Seth Harp Exposes the Murder & Drug Trafficking Taking Place Inside America’s Largest Military Base

So, you got out of the military in 2011. This is  the this is how I understand the genesis of the. book that comes out today, The Fort Bragg  Cartel. Um, you get out in 2011. You're a. reporter. At some point, you start to understand  that there are a lot of deaths at Fort Bragg, which is America's biggest army base, home of  the special forces. And you start to investigate. those deaths. That's right. I first read about  a double homicide on Fort Bragg that took place.

at the tail end of 2020. Just an ordinary  article in the New York Times that said that. um these two veteran special operations  soldiers, Billy Lavine and Timothy Dumas, have been found murdered on a remote  uh training range of Fort Bragg. They. both been shot to death and their  bodies have been dumped in the woods. [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music].

I also read that Billy Lavine uh was a Delta  Force operator and in all my time reporting on. the military, working as a a war reporter and  then before that serving in the army myself. I had never heard of a Delta Force operator  being in the news for any reason because it's.

the most secretive and elite unit in the entire  military. And the police were saying that this was. uh believed to be a double homicide from a drug  deal gone wrong. And so I knew that there had to. be more to the story because, you know, you can  imagine if like let's say a CIA agent was found. shot to death and dumped in a park in Maryland  or something like that and the police were saying. it was a drug deal. I mean that's the level of um  secrecy uh and that's how elite Delta Force is as.

a military. What is Delta Force? Delta Force is um  what's called a special mission unit. It is um an. army unit. It's uh part of what's called the Joint  Special Operations Command. It was created in the. late 1970s uh to be an elite counterterrorism  force for things like hostage rescue. For many. years, they were obsessed with the problem or the  the danger of uh loose nuclear weapons and drilled.

constantly uh for scenarios in which they would be  called upon to secure a loose nuclear weapon. This. is all pre 911. Um after 2001, after the war  started in Iraq and Afghanistan, Delta Force. grew quite a bit and came to have a much more  prominent role in US military operations. And. what they primarily specialize in are clandestine  operations, covert operations, what we might. call black operations. That's Delta Force, and  it's headquartered at Fort Bragg. They get no.

publicity. None. I actually looked into this when  I uh was writing the book to see if they had ever. been talked about in the 20 years that the US had  been at war since 2001. And I found that in fact. they were talked about in the context of the 2004  Abu Grae um scandal and had been implicated in the. abuse of prisoners in Iraq. Other than that, for  20 years, they kept their name completely out of. the news. So there are other units famously um  that have worked with Hollywood filmmakers a lot.

uh whose members retire and go on talk shows  including this one and you know you sort of. know quite a bit about the SEALs for example  the various SEAL teams and their training. etc. But I has there ever been a Delta operator in  public talking about the training or the missions. or anything like that? There are former Delta  Force officers who I've seen occasionally talk. on TV. Um, but as far as the regular enlisted  guys go, their culture really is um, you know,

the saying that they have that I've heard  repeated is that um, you know, SEALs write books, uh, Delta guys write history, something to that  effect. It's very much part of their culture not. to to come on TV shows and not to talk and not to  um write books. Interesting. Um thereby increasing. the mystique. Uh and I think the assumption that  we all have is that they're you because they're.

the most secretive, they are the most impressive.  They're very impressive in certain ways. Um you. know, the level of physical fitness that you have  to that you have to have to be selected to be. an operator um is very impressive. marksmanship,  you know, other skills that they have. Very tough. tough people um for the most part. Um but I, as  I talk about extensively in the book, the unit, um has I I think declined uh in recent years in  terms of its culture. So, let's begin with the.

story of the Delta operator, Billy Lavine, and  the man with whom he was found dead. What who. killed them and why? That's the question that  animates uh this book from the beginning to the. end. I mean although I talk a lot about military  history, I talk a lot about foreign policy. Um. really it's a murder mystery this book is at at  its heart and the question is who killed those. two guys and the fact is that there are many many  possible suspects and that kind of is what made.

it such a rich uh topic for exploration. Um, it  turns out that Billy Lavine, 18 months before. he himself was found murdered, had killed  a guy at his house in Fagetville. In fact, he had shot and killed his best friend and fellow  Green Beret, a guy named Mark Leer right in front. of his Mark Leer's daughter who was about 6 years  old at the time. and the police, the local police,

the sheriff's department, the district attorney  of Cumberland County, North Carolina, and the US. Army Criminal Investigate Investigations Division  completely covered up that murder. And I use that. word covered up advisedly. Uh, I'm actually an  attorney myself, so I don't use it lightly, but I. I devote the first two um chapters of the book to  showing what the evidence was against Lavine and. how that case was adjudicated and how he was not  even placed under arrest. um he was just lightly.

questioned and let go that same that same night  um on the grounds that it had been supposedly a. justifiable homicide when in fact that theory that  um defense was definitively contradicted by the. physical evidence. So Lavine, having previously  killed a guy, then goes on to commit three or. excuse me, I think uh four or five felony offenses  in Fagetville over the next 18 months, including. uh aggravated assault with a deadly weapon for  shooting at a guy in the streets of Fagetville,

uh manufacturing controlled substance for cooking  crack in his house, lots of weapons charges. He'd. even been arrested for harboring an escapee,  which is a new one to me. And in every case, the DA had dropped the charges against him. Who  was Billy Lavine? He was an he was a Delta Force. soldier. He had done about uh he had done  more than 12 deployments, more than a dozen. deployments in his career. Um he wasn't a highle  officer uh in in the Delta Force, but he was a.

um a veteran operator who had been who had deep  experience in America's classified assassination. programs in Iraq and Syria and in Afghanistan.  Um, so that was the reason why I think um he was. not he was dealt with with such leniency by the  authorities. Why did he shoot his best friend to. death? It's very mysterious uh why he did that. Um  both of them had severe drug problems. You know, this is one thing I Lavine was not a um he was  not a one-dimensional character by any means.

Um he's someone whose military career and whose  downward trajectory I reconstruct in the book. because I think it's so illustrative of what's  happened to our military over the past 20 years. He was such a great example of um of what has  happened. He developed very severe PTSD, moral. injury. He came to believe that the wars in which  he was participating were morally wrong. He had. um severe substance abuse issues, very severe. Uh  he was smoking crack every day and doing a lot of.

other drugs as well. Um wait, while he was a Delta  operator, he was smoking crack every day. Yes. And I learned that that's not that unusual to my  surprise. My understanding was in your description. suggests that these guys are like basically  Olympic athletes whose physical condition is. going to be monitored, I assume, by by the unit  doctor or somebody. Well, you know, operators have. a particular type of um physical fitness that you  really only find in the in the army, which is the.

kind of guy who can, you know, run a two-mile run  in in 12 minutes, but also smoke a pack a day. Uh, you know, and get drunk five times a week. Yeah.  I mean, they're very very savages. Just savages. Yeah. So, that's impressive. So the but so but  this guy was maintaining his you know his training. schedule while smoking crack every day. Yes. And  um I was shocked to the degree to which um because.

not only you know I served in the conventional  part of the military not in the special forces. and I had also been out for more than 10 years.  Uh so um I was very very surprised when I started. uh investigating Fort Bragg and learning the  extent to which cocaine use is normalized in in. the Green Berets, not just in Delta Force but in  all the army special forces which is a much larger. um organization that Delta Force is pretty small.  Um but the but the Green Berets is thousands of. troops and people just uh you know people that  live in this community live in Favville or live in.

uh Moore County you know to them that's  just understood that this is just part of. the lifestyle. Hate to brag, but we're pretty  confident this show is the most vehemently pro-. dog dog podcast you're ever going to see. We  can take or leave some people, but dogs are. non-negotiable. They are the best. They really are  our best friends. And so, for that reason, we're. thrilled to have a new partner called Dutch Pet.  It's the fastest growing pet teleaalth service.

