Drug Trafficking and Murder In the Special Forces (w/ Seth Harp) |
The Chris Hedges YouTube Channel
348,852 views Oct 16, 2025 The Chris Hedges Report
Seth Harp chronicles how Special Forces atrocities abroad fuel a cycle of crime and violence that starts overseas and makes it way back home — especially in and around the secretive Fort Bragg military base.
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(0:00) Intro
(2:49) What is Delta Force?
(4:20) Counterproductive Special ops
(6:40) F3EAD intelligence
(7:48) Billy Lavigne’s violence
(12:37) Drug use
(15:58) Patriots vs. degens
(17:01) Waco cult shooting
(20:44) Ali Mohammed
(25:14) Military psy-ops
(28:26) Turbocharging special ops
(32:50) Indiscriminate killings / low quality intel
(35:26) The US funded the largest cartel in the world
(43:06) Michael Hastings’ mysterious death
(46:12) Lavigne’s death
(49:53) Los Zetas
(53:48) The Return of Fort Bragg
(59:46) Outro
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세스 하프(Seth Harp)의 저서 <포트 브래그 카르텔>(The Fort Bragg Cartel)을 다룬 대담 영상에 대한 요약과 평론입니다
<요약>
<미 특수부대의 괴물화와 비밀 작전의 실체>
델타포스와 그린베레 등 약 7만 명 규모의 특수작전부대는 의회와 대중의 감시 및 책임에서 완전히 배제된 채 테러와의 전쟁 과정에서 사실상 하이테크 암살단(Death Squad)으로 전락했다
. 아프가니스탄과 이라크에서 부정확한 첩보와 통신 감청에 의존한 야간 급습 및 무차별 사살이 횡행했으며, 이는 현지 저항 세력을 약화하기는커녕 탈레반과 반군 세력을 결집시키는 역효과만 낳았다
.
<약물 남용과 군 내부의 방조>
작전 지속성과 수면 부족을 견디기 위해 군 차원에서 덱스트로암페타민(애더럴)을 정기적으로 처방했다
. 이는 군인들의 공격성을 자극하고 공감 능력을 거세하는 기제로 작용했다 . 빌리 라빈(Billy Lavigne) 등 부대원 다수는 군의 각성제 처방을 시작으로 코카인, 헤로인, 필로폰 등 극단적인 마약 중독으로 빠져들었으며, 극도의 아드레날린 중독과 트라우마를 마약과 알코올로 통제하는 환경이 조성되었다
.
<마약 밀매와 범죄 네트워크의 결합>
미국이 지원한 아프가니스탄 괴뢰 정권과 군벌들이 세계 최대 규모의 헤로인 카르텔로 기능하면서, 특수부대 역시 해당 마약 유통 경로와 직접 연루되었다
. 포트 브래그 인근의 민간 비행장(래포드 강하 구역) 등은 1980년대부터 특수부대 군인들의 마약 항공 밀수 거점으로 활용되었다
. 특수전 훈련을 통해 습득한 감시 회피, 공중 강하, 비정규전 기술은 전역자 및 현역 군인들이 멕시코 카르텔(로스 세타스 등)의 고문으로 활동하거나 직접 마약 밀매 조직을 운영하는 범죄 역량으로 전용되었다
.
<국내로 전이된 폭력과 은폐>
해외에서 벌어진 극단적 폭력은 미 본토 기지 주변의 살인, 배우자 살해, 의문의 죽음으로 이어졌다
. 군 지휘부는 명예 실추와 책임 회피를 위해 이러한 범죄를 말라리아 치료제(라리암) 부작용 탓으로 돌리는 등 대언론 심리전을 벌여 은폐하거나 군 사법 체계를 통해 무마했다
. 트럼프 행정부와 헤그세스 국방장관 등은 전쟁 범죄자를 사면하고 기지 이름을 포트 브래그로 환원시키는 등 특수부대 내의 위법성과 폭력 문화를 영웅화·정당화하고 있다
.
<평론>
<제국주의적 개입이 낳은 내부 식민지화와 폭력의 부메랑>
하프가 고발하는 포트 브래그의 현실은 제국주의 군사주의가 외부로 쏟아낸 폭력이 결국 내부로 회귀한다는 역사적 법칙을 적나라하게 보여준다
<훈련된 살인 기술의 범죄 시장화>
국가가 천문학적인 세금을 들여 개발한 침투, 암살, 공중 낙하, 감시 회피 기술이 마약 카르텔의 운영 매뉴얼로 이전되는 과정은 군산복합체와 범죄 지하경제가 구조적으로 결합되어 있음을 드러낸다
<면책특권과 은폐가 완성한 도덕적 파탄>
군 지휘부와 사법 당국은 문제를 정화하기는커녕 대중과 언론을 상대로 심리전을 펼치며 사건을 축소하고 범죄를 은폐하는 데 급급했다
===
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Transcript
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Intro
0:03
[Music]
0:10
The decades of warfare in the Middle East and global war on terror have spawned a vast secret army embodied in
0:17
special operations units such as the Green Beret, Navy Seals, and the shadowy Delta Force. Seth Harp in his book, The
0:25
Fort Bragg Cartel, calls Delta Force, for example, quote, a high-tech death
0:30
squad dedicated to covertly liquidating the male population base of a recalcitrant ethnic and tribal group
0:37
that resists US military occupation. These secret units, whose very existence
0:43
is not officially acknowledged and whose vast budgets are hidden, number some
0:48
70,000. Harp in his book details how these units are beyond scrutiny and
0:53
accountability. How they swiftly went rogue when deployed overseas, murdering and torturing with impunity, as well as
1:00
ingesting and trafficking prodigious quantities of drugs. These elite soldiers returned to the US not only
1:07
with the skill sets of professional killers, but layers of trauma and rage
1:13
that fuel acts of violence, including murder, sometimes of their wives and partners. HARP documents dozens of
1:20
unsolved killings and suicides, some of which appear highly suspicious, in and
1:25
around Fort Bragg, where units such as Delta Force are based. There were 105
1:30
deaths at the base between 2020 and 2021 alone. His book details how military
1:36
alliances with the world's leading drug dealers, especially in Afghanistan, where the US backed puppet state, was
1:43
the world's preeminent heroin cartel, led many in these units, to engage in
1:48
distribution and sale of vast quantities of narcotics up and down the eastern
1:53
seabboard. He chronicles the corruption that came with the deliveries of vast sums of money in shrink wrapped pallets
2:01
to buy allegiances in Afghanistan. deliveries that saw some of these soldiers pill for funds, billions of
2:08
dollars worth, and come home with tens of thousands of dollars taped to their bodies, money often used to jumpstart
2:14
drug dealing. Katherine Lutz in her book Homefront, her 2002 study on Fagatville,
2:20
where Fort Bragg is located, calls the town quoted dumping ground for the problems of the American century of war
2:27
and empire, where the wounds of war have pierced most deeply and are most visible. Along with narcotics, elite
2:34
soldiers sell pilford weapons from military bases on the black market.
