'll get the weapons, get the missiles, get the hawk things, put the heaters in boxes. Take that cargo plane the Lisbon Portugal. Right, let let it go to Portugal. It'll clear customs, everything's good, get stamps on it. Come out of Lisbon, fly into Tehran where Gabonafar will be there and he'll slang the weapons to the Rani, to the Irani people. It'll look it'll be super perfect. They're gonna get their weapons. They'll go in and they'll give your

hostages and send them hostages home. Um, which is of course, in fact, trading arms for hostages. That's exactly what it is. This is us negotiating with terrorists. But again, go Bonafar is like, what do you mean You're not negotiating with terrorists. We that's what we do with these weapons is our business. And you know again, if you say it like that and you've got somebody as smooth as good Bonafar, you could be like, you know what, anybody you got a

friend that could convince you with anything? Do you got one of them? Oh? Yeah, absolutely, I mean that's yeah, that's why I've done a lot of the cocaine. All the stuff you're talking about, right, is the friend that will convince you of anything, you know what I'm saying. So this is the friend that will convince you of anything. But you should you should know good and well after sitting in the amount of holding tanks you may have set and sat in that maybe I should stop listening

to exactly nothing like the paper. Look, the paper looks fine, right, So they run back, they tell ron They tell Ronnie Ronnie Reagan. Ronnie like, well, shit, I mean run it. I guess you know what I'm saying. Like it seemed good to me. You know what I'm saying. Are we cool? Right? And he like, okay, So covert operation. I don't sound like at least Paperwork is concerned. It don't sound like

we've done nothing wrong. But for this to work, Ronnie has to do run this thing that's called a finding, right, which is a document, a confidential document. It is a directive that says the President finds that this operation is in the best interests of natural security. It's just a

stupid piece of paper. You gotta run it to Congress so that nobody is not in the know, because the last thing the government, like especially elected officials, they never want to seem like they caught off guard that they do a lot of this, like the fact that they have to do all this in order to like legally do something like this is because of the ship the CIA got up to in the fifties and sixties and seventies that like we talk about in the CIA episodes

where all of that those governments they overthrew the ship that goes on in Argentina and guatemal Like that's results in a bunch of committees because people find out about it and they're like, are you guys just like destroying countries without waking anyone? Wait? We did? What what you know? Oh man? How many dogs? Just think about your parents opening a door, which and you and a cop are standing on your ports and they like, what dides little

food do get in the house? You know what I'm saying. Yeah, that's both why a lot of this starts with the NSC and not the CIA. You know, they're involved, but it's it's McFarland who's driving a lot of what happens. And it's also why there's the guy who's in charge of the CIA, Bill Casey, his whole motivation, he was like a heart. He was like a fucking boots on the ground spook in World War two, like like doing

some like gnarly body shit. Um. And his whole motivation in life is to get back to when the CIA gets to do that kind of stuff again. Right, So, like anyway, that's imagine that being much more fun when you just didn't have to like tell anybody what you're doing, and you could just overthrow governments and and Bill bill Casey is reading about him is fun, but in like a my like like in an L. Ron Hubbard way, like how did he get away with all this? You did? What? Yeah?

So Schultz and why Burger are like, okay, this is a huge mistake. But you know, Bud, I Ronnie's ear. I guess we're doing this now, answered his man named Don Rique, who's the presidential chief of staff. Right, but by the way, let's all deal with the elephant in the room. Ronald Reagan's uh chief of staff was Donald Reagan. That's just okay, let's let's just we just sit with that for just a second, sit with it, alright. I can't make this ship up like this is like, yeah,

it's we're in a simulation. Like that makes you feel like we're in a simulation. You can't let that happen, Ronald. But of course, of course whatever. But I mean he's an absolute dick hole. Like, well, we'll talk about him. He's such a hole, all of these guys. Yes. Uh. There was even a moment where this fool like tries to get but like like dragged in public while he tells the he tells the press that this fool was cheating on his wife. He just just messy, just making

up ship. So anyway, while all this ship is going down August three, Um, Ronnie tells this fool, Okay, everybody on the ground, Okay, it's on. Let's do this thing right, tap in with Israel. Let's tap in with the Israel at least, let's get this thing cracking right. So is like, all right, let's make it happen. Let's do what we gotta do. Um, Let's make sure everything run. So the thing starts running and run. Then things starts running, and then they put Oliver north Is where he starts in place.

