Part Two: The World Anti-Communist League: A Study in Nazi Death Squads

Mia is joined by Robert to continue discussing the World Anti-Communist League's rampage through Italy and Latin America.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hello, peasants. I am Robert Evans, the grand Damn of
the podcasting scene, the Queen of England of casting Pods,
here to welcome you back to the internet's premier podcast,
the only good podcast on the Internet, Behind the Bastard.
I have a serious question that somebody bully you into

(00:22):
watching Britain on Netflix. I don't know what any of
those words mean, but I know that none of them
are in the Bible. I'm such a good comeback. I
have nothing to say. Christopheropher is here, This is great here.
How are we doing? I good? I I had a

(00:45):
moral spiritual crisis. We're writing the second part of this episode.
But whether I was going to do the thing I'm
about to do, and so I'm gonna just do it
to you. So I love it when people do things
to me. We're just We're just We're just gonna do it. Robert,
have you ever fallen down the gladiol rabbit hole? Oh god, Now,
let me tell you about this, Christopher, because I think

(01:07):
about gladius Is all the time, and the big question
in my mind is, right, do you go with an
original Italian pattern? Okay? Or do you go with like
the Iberian pattern, which most people will agree is a
superior stabbing weapon UM, but doesn't have quite as much
of the historic cachet because right, like, that's not the
first fucking punic warp weapon. So I don't know. I

(01:29):
think I'm probably just gonna get several different gladius is um,
and I think that that's probably going to be be
good for me. But but everyone needs a Gladius um.
It's the ultimate bisexual killing weapon because it's it's it's
double edged um and extremely sharp on all sides. And
and so I think that, you know, everyone, we have

(01:50):
to stand a bisexual weapon of imperialist aggression. And that's
that's why I support the Gladius. You know, Okay, I
I think I think if I if you forced me
to buy one Gladius, I think I would go with
the tradition and one because again, like you know, I
mean that that is in Chris's contract, right, that's all
of our cools unemployees are legally required to own a Gladius.

(02:11):
Otherwise you can't draft you to take over. Because Chris,
when we have to go take back and burn Carthage
to the ground, what are you gonna do without a Gladius. Well,
I mean here's here's here's but you've got you've got
strong Prinka Pie energy too, So I feel like a
polarm would work well for you. Well, I mean, this
is this is the thing, right because you're you're okay,

(02:31):
you your sword if if someone has gotten close enough
to you to use a sword, right like this is
this is this is your sort of like last resort
of personal defense weapon. But a pike now prink energy yeah, yeah,
and so and so you know my my my thesis
on this, right is this allows you, this allows you
to get to get a more traditional original pattern of
Italian Gladius. Right because the thing that the thing that

(02:52):
you are depending on right for your life is the pike.
And that means the Gladius doesn't is the symbolic importance
of the gladi is Chris is able to shine through.
When we hired you, I thought to myself, this here
is an individual who doesn't go by the cucked post
Marian reforms, Republican military and and that's that's why you're

(03:13):
on this team, because you understand that you need Tree
Yi and has Jotti and Prinka Pie in order to
like oh sorry, it was Tree area with a once
with polearms. Anyway, I fucked up this whole pri Marian
Reforms Roman Republican military joke by getting the kind of
infantry you were supposed to be wrong. Yes, stop talking,
Chris episode Okay, okay, So Gladio, all right, Gladio Yeah,

(03:37):
how how how much do you know about this? So? Yeah,
I mean a modest amount, Like gladiol was the c
I A being like, oh no, this Italy and some
other areas might vote for leftists, so we should set
up a series of stay behind networks to repeatedly murder
left wing media and political and organizing figures and wage

(04:00):
what is effectively like an extended insurgent campaign in countries
that are quote unquote allies of ours on paper. Yeah,
that's that's well, okay, that that that's most of it.
There's there's a thing on Twitter where if you mentioned
this about that, there's like, am this is one of
a number of things you don't want to have a
conversation about on the twitters. Yeah, and you know, okay,

(04:22):
we're we're we're we're gonna get more into the part
of this. It involves the rogue Masonic Lodge in a
bit Um now okay, yeah, so so this is this
is the yeah, the the sort of Yeah, Gladio is
the code name specifically of the Italian version of these
stay behind networks. There's there's These things are the originally
established by Allied Command after World War Two and then
they get armor and tramped by the CIA. And you know.
The other theory behind this, right is it like, Okay,

(04:45):
if the USSR invase Europe, the Allies are like, well,
we're gonna lose because the USR has a better land
army than we do. Um. You know, but the theory
is that they're going to have this network of like
guerilla units in place to start and commentry existence. Um. Yeah,
I'm gonna read the act. Well, I'm going to read
from the National Security Directive tend TO that authorized this

(05:05):
whole thing. So it authorizes a vast program of propaganda,
economic warfare, preventative direct action, including sabotage, anti sabotage, demolition
and evacuation measures, subversion against hostile states, including assistance to
underground resistance movements, guerrillas, refugee liberation programs, and supportive indigenous
anti communist elements to be done so that any U

(05:26):
S government responsibility for them is not evidence to unauthorized
persons that, if uncovered, the U S Government can plausibly
deny any responsibility, so that the US, the US in
the foundation many different like things that are official government
documents include the phrase, so the US is possibly denied responsibility.

(05:47):
That's just good, that's just good for us, you know,
I mean, this is this is how, this is how
you know the program is going to go incredibly well
and there's going to be zero problems with it ever, yep.
And yeah, So there's a bunch of these things across
Europe there and there's one in Belgium, there in Denmark,
dre In, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, no Way, Portugal, Spain, Turkey, Austria, Finland, Sweden,

(06:08):
and Switzerland, and also the UK. I don't know why
the UK so much didn't mention this. I'm fine with
that one. I'm just in generally okay with US fucking
with the UK. But everywhere else, everywhere else, So they
kill like an enormous number of people. Um they're composed
of a lot of these people are literally just fascists
who they were like, hey, you don't like this, We'll
hand you a gun. There's there's there's much of anti communists.

(06:31):
They have you know, they have people in the state
security services. So you've got like your soldiers, your cops,
your spies, they're all involved in this. And you know,
you can already see the sort of similarities to Conjure
from last episode, right like this, this is a parallel
network of soldiers, spies, and paramilitaries that the regular government
A doesn't know about and B is being run sort
of is being like the internationally coordinated covertly. And these

(06:55):
networks are heavily armed by weapons caches that are spread
around all of these countries. And these things have they've
got a guns and then they've got explosives, they've got borders. Okay,
don't let's I feel like you said weapons caches like it,
like in a negative way, and I just don't think
that's very fair. Well, you know, there's there there's Look,
the only way to stop a bad guy with a weapons.

(07:16):
Cash is a good guy with a weapons. But but unfortunately,
and this is just the real problem here is that
the Soviet Union were pussies for the entire Cold War.
It didn't give everyone weapons caches. So they didn't what
everybody says about the Soviet Union, it did not give
enough people weapons cash. That what it did it was
coward absolute cowered stuff. So okay, come on a right, yeah, look,

(07:39):
you gotta you gotta give you gotta give you guys
something man like you just sending out scorpion machine pistols
like they're fucking candy and your like, like the USSR
is like making you buy their A K forty seven's like,
come on, not only money where we're gonna buy. It's
terrible stuff. Now, okay, not nominally these things they're supposed

(08:00):
to fight like a communist invasion, but like the actual
thing they're gonna do, is it just like fight any
leftist of any kind from like electoral social democrats like anarchists. Again,
I mean this, this is this is very much a
proto Operation Condor. It's the same goals, the same tactics,
and the same command structure and like, so the command
structure is left behind. In Greece, for example, it becomes
own as Prometheus, and it pays. It plays a huge

(08:22):
role both in the Greek Civil War and also in Greece.
His nineteen seventy n seven right wing military coup. We
never talked about that, Yeah, we never do. It's really
like the whole the whole history of Greece from that
period of the military coup. It's like, yeah, like Churchill,
world War two is happening, and then Churchill was like,
oh my god, the Communist are gonna win, and so

(08:42):
he just like put the Nazis back in charge, and
Nazi started to get the Holocaust again. Yeah, it's it's
there's there's a very fun history of Churchill in Greece
that is yeah, fine, it's fine and good, and nothing
bad ever happened from it. There wasn't another terry dictatorship.
They didn't like kills people and and you know there's