2:39
Sales that have amounted to billions in lost dollars. Joining me to discuss his book, The Fort Bragg Cartel and the rise
2:46
of these secret armies is Seth Harp. First of all, it's a great book. It does
What is Delta Force?
2:52
what all great uh it's a very well written. what all great works of non-fiction should do, which is take a
2:59
microcosm and extrapolate outwards to explain uh uh a cultural or social
3:06
millu. I I can't uh praise it enough. Um it's also just a great read. Um so let's
3:14
begin Seth with uh defining for us uh delta force itself um how it was formed.
3:24
is a product of course of the Vietnam War uh and what it does. Thanks Chris. Uh Delta Force is what's
3:31
called a special mission unit um which are secretive and elite um units
3:37
specially drawn from the special uh forces of the army army special forces
3:43
or green berets also the army rangers if you it's open to uh service members from
3:48
all branches but primarily draws from those those army formations. So, it's kind of a higher tier to the special
3:54
forces or the most elite tier of the special forces and it's entirely uh dedicated to covert actions or things
4:02
that uh the government um either will deny uh or will say nothing about their
4:07
own role in. Uh and um as you alluded to earlier, during the wars in Iraq and
4:12
Afghanistan, the the unit effectively functioned um as you know what I
4:18
describe as a as a death squad. Um, and uh,
Counterproductive Special ops
4:26
what what are they? I mean, so I had a had a friend of mine who was a ranger in
4:31
Afghanistan, and they would be based in a certain area. They would build relationships
4:37
with local leaders. Uh, and then suddenly in the middle of the night, one
4:42
of these black ops units would descend and shoot a bunch of people uh, and then disappear. and they would uh bear the
4:50
the brunt of all the understandable rage and anger including the the attacks from
4:56
the Taliban. Uh I mean he saw these forces and I think as you mentioned in
5:01
the book Schwarzkoff did as well as really counterproductive uh to the stated mission of uh those who were
5:10
trying to domesticate Iraq and Afghanistan. Yeah, that's not a common that's not an uncommon sentiment to hear
5:17
from uh either tier 2 special forces or guys in the conventional military, the
5:22
regular army. Um that these units because they're so secretive and siloed
5:27
off because they don't share any of their operational plans with anybody uh and never talk about them afterwards.
5:34
They kind of come in and do their own thing, which typically tends to be, you know, striking a target and leaving
5:39
everyone there dead and the building on fire and then just leaving. And nobody can really explain where uh the intel
5:45
for that operation cames from. Many cases, perhaps as high as uh 50% of the cases, they're hitting targets based on
5:53
faulty intelligence by mistake. So completely unaccountable. And those assassinations
5:59
um were very counterproductive uh in Afghanistan in particular. Um the Afghan client sate that we set up
6:06
as pliable as it was undermed Karzai and later under Ashraf Ghani complained constantly about these night raids. Um
6:14
drone strikes we hear have heard a lot more about there have been more reporting and more books and research
6:20
done on drone strikes. The other component of it was these night rays or these assassination missions um which
6:27
were designed or intended to uh decapitate and incapacitate uh the
6:33
Taliban resistance but of course wholly failed to to to um achieve that mission
6:39
in the end. Well, as you point out in the book, the way they got target lists was often confiscating cell phones under
F3EAD intelligence
6:46
interrogation or from and then just adding the people on the cell phones to the list. Uh, isn't that correct?
6:52
That's correct. And honestly, even if you share um even if you subscribe to the, you know, the policy assumptions
7:00
and are supportive of US foreign policy and support these wars, uh you should still be very concerned about the
7:06
quality of intelligence um which is wholly outside any kind of um review. No
7:12
one really knows exactly how they generate targets uh except we do know that it's highly fallible. So even if
7:18
you support, you know, waging war in Afghanistan for 20 years, um I think should be concerned about the curtain of
7:25
secrecy that's around these units and the fact that often times they themselves really don't know who they're targeting and they're I think highly
7:31
overconfident in their own assessments which turn out to be um you know very
7:37
flawed. So Seth, the these people are uh handed all sorts of uh drugs uh dextro
7:45
amphetamines which lead to addictions. But before I get into that, I just want to read a little passage from your book.
Billy Lavigne’s violence
7:51
Uh you focus at the beginning of uh their two best friends, Ash actually
7:57
Leser and Lavine. Uh and uh Lavine ends
8:02
up killing Leager. Um but I just want to read this paragraph. One night at his
8:08
house, Lavine confessed to Nicole, I think that was his sister, that he had once shot and killed a child. He was
8:14
just a little boy, he told her, but he had a gun. He also introduced her to his dog, a totally poised, hyper alert
8:22
Belgian uh Malininoa named Rocky that had been one of the unit's working
8:29
animals. Nicole wanted to know why it had no teeth. Lavine told her that its
8:34
titanium dentures had been surgically removed upon retirement because the dog had been trained to attack and it growed
8:41
accustomed to feeding on the flesh of people killed in special operations raids, including being allowed as a
8:48
treat to eat human brains. Horrifying, I know. Um, and actually
8:57
people seized upon and there's a lot of criticism, some criticism of my work. It's very much mixed. There are certain
9:03
forums where current and former special operations soldiers talk about a number of things and my book sometimes comes
9:09
up. Some of them are supportive of it and agree that I've accurately diagnosed certain systemic problems in the
9:15
community. Others attack it and say that it's exaggerated. And this is one thing um that the um you know opponents of of
9:23
the work um seized upon to say that this can't be true. This is proof that um I
9:29
am just recycling, you know, tall tales that were told, you know, to in this
9:34
case Nicole Rick. You know, they're criticizing the fact that it's women who are telling me this. Nicole is a sister of a Green Beret is not coming directly
9:41
from someone at the unit and they're saying, you know, these are just crazy stories that they're either telling to impress women or scare them or whatever.
9:48
Um but in response to th those comments, somebody on the Kiwi Farms forum, which
9:54
is where this takes conversation takes place, posted an actual video of almost
9:59
the same thing that I was describing. It was a clearly marked special operations K9, a Belgian Malininoa um that was
10:07
attacking a dead body uh of clearly clearly a South Asian person, Middle
10:13
Eastern. uh it's hard to say the person is covered in blood, but the dog is attacking him right around the head area
10:20
just as I had described uh in the book. So, the fact that that video footage even existed to me was shocking. Um and
10:27
then the fact that someone had posted it even more so. Not only that, you know, talking about, you know, brains and
10:34
stuff. I mean, it's these details are gruesome and horrifying. I include them advisedly not to shock people. There's a
10:41
lot of stuff that I leave out because it's successive, gratuitous, but Lavine himself wrote a memoir of his time in
10:47
the service and he he talks about executing at close range a unarmed prisoner uh who was seized in a 2015
10:55
raid in Syria, the target of which was a guy named Abu Sai, Tunisian oil trader who was a top who was believed to be a
11:02
top ISIS figure. Um, and Lavine says that um, you know, a piece of this
11:08
person's brain flew into his mouth cuz his mouth was open at the time he pulled the trigger. And he talks about having
11:14
to wash the taste of brains out of his mouth. So, this type of intense close
11:20
uh, range brutality uh, and gore and violence is a is a normal part of what
11:27
it was like to be a Delta Force operator during the 20 years of the wars in Iraq
11:32
and Afghanistan. and I think goes a long way towards explaining how some of them came to seem like such brain damaged
11:39
Frankenstein monsters like like Lavine uh tragically ended up being.