Dutch.com is on a mission to create what you  need, what you actually need, affordable quality. veterinary care anytime, no matter where you  are. They will get your dog or cat what you need. immediately. It's offering an exclusive discount.  Dutch is for our listeners. You get 50 bucks off. your vet care per year. Visit dutch.com/tucker to  learn more. Use the code Tucker for $50 off. That. is an unlimited vet visit. $82 a year. 82 bucks  a year. We actually use this. Dutch has vets who.

can handle any pet under any circumstance in a  10-minute call. It's pretty amazing, actually. You never have to leave your house. You don't  have to throw the dog in the truck. No wasted. time waiting for appointments. No wasted money  on clinics or visit fees. Unlimited visits and. follow-ups for no extra cost. Plus, free shipping  on all products for up to five pets. It sounds. amazing like it couldn't be real, but it actually  is real. Visit dutch.com/tucker to learn more. Use.

the code Tucker for 50 bucks off your veterinary  care per year. Your dogs, your cats, and your. wallet will thank you. Who is the man he shot his  best friend? Mark Leager. He was a Green Beret in. 19th Special Forces Group currently serving. When  he died, he was he was um so the 19th Special. Forces Group is actually a National Guard unit.  So he was um a Green Beret. He was still serving. in the National Guard. Uh, I don't believe he  was on active duty the day he died. Huh. Um,

I'm not sure if it makes much of a difference,  but to be precise. Was Lavine ever punished for. killing him? No, he wasn't in any way. Not in any  way. He remained an active duty operator on Delta. Force after killing a guy in his house um when  they were both completely out of their minds on. drugs. And Lavine was not even given a toxicology  test after he shot somebody. Completely crazy. The. reason for that is because once you have done 10  deployments uh in service of covert operations,

assassination operations, it is an unacceptable  national security outcome from the perspective. of authorities for you to go to prison, for you  to be in a courtroom for any reason. those guys, they are not supposed to exist and um they just  can't process them through the criminal justice. system in or in ordinary ways. And to me, that's  what made his death so intriguing because so many. people alleged uh the sources that I quote, I want  to be responsible about this and not say that it's.

what I believe, but the sort of conventional  wisdom that when I first got into the case, people were saying that the military itself had  killed Billy Lavine because he had turned into. such a problem um and was and was messing up so  badly. I don't want to derail your story, but. you've referred twice to assassination programs.  I I wasn't aware that the United States admits it. assassinates people. When did that start that?  When did that become a feature of modern war or.

state craft or whatever it is? What is that? What  are you talking about? In 2001, President George. W. Bush signed secret orders that essentially,  and they're secret, so I haven't read them, but. based on the best reporting that I've um that I've  seen, uh he signed secret orders that essentially. reversed the assassination ban that had been  put in place decades earlier. Actually, the. groundwork for that legal move had been laid under  uh President Reagan. There were memos in place.

there were certain authorities, executive orders  in place um that did allow for assassination in. the case uh when the uh target was deemed to  be a terrorist that those authorities actually. weren't used to my understanding for decades. Uh  but when after the se September 11th attacks um. you know the Bush reversed that that and you know  you you're saying that you haven't heard too much. about it but that's because we often um hear about  it uh by a certain euphemism which is night raids.

So you may have heard I'm sure you have heard that  under President Obama the war uh the war making. all of the um war effort in Afghanistan became  about drone strikes and night raids. Well, night. raids is just a euphemism for assassinations.  Yes, if somebody comes out waving a white flag, well, probably get shot anyway, but under certain  circumstances, they will take people prisoner. Um,

but for the most part, you know, when they hit a  target, every every military age man, as they say, on that on that target dies. Whether or not he's  guilty of a crime or even suspected of a crime. Well, guilty of a crime. I mean, it all it's  there's no accountability over this because it all. depends upon the determinations of intelligence  analysts in the joint special operations command. and in the CIA and what have you. The people  that generate targets, you know, Delta Force. just hits the targets. They may not necessarily  generate them, although they do have substantial.

intelligence assets that develop targets. Um,  but there's no way to check their work and say, you know, who these people really were. But, you  know, as I talk about extensively in the book and. trying to get some clarity around this, um, you  know, the error rate is believed to be very high, you know, at least 50%. It is this a long-standing  feature of American military policy? Have we been. assassinating people for centuries? Is this an  American thing to do? Absolutely not. Um and.

in fact before the modern era um before the 21st  century assassination was not considered to be um. you know a valid or a you know creditworthy tool  of war making. It was considered to be something. dirty down low. I mean and there also wasn't  perceived to be a tactical advantage necessarily. and assassinating enemy commanders in in in the  enemy chain of command. there was more of a sense. in and fighting out things out honestly on the  battlefield. Um, and it has that has completely.

changed and you know I think one big influence on  American up until 911 you're saying. So when you. say modern era you don't mean like the advent of  electricity you mean like 25 years ago. Um, so I'm. not a milit military historian by any means, but  my understanding is that um there was extensive. assassination operations also in Vietnam. Uh, and  that we call that the that's known as the Phoenix.

program where the CIA was using assassinations to  dismantle what was perceived as enemy command and. control networks. Was it pretty effective? We won  that war. you know, actually I think that a lot of. people in the um sort of national security set did  although it elicited a great deal of repugnance in. the public, I think that my sense is that it was  perceived as uh an effective way of waging war. Um well then why didn't we win? Well, we haven't  won uh any wars since uh 1945, unless you count.

the Gulf War, right? So, um, you know, I don't  think we're doing anything right, basically, including assassinations. Yeah. I mean, that is  that is a a stat that kind of hard to argue with. that. Um, you almost never hear in and around  Washington. Like, when was the last time you. won a war? Baffling. You spend a trillion dollars  a year and you can't win a freaking war. You can't. beat the Houthies. Like, maybe it's time for some  reform or to rethink what we're doing. It's not.

working. It's even by their own measurements. I  completely agree and um I think a lot of people. including people who are anti-war um and who would  prefer to see a more isolationist foreign policy. complacently assume that because we spend ungodly  amounts of money on our military, a trillion. dollars this year on the national defense budget,  that whatever else you think of our foreign.

policy, at least we have the world's most powerful  military. That assumption goes largely unexamined. And the reality is we don't. I was just at Trump's  military parade in Washington DC. A magazine sent. me to cover that. And a lot of those troops  were from Fort Bragg. And you may have seen. on TV what a joke the parade turned out to be.  How disorganized, um, how unimpressive it was. And the technology that was on display. You know,  people expect it to be this fascistic spectacle,

this authoritarian spectacle like you might see  in North Korea or whatever. But I was looking at. the troops going by, not even marching in step,  you know, the the Bradley fighting vehicles, which are 40 years old and and and uh perform  very poorly, haven't been replaced with anything. newer. Same goes for the Abrams tank. It's been  in service for more than 40 years. the Blackhawk. helicopter. Just before the parade, a Blackhawk  helicopter had crashed into a passenger plane.

over the Battoic River, less we forget, killed 68  people. Worst aviation disaster since 2001. I'm. looking at all this and I'm thinking, man, our  army is in sorry, sorry shape. And that was the. 250th anniversary of the US Army because the army  actually predates the Constitution and predates. the creation of our nation. And to me it is very  worrisome um to see the state of decline and. disrepair in which it in which uh it's currently  languishing. And I think the stuff that's going on.

in Fort Bragg is highly symptomatic of just that.  Certainly is. So um back to assassinations. So. assassinations are it sounds by your description  like a big part of our foreign policy or our war. making efforts. A central part of it. Sure. And  Delta is basically conducting a lot of these. some of these absolutely Delta Force and then Seal  Team 6 which is Delta's uh naval counterpart also. part of the joint special operations command and  you hear a lot more about them can I ask a dumb.

question why so if you're fighting a war or you're  in some protracted struggle with violence I don't. know if it's a war but you're like fighting why  wouldn't if you could why wouldn't you capture key. players from the other side in order to extract  intelligence from that usable intelligence from. them. I thought that's what we used to do. I don't  want to paint them in a cartoonish light. By them, I mean Delta and the JOC. Well, they're not making  these dec I mean these are made as you said.

Sure. By by by the command structure often it's  direct orders from the White House, right? Um and. with also with input from certain congressional  leaders are involved in these targeting decisions. to a degree that I was not aware. Congressional  leaders apparently. I've heard anecdotes about. about operators sitting on target and waiting for  the go-ahehead from Congress. I'm not sure what to. make of that because all this is so classified,  but that's what I've heard. In any event, there's no doubt. Why would it be classified?  I'm sorry. Why would it be classified? Well, that's another big component of the evolution of  the American way of ma of making war, waging war.

for the past 20 years is the increasing secrecy  around all of this, which I think also has had an. extremely dilitterious effect. You're not able to  complete a sentence without me interrupting you. I'm so sorry. No, it's great. No, you're just  saying so many things that are evocative and. interesting. I just I'm trying to track them all  down. Okay, I will stop interrupting you. So, you. said I I don't want to paint a clownish picture of  the Delta operators, but they do they do capture. people. They will abduct people. They will take  them to like a ship that's in international waters.

and do god knows what to them to get information.  But in most cases, they're just killing the person. that they're that they're targeting. Boy, there's  a lot of lying. And some of the worst deception. surrounds your health. How come Washington never  talks about the poison in your food supply? What. about what's in your drugs? You have a right to  know what goes into your mouth. And the more you. know, the more distressing it is. That's why  it's critical to seek out alternatives you can. trust. Now, it's an alternative to the garbage  that you can pick up at any store. We strongly.

recommend Re Fountain from Peak. It's a clean  electrolyte designed for rest. It's got triple. Biomax magnesium and no sugar, no artificial  sweeteners, no artificial flavors. Everything. in it is real and it's good because staying up  all night wrecks your ability to function. Ri. fountain can help. It's not a sleep aid. It's  not a narcotic, a seditive. It's what your body. actually needs to recover and thrive. People here  rave about it. We wake up feeling sharp and clear.