(09:05):
also like there's stuff here. Part of what's going on
here is uh, I'm just gonna read this from Mick Sherry.
Washington insisted on a secret clause in the North Atlantic Treaty.
This is the treaty that forms NATO, requiring the secret
services of all joining nations to establish their own branches
of the secret army and opposed communist influence even if

(09:26):
the population voted for communists and free elections people, that's
that's good ship, that's good freedom. Nothing says freedom and
democracy like secret armies. Yeah. Well, and I actually mentioned
it's not formally part of of Like it's not formally

(09:47):
like one of the things that's considered part of gladiol
or like the stay behind networks. But they do literally
the same thing in Japan to that's where the Japanese
ruling party modern really Party comes from. And oh boy
do they stay behind networks opposed communism and free elections.
They radio elections in Greece, then the radio elections in
Eli's and the Communists can't win. And but you know,
like while all this is happening, where on a macro level,
what is happening here is that the CIA is giving

(10:09):
a bunch of Nazis guns and high explosives. And when
I say Nazis, like what I mean is that, to
take a random example, the state behind network in West
Germany literally hired Klaus Barbie and was composed of x mess.
We have talked about that because Klaus Barbie was also
integral in the creation of the modern CIA for some
similar reasons. Yeah, and then also and then also as

(10:29):
also showed up doing a cocaine coup funded by the
Moonies and a bunch of other worlds people. It is good,
it was good and fine. Um yeah. And in Italy
in particular, this whole like give fascist guns thing goes
exactly as badly as you would expect it to. Um in,

(10:50):
someone sets off a car bomb in a small Italian
village called Petition, and originally this is blamed on the
Red Brigades, who are this the sort of like a
just like urban gorilla group that later turns out to
be infiltrated to like all hell. But we're not actually
gonna get into the Rebrigades here because if we did,
and if if I actually had done the Morrow kidnapping
to this episode, this episode will be like thirty five

(11:11):
hours long. And also I'd be found dead in my
driveway like that about three weeks you'd be you'd be
found covered in shrapnel made out of pasta. Because it's Italians,
you know the thing about this, Like I am joking
about this, but they're they're legitimately were like a not
insignificant number of people who tried to write about this
and we're killed. So with Gabba Google jump jammed down

(11:34):
their throat. Now choke to death on a what's something
else that's Italian? Um um um pepperoni pepperoni. Yeah, murdered
by being historically bad at fielding cavalry. That's also very Atalian.
That was a Roman Empire joke. I'm really proud of

(11:56):
you for not bringing up spicy meatball. Uh just sp
you know, my, my, my, my. My original plan for
this was I was just going to read every single
name in an Italian accident, do no other Italian jokes.
But because luckily I have Robert here to do the
Italian jokes, bro, my life is an Italian joke based mhm,

(12:19):
and I guess terrible Italian bread. Yes, so okay, so
they was bombing, right, it kills kills the people specifically,
it's like target against the police and okay, so so
the Rebrigads get blamed for this, and the immediate responsive
Italian government is they did do a mass cracked down

(12:39):
on the left, they rest hundreds of communists. And now
it turns out, Robert, that bombing not done by the Rebrigades,
instead actually done by a fascist group named or di
Narevo or a New Order. I think the guy responsible
for this, Vincent d. V Guara, was tried by an
Italian judge in the eighties and uh revealed some stuff.

(13:01):
And by some stuff, I mean it turns out that
the bombing was done by C four taking from Gladia
weapons caches, which the prosecutors knew about because they immediately
covered it up to blame someone else. See that's very
Italian of them. Yeah, I mean, although Chris, you do
have to take into account given the way C four looks,
this may have been an accidental bombing because it looks

(13:22):
a lot like pasta dough. They might have just been
trying to make They might have just been making a ravioli,
you know, sometimes you make the ravioli and you blow
up the carbonogy Italians, So so I turned out the bombing. Yeah,
so it's it's done with. It's done with Gladia weapons
cashes is almost certainly was directed by the Italian governments.

(13:45):
And this, this, this becomes the opening cell of almost
don't as a strategy of tension, which is the government
carrying out terrorist attacks from the fascist right and then
staging attacks that are claimed to be from the communist
anarchus left. You get people, you know, scared enough to
trust the government and reject the edibly powerful Italian Left,
which they spend this whole time like smearing as terrorists
and in this this this has all come down to

(14:07):
us today and the fact that anytime people on the
left do something cool and illegal, uh, you get a
bunch of assholes on Twitter being like this is an
Operation Gladiol style false flag. The thing, the thing I
need to point out about this to be people who
believe this. If you go back and look at the
history of what these guys are doing, it wasn't like
they weren't like graffiti ing someone's driveway, like they were

(14:28):
doing train bombings. Yeah, they were bombing. They were hundreds
of people. Like, like, the guys, guys, the level of
things that they're doing is just it's not even remotely
applicable to what's happening now subjectively bad as opposed to
stuff that's subjectively based. Yeah, like they don't they don't
do anything cool. They only they only just the only

(14:48):
thing that the thing that they do specifically in order
to scrabt left just kill civilians. And so I don't know,
maybe maybe maybe like look, if if you want to
get all conspiracy brain about it, like I don't know,
maybe massacurring civilians, bad no matter what side of the like, like, okay,
if they're the only thing I want to point out
is that, like, okay, so there were a bunch of
conspiracy theories in Italy in the seventies and ages is

(15:11):
happening when this is happening, right, And they're the conspiracy
theory they have that the Red Brigades don't exist, and
they're like, they're entirely fictitious and the government has made
up a group of fake terrorists and this is not
true at all. The Red Brigades were a real thing.
They were. They got all the conspiracy theories, who were
living in like the most conspiracy written part of like
the history ever, all got it completely wrong. So you

(15:31):
guys also don't have it right. And the things that
this is we're we're we're not We're not literally living
in exactly the same thing of American Claudio. It's not
the same thing. Please stop. Oh by the way. Also,
the Italian Red Brigades not named the Red Brigades because
of communism, but because of pasta sauce. Yeah, definitely there.
They were also called the marian Nara Brigades, the Marinaro

(15:51):
brigades because because yah, yes, just because they turned people
in the chunky Marin era. So the list Viji Guerra,
who's who's the guy who who is put on trial
for this bombing claims that New Order is actually a
cat's ball for NATO in the CIA, which like okay,
so like partially he's doing this because he's been arrested

(16:12):
for a bombing and he's like, how do I get
out of this? At the CIA told us too, but
you know, but also on the other hands, right, the
bombs that he used to make this are from CIA,
Gladiol cash is, So draw your own conclusions about who's
responsible for this and how we got ahold of a
bunch of weapons from u C I a NATO stay
behind network cashes um. And it turns out that that

(16:33):
New Order and another fascist group called Avangaria Nationale. Yeah,
these people are also heavily involved in Operation Condor. And
when I say heavily involved, what I mean is that
so one of the one of these, one of the
members of actually I think's a member both groups. Um,
is this guy named Stefano. Yeah that his name has

(16:57):
two eyes in it, and there's a vowel in the middle. Look,
it's Italian names, comprehensive names. So this guy, Pino Schet
met with him personally to talk about the assassination that
he was trying to do. Um And one of the
the assassination that he's trying to do is the failed
assassination of Crystal of Christian Democratic politician Bernando Layton um
And this is the Christian Democrats are kind of weird

(17:18):
here because like the Lean Christian Democrats originally support the
coup against all End, but then like Pinochet takes over
and they were like this whole Pinochet thing, maybe it's bad,
and so they turned against Pinochet um and and here here,
here's here's McSherry And what happened next. Avant Gardia Nationale
and ord Noevo also collaborated in condor operations. Assassins from Avangari,

(17:43):
the terrorist organization if Italian neo fascist Stefano de Laciani
attempted the Latent assassination in Rome. They left the couple
for dead after gunning After gunning them down in the street,
the couple was severely wounded but survived. I don't know
to the side the leader of Order um or a
den in the way off and avan Gariae boasted that

(18:03):
Diciani and his his Italian fascists coordinated with the Chilean
National Intelligence Directorate as well as the secret services of
the Franco regime in Spain, and admitted that his forces
carried out the Latent attack at Dina's request. So Stefano
d uh Stefano Deliciani, by the way, uh so, while