11:45
Oh, there's a moment in the book where uh I think she's a woman, but she's in the military and let's be clear, you're
11:50
a veteran and I and you served in Afghanistan um Iraq, excuse me. And um she talks
11:57
about somebody coming back from a mission and there's brain on his boots. there's human brain on his boots,
12:04
right? Um, and as as distressing it as as it is to hear those kind of details,
12:12
we should be aware of it because that's what we, you know, our military that we pay for, that's what they go out and do.
12:18
their job is to go out uh and and kill people um in service of these
12:24
increasingly obscure and abstract national security objectives that are shared by not a large swath of of the
12:31
population but rather um most of the people who who live and work in Washington DC.
Drug use
12:38
So I want to talk about drugs um which play an important uh part in the in the
12:45
uh text of your work. Um they're given drugs by the military. Uh it leads to
12:51
addictions. Uh when you write about Lavine, uh you write by 2008 he was smoking
12:59
crack on a daily basis and regularly ingested MDMA, smoked crystal,
13:05
methamphetamine, snorted powder heroin, and had even taken to inserting speedballs, a dangerous mixture of
13:11
heroin and cocaine into his rectum in a dissolvable capsule to get a quicker and more powerful high. the the drugs and
13:20
alcohol. I mean, the amount that these people ingest, of course, uh is kind of
13:26
staggering. And we'll talk about the drug dealing later, but talk about how pervasive that was and the the
13:33
culpability of the military and kind of kickstarting these habits.
13:38
The military prescribed special operators dextroetamine as a matter of course, uh commonly known as Adderall.
13:45
Um, it is an amphetamine that allows you to stay awake for long periods of time uh and to tolerate sleeplessness that
13:52
some of these missions require. It also has the effect um whether incidental or
13:57
not of um increasing aggression uh and suppressing empathy. Uh in Lavine's
14:04
case, he specifically cited the prescription he had been given to Adderall as precipitating his drug
14:10
issues uh which is a common um sort of gateway or path towards abuse of hard harder substances. He started crushing
14:17
and snorting his aderall, taking double the dose that was given to him. Uh and then pretty soon he graduated to just
14:23
just using cocaine and smoking crack cocaine. Uh and then his drug uh use and
14:29
dependency deteriorated from there. Um, more generally in the community, um,
14:34
there's a ton of drinking. I mean, alcoholism is a major factor of life in the special forces. And it's not to be
14:41
puritanical or to be judgmental, uh, of these people. I mean, a lot of people in our country struggle with substance
14:47
abuse. It's actually one of the most salient aspects of American society. Um
14:53
but I think that there is a kind of um there's a kind of um there's a there's a
14:59
sense in which it becomes necessary in order to to um cope with the pressures
15:05
of of a job like being an operator on Delta Force. Um the need to to numb the
15:11
pain and grief that comes from participating uh in in this type of violence. um and also you know in
15:19
readjusting or trying to readjust to civilian life because a lot of them are almost literally addicted to adrenaline
15:26
and um need stimulation at all times. I mean a lot of these guys um their psychological
15:33
makeup is such that they're constantly in need of stimulation and they really don't like to be bored. Uh and so those
15:39
are traits all of which are traits that that um you know are conducive to to drug use. And I think those are some of
15:46
the reasons why you've seen such widespread prevalence of of drug use in the in the Green Beretss and in the
15:52
airborne corps all at Fort Bragg to a degree that you don't see elsewhere in in the US military.
Patriots vs. degens
15:59
You quote Terrell, you said the unit guys kind of separate themselves into
16:04
two groups. um Terrell who like leaker aspired to
16:09
join Delta Force but failed to meet the rigorous and often arbitrary selection criteria. Quote, "You have the tea
16:16
toters, the guys who are super Christian warriors for God, no drugs, no alcohol,
16:21
super goody goody by the book. Then you have the guys who are just complete [ __ ] derelcts, constantly doing
16:28
nefarious [ __ ] Those are the ones you write about in the book, right? That's right. I don't focus on
16:35
the sort of good apples, so to speak. They do exist. Um the guys that by their own internal ethical lights are doing
16:41
the right thing. Uh we may quibble with, you know, the the inherent nature of their job or the the foreign policy
16:47
objectives to which they're tasked to serve. Um nevertheless, they're not just
16:52
engaged in blatantly criminal activity, but a shocking number of people in these special mission units are. Uh and I
16:59
think that's something that we should all be very concerned about. you rais a point. It's fairly early in the book and
Waco cult shooting
17:04
it's about the wos. So this is the uh branch devidian these splinter group of
17:10
the 7th day advent uh they've stockpile weapons in anticipation of judgment day
17:16
there's a standoff uh after this is you writing after a
17:22
lengthy standoff in which the members of the apocalyptic offshoot church refused to surrender their guns and ammo the
17:28
federal agents moved in with surprisingly aggressive tactics making use of heavy machine guns armored
17:35
personnel carriers and even tanks. Amid the resulting gun battle, scores of people burned to death, including dozens
17:43
of women and children. And then you write a full six years later, it emerged that notwithstanding the PY commitatus
17:49
act, which bars the military from acting as a domestic law enforcement agency,
17:55
Delta Force operators have played a key part in the assault on the compound. So this is always you know my and it's a
18:04
question for you the the extent to which these forces we know they were you
18:10
document they were used in Waco can be used domestically and then of course you
18:16
have people when they leave uh the the Delta Force or SEALs are snapped up by
18:24
well the Gazi Humanitarian Foundation is one but uh paramilitary groups, Eric,
18:30
which Eric Prince runs. Uh they uh can be recruited into ICE. Um but I I I I
18:38
found that a kind of important point in the book. Yeah, certainly. I mean, I wasn't aware
18:45
that Delta Force had played a role in the in the Waco raid. I'm actually from Austin, so Waco's just an hour north of
18:50
here. Um and um the I think the
18:56
relationship between Delta Force and the FBI is is a cause for some concern. Um
19:01
they have a very close working relationship and um you know Delta Force is supposed to play an advisory role uh
19:09
to help you know let's say the FBI's hostage rescue team uh deal with an active shooter situation or something of
19:15
that nature. Um but you know the posi commatis act which bars the military
19:21
from acting in a domestic law enforcement role uh I think should be a higher bar towards you know the
19:26
participation of units like this in domestic law enforcement situations and we're seeing today I mean that was that
19:32
was many years ago almost 30 years ago and um you know today we're seeing once again a sort of militarization of law
19:39
enforcement in the United States you know these ICE guys and that's leads me to a broader point that's maybe worth
19:45
touching on the sort of trickle down cultural effects of this of these units and units like them where everyone wants
19:51
to be a bearded special operator. everyone whatever military unit in or whatever police uh whether they're just
19:58
you know regular cops working in beat they all adopt these aesthetics and attitudes of these units which is like
20:05
you know the longer hair the beards the tattoos just the the Oakley sunglasses
20:10
just the whole um you know image that of the of the special operator is something
20:15
that has come to have widespread cultural currency in our society and I
20:20
think um much for the worse Uh because, you know, when they're dressed like that
20:26
and when they're comporting themselves like that, they can't help but look at all of us the same way as they looked at
20:31
Iraqis uh and Afans and Syrians and operations overseas, which are just, you
20:37
know, threats, you know, to be neutralized, people to be to surveiled and then killed as needed.