Peak has really made a big difference. So, if you  care about actual health, then Peak is the way to. go. P I Q U E. And right now you can get up to 20%  off for life when you start your first month with. Peak. Go to peaklife.com/tucker.  That's p i quueife.com/tucker. You will feel it the very first morning. It  is great. What kind of people are these? Like. villagers in far away Middle Eastern countries or  others? It all depends on the theater. It depends.

upon the time. I can tell you what they're doing  right now because um Trump made an interesting. comment in one of his speeches earlier this  year where he talked about he said something. to the effect of since my inauguration it had  been a few months since he was inaugurated. He. said since my inauguration we have eliminated  68 terrorists in Iraq, Syria and Somalia. This. is all going to come home. We're going to have  this kind of violence here. You can't commit. violence without facing the effects of violence.  It's just a it's a principle of the universe.

Live by the sword, die by the sword. That  never changes. And if we're running around. assassinating people, we will have Americans  assassinated. Fact. Well, some of that blowback, I fully agree. Some of that blowback can be seen  in cases like Billy Lavine where he's someone. who has since he was a very young man, has been  raised in this system of violence, who comes back. and is unable to control it. And you know when  he perceives small threats like with his buddy.

Mark Lushiker at his house barging in his front  door cuz they're both out of their head on drugs, you know, he just as a reflexive mechanism  pulls out his his gun and shoots the other. guy. Um so I think one of the first signs of his  and I'm tracking about 24 murders involving Fort. Bragg soldiers uh in the book since 2020 uh in  which a it was either the Fort Bragg soldier who. was murdered, accused of murder, or convicted  of murder. 24. 24. That's my best count. Um, it might be off by one or two on the Martians.  Well, that's wild. A military base. Yes,

I would imagine the murder rate at a military base  would be zero. Um, I think it should be if you're. an employee of the government. Um, if you're an  active duty soldier, you're supposed the most. disciplined people in the world, right? Supposed  to be. I don't know if you can say that anymore. So, Billy Lavine, um, was he, by the way, was he  from a service family? How did he wind up in all. this? No, he wasn't. He was a he was a, um, you  know, a middle class guy from workingclass guy.

from the upper peninsula of Michigan who joined  the army when he was 17 years old before 9/11. happened. And, um, 9/11 took place while he was  still in in training. and uh he soon got taken. up the pipeline of the first special forces group.  Uh and then from there by 2009 he was a relatively. young man, 26 I think when the at the time that  he was selected for Delta Force. So he was an. extraordinary person in that he was clearly  suited to the job well. very physically fit,

very outdoorsy, um very tough, you know, a guy  who had self the self-confidence that is necessary. for these this type of work. Uh you know, an  adrenaline junkie for sure. A lot of this these. guys are big- time adrenaline junkies. Jumping  out of planes, you know, parachuting is a big part. of what they do. So he was um he was like those  guys in all these respects, but at at his core, Billy Lavine was somebody who um also had a sense  of ethics and and right and wrong that his time in.

the service really degraded to a tragic tragic  effect. So he murders his best friend in front. of the daughter, gets away with it, no penalty  whatsoever. That is absolutely wild. And then. some months later, he himself is found dead with  another man on a remote training range at Bragg. Right. About 18 months later. 18 months later. Um  what were they shot to death? Yes. And it appears.

the the that double murder um appears to have  been the work of people who knew what they were. doing. There were no uh Well, you've got about  50,000 potential suspects on the scene because. it's a military base, right? Right. And the other  guy either was uh his name was Timothy Dumas. Um not to reduce them to their their respective  races, but to keep it clear, one was a white guy, one woman was a black guy. Lavine's a white guy.  Dumas is a black guy. He also was not someone who.

would have been easy to kill. He wasn't an  operator. He was a um supply officer who was. attached to JSOK. He served in the um 95th civil  affairs brigade and had done many deployments to. Afghanistan in service of the um the JOCKled task  force in in Afghanistan. So he's a guy who gets. the operators all the stuff that they need in  the field including cash, weapons, ammunition, you know, food, uh all the basics, gas. Um and um  he was deeply he's a whole separate story that we.

could go into, but to come back to what we were  saying about the murder itself, you know, both. of them were very very tough guys who never went  anywhere unarmed, who kept their heads on a swivel. um and who had been to war repeatedly. So, the  fact that both of them were cleanly um taken out. and then dumped in this remote area and that the  scene was uh free of any kind of um you know, I. interviewed uh several um army C agents who worked  the scene of the of the murder and by all accounts.

they found no drugs, no guns, um no money, and  maybe a couple of the shell casings, but you know, there there weren't even like footprints on the  ground. Were they shot with a rifle? No. Um, I. was never able to obtain ballistic evidence. Uh, I  believe that Dumas, the black guy, was shot in the. head with a small caliber pistol. And I don't know  what a type of weapon caused Lavine's injuries,

but he was shot multiple times in the um torso  and in the leg. Maybe five times. I'm not quite. sure. Any idea where they were killed? Dumas was  killed on site. It seems he was killed execution. style on site. Lavine's body had been wrapped up  um in a sort of tarp or blanket and placed in the. back of his own truck and then his he someone had  driven out there uh and abandon the truck in the. woods with his body in the back. And so the army  there's lots of theories of this murder, but the C.

uh theory was that somebody had the third man  because there had to have been a third person. there. Um these guys couldn't have shot each other  because there were no guns. So, someone left with. the guns at a minimum. And so, Army C presumes  that Dumas, who was a really bad a bad guy to. be honest. Um, he was uh a a drug trafficker and  by some accounts a hitman. And a hitman? Yeah.

You said he was an army officer. He was a warrant  officer. Warrant officer. Okay. Yeah. But um yeah, I talked to a woman, a police officer in fact,  who um Dumas had offered to kill her husband. for money. Um and so C presumed active duty. He  was not active duty at the time of his death. He. had just been expelled from the military for his  criminal behavior. And that is a actually a key. fact um that we can get into because the fact that  he had he had been kicked out when he was a few.

months shy of his 19th year uh in service. So or  a few uh few months shy of his 20th uh 20th year. in which case he would have been eligible for a a  lifetime pension. You know if you serve 20 years. in the military you get a pension. So the fact  that he had been kicked out and deprived of his. pension really is an operative fact in all of this  because the story it goes on from here. Um but uh. what was I saying about the the murder itself that  so he was killed Jamas was killed on site right?

So, um, so the the I was I was trying to, uh,  recapitulate C's theory of the case very briefly, uh, which is that they think that Dumas was hired  to kill Lavine and did kill Lavine with the with. the cooperation of another person or persons. They  then put Lavine's body in the back of the truck, drive him out in the woods with the intention of  throwing his body in a lake that's near there. Um,

but the truck got stuck in the in the woods. just  got stuck in the mud because it wasn't on a road, it was on a firereak trail. And at that point,  according to C's theory of the case, the other. guy decided to just abandon uh the situation and  decided to kill Dumas in order to get rid of any. witnesses. We thought this through and we started  this podcast a year ago and we decided we're never. advertising anything that we or people on our  staff don't use. Period. We're only partnering. with companies that we agree with and endorse  actually in our personal lives. So, we want to.

announce a new partnership with a survival company  we trust most. Last Country Supply is the name of. our collaboration. Last Country Supply. I have  a big surplus of survival food from that great. company. If you get a bucket of food with a 25-  year shelf life, 2,000 calories a day, potatoes, rice, bread, drinks, you feel a lot better. Let's  say there's an EMP attack or civil disturbance and.

you don't know what could happen in the future.  You are prepared and you are protecting your. family with Last Country Supply products. So head  to lastcountry supply.com to shop for our new. collection bulk up now. There is no scenario where  you will regret being prepared. What's the theory. as to why Jamas would have been hired to kill  Lavine? Why he would have been hired? Yes. So, there's a lot of competing possibilities. And as  I said, I think that's what makes the this murder.

mystery, for me at least as a writer, it was it  was a um productive narrative vehicle because. there's lots of things to explore. One is that  Mark Leer, the Green Beret, who who he killed, uh you know, his teammates by some accounts  wanted revenge. The fact that that murder. went completely unpunished, as you might imagine,  leads to resentment in the community, leads to a. lot of whispers. I mean, you know, you you can't  just kill somebody. You maybe get off legally, but there's going to be repercussions. Yeah. A  lot of dangerous people around. Sure. Yeah. So,

that's one. Okay. So, that's a that's a more human  I'm not saying justifiable. I'm not as bothered by. Leer's buddies getting together and killing the  guy who killed him. That seems understandable. I. will say I found no evidence for that. Um, I also  learned that Dumas and Lavine were trafficking. cocaine together at a high level. And that mean  trafficking cocaine. Mhm. Not dealing cocaine, you know, in in little baggies to one to their  friends. I'm talking about trafficking kilos of.

cocaine from Mexico up into the United States and  distributing it in in a large multi. Lavine is a. just once again an active duty That's correct.  member of Delta Force. That's correct. Yes. Um, so they had they had enemies in the in the drug  world, dangerous enemies, people that will kill. you if you don't pay for your product.  Um, and finally, Lavine, as I said before,

was known to be going around telling people that  he didn't believe in the mission anymore, that. what the what the the United States was doing was  wrong, and was in the process of writing a book. And we touched on this in the beginning of our  conversation about how much the unit frowns on. people writing books, but you know, possibly  really frowns on it. Lavine's ex-wife told me. that he was writing a book. She showed me the  text messages where he texted her and said, "I'm writing a book." And he also said that  someone already wanted to turn into a movie. Now,

Dumas at the so put a pin in that Dumas because he  had been kicked out of the army uh just shy of his. pension elig eligibility date. He also was writing  something variously described to me as a book or a. letter um in which it wasn't a memoir. He was it  was actually deliberately intended as a blackmail. document. He told people that he knew about a drug  trafficking ring and the special forces involving.

special forces soldiers who had gone over to the  dark side in Afghanistan where there was a great. deal of drug trafficking going on by the way  by active duty US military by the Afghan client. state that the US supported for 20 years. Yeah.  Um so all these guys having served many times in. Afghanistan would have been very close and um  in close proximity to working with warlords, police chiefs, militia commanders and so on  and Afghans who were some of the biggest drug. traffickers in the world period. Um so uh that  context I think is important. But in any event,

Dumas had written this letter purporting to  name all these individual members of this. drug trafficking ring and the special forces and  was going around telling people that because of. this leverage that he had over the special forces  command, he was going to get them to reinstate his. pension. So the fact that both of these guys are  writing tell all documents and then both turned up. murdered on Fort Bragg is yet another potential  um you know theory for explaining their deaths.