(18:24):
wanted by the Italian police for this assassination, shows up
at the Latin America UH Anti Commuist confederations meeting in
baless Arius. And this is like a recurring theme for
for for these people, for Italian fascist terrorists. What of
New Orders, Like highest ranking members was this guy named
Elia Massagardi who's like he did a bunch of terrorist
attacks and like bank robberies and it both Italy and

(18:46):
UH France. And so he flees to Paraguay after another
judge attempts to sort of like prosecute these New Order guys,
and uh he winds up getting shot like while he's
his car stuck in a traffic m in Rome. And
at this point um uh Elion Massegari just like runs

(19:07):
away and now he goes to Paraguay, and then he
shows up as part of the European delegation of the
World Anti Communist League's meeting in a Sucion in ninety nine.
And again while he's at this meeting, he is act
he's like near the top of the Interpol Most Wanted
list and he's just he's just at this meeting like chilling. Now.
The other part of what's going on here, and this

(19:27):
is the part that like actually breaks people's brains, is
an organization called the Pichi Masonic Lodge or Propaganda due
so God, okay, so, so I should make this clear
from the top. P two is a rogue Masonic lodge
that was expelled by the Masons before they do the
stufferre about to talk about um and it's it's ran
by this guy named Lesio Quelli, who's like he's an

(19:48):
an old old school fascist like this. This is a
guy who at seventeen years old went to went to
Spade and fought for Franco in the Pantat Civil War
and then like join the s S and Pichu operates.
This is kind of like shadow state inside the Italian state.
It has like a bunch of members and sort of
various parts of the Italian government, including the military intelligence services.

(20:10):
It buys the country's largest newspaper, and by like the
late seventies and like the very beginning of the eighties,
it's basically running the Italian states. But hilariously in nice
Nati one, the Italian police are raiding this guy's house
for like completely unrelated corruption stuff, and they find a
briefcase that just literally has the pizza organization's planned to
take over the government in it. And they also find

(20:33):
uh Inlicia Grelly is like like an apartment. When they
rate it later they find a list that has everyone
in the organization. And the people on this in this
in this thing are wild. There's the heads and deputy
heads of four different Italian intelligence services, that the chief
of the General staff of the army. There's a bunch
of people who are like very senior members of the
Argentinian Junta. Um. The guy, yeah, the Stefano delician A,

(20:59):
the fascist we've been talk thinking about about the world
communistly meeting, he's in this. Uh, the guy who founded
Triple A that the Argentinian desk off from last episode
also in this. And then the most famous member of
this group is a guy named Silvio Berlsconi. Yeah, yeah,
it's great. Great. He was part of the secret Roade
Masonic lodge that took control of the government and which

(21:20):
like planning to do a fascist uh coup and take
everything over, to destroy communism and to to to get
an indication if you if you want like a sneak
peak of where this is eventually going and who wins
this whole war. He is uh. Sylvia Barrosconi was the
longest serving prime minister in the history of Italy. Well
okay postwy longest serving prime minister after Benito Mussolini. Yeah,

(21:42):
so this this is going great. The Pichi stuff is
like all over the place. It's really hard to sort out,
like who exactly did What's like there are evidence from
some of these trials that are like happening now like
two evidence is still coming out. What we can say
is that they seem to have been involved in the
only a train bombing which kills eighty five people into
another two hundred people. And because it's a bombing, it

(22:05):
was originally initially played by anarchist but lo and behold,
evidence now suggests it was actually Fascist using Gladio explosives
backed by P two's contexts and Italian intelligence. There's like
they do other stuff that there there there's decent evidence
they planted a fake story about Jimmy Carter's brother and
beating PLO leader yasa Era fat in the US press
is trying to get Ronald Reagan elected. Oh yeah, I mean,

(22:31):
and really they could just well, we'll talk about the bank,
the crime bank that Jimmy Carter was affiliated with later,
but that's another story for another well speak speaking speaking
of crime banks, I'm not going to talk about I'm
not going to talk about Brinko Bunco Brosiano and Robert Calvey,
the man known as God's Banker, turning up dead under
blackfires Bridge, because if I talk about this, I'll be
here until like seven And also three thousand people will

(22:54):
just like fall from the ceiling with knives and assassinate me.
So but what what what I can say about this
is that Gladio, you know, as much as people sort
of exceptionalized with Gladio is Gladio is basically a mirror
version of of the U s's own parallels or to
stay behind networks abroad, and these are things like the
First Observation Group which is a U. S Special Forces
group that was deployed to do terrorism in South Vietnam,

(23:15):
like back in the fifties with the US astill, you know,
doing this whole thing that they claimed they weren't in
South Vietnam. Um. Yeah, and this is literally anyway whatever, Robert,
you know what else is a model for fascist desk squads.
Oh well, this podcast actually so. And when Sylvie and
I sat down to plan how behind the Bass which

(23:37):
is gonna work? You know, first question we asked was like,
how are we going to organize the division of labor
to make this work? And both at the same time,
it was amazing, instantly looked each other right in the
eye and said at the same time, fascist death squads.
And that's why we still use that organizational method today
for this show. Yeah, and this is this is this
is this is why we're sponsored by A and the

(24:00):
That's right, that's right, primarily UM elements of the UM
all united in operation of fascist death squads, which we support.
Here Behind the Bastards the Dead Squad podcast notes. Thank you, Sophie,

(24:26):
we're back. Ah. And you know, thinking about fascist death
squads makes me think about death squads. You just really
wanted to do it. I did. I did. You know what,
I love making our editor bleep things I do, I do,

(24:48):
I do it. I do it just for you, Sophie. Well,
it's really but it's really no big deal for me.
I just type an edit note. I know, I know.
I just want you to I just want you to
feel like you're part of the team, Sophie. I run
the team, Robert, I am the team. That doesn't sound
like something I'd hear because I so that's very confusing

(25:12):
to me because I take a lot of credit for
running the team. So, you know, pretty weird you're sitting
on the bench most of the time. But okay, well,
speaking of benches, uh uh, babe, Ruth, you saw somebody

(25:34):
list that on the Twitter thread that I approached it
about you knowing a sports reference that doesn't count. Okay, Well,
let's return to the story. You know, I I could
do a baby your segway here, but I'm just not
going to. So what all of this stuff is going
on in Italy? The league is getting up to just
some other unfathomable atrocities across Latin America, and one of

(25:56):
the main engines of these atrocity it turns out is
the KMT back in Taiwan. Now, Now, last episode we
talked about how the KMT was the original Des Squad
Party UM and the time when these spend most of
the Cold War using the World Anti Communist League to
sort of export their model of anti communist Des Squad
Party abroad. UM. The CAMC called this. There's sort of

(26:17):
like there they have like a method, right, they have
this stuff that they have this thing, and the method
is called political warfare, and this is essentially political warfare.
Is the KMT basically going Okay, so like what if
we do what if we did like like like almost
like a part over the top parody of communist indoctrination
or but like like to our own people for for

(26:37):
anti communism, like they have they have Soviet style communists
like literally still like commissars whose job it is to
like maintain the ideological and party discipline in the military,
but they're anti communists this time, like everyone is trained
to spy on each other. Yeah, it's it's great. It's
like we we've defeated communism by taking every bad aspect
of like anything you can find in a communist state

(26:58):
and just doing it for anti communism, can't question Mark.
They developed this model of like war called the War
of the Masses, which is literally their version of Mao's
guerrilla warfare. Um, it is awesome how all of these
guys like Crib particularly from Mouth, a bunch of the
ones in the United States, because there's a clearly it works. Yeah,

(27:20):
he was really good at He was really really good
at he was You gotta give it, you gotta give
mau credit where it's due. Yeah, the man had his
areas of expertise. Yeah, it was exactly that, and nothing
else to do with agriculture or famous famously good at agriculture,

(27:44):
the guy who reads Starving Ghosts. Yeah. Yeah. The KMT
is like it's like it's it's it's like a right
wing parody of what it commist police it is, but
it's anti communists. And and they're they're also huge on
this thing called counter terror. And I think most people
listening to this the You're gonna hear counter terror and
assume what I'm talking about like some counter terrorism thing,

(28:05):
and like kind of like that there are kind of
terrorism stuff that is just counter terror. But I've known
a lot of professional counter terrorism people and and Hung
out with them while they did counter terrorism and boy
it looks a lot like terrorism. Yeah. Well and about
the iraqis yeah, counter terrorism forces. Well, the thing with this,

(28:25):
right is counter terror. Counter terror is just cutting out
the whole sort of middleman thing. Counter terror terror is
just the state go literally going weird. The terrorists now
are planned to win this war is We're going to
terrorize the population, do kidnapping, assassinations and massacres until they
don't support gerrillas Anymorey. Yeah, then this is I mean,
the k MT are like pioneers of this. The the U. S.