Ali Mohammed
20:44
Before we go into the drug dealing, I want you to talk about Ali Muhammad. This is a fascinating
20:51
uh story. I I'll let you tell it. Sure. Um, you know, I think they So, I
20:57
briefly recapitulate the history. The book is not a work of history. It's a it's intended to be a murder mystery at
21:04
the heart of it. Quite a kind of a police uh kind of police beat reporting. Um, but in order to tell this the
21:11
backstory of these operators lives, I recapitulate a brief history of the
21:16
global war on terrorism with a focus on Fort Bragg soldiers in particular because Fort Bragg is really the beating
21:22
heart of the global special operations complex and many people are unaware of its centrality in all of these events.
21:28
So when it came to 9/11 and telling the story of 9/11 in a way that I hope could be fresh, I focused on a role of a Fort
21:34
Bragg soldier whose name was Ali Muhammad. He was actually born in Egypt
21:40
uh and was a special forces soldier in Egypt but came over Fort Bragg is the home to the JFK special warfare center
21:46
in school um which often hosts or sponsors foreign military officers uh
21:51
they're from countries that are allied with the United States such as Egypt. There they often become assets of either
21:58
the CIA or just assets of the national security uh institutions in general. Um
22:03
Ali Muhammad was one of those people. Um, it's a question of how deeply we want to get into it because this guy's
22:10
career was quite uh extensive. But in short, he was some kind of operative in
22:15
the CIA's war in Afghanistan against the Russian occupiers in the 1980s. He was
22:21
deeply involved in that. Um, most likely as an asset of the CIA. We know that he
22:26
had been approached by the CIA. We know that he was monitored by them and that he was receiving money from obscure sources. Um he also became a US citizen
22:35
and actually joined the army and was stationed at Forbra as a uniformed American soldier which I think is
22:40
important to point out because subsequently he became a close associate of Iman al- Zawahhiri who of course was
22:47
the co-founder of al-Qaeda with Osama bin Laden. Ali Muhammad, this American soldier, uh,
22:55
then went on to personally train Osama bin Laden and all of Osama bin Laden's
23:00
core security detail in special operations warfare tactics, specifically
23:05
using manuals that he took from Fort Bragg, and trained them in all sorts of things, you know, surveillance and
23:11
ambushes, including in how to hijack airplanes. He specifically taught the core uh leaders of al-Qaeda how to
23:20
hijack airplanes using box cutters. It was that specific because we have a copy
23:25
of the training manual um or the FBI has a copy of the training manual that Ali Muhammad used to train these guys. Now
23:32
Ali Muhammad was was reeled in somehow to the United States uh after the Kenya
23:39
and Tanzania bombings in 1998. So he had was brought back to the United States and he was sort of kind of arrested,
23:48
sort of kind of indicted and prosecuted more or less in these closed doors
23:54
anonymized federal court proceedings that no one witnessed. And then after that, before he was actually sentenced,
24:02
he was just disappeared into the bowels of the US government. and nothing has ever been heard from him since. Which is
24:08
crazy because in the sort of canonical accounts that you hear about 9/11 uh and
24:14
the c the deep causes behind 9/11, why this event befell our country, um it's
24:20
often acknowledged the role of the CIA's war in Afghanistan in creating the conditions that led to the rise of
24:26
al-Qaeda. But if you read mainstream Pulitzer Prizewinning reporters who have
24:32
written the most extensive accounts of of 9/11, what they will always say is
24:38
that there was no direct contact between Osama bin Laden and anyone in the CIA.
24:44
And to date, there has never been any evidence of direct contact between the agency and Osama bin Laden. But what
24:50
that omits is the fact that there was a direct extensive um and uh longlasting
24:57
relationship between Osama bin Laden and an active duty member of the US Army
25:02
special forces. So I think that's a really significant omission especially because this guy is still in US custody
25:08
somewhere. He lived in Osama bin Laden's house in Pakistan, right? In Peshawar, right?
Military psy-ops
25:15
Um I'm going to just to move on, but you write a lot
25:21
about the the blowback in terms of domestic violence, the wife killings at
25:27
Fort Bragg. Um, and there was a series of killings, I
25:33
think, what was it, six spouses or something or murdered or I can't remember the number. But then uh of
25:39
course the the Fort Bragg and in particular uh the Delta commanders just
25:44
go into overdrive to to exonerate everybody from these killings, most of them, and cover it up. And they actually
25:51
begin to spin bizarre theories uh that uh the anti- uh malarial drug
26:01
Maleficquin uh which is Larium which I took in the southern Sudan is to blame that I mean
26:08
just and the media buys it. I mean the the one of the kind of minor subtexts of
26:14
your book is just how easily the media is just spun by these people repeatedly.
26:20
Yeah. The special forces are expert in psychological operations and SCOPS are a
26:26
big part of what they do. Now um by law those psychological operations have to be directed at foreign populations. They
26:33
can't be directed at American citizens. But not only is there a lot of bleedback in the age of the internet, but also
26:40
these guys when they're dealing with the media, they um sort of naturally inhabit that role and that ability to spin and
26:47
manipulate and they're quite capable of controlling media coverage of their operations through selective um leaks
26:53
and selective disclosures. In the case that you're talking about in 2002 when um four Fort Bragg uh four
27:02
army wives stationed at Fort Bragg were murdered in short succession by their husbands all of whom or nearly all of
27:07
whom were special forces soldiers who had just returned from Afghanistan. That looks really bad. That could cause a
27:13
call into question um you know the relationship between American militarism
27:19
and certain forms of blowback especially violence against women. But instead of that, some senior officials from Delta
27:27
Force got on the phone with um credulous reporters from UPI and other um wire
27:34
services and newspapers of record and told them that the what had happened was that Larium, this malaria drug that they
27:41
had taken caused these guys to lose their mind and become paranoid and aggressive and in fact homicidal. This
27:48
is a ridiculous theory. There's no basis at all for it in medical science. Um,
27:54
it's completely untrue and unsupported. However, it was repeated by virtually
27:59
all mainstream media institutions in the United States and in foreign countries in France and Italy, all across Europe
28:05
and in Israel. Everyone reported that these guys had lost their minds from taking the malaria drug. Um, and I use
28:12
that in the book. I don't dwell on it long, but I use it as a just a case study in how they're able to control the
28:20
way that the media covers Delta Force operations and their blowback in in the United States.