You must have spoken to people they knew,  their friends. What is the prevailing theory. among people who were there? I can't say that  anybody purports to know for sure, but I would. say the most common reflexive answer that you  get from folks is that they think that they were. murdered by elements of Delta Force, either rogue  elements of the unit or the command itself. Now,

I want to be very careful. Come on. I want to  be very careful and say that I don't have any. evidence of that and I don't pretend to. Is that  the opinion of any Delta operators? Do you know? funnily enough. Yeah. Um, one of the guys I talked  to, a former Delta operator, seemed to find that, excuse me, a former Delta officer, seem to find  that perfectly plausible, which was disturbing. to me, but it's bonkers. Again, it's not folks  who read the book, they will they will see um.

the direction in which I lean ultimately. I don't  want to spoil, you know, the ending. Um but bottom. line, no arrests have been made. That's not true.  Uh and so in so and a further complication comes. in with regard to just that. So in uh recently, I  don't want to spoil the last chapter of the book, but um recently the Department of Justice  accused someone of committing these murders.

And let me just say that it is not at all who you  would think. and um virtually all or I can just. say all of the sources that I talked to about  this um either dismiss it out of hand and say. there's no way or they just have a really hard  time believing it. And the person that they've. accused has pleaded not guilty and he is scheduled  to go on trial in um January 2026. Have you spoken. to him? I have not. I've spoken to his father,  but not him. Is he an adult operator? He's not.

He's not. Yeah. He's someone who people struggle  to understand how he could have how anyone could. imagine that this person would travel from where  from where he lived, which was not in the area, go on to Fort Bragg and murder these two guys who  are, you know, one of them is like a real life. Jason Bourne. Um, and the other one, you know,  also a very dangerous man. How he could have.

done that and gotten away with it. And also the  indictment is very strange. The um you know the. victims are identified only by their initials.  A lot of the cases under seal. The whole thing. is very suspicious. I don't want to dance around  it. Um a lot of people that I've talked to say the. government is framing this kid. Um maybe because  he was 20 years old at the time, 20. And Lavine's. 37, Dumas is 44. You know, these are mature um  men who um the idea that a 20-year-old stickup kid.

could have killed them defies credul in a lot of  people's opinion. Now, personally, I have to think. that the Department of Justice doesn't indict  people for murder lightly. I hope not. I I just. uh I have trouble getting that far mentally. So,  it seems like he must have had some involvement. I want to credit my government for being at least  that minimum level of responsibility that they're.

not simply framing this kid, but they haven't made  any of their evidence public. And um as I said, he's pleaded not guilty. So, we'll just have to  see how that how that trial goes. Have they but. they made the indictment public, but none of the  evidence the indictment is public, but you know, like I said, it identifi I only knew about it  cuz I think someone sent it to me. They it's. only identifies the victims by their initials  WL and TD. Um I've never seen that before. An.

a murder indictment where the where the victims  are identified by their initials. I don't even. especially since their murder was public. I mean  it was reported on at the time, right? It is a. very very strange case. Here's what we know. We  know that Lavine murdered a guy, got away with it. Obviously his superior officers knew that. Command  knew that. Was it widely known that he was a drug. trafficker? It was widely known that he was a drug  user. Um, and yes, it was known that he was the.

guy that um dealt drugs to his fellow operators.  I mean, I talked to uh Mark Leiger's family. So, Mark and Billy, they were best friends. And so,  uh Mark's wife um and his mom even they they all. knew Billy Lavine. They had all spent time at his  house. And uh they and many other witnesses you I. interviewed lots of family members and friends of  both of these men and they said um that you know. you would go into Billy's house and there was just  cocaine everywhere and all his fellow operators.

from Dolorce were at his house too. There's a  bunch of coke on the table. They're doing MDMA. Um they're even smoking heroin, you know, and it's  considered to be totally normal in this community. That's what to me was the most shocking to hear  again and again like not only to be told that. all these people these guys are using drugs but  that people just seem to think that that's kind of. what they do which I I didn't know that there's so  many threats. I mean the most obvious is the human. effect of 12 combat deployments. So that's that's  too much obviously and that will destroy you. It.

sounds like it destroyed Billy Lavine. The second  is like where's the Pentagon in this? This is the. premier unit in the United States military. Mhm.  And people are openly using cocaine and smoking. crack and shooting their friends and no one's  doing anything about it. Like what is that? It's. baffling to me. I would have never imagined.  I mean, I remember when I was in the army, one guy, a sergeant in my company tested positive  for cocaine in a in a piss test and he was just.

gone after that. I mean, he was just removed from  the unit. Well, that's a question that I should. have asked you a half an hour ago. What about  drug testing? So, all members of the military. are subject to random drug testing, but apparently  they considered a joke. I mean, there's a lot of. reporting on this around the Navy Seals. A lot of  Navy Seals have gone on the record to say that, you know, they were using constantly during their  um time in service and that the drug testing. regimen was a complete joke because there's  ways to defeat it. In particular, you can get. a tip off when you and because it's supposed to  be random. It's not something they do regularly.

and maybe that's what they need to be doing. But  as the random at the randomized testing, you know, you can be told by someone in time, hey, your  name is on the list and that gives you time to. like suck down a bunch of water and stop doing  drugs uh and and uh pass the test or buy urine, buy clean urine. But you would imagine maybe  that's something that's going on as well. Hadn't heard that in particular, but I know that  people can do that. Um they certainly can. You. got to remember these guys are intelligent, highly  trained. Um they're spies just as much as they are.

um assassins. Uh many of them are. There's various  levels within Delta Force. There's compartmented. elements. There's the line squadrons, etc. So,  it depends on the person, but you know, these are. people who are their job is to do covert action.  So, they're very good at getting away with things. um when your job is to penetrate a foreign country  that's guarded by paranoid counter intelligence.

officials to go into that country and I don't  know bug an embassy or kidnap a guy off the. street a drug test isn't going to be something  that uh you're too worried about I think and you. alluded to this earlier there comes a point where  you know the government is afraid of you because. you know too much you've done too much you're  also performing what they think is a valuable. service. No one else can provide that service  like you're too valuable to to expel over a.

failed piss test. That's a great point. That's  absolutely part of it. Um which is that yeah, after they've spent millions of dollars training  you, they don't really care. I think they would. put it as like if they were to come out and  say it, it's like big boy rules, I think, is how they look at it. If you're going to  do drugs, then do it. Just don't get caught, right? Just don't get caught is the rule. Well, it  sounds like their work life has that has the same. rule. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So, you said Billy  Lavine had decided that the missions he'd been.

sent on 12 times were um not morally justifiable,  that the the whole war on terror was a bad idea. Is that a common view, do you think? You know,  it is a fact that combat veterans are one of. the most reliable anti-war demographics in our  country. I've noticed I've they don't know that. in cable news. They're always like, "Oh, combat  veterans support whatever mission this is." That's.

the opposite of what I've noticed. The opposite  is true. There's there's data on this. There's. polling. Super majorities of combat veterans  say that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were. not worth fighting. And I'm one of them. And  so, Bill to to me to learn that Billy Lavine, you know, held those views is not surprising at  all. When did that come to you, by the way? Um, what's your can tell us your take five minutes  and tell us your story if that's all right. Uh, sure. Um, you know, I'm not my story is really not  part of the book, but the relevant uh background.

would be that uh I actually deployed to Iraq at  the same time as Lavine's first tour in Iraq. And. um you know I uh before that deployment was over,  I had come to the firm point of view that the war. was not just a mistake but a crime to to carry  out this invasion on the grounds that there were. supposedly weapons of mass destruction in Iraq  when there weren't. Um and what was your role? You. were in the army. Yeah, you know, I was in I was  in college. I was a college student who joined the.