(28:46):
Army teaches this to people, and everyone we're about to
talk about is just obsessed with kind of terror like
this is like this is like eight percent of what
they do is oh my god, what what what if
we did every atrocity we're accusing our enemies of, but
like significantly worse. And you know, one of the places
they learned this stuff is the Political Warfare Academy in Taipei,
which is you know, it starts taking students from militaries

(29:07):
all across Latin America. And this is this is why
don't we have a political warfare Academy? Sophie that's true.
We should have one. We should, we should, we should.
It's in the budget for next year. Okay, alright, good,
that's that's good. Okay, Sophie. We we have to make
this very clear right now. I am going to run
the Political Warfare Academy so that when all the officers
that I treat we were personally loyal to me, so

(29:28):
that I can sucessfully overthrow Robert in a military coup. Yeah,
this seems. This seems like a good plan for me.
It's so funny that you would think that he would
need to be the one that's overthrown when I am.
I've always just I've always just been the figurehead of this.
I don't know, just think I want to be the fingerhead.
I don't want to do the actual work, which is
why I'm not overthrowing Sophie. I want to be like

(29:49):
that seems awful, dear god. I just want to be
the podcast equivalent of what was one of the guys
who was just a figurehead? Um um, late what's his name?
I was thinking Star Wars, the fake the faith Queen
Ammi dolla, Yes, I was gonna say with Star Wars,
I want to be the the I don't even know

(30:11):
enough about Star Wars whatever, let's continue, Okay, So okay,
so you have this Tiwny School the America's thing, and like, okay,
so there are a lot of people who get trained
in a lot of like you know, schools to do
counter terror. But like, okay, even people who have been
to the School of America's of the Americas, like they
talked to people who come back from political with were

(30:33):
if you're training and are like, those guys got weird,
Like they're like two into this, you see, just like
people who are in des squads, like we'll talk to
we'll like talk about people who are like came back
from Taiwan and really like those guys are a bit weird.
These guys are like those guys are a bit much
And you know the camp she starts like exploining this model. Um,

(30:54):
I'm gonna quote from inside the league here about like
what they were doing. First. Through its liaisons in the league,
the camp identified the political party in the Latin country
that was the most militantly anti communist. The party chosen
to be represented in the League is invariably the one
that has already proven as anti commuist medal or displays
the ability or displays the ability and will to do so.

(31:14):
Following the KMTE model, the chosen party establishes a nationwide
intelligence and counter terror network. These paramilitary groups are then
gradually incorporated into the nation's armed forces. This is usually
accomplished when in a moment of national crisis, the army
turns to these civilian bands for support when it is
too impotent to curb them. Um. One of the parties

(31:34):
they choose is the MLN in Guatemala, which is founded
by this guy named Mario Salvador Alacrone. And this is
a guy who wants said that sounds like that sounds
like an airport Italian restaurant right there. I mean, he's
definitely he's definitely fascist enough to be an Italian UM
or to work at an airport Mayeah, both too incredibly

(31:56):
fascist places. This is a guy, Okay, I'm gonna read
this quote from him. I could perhaps accept the label
of fascist, Sandoval told a French reporter in nineteen eight
one in the historical sense of the word, were it
not for the fact that it refers to a type
of socialism, albeit national socialism. So this is a guy
who fascism is too socialist for him. Okay, buddy, it's incredible.

(32:22):
And uh, this is the guy who is the head
of the Guatemalan after the Nazi Party from the right. Yeah, no,
that's literally his thinking. This is the guy used the
Guatemal and like the head of the Guatemalan chapter of
the Nati Communist League for like, basically his entire life,
Um Mario Sandoval out of Chrome was. He he's an
old school like Guatemalan right winger. Like he's one of

(32:43):
the guys who like did the nineteen in j Bat
coup against the democratic he elected to Kobo Rbens, so
like he's been around. And he's also one of the
people behind the White Hand, which is basically they're the
most fear and bloodthirsty desk out in Columbia until like
the army fully makes over and starts doing that. That
the genocide stuff against the Maya population. And now, lest

(33:06):
you think, lest you think Sandoval out of Kron did
not do the genocide, he absolutely is. Anytime you read
anything about the genocide, like the first part of the
genocide is I'm talking about like the stuff that he
did in the sixties and seventies. Um including just like
the White Hand. They have this fairly famous thing where
like in the nineteen seventies there there's all these like
agricultural co operative co operaters forming and the White Hand,

(33:27):
and again these are just people like forming coops and
the White Hand just walks in and slaughters them all um.
And Okay, I haven't been able to figure out the
exact extent to which he was involved in the full
on genocide a starch um. I mean, there's there's no
way he didn't want the genocide to happen. But the
thing about it that's weird is it like his political
enemies are in power when the genocide starts, and I

(33:50):
mean you know that this is in some sense like
a reflection of how deeply just like genocidal the entire
sort of guatemal and political classes, right because like his
enemies gonna put in power and they still do what
they still do. A n aside, but I mean he's
definitely still killing people, Like there's definitely his esquadras on
burning people in the streets. It's kind of unclear exactly
how involved he was in the army just like exterminating people.

(34:12):
But do you know who was actively involved at on
the level of directly back in the military the KMT. So, yeah,
you were doing an ad plug and to say, the
products and services that support this podcast, which probably yes, like,
but yeah, the KMT specifically here. So so all right,

(34:35):
I guess I I previewed this last episode when I
was talking about, um, the whole thing about how the
US like refused to recognize the People's Republic of China
is legitimate government of China until nineteen seventy nine, and
at seventy nine, the US finally flips and like recognizes
the PRC as legitimate government of China instead of recognizing
like the KMT s rump government in Taiwan and almost

(34:59):
all of the world old like rump. Yeah, look like
almost all the countries in the world recognize the PC.
One of the ones that doesn't, I mean, you know,
and the people who don't, it's like it's like Rhodesia
and like South Africa, like apartheid South Africa. And one

(35:20):
of the other countries is Guatemala, and so Taiwana Guatemala
remain are incredibly close political allies. Um, the Guatemalan Army
like sends ah, but there's I mean, they're so have
such directly tied interests Taiwan Guatemala both, well, they both
really like killing communists. Specific that that is, that's that's

(35:41):
that's the thing that they really like killing communists. And
so yeah, they're going on army sends a bunch of
officers to Twant's Political Warfare Academy Taiwan, sells them weapons
and says military advisors and trainers to Guatemala. And so there,
I just I love you know, it's there's just it's
always beautiful when when people come together around and shared interests. Yeah,

(36:02):
international solidarity between starity. Okay, probably I'm gonna start going
to start a rousing chorus and the people's flag is
deepest read that's right. Oh and yeah and so and
so one of the things that what ends up happening
here is that there's a bunch of Taiwanese military advisors,
there's Taiwanese political warfare pamphlets like flooding around everywhere, and

(36:24):
all of this is going on. When when the government,
when the Guatemalan government starts doing the genocide lm Ao
Sorry wait, that's not an l m Ao situation. So
it's real bad. I mean, we'll we'll we'll get to
something that's kind of lm ao in a second, but
in the immediate thing here by, by the end of
the genocide, the Guatemala government has killed two hundred thousand

(36:45):
people and wipe like in their entire like cultures that
are gone, like their whole languages that are just wiped out.
Like it's like if you've ever insably horrifying, spend any
time in Guatemal and talk to some like older people,
like there are there are towns, significant chunks of them
where like the army is still not allowed in like

(37:06):
they are effectively like autonomous because um the genesis. Yeah,
as a result of like the fucking genocide, like fucking
an experience you will regularly have, or at least ten
years ago you regularly have. Is like turning a street
corner and there's just forty or fifty people lining the street,
all missing legs and arms and hands. Um. And it's

(37:28):
not because they all had separate accidents. Um. Yeah, Like
it's Guatemala is fucking dope. Is ship Guatemalan people very nice? Uh?
The degree to which that country got fucked over, um
is one of the things that makes me angriest in
the world. Yeah, it is. It is particularly horrible. And