Turbocharging special ops
28:27
So, you write about the huge expansion of these and Obama was really the figure that uh turbocharged
28:34
uh these special operations units. Um, but of course it depended on a false
28:40
narrative. It was justified by a false narrative. Uh, and that was spun by Mcrist, Stanley Mcristel. Uh, you write,
28:48
"Although there were relatively few foreign fighters in Iraq and most came from neighboring Syria, Mcrist was the
28:54
primary proponent of the view quick to spread among Washington policymakers that the enemy was not a nationalist
29:02
rebellion against outside occupation, but one node of a global conspiracy of
29:07
Americahating terrorists." To describe this nebulous and inherently malignant
29:12
foe, Mcrist and his staff invented the term al-Qaeda in Iraq or AQI. Um, and of
29:21
course that just morphed into the global war on terror. Can you talk about that? When uh the Iraq war first began, of
29:28
course, it was premised on the idea that Iraq was in possession of weapons of mass destruction and might either
29:34
directly attack the United States or might provide terrorists with these weapons that they could then carry out
29:40
attacks in the United States. We know that this was false. This was a conspiracy theory that was invented by
29:46
the Bush administration and the CIA to justify the criminal invasion of Iraq.
29:51
it quickly became apparent that in fact there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Um and so at that
29:57
point the narrative pivoted. I actually happened to be deployed as a very junior
30:02
soldier to Iraq at that time 2004 and 5. And I remember this change taking place.
30:08
it suddenly became all now it became about this organization called al-Qaeda in Iraq and specifically this figure um
30:16
the Alzarqawi and I remember seeing his uh his face his picture on big billboard
30:22
wanted posters around Baghdad but looking into this deeply and
30:27
researching it I found that the role of Alzari was highly exaggerated and in
30:32
fact he may not have even been in Iraq at the time the reason why they latched upon this
30:38
uh this Jordanian of Palestinian descent who was by all accounts more of a criminal and a thug uh than than an
30:45
actual terrorist um was in order to um paste a sort of um mask upon the
30:52
insurgency and paint it as a um foreign as foreign fighters. Foreign fighters
30:58
were said to be coming into Iraq to fight the occupation. And so the evolving theory of the war became that
31:04
we need to be there so that we can fight them there so that we're not fighting them here. I even remember guys in my
31:10
own unit making that same argument when we would debate these things around the time of the 2004 election. Um but in
31:17
reality as Stanley Mcristel frankly acknowledges in his book they greatly
31:22
exaggerated Zarqawi's role and the role of foreign fighters in Iraq. There were there were hardly any foreign fighters
31:28
in Iraq as a percentage of the insurgency. most of them came from Syria which is very similar to Iraq in its
31:34
terms of its um ethnography. Um and uh the resistance the insurgency was
31:40
primarily nationalist resistance to outside occupation just like you would expect to see in any foreign country
31:46
that's been or any country that's been invaded uh by foreign forces. Um, so it
31:51
was a way for them to get around the fact that the insurgency was an essentially legitimate enterprise of resistance. And not only that, but also
31:58
to expand the war and say, well, now there's an al-Qaeda franchise in Syria and now there's an al-Qaeda franchise
32:04
here and there. And in reality, if you look deeply uh at these groups and at the evidence for, you know, what's being
32:11
described as them belonging to a so so-called decentralized franchise or cell of al-Qaeda, it's really absent any
32:18
actual command and control nodes, any actual communication between them and the original al-Qaeda, which was broken
32:25
into a million pieces and dispersed into the mountains of Pakistan and Yemen pretty early on in in the war in
32:32
Afghanistan. So again, this is a psychological warfare. This is psychological warfare that they're
32:37
waging in which they characterize the enemy in a way in which is conducive to the to the continuation of the war and
32:45
delegitimizing you know um resistance to US military occupation.
Indiscriminate killings / low quality intel
32:50
I just want to mention how indiscriminate the killing was.
32:56
Um, so JSOK, that is Joint Special Operations Command in Iraq, you write,
33:03
was hindered by an almost complete lack of Arabic skills within our force. Uh
33:08
you're quoting Mc Crystal suggesting that nearly all of those whom Delta killed were targeted based not on the
33:16
content of telephone intercepts but on pseudocientific nodal analysis tips from
33:22
paid informants and arbitrary guesswork. Um, we were not death squads, Mcrist
33:30
writes. And then you write, but armed with NSA intercepts backed by newly developed Reaper drones and joined by
33:37
fierce Kurdish mercenaries called Mohawks. That's exactly what Jac became
33:42
during the covert surge in Iraq, which lasted into 2008. the body count from
33:48
Delta Force Delta Force's killing spree and the proportion of Iraq's hundreds of
33:54
thousands of war dead who were gunned down in Jacock night raids will never be known because it wasn't recorded in the
34:02
first place. This is a point I really um hammer upon which is the low quality of intel and
34:09
the sort of unknown factor there. The X factor about the quality of JOX's
34:14
intelligence because again even if you support these foreign wars, what is the
34:20
reason to believe that they're attacking and killing the right people? Because it certainly hasn't been reflected in any
34:26
kind of positive outcome in those countries. And every uh uh every indication that I can ascertain suggests
34:33
that in fact they're very bad at identifying the people um that they're supposed to be fighting.
34:40
Well, I covered the war in El Salvador for 5 years and the death squads, which when I got to El Salvador were killing
34:45
between 700 and a,000 people a month were the best recruiting weapon the FMLN rebels had. I got to assume it was the
34:52
same in Iraq. And certainly in Afghanistan, that was the the main reason why the Taliban was resurgent.