So Oliver Morth is the guy that's like, all right, hey, can you oversee all this ship right now, everybody knows, well not everybody knows. That's the hard part. Nobody knows except for the CIA that you can't trust gabon Afar. Matter of fact, this nig a blacklisted like like he already, but don't tell nobody. Yeah, while the while everyone else in the intelligence apparatus is like setting up a heat, like pinning all of their hopes and dreams on this

man case. He's got like this list of times Gabona Farre has fucked us over and then he's just like not sharing what you like. The Reagan administration is if you could just like turn your soul off for a little while and not think about all the people who die, it's extremely funny. It's hilarious, yes, because I'm like, fam

you okay, you're seeing all this happening. You're seeing artists and you notice fool shady and you ain't saying nothing like you're not a friend, you're not a team player, Like how is you like like bro speak up right? So anyway, there's this motivation people have lately to talk about how like, well, you know, the government when you get right down to it politics, all these guys it's the same as like what gangs do. Um, they're just

wearing suits. They're just gang bangers and suits. But I might argue, if you're a gang banger, you have to be a lot smarter because these guys are sloppy as person. So fast if you were like, these guys are the messiest people. If if this situation happened on the streets and you was part of the set and you knew this full with shady, you would get you would get what's called DP, which is disciplined. You know what I'm saying,

which means we've beena beat your ass. You know I'm saying, because like you bust all in danger and you knew better, Like speak up, you know what I'm saying. Like you, like you won't get it, You're gonna get it bad. So so it starts getting cracking, right. Uh. First shipment goes in. It's kind of weird, you know, like I said, it kind of worked, went off to Lisbon. Uh, you know, goes off to Lisbon. Uh comes back down. They get the thing they're so supposed to be, the plan was

supposed to be. Once you get your first shipment, you need to send us Uh William Buckley, send our guy, right, and this is like gnarly for because they've got pictures of Buckley, you know, they think he's being tortured. I think it turns out that he was just like got sick and was not treated properly. So that's what they said. They was like, they was like, so once the thing works, it was like, uh okay, so we got this thing,

here's the arms dealer, let's send it off. And Iran was like once they got their shipment, Iran was like, uh ay, he too sick to travel. We can't send him. And you wait, wait wait, wait, wait, wait wait wait you got your weapons though, like we paid, were just sitting you a lot of weapons. We need our dude. And they're like, oh man, sorry, fam. You send the next one though, Send the next order and we should be cool. Right now. Anybody's antennas should come up here, right,

you understand what I'm saying. But since these fools are bad at being gangsters, they send the next shipment. But the next shipment goes wrong. Right, you were supposed to send five hundred uh Hawk missiles, right, there's they're supposed to send five hundred Hawk missiles. They only got a hunted right, and they was like, I don't understand what's going on. Did Israel, you know, change the price like

something's not Like the ledgers aren't working. Be Remember there's so many middlemen, it's hard to figure out what's going on. Then then there's another ship mint right in November, and when this ship man happens, it gets sent back. It goes So when this one's happening, it's supposed to go to Lisbon. Lisbon doesn't clear the customs, right, so the ship gets sent back. Oh wait, I'm skipping apart. I forgot this. This actually parts even more crazy. When the

second shipment comes to Iran. When it gets there, it's got is rarely tags on it. It's stand through the Star of David. Because remember how the lick was supposed to work. The stuff was supposed to actually be American missiles. You're supposed to go into there, and then we were pretending like we were selling Israeli missiles to them, but they were really American missiles because that's what it Ran

asked for. It Ran asked for American missiles. But if they come in there and they got to start David on it, Iran like, are you working with us? I didn't ask for y'all's missiles. We asked for American missiles. This ship don't look right, you know what I'm saying. I don't understand what's going on, but we're not giving y'all nobody till we figured this ship out. Right in America is still like, oh my god, we're still We're still. Somebody's gonna find out what the funk we're doing. We

have to get this thing working right. We've given them so many missiles. If we don't get anybody at all, it's worse than if we just give them more missiles until we get people. Yes, exactly, so they and it's like you just still paint it beautiful. Sunk costs follas like FAM. You're like if like any friend would tell you, my g you're getting extorted. You understand I'm saying, like you're getting you're getting sucked out this mug by everybody.

You understand what I'm saying. Like if I was you, I wouldn't even try to figure out who's at fault. It's just it's time to pull out FAM. Right, So the one shipment gets sent back to Israel like it doesn't clear customs. And remember, Israel ain't supposed to have these weapons. This weapons that are on this freight train ain't supposed to exist. But now Oliver North need help because we gotta get these weapons out of customs without nobody knowing, right. So who does he call? This food

calls the c I A, yeah, there you go. I mean, like, what am I supposed to do? Right? So Bill Casey, who running the CIA, knew the whole time, this dude with shady right new the whole time you were supposed to get clearance, right new, the whole time that none of this it was supposed to happen. The CIA wasn't even supposed to be involved in none of this stuff because you ain't setting no papers in. But now I gotta come say, he like, why you bring y'all messy?