(37:51):
as a side note here, when the U N does
do you and eventually in the nineties does doesn't investigation
of the genocide and Taiwan refuses to cooperate and you
just day. To the best of my knowledge, the documents
about exactly what Taiwan was doing the genocide are still classified.
So that's fun, that's great. Yeah, So Mario sent up

(38:16):
all Autocron's recruitment into the league, like it wasn't just
about sort of Taiwanese diplomatic relations. He's brought in as
and they literally call him the grandfather, the godfather of
death squads. Like everyone just calls him the godfather. It's
fucking Italians, okay, sure. And and so you know, he's
brought in the train other deat squad leaders and one
of those guys is Roberto. See this guy is a

(38:41):
French name. I think it's I think it's Debussan something
like that, Robert. And he so he he is a
guy who would say things like and he said this
to a journalist quote, You Germans are were very intelligent.
You realize that the Jews were responsible for the spread
of communism and you began to kill them, m boy. Yeah,

(39:03):
and so his nickname is blowtorch Bob. And yeah, do
you want to guess why his nickname is blowtorch Bob?
I really don't want to guess. I'm gonna be I'm
gonna be fair with you. I will prefer not to
guess on that. I will just tell you it's because
he was famous for just using blowtorch torture prisoners. Oh, well, yeah,

(39:25):
he's he's actually a similarity that he has with with
our our producer Sophie. I don't use a blowtorch. Okay,
well it's a can of hair spray with a lighter
Sophie works similarly. Well, at least get your facts straight
if you're going to accuse me of something. This is
this is how we handle problems like that time. I

(39:50):
don't know, I don't know where I'm going with this joke.
Please continue. So Rovirtual like so, he goes to the
league's meeting in Buenos Aires night eighty and he asked
for help running desk squads, and he becomes send of
all out of krons like Protege and this he He
also goes to Taiwan and spends time at the Camties

(40:11):
Political Warfare Academy. Here here's here's from inside the league
about his time there. In an interview with a French
reporter in nineteen eight seven, they have Buston said that
the courses he took in Beto, which is Betos, a
district in Taiwan. Yeah. Yeah, we're a bunch of people
who came over from China, like wind up that this

(40:32):
is where the academy is. In ninety seven was quote
the best class I ever studied. Those lessons are what
I applied when I organized, We started organizing civic groups.
Political war is different from military war. It is different
in its space. The political war is defined in three
hundred and sixty degrees. The military war is a war
in space. But there is one military front, one theater

(40:53):
of operation. In the military war, the young people could
participate young men, especially in political warfare. Everyone participate. Bates
political warfare. The abusion said, it is psychological warfare against
the enemy. I started psychological warfare against the Communists. I'd
announced the program, their treason, their infiltrations into governments. The
political warfare was a compliment to the armed fight. And

(41:17):
so Taiwan is not the only country that's appointing this guy. Um.
At that same League meeting in nineteen eighty, he meets
with representatives of the Argentinian police state to like ask
for more training to like fund his death squads. And
you know, we should go back to Operation Condor for
a second, because remember, like this is this is how
Condor started, right, Contra starts with a bunch of people
at at cl meetings like coming together and going, hey,

(41:39):
we should go communist together. And you know the thing
about Condors that Condor had originally been a project of
what's called the Southern Cone, which is like a region
of Latin America covering like Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and sometimes
like Paraguay and part of Brazil. Um. And what this
meeting of the Cil was doing was exporting a new
version of Condor into worth to Central America. This is

(42:02):
sending it to Al Salvador, to Honduras, to guadam to Nicaragua. UM.
Here's from the predatory state. The nineteen eighty w a
c L and meeting Anti Communist League meeting in Buenos
Aures seemed to have been a defining event, and exporting
the Condour system from the Southern Cone. The meeting brought
together various right wing forces, intelligence agents, and military official officers,

(42:23):
including many involved in Condor, to strategize about ways to
accelerate the world anti communist crusade. In March nineteen eighty,
the cent in East and Media announced that the CIA
was interfering in Nicaragua and Al Salvador and training former
National Guard troops in Honduras. So Debusion like gets his
DEAs Squad training, and a year later, in nineteen eighty one,
he founds Arena, which is his own sort of Salvadorian

(42:45):
des Squad party. And then he he also does something
that puts him in a very rare category of bassard.
He kills a saint. Oh had they been sainted when
he killed them? Or getting murder or just how he
became a saint? Dope? Well, did the guy I mean
kind of did him a favor. Yeah, maybe I feel

(43:07):
like he would rather have been alive than a dead saint.
But well, I don't know, I don't, I don't, I
will not. I will not claim to understand the mind
of the high level Catholic clergy. I was about to say,
I'm gonna guess not because that's like being the le
bron James. Okay, now we're just repeating, Yeah, we gotta

(43:32):
give you more, we gotta give you more names, see
a better talking points. I just need to watch that
Adam Sandler movie again with the footballs and the tall
guy and he's Spanish. It's a good movie. Should watch it.
It's a pretty good movie, Sophie. So that that that
saint is a guy you might you probably actually have
heard of. That is Archbishop Oscar Romero. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

(43:57):
He lived a long left but between a win did
ucon had assassinated and uh, you know spec Sherry points out,
like his assassination really looks like a condor killing, like
it has it has all of the sort of elements
of it, and you know it seen like has taken
his lesson as to heart really fast. And this whole
project that he's doing, this whole thing and we're trying
to get everyone she's been doing the sort of like

(44:18):
training desk squads to help him make his own desk coads.
This works incredibly well. His desk goads are trained by
Argentina and Taiwan, ventured by Mario Santava of Krone they
killed something like forty thou people during this story Civil War. Yeah,
like and for forty thod is like a kind is
a kind of low estimate. It's possible it was much.
I've seen I've seen people blame I mean, okay, so

(44:40):
like there's a question as to like how many people
were killed by the desk calls and how may people
were actually killed with the military. And I've seen estimates
are like twenty thousand people higher than this because they're
attributing like all of the people killing. It's death squad
numbers are like when people ask me how many beers
I've had at like three thirty in the morning numbers, Right,
you're gonna be off by a margin and under yeah, yeah,

(45:02):
you're you're almost certainly you almost certainly there's more of them.
And you know, so this is uh, what will we
call in the trade extremely bad now, Robert, as you
well know, Ronald Reagan and his staff sold weapons to
a RAN to secure prisoner releases and fund Nicaraguan death squads.
But do you know who else sold weapons in questionable

(45:24):
arm steels to fund death squads? Our sponsors the uh
huh that's right, uh, with the we believe pandas are good,
and so is arming paramilitary groups and people people. I
I think most people think that I'm joking here. I'm
actually literally not. They actually literally did this so article

(45:46):
and it was seven countries death squads and seven I
think it was seven countries I've ever looked, Chris, I
don't like death squads being in seven countries funded by
the Yes, how you sound? Yeah? All right, here's ads

(46:08):
We're back. Do you like my my Chris voice? Chris, Yeah,
I feel I feel like I feel like I feel
like my registers slightly do slightly higher than that. It is.
I'm gonna be honest, the same as my Soviet voice.
I have one voice that I do for people. This
is why you're a professional. This is why I'm the professional.
This is exactly right, this is why I'm the I'm

(46:29):
the I'm the the leader of this junta speaking of
Runto's actually not speaking for you. I don't think. I
don't think it's well, they're they're there. I guess the
Argentinian junta is gonna be involved later. But when we
left off, the US was about to get involved in
this series of incredibly sketchy arm deals with Iran and
has billah in to find dest squads. But that's what

(46:49):
you like to hear. Unfortunately, before we can know it's
it's yeah, it's not I mean, I guess, I guess
you could probably find people on the left or like
a Rand contrat was good because they were funding because
they were giving weapons who Iran. But then there's the
whole funding the conscious thing. So it's kind of like
it is fun. There's a lot of like when you
like look at I don't know, the the kind of

(47:11):
lazy left wing analysis of of the like the tanking style,
like shitty left wing analysis where like you know everyone
wants you know, they're clear set good guys and bad guys.
And when you look at the reality, which is like boy,
China and the United States wound up backing a lot
of the same militant groups during the Reagan years. It's
kind of kept happening over and over again. Weird, weird

(47:35):
the Reagan administration. Anyway, whatever it's it's it's a good time. Um.
But before we before we can get you further inter
Rand contract, we have to introduce the last major world
ute Communist League figure we're talking about, and also a
Rand contract co conspirator Major General John K. Sig Lab
So John K. Sig Lab is he is the most

(47:57):
spooked out spook whoever tortured indocent civilian. Um he boy,
there is competition for that. What wait wait too, Okay,
I'm not even gonna like I I literally can't do
his entire resume here because it would take up like
four like like the entire episode would just be me
reading his resume. Um. He starts as an OSS guy

(48:17):
behind Nazi lines in World War Two, and then he
gets transferred at the Pacific to teach Chinese forces guerilla
tactics against the Japanese. And would that he had died
a hero there because his next posting is as the
CIA Desk chief for China. Um somehow, And there's a
lot of his things in his career that I read
and don't make any sense to me. Um. He somehow

(48:39):
also was involved in uh the establishment of the Ranger
Training Center at Fort Benning. Um. He then becomes the
deputy Station chief of the CIA and South Korea during
the Korean War. And this is the thing I don't
understand it all. So he's the deputy Station chief of
the CIA, right he somehow also is commanding a combat battalion.
I have no idea how this work. Don't ask me.