34:59
That's supported by vast vast amounts of reporting uh on the ground talking to
35:05
people that were part of that were just part of the population or part of the Taliban. It was these night killings,
35:10
these night raids, these invasions of people's houses and the massacre of you know all the males and often times the
35:16
women too. um which is what made the Taliban seem preferable to the to the US
35:23
occupation in the eyes of ordinary Afghans. Let's talk about heroin. Um so you write
The US funded the largest cartel in the world
35:31
Afghanistan after 8 years of US occupation was now producing nine times more heroin than the rest of the world
35:38
combined. And of course that bled over into the Afghan population. Uh the
35:43
Afghan National Army was filled with addicts as you write. Um
35:49
um but then the alliance between in essence these uh narco traffickers
35:58
uh in the northern alliance and everywhere else uh essentially drew in
36:03
members of these special forces. Explain how that happened. So Afghanistan under US occupation
36:11
produced more than more heroin than the entire world could absorb. And the truth
36:17
around this phenomenon I think is one of the bestkept secrets of the 21st century. And the lack of awareness uh in
36:26
the general population among Americans is really astonishing. But it's not a
36:32
surprise their ignorance has been procured by the mass media and the government which is hiding this sort of
36:37
crime of the century. As I sometimes think about it, the um the 2000s and the
36:44
2010s were a time of a global heroin crisis around the world. In the United States uh as it's recent memory, people
36:52
are well aware that we had a terrible heroin crisis in this country. It became uh nearly the leading cause of death
36:58
among adults. and then of course morphed and transformed into the fentinel epidemic which is with us today and has
37:05
never been worse than it is right now. Well, the cause of that heroin crisis was down to the war in Afghanistan. The
37:12
war in Afghanistan caused the heroin crisis globally in Europe, in Russia, in
37:17
Australia, in Asia, uh and also in Canada and in the United States. All of
37:23
these countries, all these uh countries that have um you know that are either first world or have a large market for
37:28
drug users were inundated with high highly potent and very very cheap heroin
37:34
from Afghanistan during this time and it's just supply and demand. When there's that much of it, it becomes a lot cheaper. In the United States,
37:40
people whose um opiate addiction had been primed by loose prescribing practices around prescription pills
37:47
found that they could buy heroin for a lot cheaper than they could get, let's say, some percoet pills that have been
37:52
uh diverted from the elicit drug market. And the dirty secret that no one in in
37:58
government or media bothered to tell us all these years was that the people in Afghanistan that were producing that
38:03
drug, those drugs, they were people on the US payroll. They were they were um narco warlords that were that were
38:11
directly armed, sponsored, and protected by the CIA and the special forces. Uh and that complicity went all the way up
38:17
to the top of the corrupt Afghan client state. Hamemed Carzai and his family in
38:23
particular. Um you know the the they were definitely implicated in it and many other uh named warlords. You know,
38:29
I I have their names in the book and the site the sources that I cite to demonstrate for a fact that this
38:36
government, this client government in Afghanistan was effectively, you know, the biggest drug cartel in in world
38:42
history. And the fact that the United States, the whole of the United States government was complicit in this is
38:47
really mind-boggling to contemplate and um not enough people are aware of it in
38:52
my opinion. So, let's talk about how these special forces operators use the skills that
39:00
they have learned uh and become drug dealers. Um, you profile, I think his
39:07
name is Huff, a former state trooper. Um, uh, and then maybe Losas, I mean, so
39:15
you train, these people are highly trained uh, and they take those skills
39:20
into the drug market. talk about that process. I mean, the amount of of heroin
39:26
that was coming into uh the Fort Bragg area, there was a small airport near Fort Bragg that you
39:33
write about was kind of staggering. I mean, uh uh just massive amounts and
39:40
much of it was funneled through uh not just former members of special forces
39:47
units, but active members of special forces units. Yeah. Now, that airport, the Rafford
39:52
drop zone, um, or that PK Air Park it's sometimes called, that's a privately
39:57
owned business. And if I told a lie about them being involved in and their that institution, that facility being
40:03
involved in international drug trafficking, they could turn around and sue me for defamation really quickly.
40:09
But the facts are clear, the facts are nailed down. There are criminal prosecutions that have either taken
40:14
place or that have been fully adjudicated uh show that that airport is which is where Delta Force does its uh parachute
40:22
training has been a hub of international drug trafficking since the 1980s and
40:27
involving current or former special forces soldiers trafficking drugs into
40:32
the United States by air and landing them and offloading them in this um this airport that's within Fort Bragg's
40:38
airspace and is contiguous with the case um and has been a center of Delta Force
40:44
training for decades. Um most recently the the um manager of the airport, a guy
40:49
named Tim Faker, whose father Gene Thcker was an OG Green Beret who was the sort of the pioneer of this illicit
40:56
enterprise. Tim Thcker the son was convicted relatively recently uh of
41:01
methamphetamine trafficking and was said by North Carolina prosecutors to have been uh the biggest meth trafficker in
41:08
that state's history. That's just one story I tell about systemic drug trafficking taking place in the special
41:15
forces, you know, around Fort Bragg. And um, you know, to answer your question or to elaborate a little bit more, I think,
41:22
um, it often has to do with that need for stimulation that I talked about. Sometimes these guys aren't necessarily
41:28
doing it for money. Like you said, they have a certain skill set, this irregular warfare skill set, this attitude, this
41:33
mindset of um, doing things secretly and getting away with it. Uh that's something that tends to port over
41:39
relatively easily to the drug trade. And Billy Lavine in his memoir that he wrote
41:44
that I obtained after my book was published um he talks about specifically this about how as he started to get into
41:51
the drug game um and started meeting higher level drug traffickers, they were very interested in his background and
41:57
understood that his skill set was something very valuable to him. and he became an adviser to the cartel helping
42:03
them do things uh like understand police surveillance because of course as a Delta Force operator he understood these
42:09
things very very well what the cap capabilities uh and um limitations were of um
42:15
surveillance how it works and how to evade it and also he was helping them traffic drugs by air from Central
42:21
America into the United States uh including through the use of um uh cargo
42:27
uh like dropping uh dropping drug cargo with a parachute from a plane either
42:32
either without a person or accompanied by uh a parachute jumper. I mean, this is the tactic that has used at the
42:40
airport and in this community since the 1980s. They will fly drugs in from overseas and they will jump out with it
42:46
and uh into some of the national forests around North Carolina or Tennessee or Georgia um and uh and maybe come back
42:53
for it later or what have you. But that's the that's the game that they're playing at Fort Bragg. has been going on
42:58
for a long time and whenever it comes to light, it tends to get um passed over or actively covered up by the military
43:04
command. So, one of the things you write about in the book are a series of killings
Michael Hastings’ mysterious death
43:10
um including the killing of Lavine in
43:15
murky circumstances. You bring up web and then you talk, which I didn't know
43:20
until I read your book, that they have the capacity to take over the steering mechanism of a car. So, I mean, this is
43:27
the kind of things they do overseas, but there are uh many incidents,
43:34
especially around Fort Bragg, that uh seem to suggest they're doing this domestically.
43:41
Um I I think you may be referring to the case of Michael Hastings, the reporter. I'm sorry, Hastings. I was Hastings.
43:47
Yes. Gary Webb is the reporter who shot him twice. That was the contra he Yeah. Mhm.