Army reserves. I was a student at the University  of Texas in order to pay for college. Oh wow. Um I. fell for the recruiter's pitch which is you know  one weekend a month two weeks a year. I was 19. years old and uh What year was that? That was in  2004. Um 2003, excuse me. That used to be real. Well that was the year we invaded Iraq. Yeah.  That used to be real. I mean, the reserves served,

you know, one weekend a month, two weeks a year  for a long, long time, and then the war on terror. commenced and those guys were dragged into real  war. But I don't think that had happened before, had it? Well, you would know. You did it. Um,  no, it hadn't happened before. Uh and in fact, you know, I sometimes in retrospect struggle to  explain to folks how it could have been that I. uh opposed the Iraq war and had no interest in  fighting in the Iraq war and yet still joined. the Army Reserve at a time when it was clear  that the Iraq war was going to happen. Well,

because the reserves were not used in that  way. There's that and also even people who. opposed the war had no idea that it was going to  last for years. We forget about this completely, but even people who opposed the war assumed  that it would be over pretty quickly. Um, and I can remember even asking my recruiter  naively, "Are you sure I'm not going to get sent. to this waring rock that everyone's talking about?  Don't worry about that." But, um, yeah, of course, my deployment orders were cut even before I left  basic training. They were sent to me, um, while.

I was standing in formation in basic training.  It said had to deploy to Iraq for 528 days. Oh, come on. And you're a UT student? Yeah. Sorry to  laugh. It's hilarious, though. It was it was 2. years before I went back to college after the day  I signed that contract. What did your girlfriend. or parents or buddies say? I'm sorry. I'm sorry  to laugh. It's like do you see the humor kind of. the dark? I do. Of course. Yeah. My parents were  pretty resigned to it. Um bless their hearts.

Uh they had to put up with a lot. But you know  before I even deployed back to the United States, I was writing editorials for the Daily Tex  because I wrote for my student newspaper. um you know talking about the Iraq war and using  my perspective as a veteran to try to convince. people that this was a mistake and that this  whole post 911 permanent war paradigm should. be reexamined. Um so that's kind of like my  sort of origin story and how I came to Wait, so how long did you spend in Iraq? 528 days. Oh,  you actually did? Oh yeah. Yeah. Every single one.

of those days. What was that like? Um, you know, I  think a a lot of people had certainly had rougher. deployments than I did. Um, I've read books about  some of the units that had the toughest that had. the most casualties. Um, I don't want to, you  know, exaggerate what my experience was like, but at the same time, it was it was pretty rough.  It was pretty rough. I mean, there were guys in.

my unit who were killed. Uh we were attacked  on a fairly regular basis. Um nothing crazy, but you know getting shot at and getting murdered  was a continuous thing. We were often outside the. wire because we were although we were non-combat  troops, we we built bridges and roads was our job. We did a lot of construction work and dirt work  uh in war zones or in um you know areas where. there had been fighting especially to repair roads  that have been damaged by ads. Um so uh several.

of our convoys were ambushed. Um, a lot of I think  maybe five or six guys were shot and survived. Uh, and then also there were other bad things  that went on. Um, you know, I uh and in one. circumstance there was a soldier who um shot up a  car in front of me and another group of soldiers. and killed the occupants of that car who were just  a woman and her kid. and you know he said that he.

thought that uh you know they were approaching too  fast. I don't want to get into all the details of. it but the ugliness of it and the savagery and how  unnecessary it all was made a deep deep impression. on me at that age. Um and I have dedicated all my  work as a journalist and reporter ever since then. to opposing you know the continuation of of these  wars. Well bless you for that. What was it like. coming back after 528 days? Did you rejoin your  fraternity or what? I mean, it must have been.

um It was great coming back. It was good. Um you  know, I didn't have like the sort of stereotypical. hurt locker type of experience where, you know, I  I wasn't like uh what's that movie? Um Apocalypse. Now where I'm laying under the ceiling fan  skating rats. It wasn't like that. I mean, I def. I do remember having it's been a long time now,  but I do remember having nightmares for years,

not necessarily of violence, but I would have this  dream where I had lost my weapon and was unarmed. I was in Iraq uh on the street or whatever and  didn't have a weapon. So, it yeah, there was. some lingering effects, but you know, I I don't  complain about my personal experience in this. The US killed a million people in Iraq. Maybe  the estimates vary, but hundreds of thousands, possibly a million people. They're the ones who  are the victims of this, not US soldiers like me.

who have hurt feelings when we come back. Uh, you  know, I want to be clear about that. But it sounds. like your experience there affected your view of  the broader mission. For sure. Yes. Profoundly, I would say. What about the guys you served  with? Um my my reaction was typical like I. was saying before um most uh there was a divide  in the unit. I can remember debating the 2004.

election with the guys who were for Carrie and  the guys who are for Bush. You know the military. is very reflective of our society. Maybe not the  special forces but the regular army is um and so. the same divisions we see in society at large are  reflected in the ranks. So it was no different. What do you think the prevailing view,  let me ask you again, among the special. operators is of the mission itself? Like why are  we doing this? Is that a question they discuss?

I don't hear them talk about that sort of  thing very much. Yeah. They just say bad guys, we kill bad guys. We kill terrorists. Um, I have  to assume that in units like Delta Force, the. majority of the guys are able to compartmentalize  the ethics of it and say or the wisdom of it and. say that that's simply not their job to think  about and that they just follow orders. Yeah. Um,

but as you can see in the case of a guy like Bill  Lavine, that only lasts for so long. eventually it. starts to dawn on you that this is not okay. And  if you listen to operator type podcasts, you'll. hear a lot of that. I mean, yeah, it's they're  not the the most jingoistic and pro-war people, like you said before, are cable news cable news  anchors. Um not, you know, soldiers. The soldiers, I think, have a more nuanced perspective almost  as a rule. Did you ever run into um any cable news.

anchors when you were over there? No. No. So Mark  Leven was not in your unit. I didn't see him. No. I did see Joe Millionaire once. Joe Millionaire?  Whatever happened to him? Uh I don't know. I saw. him in Iraq. I also saw 50 Cent gave a concert in  Iraq. How was it? It was cool. Yeah, it was a high. point of the deployment. So this is the coolest  Christmas present I'll get this year. This is a. leather Alp pouch. Logo right there. Gets on your  belt. made in the United States out of actual.

leather. If you carry, you can put the firearm on  one side and a loaded tin of alp on the other. It. will never be far from you. And it is legit cool.  I want to go back um to the connection between. uh Lavine and the his friends, his colleagues,  the Delta operators, but also um the other special. forces uh community members in Fort Bragg and drug  use and drug trafficking. That's shocking. Um but.

it doesn't seem to have shocked their superiors.  To what extent is drug trafficking tolerated in. the military? I can't believe I'm even asking this  question, but it sounds like it is. It's hard to. imagine that you would have to ask that question.  And yet, from what I was able to learn, it's not. an isolated case. Lavina Dumas. Um, in fact, it  seems at that after 2020, these uh like the drug.

trafficking rings that permeate Fort Bragg only  increased. Uh, and you even had public statements. from Fort Bragg officials acknowledging, you know,  for example, that they had a 100% increase in drug. crime on base from 2020 to 2021. Um, how could you  have drug crime on a military base? It was very. surprising to me as well. But you even have cases  of military police officers dealing drugs out of. their police cars on Fort Bragg. Folks want to  look that up, look up the case of Jacob Dickerson,

Dickerson, who was an MP on Fort Bragg, who  was busted for drug trafficking. In fact, I obtained the the investigative files in that  case and learned that there was actually four. or five of these MPs on base that were trafficking  drugs. Um, and uh they dropped charges against all. but one of the guys because he had exacerbated the  trouble he was in by getting into a drunk driving. accident. Um, and uh even he was just given a  slap on the wrist. I think he got, you know,

a month or two in the stockade and a dishonorable  discharge. Um but there is a um a I would say. pervasive practice of um or there's there's drug  availability on Fort Bragg that's comparable to to. any you know dense urban city in the United  States. The military is an authoritarian. structure. I don't need to tell you that since  you served in it. Um so it seems like you could. prevent that if you really wanted to. You could  fix that problem. You would think so. You would.

think so. And I'm at a loss to explain why um so  little has been done. I've talked to people who. uh you know C sources who told me C is what? The  Army's criminal investigations division. Yes. It's. a it's a quasi military quasi civilian um police  agency that has jurisdiction to investigate crimes. involving American soldiers. So you have MPs who  are the uniform officers and then above them you.

have C. So they're the ones who investigate, you  know, major crimes on bases. Um and they told me. about closed door meetings in which the Fort Bragg  brass mostly seemed concerned with, you know, um massaging the statistics that they kept just  to make it seem like drug crime was under control. when in fact it's not. Who runs Fort Bragg? Well,  Fort Bragg is um under the the largest umbrella.

formation there would be the 18th Airborne Corps.  So, the commander of the 18th Airborne Corps is. going to be the highest ranking army officer on  Fort Bragg. Um but you also have the Joint Special. Operations Command there, which is a very elite  um formation in the military, the the most elite. And so the commander of of JCO is also um a very  important and powerful person who's a who's a uh. threear general if I'm not mistaken who's on on  the base as well. So you have a collection of of.

you know what people call the brass and then of  course they're subservient to the Pentagon and. the secretary of the army uh and the secretary of  defense. one um connection that I've almost never. heard anybody make, but I've thought about uh so  the war in Vietnam really starts in 1964 with the. Gulf of Tonkin incident and extends all the way  really to the to the final end in April of 1975. that coincided almost exactly with the rise of a  real drug epidemic in the United States. Vietnam.

is in a drug is a poppy growing region near the  Golden Triangle. And for a bunch of different. reasons, that war seemed to have had a material  effect on drug use in the United States like and. a lot of people died from drugs during the period  of the Vietnam War. And I think there must be a. connection. You see the exact same phenomenon  around the war in Afghanistan. starts in 2001,

ends 3 years ago, and it coincides precisely  with this explosion in opioid drug use and. the inevitable death toll from that. Is there a  direct connection between those two things? Yes, there is. And the US media's failure to connect  those things is probably the biggest dereliction. of duty on on part of the press corps that I've  seen in my life. Um the those are big things. Big. things. Yeah. The death toll from drugs during  the Vietnam period and particularly during the.