(49:01):
It's baffling, I I I don't get it. That's a
little odd, Okay, I have no idea. Um, this guy
is just like the spook. Spook. Um here's from inside
the leaguebout what he got up to next. As commander
of the Joint Unconventional Warfare Task Force known as Max
Sog great acronym by the way, Max Sog really sing

(49:24):
Lab was one of the on site commanders of Operation Phoenix,
the American directed assassination and counter terror program. And Robert,
do you remember that episode that Garrison did on Eel Horse.
I do, I do, although I will tell you a
fan came up to me during one of the live
events I did recently and informed me that there's a

(49:46):
specific kind of um antibiotic that they give. This fan
is a horse, a horse person. Um. She told me
there's an antibiotic that they give horses that h if
you eat the meat, it will give you a horrible
cancer immediately. So yeah, that's that's gonna that's gonna limit
the number of I was going to just steal a

(50:06):
horse from somebody's horse farm. Um, you know, just capture
one horse and eat it. But now I feel like
I have to be careful to make sure it hasn't
been given this this antibiotic that will turn it into
cancer meat, because I mean that'll probably be a bad Yeah.
But on the other hand, what a way to go
I ate cancer and some like this? This is this,

(50:31):
This is something somebody like two dies of Yeah, Chris
actively encouraging Robert to eat cancer meat so that he
can overthrow him. I was gonna make Garrison eat most
of them. This is called political warfare, Sophie. I know,
I see it happening. I'm and I'm proud. Yeah, doing

(50:51):
the horse meat Gladioli. Yeah, So, so remember the part
about the So the thing I remember about that that
episode about eel horse was Garrison stopping me after a

(51:13):
meeting and saying, Chris, have you have you ever is there?
Have you ever heard of an ancient Chinese remedy of
people sticking eels up their grasses? And the only thing
I could think of that involved East Asia and people
with eels was the thing about how uh the people
people would rape people with eels and dream of Vietnam War.
Oh yes, yeah, so that was this guy. That's him.

(51:37):
He's the guy, right deal with Eels um and and
you know this, this is this is this is this guy.
The thing he's doing Project Phoenix. Their job is specifically
to assassinate civilians. It's defined civilians who are horse sympathetic
to Dorth Vietnam. It's like North Vietnam and just killed them.
And that that that's what he's doing. Um, a bunch
of the work from Project Phoenix, which again like he's
the guy running. Um if I just way into this

(51:58):
Army manual, let's pass out the school the America's that's
about like how did you terrorism and how to assassinate people?
And eventually that gets leaked there's a huge scandal, but
doesn't affect him at all. Um. He eventually goes back
to the Army at some point, and this is there.
He flips randomly back and forth between the CIA, the
Army and like the Rangers, and I don't I don't
know what's going on with this guy's career. It's it's

(52:20):
incredibly bizarre spook ship. Um. But and so he's made
the Chief of Staff of US Forces in South Korea,
but he gets like incredibly piste off that Carter wants
to pull troops out, so he like publicly denounces the president,
and Carter is just like, you can't do that, like
you're a general, you know, and so he just fires him.

(52:40):
But this of course makes him like incredibly popular with
the US right, and he eventually helps found a new
American chapter of the World Anti Communist League and becomes
the head of the league. Here here's the inside the league.
The New American Chapter of the United States Council for
World Freedom uh us CWF terrible acronym terrible was born

(53:00):
like cow cawl is a good acronym. The U s
c WF terrible zero at attend Jesus Christ, come on.
So the U s c WF was born facilitated by
a loan of nearly twenty dollars from Taiwan. But sing
Lab was able to create was a body of you
could really make money go further back then? Oh yeah, no,

(53:23):
like you could you could do a rand contra with
twenty dollars. Yeah, Like I mean Sophie and I recently
put twenty dollars into a series of militant endeavors and
we barely assassinated the former Prime minister. But hey, podcast
finish episodes, not even not even on that one. Nearly

(53:45):
got us in trouble on that one, pulled it out
though nobody. Nobody fine dodging dodging prosecution like Neo and
the Matrix. That's right, Why how do you look dodging
prosecution like shinzo Abe didn't dodge anyway. What Chris so

(54:08):
single Lab is able to create like a powerfum respected
body of American conservatives, the likes of which the League
had never seen before. As the USCWF grew, this new
League chapter came to include high ranking former officers of
the American Army and intelligence community. Lieutenant General Daniel O. Graham,
former director of the Defension Intelligence Agency, became its vice chairman,

(54:29):
while the retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Albert Kayon was
his treasurer. On the advisory board was General Lewis Walt,
former commander of Marine Corps forces in Vietnam, and Race Sleeper,
retired Air Force colonel. So there's new American chapter. Somebody
needs to do an r M song like a like
a parody of an r M song about Race Sleeper

(54:49):
using the r M song day Sleeper to talk about
it anyway, that that is not the r M periody.
I thought you were going to go for that, that
sleeper day Sleeper, which is a great r M song
to get me wrong, but it would also be a
funny anyway the figure it out. Yeah, someone else do that. UM,
And you know, this is like the most fitted out
organization I've ever encountered. And UM sing Leap had already

(55:12):
been like a liaison to the raising Reagan administration. UM.
In nineteen seventy nine, he another CIA guy named Daniel
Grant went to Guatemala to convince Reagan to back the government.
So Reagan does, and I guess what DEA squad killings
immediately increase, and you know, everyone else in the Republican
Party sort of falls in line. I'm like, oh, this
is fine, and uh here here's here's what happened next.

(55:33):
The election of Reagan coincided with the bloodiest outbreak of
Guatemalan desquad actions in history. Almost five hundred deaths a month,
almost all attributed to the right, were being recorded by
the American were being reported by the American embassy, but
even that figure was considered low by most other monitoring groups.
Piles of mutilated corpses were being discovered every morning throughout
the country, and a considered campaign to eliminate the centrals

(55:54):
parties was underway in Guatemala City. From July June, seventy
leaders of the Christian Democratic Party and ten officials of
the Social Democratic Revolutionary Front. We're assassinated were most were
murdered by gunfire from passing cars. The trademarker of the MLN.
And this is all happening at the same time as
the genocide, which Reagan is like, yeah, no, go ahead
and do this. Um. And so Reagan's Reagan's big things

(56:18):
that he wants to expand descard activity everywhere. It's primary
target of Nicaragua. UM. And I guess we should probably
explain why they hate Nicaragua so much. So in at
seventy nine, the left of Sandinista's finally outs of the
US back to Summosan dictatorship and tried to end the
literally centuries old reign of genocidal landowning oligarchs. And this
is that, you know, because because all of the rest

(56:39):
of the Latin American worlding classes also genocidal landowning oligarchs.
This sparks at off what we we're talking about. Yeah,
like that, the genocide Guatemala, the massacres now Salvador. A
lot of this stuff was was triggered by the right wingers,
just sort of like seeing someone else being like, hey,
maybe maybe you guys shouldn't have the total literally power
of her life and death and the ability to murder
anyone you want in order to keep your land. And

(57:00):
they just they just lose it and start doing genocides.
And another country that they turned into a war zone
is hunters now. The man larger responsible for this, at
least initially, was Christovo Alvarez Martinez, a School the America's
graduate who was also trained by the Argentinian junta and
their own sort of dirty war stuff. Um Christovo Alvarez

(57:22):
Martinez is floating around the same sort of like cl
mel Lou you as like all the other desquad guys
who talked about UM and at that same ninety eight
conference of the League and bueno sorry, so he asked
and gets help for from from the Argentinian army. But
what what what makes what makes um Gristoval average Martine
is different from the other des Squad leaders that we've
talked about is that, you know, because so he's absolutely

(57:45):
doing des squads along the sort of Argentina and Dirtey
war model, like right down to like like right down
to the sort of Argentinian like triple threat of kidnapping,
electroshocks are torture and throwing people out of helicopters. But
he's also attempting to get training for a bunch of
nick rock when like excellent Nicaraguan National Guard people who
fled across the border in Hunduras after like losing the war.