43:54
Um and uh so but I see obviously why those uh two men would be related in
44:01
your mind. They're certainly related in mine. Um they are reporters who who died
44:06
mysteriously, you know, after reporting on these type of issues. Michael Hastings was the guy was the Rolling
44:13
Stone reporter who got Stanley Mcrist fired. Um, and he, you know, because he
44:18
wrote the runaway general, which, uh, you know, depicted Mcrist and his aids getting drunk and making jokes about
44:24
President Biden's staff. Um, you know, Mcrist of course being the architect being the the the sort of godfather of
44:31
modern Jac, uh, and the architect of the assassination programs in Iraq and in Syria and in Afghanistan. Um, so, you
44:40
know, what happened to Hastings after that is, uh, is, uh, ambiguous. Um it's
44:45
not clear exactly how he died, but there's a video of his car crashing. Um
44:50
and um it's hard to understand what happened there, why he he was sober at the time of his death, contrary to
44:57
the article that the shameful article that New York Magazine published insinuating that Michael Hastings was
45:03
under was had a drug problem and was under the influence at the time of his death. That was a lie. He was sober when
45:08
he died. Um and the the car appears on the video. It seems like it's a grainy
45:14
video, but it seems like it explodes before it crashes. And people who called 911 talked about it being uh talked
45:20
about hearing an explosion rather than a car crash. Um, now again, it was ruled
45:25
an accident and Michael Hastings's own family supports the view that it was an accident. So, I don't want to make
45:31
irresponsible allegations, but it is the case that in 2017, several years later,
45:36
uh there was a hack of the CIA's um CIA documents that was released by Wikileaks. One of the documents there
45:43
was something from their embedded device branch of the CIA uh which showed that the the agency was researching how to
45:51
infect onboard uh car computers uh with malware that would allow them to to
45:56
conduct undetectable assassinations by steering a car into an immovable object
46:02
at high speed. So obviously when that came out um you know the conspiracy theories around Hastings's death really
46:07
resurged and and and have really never been dispelled as far as I'm concerned.
Lavigne’s death
46:12
Let's talk about some of these killings around Fort Bragg uh including the killing of Lavine
46:20
uh and he was with uh one of his uh drug partners. Was his name Dumi
46:27
Dumas? I can't remember. Um, but there's just a series of killings around there
46:32
that uh are inexplicable.
46:37
It's really shocking the the number and the frequency of these sort of soldier on soldier homicides, murders taking
46:44
place on base that appear to be like settling of accounts or drug deals gone wrong involving some of the most elite
46:50
soldiers in the army including Lavine uh Billy Lavine and Timothy Dumas is the is a sort of central murder mystery that I
46:57
explore in the book. Lavine, as I've alluded to several times already, was a Delta Force operator at the top of his
47:03
game and had done 14 deployments, you know, was 37 years old. Um, and had this
47:10
terrible drug problem that we discussed, was working with drug cartels, as we discussed. Um, and his life came to an
47:16
end in 2020. His body was found uh riddled with bullets and dumped in a
47:21
remote training uh range on Fort Bragg alongside the other soldier that you mentioned, Timothy Dumis, who was al was
47:28
a JOC support soldier uh who had deployed to Afghanistan at least four times uh and was in charge of securing
47:35
the supply lines for the special forces. Um and the police say that this was a drug deal gone wrong. Uh that in itself
47:42
is is shocking that that kind of thing can take place on Fort Bragg involving guys like that who are in such
47:48
privileged positions uh uh in the military uh hierarchy and um you know
47:55
both of them had previously killed people. Lavine had killed uh a green beret at his house green Mark Leer and a
48:01
few years earlier in 2018 he had killed this guy and the military and the and the civilian. And let's be clear they covered it up.
48:08
He he was completely exonerated even though as you document in the book uh
48:14
the scenario that they accepted was not supported by the evidence. Won't go into
48:19
the details but they completely got him off. Correct. And that led directly to his
48:24
own death because Lavine was so out of control that he needed to be in prison. He was a danger to himself. He was a
48:29
danger to other people. And um he may have killed other people in the interim. His memoir certainly suggests that he
48:37
hints broadly at doing hit jobs for the cartel. Um so that uh that act of
48:43
malfeence and dereliction of duty committed by the district attorney of uh Cumberland County as well as the army's
48:50
uh criminal investigations division that led to these other deaths. Uh and they I
48:56
think there they should be reckoning around that the responsibility for that. But the question remains, who was
49:02
responsible for killing these guys? Because it was a professional job. These are not easy people to kill. Lavine in
49:07
particular was somebody who was a very competent um you know military operator
49:13
who had been who would be hard to get the drop on to say the least. Dumis, same story. He was a very hard hard man.
49:21
All these guys always went around armed uh and um they knew what who they were
49:26
dealing with. Dangerous people. So, who was responsible for killing them and dumping their bodies on Fort Bragg?
49:32
Well, I don't want to spoil um the last chapter of my book. Uh but suffice it to say, the person that the that the that
49:38
the DOJ is attempting to pin those crimes on, I have really struggled to
49:44
find anybody who accepts the government story because it's so on its face uh is
49:51
so implausible. I want to talk about loas. So these are
Los Zetas
49:56
the the big Mexican drug cartel. You write, "The advent of Lozetas, who
50:01
really were naroterrorists, inaugurated the darkest era in all of Mexican history. Trained in marksmanship, rapid
50:08
deployment, ambushes, surveillance, and psychological operations, Losas used
50:14
overt military force to consolidate control over most of the Texas border and the Gulf Coast port of Verarac Cruz,
50:22
augmented by the state and local police forces that they co-opted, as well as an endless supply of short-lived hitmen
50:29
recruited from the lumpen class of the northern borderlands. Lozettas wore paramilitary uniforms, drove around in
50:36
homemade armored vehicles called monstros, and to so terror filmed
50:42
themselves committing sickening atrocities. Countless thousands died in
50:47
their raids, assaults, and sprees of arson. Countless thousands more were
50:52
abducted and disappeared. a sophisticated criminal militia that used encrypted communications and had the
51:00
backing of deep pocketed investors, powerful lawyers, and many Mexican
51:05
politicos. Loettas leveraged their military control over large sws of
51:10
territory to diversify into nearly every illicit enterprise imaginable, reaping
51:16
billions of dollars in profits. And where did they come from?
51:21
So, Lozettas are a perfect example of how US militarism and intervention in
51:28
foreign countries, in this case, Mexico, stimulates drug trafficking and spreads
51:33
terrorism and murder uh to the countries that are that are victimized um by this
51:38
these forms of imperialism. The Lettas were uh trained by the special forces.