Afghanistan period dwarfs the death toll in the  war itself. Mhm. Yeah. The number one cause of. death for Americans age 18 to 45 is fentanyl  overdose. And where does that comes that comes. directly out of the heroin crisis that afflicted  this country from let's say the mid uh 2000s up. until 2015 16 17 18. And so it's very important  to ask what were the causes of the heroin crisis? And it I don't think I've ever heard anyone ask  that question. Well, the conventional explanation,

which is not wrong, is that the roots of it lie in  the um overprescription of opioid painkillers in. the 1990s. Yes, that's very true. That happened.  The Sackler family in Purdue. Yeah. That created. widespread um dependence on opiates among a  large number of people. Um you also saw at. the same time to feed um this demand increased  heroin production in Mexico. However, more than.

90% of all the world's heroin was produced in  Afghanistan between 2001 and 2021. Um more than. 90% in fact uh Afghanistan under US occupation  produced more heroin than the world the whole. world could absorb. So supply there outstripped  global demand. And so for that reason you there. are now believed to be large stockpiles of Afghan  heroin uh in places like Pakistan and Tashikan. How could wait do you think heroin production  went up under US occupation? I mean it went up.

exponentially. So and as a direct result of the  US invasion and we should talk about the Taliban. in this context because I'll try to keep it uh to  brief to the essentials because it actually goes. back to the 1980s. So in the 1980s um the CIA uh  armed and funded Afghan resistance fighters known. as Mujahedin to fight the Russians who had uh  invaded Afghanistan and were occupying Afghanistan. to prop up a communist government there. So and  they won that war. That's what we call the Charlie.

Wilson's war the movie of course. But after  the CIA withdrew, those warlords that they had. previously set up took over Afghanistan and ruled  it in the 1990s. And they were all major drug. traffickers. They're the ones who were responsible  for turning Afghanistan into the narco state that. it became. Um, you know, Gulbadin Hecmatar, if I'm  pronouncing that correctly, was the main recipient. of CIA cash and he turned into the big, by far the  biggest drug lord in Afghanistan. There's also the.

clan of Nasim uh Akunada in the Helman province  who is another major recipient of CIA aid and who. turned the Helmand into the world's most prolific  um opium poppy heroin morphine producing area in. in the world. The Taliban, we hear so much about  the Taliban's oppression of women and making music. illegal and they do those things. is the Taliban  is a arch conservative uh movement whose um ethics. and and morality I absolutely do not share.  However, I never understood why I was supposed.

to give a [ __ ] about that. I mean, I I want  everyone to be free just as a matter of principle, but that didn't but moving, you know, metric tons  of heroin into my country, that seems like a real. story. Whether people can, you know, girls can  get PhDs in feminist studies or whatever is of. less concern to me. Right. Right. Well, the uh  Afghan people didn't like it either. All the drug. trafficking that was going on in their country.  And what made the Taliban popular originally.

was their suppression of the drug industry in in  Afghanistan. Um they uh eliminate they took over. and eliminated all of the drug production that  was taking place there because it's you can see. how it's ideologically consistent with their  Sharia law. Uh you know, they don't tolerate. drugs. They don't tolerate alcohol either. So  they get rid of all of it. Sharia law is bad, Seth. I don't know if you've heard that. It's bad.  It's worse than what's happening in New York and. Detroit. It's just bad. I don't know why. Just  like years of brainwashing. I just like I'm not.

Muslim. I'm not for Sharia law. On the other hand,  compared to what? Compared to Baltimore, you know, shut up. Sharia law. Well, in sorry, Sharia law  in Afghanistan, the effect of implementing Sharia. law was the with total suppression of the heroin  industry and the decimation of the world's supply. of heroin and a massive reduction in in the  rape of boys. They didn't like that. That's. another subject that's absolutely part of this and  I almost hesitate to go there because it's a it's.

um it is a par everything I'm saying about drugs  could also be talked about I can't believe I'm. even saying this but child sex trafficking Yeah.  was something that took place that was something. that the uh US backed client state was deeply  implicated in child sex trafficking. Another thing. that's falsely laid at the feet of the Taliban  and said this is just part of Afghan culture. when that is not true. Um but to return to the the  heroin thing the um it was actually in the summer.

of 2001. You feel like your mind explodes with  like when you start to understand what the truth. is. Just the layers of propaganda that attach  like barnacles to your brain when they come off, you're like, I I don't even recognize this  world. Do you feel that ever? In this case, yes. Because although I had served in the military  and worked as a war reporter, I'd actually never. been to Afghanistan. So, I had to educate myself  on the Afghan war um starting from scratch. Um, and what I learned was that uh the the Taliban  eliminated the drug industry just months before.

the US invaded. The DEA and the UN certified the  the uh eradication campaign that the Taliban had. carried out. And when the US invaded in 2001,  they teamed up with the exact same Narco warlords. um that had previously ruled Afghanistan,  what we call the Northern Alliance. Um and those people took over and Hammed Carzai  was installed as um CIA puppet uh president of. Afghanistan and immediately legalized poppy  production in Afghanistan and within a within.

the span of let's say 2 years maybe 3 years heroin  production increased something like 7 or 8,000% in. Afghanistan and and of course a lot of it winds  up in Europe and the United States. Correct. Yes. You know, you have um like I said, more  heroin than the world can even absorb. Why. would the US authorities, why would the  CIA, why would the White House allow that?

I my view there's a paranoid um point of view  conspira conspiratorial point of view among people. who believe that this is some kind of um this is  some kind of societal program that some nefarious. program that the that the US government wants  the whole world to be inundated with heroin. I. personally am more inclined to the view that they  just don't care and that these type of mercenary. drug traffickers um make natural allies to a  foreign power that's invading your country. Is.

there a difference between negligence and malice?  If I leave my toddler in the car with the windows. closed on a hot day to go gamble at a casino and  he suffocates, does it matter if I wanted to kill. him or if I just didn't care enough? No, I don't  think it matters. It doesn't matter. And I'm not. making an excuse for No, no, I know you're  not. I'm just like the bottom line is that. US authorities, the Bush administration and then  the Obama administration and then, you know, up up.

until the end, up until the Biden administration  allowed the United States and its citizens to die. of drug ODS because the the country that they were  running, Afghanistan, was producing all all the. heroin, right? I mean, yes. the I mean the amount  of heroin that was being produced was very potent, high quality and large amounts of it. So that  obviously supply and demand depressed prices and. you have ample reporting. It's not just uh Europe  and Australia and Asia that's being flooded by.

heroin. Also the United States in this time saw  a massive increase in supply. Now here's where. the cover up comes in because all this was well  reported up until the late 2000s. let's say 2007. or so, that's when the DEA started putting out  statements to the effect that no, although there. was rising heroin supplies in the United States,  they claimed that none of it was coming from. Afghanistan. Less than 1% is the official figure.  And so, in the process of writing this book,

um I spent a lot of time in the weeds trying  to figure out how exactly the DEA made this. determination because it's kind of like saying  no, uh oil from Saudi Arabia ever gets burned. in the United States. You ask how is that possible  that the world's largest consumer of drugs is not. uh importing any drugs from the world's largest  producer of drugs which by the way it controls. which it controls. Yeah. That seems to defy  reason. Yeah. Yes, it does. It's why you're a.

good reporter, Seth. If you read the book I you  will see that I get deep in the nitty-gritty of. it down to the actual mathematics of it. Um, but  suffice it to say, I find that um that statistic. was totally bogus and invented as a way to cover  up the fact this incredibly damaging effect of. the war in Afghanistan had on on US society. So I  I guess another way to say that would be in fact. a lot of heroin from our client state Afghanistan  was winding up in American cities. Absolutely. Uh.