Why you bring me into this? Right? But he's got to do it. So he's got to pretend like, uh, Reagan signed something maybe, and then he goes to get Then he goes to to Reagan and he tries to get a retroactive finding so like on some post data checks type ship, like just just backdate this thing, right, turn it in, but just back dated, so everything will be cool. He gets him to do it right, But

this whole time, I ran got the tenters up. I ran, like, this is something y'all trying to We think Israel trying to play us. Right now, if you America and you're dealing with people this volatile, you kind of want them to think that it's not you. You know what I'm saying, Like it works better in your favor for for Iran to think Israel to shady ones. Yeah what I'm saying, because because if not, they're gonna shoot up our people. Well, and it looks better for everybody if it's if it's

going through the Israelis, it looks better for everybody. We can always blame them. Uh, Everything's like the Israelis want to be in this because they have a vested interest in Iran getting better weapons. Because while Iran and Israel like do all this very public fighting, Israel actually over the years has kicked around a lot of weapons because Iran is also the ancestral enemy of Iraq, and Iraq they considered for a long time to be much more of a threat to Israel. So anyway, yeah, so true.

So Iran thinks Israel's playing them for us as cool. So you and I'm mad at us, You're mad at them. So the question is do you do you kill the deal like you said the sunken cost you killed a deal? Or do you keep trying to get your people back? And at this point, it's Israel that looked like they messed up, not us. However, it's probably this fool who we can't figure out, this fool Gabana farre right, who

is so far he just been in the wind. He'd been casting checks and been like, well, I don't know what to say, like I've I've done what we need to do. So so so the American team, Oliver North and them run back. They tell Ronnie like, okay, look, here's here's the situation. What do you want to do. Ronnie, being as smooth as he is, remember he's not smarty smooth, Ronnie is like, okay, listen, I could probably explain away the legalities of us doing this if we get caught,

I could probably finesse this right. But what I probably can't finesse is letting six or seven hostages die in the hands of Iran because I couldn't get them out. Yeah, but He's like, okay, um, but you're right, dog, like this ship and working. Let's go go tell Gavanafar it's off right. So Bud McFarlane and Oliver North they fly to the UK to meet with Kabana farre Um and they like, look, dog, she ain't working. I don't know what you're doing. They're not getting their weapons. The numbers

is getting messed up. Now. Lis been asking questions like we're we just need to end this ship, right, Gabonafarre like, um, okay, listen, fam, I don't think you know who you're dealing with. Like you can't just end to deal with these people. Yeah, like this just you You didn't. You didn't, you didn't tangled with the wrong folk. And besides, we're good. I got this because you gotta remember how Bonafar un. You're like, look, man, listen, y'all.

Just just chill, man, just chill. You're acting all froggy man, you're acting all jumpy man. Act like you're like, act like you belong somewhere. Will be all right, homie. You can't just back out with these people. Their killers And I've been dealing with killers for a while, so we all right. So Oliver North is like, look, man, he probably right we did. There's no Uh, I don't know what else we could do. Homie like, I don't know how we could do this. Um, and if Reagan is

still down, I think we should do this. But Reagan ain't ain't ain't reveal his card yet, right, So there's there's some other cards going on, and Bud it's like, look, man, I can't. I can't work like this. I'm about to roll out. But but Oliver North has an idea, you know, two two purple heart Vietnam head ass has an idea, right, But we'll get to that idea later. But now we're gonna have to start the other thread. But before we do that, let's uh do what do you guys? What

do you call these plug doubles? That's what you call them? Yeah? Um, oh gosh, Well let me tell you about where I can be plugged. Um. I wrote a book called After the Revolution. You can find it on bookseller dot org or whatever. You can find it on Amazon dot com. You can find it on the A K Press website at just googling a K Press After the Revolution. Uh, please buy it and read it. Uh. Many people have

and they seem to enjoy it. That's it. That's the only thing I've ever done that in award winning pods, I've never I have not won an award. No, nobody, nobody's given me an award. I mean either, Um, you deserve an award. I'll give you an award. Yeah, I'll give you. I mean I've won an award. Yes, you have whatever. Yeah, Sophie has won an award. Prop and I, You and I are going to have to do some asymmetric warfare. Now get that fucking trophy, you and Loft.

It's a running away with it. Man. It's definitely changed us. We're definitely people with you and they one. You know what I'm saying, I have I'm gonna be honest with you. Never been this angry um, not so high and above us. That's your new name now, Jamie, You and you and me proper. We gotta do some some Bill Casey, some McFarland, some fucking Ali North Ship. We gotta roll on this. Yes, yeah, get those goddamn trophies anyway. She all right, all right,

I don't know which, I don't know which. The music is rolling in right now, but that's don't the Batman. Let's do the Batman theme music. Okay, leader, all right, all right, that's part one by