51:45
This is a Mexican special forces unit that was trained by the US Green Beretss including at Fort Bragg, also at Fort
51:52
Benning and they also were trained by Israeli instructors. Um, and they were
51:57
meant to be uh in the mold of the Green Berets. They were meant to be the Mexican Green Berets. But they, this
52:03
unit quickly after being used to savagely suppress the Zapatista uprising in Chiapas in the mid 90s, they went
52:11
rogue and looked around the uh, you know, the sort of underworld scene in Mexico and realized, hey, you know,
52:16
nobody we're we're the baddest dudes around and, you know, we can we can run this game if we want. And that's exactly
52:22
what they did. they defected from the Mexican state and became the most notorious cartel in Mexican history. Uh,
52:29
Losettas, um, which really precipitated the terrible homicide crisis that continues
52:36
in Mexico to this day in which hundreds of thousands of people have died because of this new model of a paramilitary
52:43
cartel. uh you know where it's just it's guys who have who have expert military
52:48
training who are using that military training directly to affectuate you know drug trafficking uh operations and
52:55
control large swats of territory. That's a model that was picked up by other cartels in Mexico. Loettas to today are
53:03
are fragmented uh and and isolated. Uh but you know the the model that was
53:08
created continues to to the great great detriment of Mexico. And again, it's an
53:14
example just like in Afghanistan where we have, you know, what's described as a narco state um and what are described as
53:21
narco terrorists. So if you look into the background, if you run the clock back, you'll see what originally started
53:27
this was the um you know the the the uh US intervention and the incompetence or
53:34
malice uh misjudgment just everything misguided about it uh of the way that we
53:40
deal with foreign countries and the way in which we try to co-opt them and use them to carry out you know our national
53:46
our national security objectives. You close the book by talking about
The Return of Fort Bragg
53:51
Hegsth, the new Trump administration, uh, restoring the name
53:58
of Fort Bragg. It had been renamed Fort Liberty. Bragg was pretty mediocre Confederate general. And, uh, you know,
54:06
that last line of your book, Fort Bragg is back, is not just about the renaming
54:13
of the fort. It's about something else. uh those people that are now within the
54:19
Trump administration. Uh and of course, Hegsath has exonerated
54:25
the few very handful of people who have been uh prosecuted for war crimes, but talk
54:33
about the the the culture, the return of that culture and its
54:40
uh and those within the Trump administration who will empower it. So, my book is very critical of every US president since 2001. Um, and I don't um stent on uh critiquing President Obama or President Biden. However, I do see President Trump's role in his first term
54:59
as uniquely malignant uh on this culture and the trickle down effects of it have been just terrible because not only did
55:06
Trump loosen the rules of engagement that are applicable to special operations, but he also made it a big
55:12
part of his political persona um to hold up these accused war criminals, people like Eddie Gallagher who have been
55:18
turned in by his own teammates and ostracized by his own organization, the Navy Seals. But Trump elevated him and
55:25
made him out to be an American hero. Uh and also he k he just to interrupt he killed was
55:31
it a boy? Right. He killed a uh Gallagher. Eddie Gallagher killed a lot of people.
55:38
Eddie Gallagher was on drugs. Incidentally, he was taking as uh Dave Phillips of the New York Times reports in his excellent book Alpha on the Eddie
55:45
Gallagher trial. Um, uh, Eddie Gallagher was taking a lot of drugs just like, you know, the seals have a lot of the same
55:51
issues as the as the Green Berets. Uh, so he was popping Tramodol, which is an opiate painkiller. And, um, he, uh, was
55:59
on this deranged quest to beat Chris Kyle, another very toxic figure in this
56:05
story, who was, uh, you know, claimed to be the most lethal sniper in American history. So Eddie Gallery just wanted to
56:10
beat his kill count. um which is uh as his own teammates described him freaking
56:16
evil. Uh and in order to do this, he was just shooting and during the battle of Mosul in 2017 in Iraq, he was just
56:22
shooting anybody that came into his gun sites. This is according to his teammates. This is what they've alleged
56:27
publicly. He was shooting women, children, old men, people that were clearly unarmed. And then in the
56:33
incident you describe, he was caught on someone's body cam uh about to stab a teenage ISIS fighter in the neck who was
56:40
completely unconscious, incapable of resisting, unarmed. Um, and so his trial
56:46
was a three- ring circus in which President Trump personally intervened to have him uh well, he was exonerated by
56:52
the jury. I talk about the little tricks and behind the-scenes ways in which these trials tend to play out. You know,
56:58
when a special operator is accused of a crime, you'll often see and it proceeds to a trial, you'll often see that the
57:04
prosecutor in those cases is someone who has never tried a case before. That's a
57:10
pattern that that recurs, which is extraordinary, and it shows a lack of
57:15
intent to actually secure a conviction. In any case, in Gallagher's in Gallagher's case, he was acquitted of
57:21
the most serious charges. Um but um so that's a a great example of Trump's, you
57:27
know, the the cultural influence that Trump is having. And to bring it around to the the question that you asked about, you know, what's going on now
57:33
with Hexath and so forth, I think that it's fair to to to expect that in this
57:38
administration, we're going to see a further loosening of the rules around special operations. uh a further
57:44
increase in the impunity that these people enjoy uh and more of the sort of like paradical uh guys, you know, the
57:52
grungy motorcycle gang types coming to positions more prominence whereas, you
57:57
know, the sort of the sort of straightedged Titos, Warriors for God, we were talking about them earlier.
58:03
Those guys are going to be deemphasized and are going to get out of the military um because things are tending in in the
58:10
opposite direction towards towards lawlessness and murder that Trump and
58:15
Hegsth not only tolerate but actually openly celebrate.
58:21
You also write about Michael Waltz. You uh this is uh national Trump's national
58:28
security na national security adviserss. You call him a thuggish wararmonging
58:33
wararmongering dullard who holds the distinction of being the first green beret elected to Congress. Aside from
58:38
being the first former special forces officer to hold a seat in the House of Representatives, Mike Waltz was a
58:45
wealthy man. He made tens of millions of dollars running a private company that trains special operations units of the
58:53
drug trafficking Afghan army. Waltz, a passionate advocate for war in China,
58:58
China, has said that he expects the global war on terror to last a hundred years.
59:04
Yeah, Michael Waltz is a good example of the type of quote unquote leaders that are produced um by this organization,
59:10
the Army Special Forces. But I do I believe if I'm not mistaken, he was um
59:16
relieved of his uh position for being too openly subservient to Israel, which
59:22
is really extraordinary in the context of the Trump that that takes work in the Trump White House. [Laughter]
59:32
All right, Seth. It's a really great book and it's a great read. Um, I just cannot commend you enough as someone who
59:40
writes books and as a reporter. Um, yeah, it's just everyone should get it. Uh, the Fort Bragg Cartel. Uh, and I
Outro
59:47
want to thank, uh, Max, Diego, Thomas, Sophia, uh, and Victor who produced the show.
59:54
You can find me at chrisedges.substack.com. substack.com. Thanks for having me, Chris. It was a pleasure.
1:00:02
[Music]
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