(58:06):
And this is enormously successful, like literally everyone is just
like falling over themselves to train these people to to
a new army. Of contrast, and in nineten eight eight one,
he gets made the head of Hundura's armed forces, and
this is where all the sort of threads start to converge,
both both the Chileans and Argentinians help of Resmontina's training
unit that becomes known as Battalion three six three DASH sixteen,

(58:28):
which was in charge of killing quote enemies of the state.
After Alvarez Martinez made formal of sort of secret contact
with the conscious aside Nicaragua itself, he starts like coordinating
intelligence with them, and the Argentinians also helped start like
training the Army of contrast in the in the camp
and hunduras Um. The Argenti Argentinians also started working even
closer with the CIA, which is pretty incredible, but they

(58:52):
gets closer. Um here's from predatory states. General Guillermo Suarez Mason,
the powerful commander of Argentina's First Army Corps, was instrumental
in the creation of the Extra Territorial Task Force or
the GTE, a unit of Battalion six O one that
carried out secret intelligence operations outside of Argentina. Sanchez Rissier
said that the GTE was based in Florida with the

(59:12):
authorization of the CIA. Sarves, based on himself, presided over
the Fourth Congress of the Latin American Anti Communist League
will Anti Communist League affiliates in nineteen eighty and the
w A, the World Anti Communist League, reportedly donated eight
million dollars to pay for the deployment of Argentine officers
to Central America. UM. Sarves Mason fled argentina transition to

(59:35):
democracy in nine and, according to one human rights organization,
all over North arranged a false visa for him to
enter the US. North had been discussing with him the
formation of a continental counterinsurgency force, a concept that again
evokes Operation Condor. So this is great. The Argentina, Argentina's

(59:56):
assassination units running out of Miami. Right, Oliver North is
giving this guy like who almost certainly would have just
been like shot I like, yeah, enters in the US.
You know what's fun about Oliver North now that you're
saying all this, is that I watched him on TV
every night on Fox News when I was a kid. Yeah,

(01:00:18):
big only North fans. Yeah, it's it's it's great that
he did so many crimes and he's just still around
today doing bad stuff. So not not not wanting to
be left out of this des squad party. Taiwan also
sends military advisors to train the Contrast and the Captain
Hun Duras. It's really like everyone is there, Like the
Moonies are there. The soldier of Fortune magazine is playing

(01:00:41):
weapons in like lablay there and a couple of them
it killed in the helicopter to get shot down. Yeah,
there's a really really fun story of some Soldier of
Fortune guys getting the fun mrked out. It's um. Also
there's a pretty good uh song from a Canadian country
music artists that like old student Visas that's about this period.

(01:01:03):
Check it out. I don't know, I just I always
just like I just like I want to imagine, like
like just think about, like what is it like in
these camps. It's like like bohey pok because like the
Moon's lieutenant is like showing up there and you know
he see like he just like sees some guy from
I don't know, he sees like some CIA guys like hey, Bob,
I haven't seen you since since we did the we
did the Cocaine cou and Bolivia. It's like all every

(01:01:24):
single person who's ever funded at ES squad it's just
simultaneously running around these camps and it's like and you know,
part of part of what's going on here is that
sig Lab, like through through the sort of CIL networks
we've been talking about that that are funding all these squads,
like gets the Reagan administration like fully in touch with
which which involved in trade with training these contracts as well.

(01:01:45):
On the Reagan administration is so heavily involved in this
stuff that Mario Salvador Alacrone literally shows up at his
inaugural ball in nine, which is great. And the c
meanwhile is so heavily involved in the contracy camps in
Honduras that quoting McSherry Alvarez, who's who's the hunter and

(01:02:07):
intelligence guy who's now having the military running this stuff,
was so close to the CIA station chief and Honduras
Douglas Winters that Winters asked him to be the godfather
of his adopted child. It's incredible, and Ronald Reagan later
awarded him the Legion of marrit three. So this is

(01:02:30):
love love Ronald Reagan, a guy who never did anything wrong,
and to nineteen eighty four, this was going great. And
by going great, I mean the CIA, Argentina, Taiwan in
the moodies are like having a great time partying in
the jungle and like murdering communists in Honduras itself. The
Nicaraguan contras have just straight up turned into their own
desk squads who are murdering people, you know, Okay, So

(01:02:52):
like that there are descuad that's supposed to murther people
in Nicaragua, right, but they're also just murdering people in Honduras.
And then they also just like start killing people like
in the in the the Nicaragan refugee camps in Honduras.
So this is a good time. And back back in
the US Congress actually does something for once ever and
it's like Reagan, you can't give money to these guys
who are burning children alive, which you know fairly sensible.

(01:03:16):
Thing is so immediately everyone mob comes for the child burners. Yeah. Look, look,
if burning and burn burning children is a is a god,
I can't remember. I can't remember the name of the
thing that part of American tradition in history, it is
American culture. Yeah, what were you not supposed to burn
children to death? Who's since whome? Since when? That's what

(01:03:39):
I gotta ask. Our forefathers burned children to death, there
for death. One of these days will burn children to death.
If we're lucky, it'll be great. So wow, Sophie noted
anti American, you are falling down on the job. S

(01:04:01):
Goody Pippin. Unfortunately it's a visual gag. But Robert just
got a towel thrown at him. It was extremely funny. Yeah.
One of our one of our corporate mandates is that
someone always has to be in the room with me
to get angry when I say things that I did

(01:04:23):
that with my mind, that was so cool. You're really
professor Xaviered that one. That's another famous basketball player. Oh
my god. Okay, Chris. So, as we talked about in
our episodes with the Moodies, this is the moment that
Reverend Moon truly becomes the father of Iran Contra by

(01:04:44):
personally throwing money and supplies at the Honduran camp to
like keep them in the fight when the CIA couldn't.
And this is also where John sig Lab, like currently
the head of the World Anti Communist League, becomes incredibly important.
Um he starts doing the series of fundraisers all over
the world. He like goes to hunts, he's like in
these contract camps, he's like flying in weapons and supplies
with the soldier fortune guy, and you know he is

(01:05:05):
actually raising somebody from the Contras. But this whole thing
is really a sharati And this is this is a
key part of how it Ran Contra works because you
know you have this figurehead guy who any CIA money
can just sort of like go through, and and you
know it looks to all the world like, oh hey,
this guy is raising money for freedom fighters. And you know,
as as like kind of silly as this whole thing is,

(01:05:28):
this part of the operation is so successful that like
no one finds out about it until like the Iran
end of Iran contract falls apart completely and people start
like following the money trails around, and sync Lab is
like deeply involved in this enough that like he's like
his liaison like to the Reagan administration, is he's just
talking to all over North and and you know duringing

(01:05:49):
in later investigation that there's a real attempt to go
after his organization, the US, the United States Council for
World Freedom, which again is the US after the World
to Communstately, they try to go after they don't quite
get it, but you know it's in the documents, um,
and you know what what Well, while all of this
is going on, UM, sig Labs like trying to do
a rebrand of the league because it turns out that

(01:06:10):
having a bunch of people who if you talk to
him will immediately start screaming about Zionist communism and Jewish conspiracies.
Is I mean, I guess now it's good for recruiting,
but like back then it was not great for greeting people.
And you know the goal of this is to bring
in more mainstream conservatives. And one of the one of
these mainstream conservatives is John McCain, who is better known

(01:06:30):
for other work like telling a reporter quote, I hate
the gooks. I will hate them as long as I live. Yeah,
he said that no one ever talks about it because
you know, antientation racism wasn't real until two thousand and twenty.
It was invented by Donald Trump. Uh, it wasn't like
the previous two people they ran before him were also

(01:06:52):
like unbelievably fucking racist and so okay. But like that
this whole sort of like like campaign to like clean
the League up. Like you know, it does do one thing,
which is that sign Lab finally kicks out the c L.
I think it's like nineteen eighty three. He like finally
kicks them out. But you know, all the dest squad
people like somehow keep showing up to their meetings. The