especially the China what's called China white  heroin. It's called China because of its color, not because it actually comes from China. Now,  it's the picture is slightly confounded because. there was also a lot of Mexican heroin coming  to the United States during the same time, but Mexican heroin is black uh in color and low  in quality. It's called black tar heroin. Yeah. Um. essentially smoked, right? And it was but it was  the China white that really flooded the US during. this this time period and caused the most damage  especially in the northeast and in Appalachia.

and in the Midwest because that's where flights  from Afghanistan come. It's all traffic through. airports on the eastern seabboard whereas Mexico  kind of supplies the west of the United States in. the south. Right. That's why Jerry Garcia was a  blacktar addict in Marin County, California, and. all the junkies in Philadelphia are using China  White. Right. Right. And the China White because. it's so much more potent is what leads to all of  the the huge overdose crisis that we suffer during.

these days. Pretty hard to OD from smoking heroin.  Possible, but hard. That's my understanding. Yeah. Yeah. So, who profited from that? Um, that's a  very good question. Not the people of Afghanistan. uh the numbers that I've seen suggest that um  maybe a billion dollars a year was uh you know was. the was was the profits that uh went to Afghans  of one type or another. The majority of it went. to drug supply chains outside of Afghanistan. And  that's the most opaque aspect of all of this. Um.

and that's where I I have the most unanswered  questions. Uh who exactly was making all of. this money? So the the occupation of Afghanistan  was a military occupation, diplomatic as well, intel components, but basically we had our  troops in Afghanistan. Therefore, we controlled. Afghanistan. So if there's a an exponential rise  by thousands of percent rise in opium production, heroin manufacturing, and export of heroin, it's  kind of hard to believe the US military didn't.

know that. Well, they certainly knew about it.  And there's um there's a agency called the special. inspector general for Afghan reconstruction  that had although it's a US government agency. has done the most important retrospective work on  this uh including lots of interviews with um key. people who who um and all of them acknowledge  that they knew that it was going on and Saigar.

is an agency it's acronym um discuss how the US  military didn't want anything to do with drug. eradication because they saw it as detrimental to  their mission because the people they were working. with were drug traffickers. And the same story  goes for the CIA, except Saigar explicitly says. in in its 2018 report on counter narcotics that  the CIA rather than cooperating with anti-drug um. eradication measures prioritized its relationship  with significant drug traffickers. That's the.

language of the US government report. and it  even names some of major drug traffickers who. worked with the CIA who were who were on the CIA's  payroll. And let's not forget that the president. of Afghanistan Hmed Carzai and his brother Akhmed  Wally Carzi were on the payroll of the CIA and led. this drug trafficking organization which you know  recently our government accused Nicholas Maduro. of Venezuela of being the head of a drug cartel  on some very very flimsy evidence and they make.

these organization charts where they purport to  show Maduro at the top and all these other guys. If you had taken that same lens and trained it on  Afghanistan, you could have very easily created an. organization structure showing the world's biggest  drug cartel with Hammed Carzi at the very top and. he's someone who, you know, is sitting down to  dine with President Obama and all these other. top US officials. But if I'm a if I'm a special  operator in Afghanistan and I'm working with the. lo local leaders who are also drug traffickers, I  mean, it's not a huge step. And I'm buying heroin.

for, you know, $1,000 a pound when I can resell it  for many, many times that. It's going to be kind. of tempting to bring some home, right? Timothy  Dumas, who was found dead next to Billy Lavine on. Fort Bragg in 2020, had evidently written a letter  in which he outlined exactly what you're talking. about, a drug trafficking organization involving  special forces soldiers who were trafficking.

heroin from Afghanistan to the United States  on military planes. And he was killed before. that letter was ever made public. Who did he  write it to? He wrote it. It was addressed to. a top ranking. I never read the letter, but I I  interviewed someone who did read the letter. I. interviewed three people who knew about the  letter, including Dumas's son and also his. partner in crime, a very um corrupt former North  Carolina state trooper named Freddy Wayne Huff, who was entrusted with a copy of the letter um  and read it. And he said that it was addressed.

to a high-ranking general. As I said before, Dumas  intended to use this um blackmail letter to exert. pressure on the special forces in order to get his  pension reinstated, but it doesn't seem to have. been a very wise maneuver on his part. No, no, you  can push too hard, then you wind up executed. Um. I'm coming around to your theory, by the way, um  that this may have been retaliatory. Um that's.

that's not my theory. Um although I get what  you're saying, but just to be super clear about. it because um these are not light allegations. Um  so I just want to be as responsible as possible as. a reporter and say that this is what people have  alleged. This is what the evidence is. But we. don't know for sure. And the reason we don't know  is because our ignorance has been procured by the. people by the authorities who are who have the  responsibility to investigate this stuff and are. not doing it. Do you think nicely put and thank  you for saying that. Do you think um the US people.

in the US military in the special forces committee  did participate in drug trafficking? I find it. hard to imagine that that they weren't. Um I  will say that there's other ways of making money, other types of crime that I discussed in the book.  The book's not entirely about drug trafficking. There's also a lot of weapons trafficking,  a lot of weapons theft from the military. Um, for Bragg, it would blow your mind if  they ever disclosed how much uh how how many.

weapons and how much in explosives that they lose  annually. It's really crazy. What kind of weapons? What kind of explosives? Military weapons and  plastic explosives. They lose an incredible amount. of weapons every year. And Timothy Dumas was a guy  who was trafficking weapons besides trafficking. drugs. Quarter master. He was a quartermaster. And  so he was deeply involved in all of this. Yeah. I. mean, I read his separation packet. It's 128 pages  and it makes crystal clear that his entire career.

um was characterized by stuff going missing um  documents going missing. He was the he was the. the the when he was in Afghanistan attached to JC  all of the records for 2 years 2012 and 2013 if. I'm not mistaken went missing in their entirety.  All the paperwork on all of the JOC uh supply. chain for that um battalion was just gone. But  so what do you do with militaryra weapons? Even.

small arms, fully automatic rifles. Like what  do you do with something? You can't sell it in. the United States. No, you sell it to Mexican  cartels and then that's how they end up better. armed than the Mexican government in states  like Tamalipas and Nova Leon and Quaila. Yeah, that does. The Ukrainian military has been  selling NATO weapons, American supplied weapons. to the Mexican drug cartels. Fact. They hate  it when you say that, but it's true. Well, uh, I haven't seen that reporting, but I will tell  you this about Ukraine. That agency I mentioned. earlier, Saigar, there are provisions in the laws  providing aid to a Ukraine that ensure that that.

type of accountability never takes place again  because Saigar turned into a real embarrassment. for the war in Afghanistan because apparently they  took their job seriously and did it correctly. So, afid to Ukraine can never be audited.  That's written in the law. What? Yeah. Oh, this can't continue for too long. It's too  out of control. Um, you know, the Roman Empire.

declined for hundreds of years before it finally  disintegrated. So, well, then it just moved east. Um, and it lasted another thousand years. But,  um, amazingly. So, you're of course you're right. You're absolutely right. But it is bewildering  that this was even just 20 years ago if you had. done a poll of people I knew anyway. I lived  in DC. I was around the government every day. Is this country corrupt? I would say not really.  I mean that was my view. Um I think most people.

felt that way. When you joined the army did you  think the people who ran the army were corrupt? No. The simple answer is no. But, you know,  corruption takes many forms. In the United States, if you get pulled over by a cop, you can't just  bribe that cop to let you go. That's not going to. happen. But the higher you go up in the power  structures in this country, the more you find. legal corruption. I mean, is it corruption for a  corporation to give unlimited amounts of money to.

a politician to get elected? Because that's  our Supreme Court says that's totally legal. under Citizens United. But in another context, in  another country, in another time, that would just. be considered the rankest sort of bribery. So it  depends upon how you define corruption. Of course, it is bribery. I agree. Yeah. Yeah. Well,  obviously. Um, it's a complex question cuz like, do you have a right to tell people to what extent  they can support a politician? I don't know. I.

mean, I think it is complicated, but the effect as  it stands right now is politicians are bribed by. donors. Mhm. Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, that's  how we got Ted Cruz. Totally corrupt uh human. being. Yeah, he's unfortunately he's my senator. I  hope that he has a primary challenger soon. Yeah, I think he just won. So, uh probably not for  a while, but um anyway, sorry not to get off. on a Ted Cruz tangent, but I just want to  say again, Ted Cruz is corrupt. his wife.

uh works for Goldman in Texas and when she pitches  clients, I happen to know for a dead certain fact, uh he goes to dinner with them. So that's that's  corruption. He's Well, I'm sure he's looking. forward to coming back on your show again after  the last time. Anyway, sorry. Now I'm being mean, but it's true. And there's a lot of it. But when  it happens in the Senate, you're like, "Okay, of course Ted Cruz is corrupt. Look at him." But  when it happens among people most civilians revere. like you know the most elite units in the US  military I that's dispiriting among other things.

right I think it is and um I think my inclination  is to think that it is a result of waging wars. that nobody really believes in for years and  years because think about what that does to your. psychology when you're engaged in a righteous  cause that has widespread societal buy in. Um, you're going to be constrained by your own sense  of yourself as a virtuous actor and you're going.