(01:07:14):
only people who actually get kicked out of the techos
because they're just like two openly anti semitic. Um here's
from inside the League about how like deeply these changes
actually went. Still there were problems in selling this new
and improved league, for not very much has changed. John Kosak,
the Belarusa Nazi collaborator, remains chairman of his delegation. The
Creation Liberation Movement. The International Eustacea Brotherhood that Anti Pavlovic

(01:07:38):
established in Argentina in ninety six was still the official
Croatian League chapter, as was the Bulgarian National Friends, which
I had been formed in n seven by the Bulgarian
Legion Legionnaires who had advocated the extermination of the nation's Jews.
Mario Salvador a l crone, the grandfather of Central American
death squads, was in attendance, and although Yaroslav Stetko, the

(01:07:59):
Ukrainian premi year who had officiated over the murder of
approximately seven thousand residents of Levov in one week in
nineteen one, was too ill to come, his wife Slava
was there to represent the Ukrainian Nazi collaborators. I was
really worried for a second when he said he was
too ill to come, but I'm glad she was able
to make that. Yeah. Yeah, you know, this new league,

(01:08:22):
it's exactly the same as the old leagu except the
scale of operations increases right, um, alongside running around contra
like anti communist rebelutions from across the world to start
showing up in placing orders from weapons. Um, I'm pretty
sure they give weapons to Charles Taylor, although that one
was slightly gets Yeah, it's fun. Um. They definitely send

(01:08:44):
weapons to a bunch of of of like right wing,
like incredibly weird guys in Bozambique who they give like
surface to air missiles, guns and bazookas. Um. And if
you remember how we talked about how Reverend Moon backed
pol Pot and how that aid was like mostly propaganda
but a bit of money. So the same Cambodian soldiers
allied with pull Pot like come to the League and
the League just like gives him a bunch of guns

(01:09:05):
and weapons. So they're they're they're funding they're funding pull Pot.
The League is also like constantly raising money from the
bujer Hitdi in Afghanistan, where sig Lab also winds up
doing like liaison and for the CIA. And it really
looks like this whole thing is sort of just accelerating
into it. By the way, quick note, because this can't
be referenced enough. Everybody likes to say, oh when we

(01:09:25):
armed the Mujia Hittie, and we were just giving weapons
to the Taliban. No, we were giving weapons to the
people who molested children on such a grand scale that
it allowed for the takeover of of Afghanistan by the Taliban.
Get it right, folks, Yeah, that was the Pakistani's yes, yes, yeah,
well yeah, so yeah, you know, it looks like like,

(01:09:49):
you know, it looks like this whole thing is accelerating
into like a new, even more bloody phase of the
Cold War. And you know that this is what the
the authors of his and also decide the League writing
this nine, and you know, this is what this what
they think it's gonna happen. You know, the League's gonna
play an even more central role in the Cold War.
And then they won the sovietning withdrew from Afghanistan. The
collapse the CID At East has felt the Mozambique bat

(01:10:10):
In Marxist Leninism. Vietnam, which was already on its way
to become a capitalist market economy, with drew from Cambodia,
which is also now a capitalist market economy. The Vietnam's
Glorious People's Security Forces regularly trained with American police officers,
from a variety of states, including yeah, and also I yeah,

(01:10:31):
I'm about sure they get trauma. The Israelis too, because
it's yeah, I mean honestly yeah. Um who doesn't am
I right? Um? So it's it's all good. I do
want to make one quick note, which is that Mozambique
is my favorite country in terms of like the word
for people who come from that country, because I find

(01:10:51):
saying Mozambican to be incredibly satisfying. Spelling it's even better.
I love that word. I don't know why, it just
feels it. Try it. Try it for yourself. Spell Mozambican.
I cannot feel good. It's easier to spell Mozambican than
it is mozambiquecause you know that weird fucking Q in there.

(01:11:12):
Check it out. People spell mozambecon improve your day. That's
not a joke, that's just a real thing. Yeah. So
the guys who assassinate Yugoslavia ambassadors lived long enough to
see Yugoslavia fall. The the small guerrilla groups that were
in Guatemalo, El Salvador, and Honduras all exterminated. The government
that comes after Pinochet private privatizes even more state owned companies,

(01:11:35):
that Pinochet did. Reverend Moon opens a card company in
North Korea. China is now the world's second largest capitalist
economy and like even Cuba has special economic zones. So yeah,
adrift in this sort of new world of their own creation,
the League changes its name to the World League for
Freedom and Democracy, but the organization is a rump of

(01:11:55):
its former self. But it's still mes in Taiwan, even
though Taiwan like overthrew the CAMT but you know, it's
still meets there. But again, like the like you know,
the even time one were like the the cam T
s like miilter your kidship felts like while they're still
a capitalist economy, and that's because we live in their
world now. We we live in the world where all

(01:12:16):
of these people, all of these fucking Nazis, got everything
that they ever wanted. And it sucks ass and it's
going to stay that way. It's going to stay that
way unless m hm al right, Well here's the thing, folks,
you know how to stop this from happening. Shoot all

(01:12:40):
of the Nazis. Would you win the war that hiring
the Nazis when the same lesson with Confederates, Right, Yeah,
the real the lesson there's there's the lesson from World
War Two and the lesson from the US Civil War
is the same, which is, when you beat a bunch
of racists in a war, kill a lot more of
them than you think you're gonna need to. You're gonna
wanna kill as many of them because we're gonna forgive

(01:13:03):
and move on. Now, kill a funkload more of them.
Like everybody sit down right after you when the worst
sit down? What is this fucking voice you keep doing?
It's so bizarre. What it's my voice that I do
when I'm being other people? It's like zombie Mickey Mouse.
I'm sophied. I don't like Robert's voices. Who la doo
la do? That's how you sound with another I know

(01:13:30):
I did. That's my mom again. What's really key is
after you say whatever you're saying in the fake voice
for the person, then you got to say who doola do? Mhm. Anyway, Well,
this was a great episode, Chris Um. Thank you for
writing it and for allowing me to have a vacation

(01:13:52):
where I went and shot machine guns in the desert.
Um that was necessary at home, for listening to the
podcasts that we make and until next time. Remember I
am the Jesus Christ of podcasting. How's that, Sophie. We're good,

(01:14:13):
You're fired. I've really been on one today it's really
been wild, and today I don't know what's what's going on?
Vacation Robert having a vacation. I'm on a pretty heavy
dose to create. I'm going to be honest with you here.
Um it's good stuff. It's good stuff. Anyways, all I

(01:14:34):
ever wanted vacation? Does vacation Robert? No, Yes, vacation Robert
has the book to plug? What what? What book is
vacation Robert plugging? That's a great question, Sophie. Scholars debate

(01:14:55):
what book I wrote, but a lot of them seem
to believe that it's called after the Revelue Ocean. And
then you can find it if you if you google
a k Press after the revolution, or if you go
to the thing that I'm looking up by trying to
find where it is on our subreddit because somebody said
that I should plug these guys and they were right. Um,

(01:15:15):
you can get it everywhere, like all of the places
that that books are sold. So if you're somewhere in
the middle of nowhere, you can you can have the
Jeff Bezos ship get them, or you can look it
up on buck I'm having to scroll quite a bit,
you can what a what a massive failure for me. Well,

(01:15:36):
while you do that, I'm gonna plug our our good
friend Props new cold Brew terra Form cold brew dot com.
Oh hell yeah, definitely checked that ship out. It's gorgeous
and uh and listen to hood Politics and stream Props
music and follow prop. This has just turned into like

(01:15:56):
a huge prop plug. I think it's bookshop dot org. Yeah,
go to bookshop dot org. You can find my book there.
You can probably find PROPS book there. Let me look
it up. Let me look at Props book on book
Bookshop dot Also look Terraform on bookshop dot org, which
connects you to indie bookstores. Boy, there's actually yes, PROPS
book is on there, along with the book Terraforming Mars

(01:16:17):
by some guy I've never heard of terra Form and
Action by Scott Winkler, which has what looks like an
Ottoman janissary on the front. Not really sure what's going
on there anyway, A bunch of weird books, go check
them out. Behind the Bastards is a production of cool
Zone Media. For more from cool zone Media, visit our
website cool zone media dot com, or check us out

(01:16:40):
on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you get your podcasts.