to know that when you're tempted to do things  for money or for other motives that that's not. consistent with your self-image and so you don't  do it. But when you're fighting for years in. wars like Afghanistan that the public just doesn't  even pay attention to and you know all your allies. are drug traffickers and they're raping little  boys and that they're trafficking sex slaves, but you're just doing it because you like your  work and you like being an elite uh soldier, then it's easier to take a mercenary attitude  towards this and just think it's not going to.

matter if I skim, you know, $100,000 off the top  of the OP fund that we have out here in the field, all this cash that we're given or it's no big  deal for me to grab a couple bricks of this heroin. um and put it in my foot locker and then sell  it for 50 grand when I go when I get back to. Fagville. I I hope what you just said is clipped  because that's a perfect summation of what my. instincts are that the more morally corrupt the  enterprise is, the more morally corrupt the people.

participating in the in the enterprise become.  And that's why I spend so much time in the book. talking about the wars in which all of this the  context uh in which this takes place because it. doesn't take place in a vacuum and you know the  decisions of our leaders in this country trickle. down to the lowest levels and have an influence  on how people live their lives. That's right. Has. anyone um ever been held accountable? I mean, I  think you've I think you've confirmed my instinct,

which is that there was a connection between  the war in this drug producing country and our. occupation of this drug producing country and  the drug epidemic in the United States. I mean, there's clearly I you have to be an idiot  not to see the connection. But has anyone. ever been indicted, arrested, convicted for  participating in that? No. No. Nobody. Nobody. Nobody. No. for uh the drug trafficking  that took place in Afghanistan. Yeah. No, that's never happened. And there's been there  was total impunity around the entire enterprise.

Man, I think the United States government,  I don't think I know, is doing things right. now whose consequences cannot be foreseen, but  they'll be profound. I agree. And I think the more. rotten your behavior, um, you know, the bigger the  consequences. And you don't get away with it. No. one gets away with it. I agree. And um you know,  you wonder what's going on now because Afghanistan.

is fading rapidly into the past. You know, the war  ended in 2021. And um you know, is there massive. drug trafficking taking place under the opaces of  US military control right now? Not that I know of. But there's other things. You know, Ukraine was  the most corrupt country in Europe uh before the. war there, before Russia invaded um and we've  dumped so much money and so much equipment into.

that country with no oversight at all. Um and  transferred it to a political class that we know. um is corrupt to the bone. So that would be the  place to look now in my opinion for contemporary. examples of corruption. get assassinated if you  tried to do that. You'd be assassinated by the. Ukrainians perhaps, you know, with the help of US  intel agencies, period. I feel like it would be. very unsafe to look into that subject. It would be  very unsafe. I can tell you firsthand it would be.

very unsafe to do that. In fact, you couldn't  do it. Whereas, uh, which is pretty crazy if. you think about it. It is crazy. There's a lot of  things that are crazy these days. Um, I think that. uh what made it possible to write what I wrote  about Afghanistan was something that happened. while I was writing the book, not too long ago  in fact, which was that, you know, the Taliban. took over after the US withdrew in 21 and then  proceeded to do exactly what they had done in the.

year 2000 2001, which was to completely eradicate  all drugs from the country. And up until then, we. had been told to the extent that drug production  in Afghanistan came up, we were always told that. it was the Taliban and that that the insurgency  and the drug production were just two sides of the. same coin. Liars. Yes. But the best lies are the  ones that are 180° opposite of the truth. Exactly. Exactly. And what made it what gave me the um  I guess what gave me the confidence to really.

um to hit as hard as I could in this narrative was  seeing the Taliban in 2023 they completed another. eradication campaign where they once again  totally eliminated heroin production and drug. production from Afghanistan. So at that point  you know I had doubts as a reporter because. I'm not omnisient and you know there's all  these conflict this conflicting information. Um so I kind of doubt my own conclusions. I'm  thinking, well, they must have been involved to. some degree. We you hear that said so often from  the most prestigious institutions of media and.

government. There must be some truth to it. But  seeing the Taliban totally eliminate drugs from. their country again made me realize, okay,  this was always a one-sided thing. It wasn't. that both sides were involved in it. And like  I said, that didn't happen until 2023. And so, and that's what I think makes it possible to tell  the true story of Afghanistan for the first time. You want to get really redpilled. You want to make  it almost hard to live here. Look up Taliban drug. treatment. I you know you're in your early 40s, I  think. So you've lived in this country a long time.

and you must know people who've been ins snared in  drugs or died from drugs. I know and you must you. live here so you know people become addicted to  drugs and can't get off and know a lot of them and. most are dead. Ask yourself super simple question.  Is the Tal the Taliban drug treatment program, you. can look this up, there are videos of it online.  Yeah. Yeah, I've seen it. Does it have does it. produce a higher or lower relapse rate than the  American version in say Delrayry Beach, Florida?

You know, are the Taliban better at getting  people off opioids than we are? And the. answer is not just yes, but hell yes. Way better.  Because they don't wean them off with methadone. This whole thing is a freaking lie. By the  way, a lot of people get rich off that. You. know who you are if you're listening. Some  of them are big political donors who get rich. on drug treatment programs. Disgusting. And it  doesn't work. It works for some small percentage, but it doesn't work for most. That's for sure. And  a lot of them die. And they never lead productive,

joyful lives. And the Taliban have a faith-based  I know I'm probably get pulled off YouTube for. saying this, but it's true. I'm saying this as a  Christian, not a Muslim. They have a faith-based, nononsense, zero intoxicant policy in their  rehab, and it works. And ours doesn't. Mhm. Well, it's a really good point because Afghanistan, you  think drugs are a serious problem, and I do cuz. I've lived it and seen it. Yeah, it's a serious  point. It's a serious point that we should think.

about. What is that? Well, Afghanistan came to  have the highest rates of drug use in the world, the highest addiction rate in the world, which is  a tragedy and something that was that was foisted. on them and it's a source of profound misery and  blight. And the Taliban's way of dealing with it. once the US left was to simply round up addicts.  If they found them on the street, they would just. put them onto buses and and um it was involuntary.  Take them to these detox wards where they're not.

given any kind of methadone or kind of medication.  they're just given um you know food, water, and a place to stay. Uh and then they just wait  it out. You know, they're they're basically locked. in there and they suffer through um withdrawals  and then uh once they're sober, you know, they're. allow they're allowed to leave at that point. And  um it's it was amazing to me to see the hostility. in the Western reaction to the drug um to the  Taliban's uh drug detox program. I mean, you can.

read all these think tank pieces, all these NOS's  where they're talking about how inhumane this is. So, and I've been through withdrawal from alcohol  and it was so unpleasant and I did it alone. I'm. not, you know, I didn't have not done anything  extraordinary, but the one extraordinary thing. I did go through that man, I never drank it. You  go through that I know people relapse after going. through withdrawals for sure, but I can just speak  for myself and other people I know have done it. That's a pretty powerful incentive not to do it  again. It is. And I do think there's a cost to.

sort of easing people out of some. I mean, some  withdrawal is life-threatening. Of course, you. don't want to kill people, but opiate withdrawal  is not life-threatening. It's just you just [ __ ]. yourself a lot and feel terrible. I don't know.  There is I can speak from experience. There's. there's value in that. You'll never have another  glass of vodka if you've gone through something. like that. That's that was my feeling. So, let  me ask you, would you like to see, you know, um police officers tomorrow. If you're standing  leaning against a trash can in the fentanyl haze,

if you're tweaking your brains out and picking  open wounds on your face from meth. Mhm. That. is it. You are in hell. You're dying. You're  a fellow American. I have an obligation to. help you. You're beyond helping yourself in the  way that a child, a toddler is beyond helping. himself in the way that a schizophrenic is beyond  helping himself. You don't have reason. You don't. have free will. And it's incumbent on me to love  you through action. Mhm. And we can argue about. the details of treatment. I personally think that  when possible and not physically dangerous, total.

withdrawal is is the best way, you know, having  done it. But I also think um more bigger than. that is you can't allow this and call yourself  a decent society. You cannot allow this. This. is hell. And anyone who doesn't think it's hell  doesn't know anything about it. Mhm. What if that. was your daughter? Mhm. Getting pimped out. You  know what I mean? like it's that ugly and you're. from a city where it's just totally destroyed your  but most American cities can say that and um and.

no one does anything. So yeah, tomorrow this is  a country where we force people to take the COVID. vax. So don't lecture me about civil liberties,  [ __ ] Sorry. Yeah, I do feel that way strongly. And how many addicts do I know personally who  got sober in jail? Yeah. And they're grateful for. that. And so when Nancy Pelosi starts talking  about compassion, the partial birth abortion. lady's talking to me about compassion. [ __ ]  you. Actually, compassion. Look at your city. There's no compassion there. That's hate. Hate  for your fellow citizens allowing this stuff.

Mhm. Sorry. Yeah. Drugs are destroying America. I  uh and I said as a former user of drugs and like. was very liberal on drugs, but I was wrong. Mhm.  You know, I should say I'm not a drug warrior. I. don't believe in the war on drugs. I don't think  drugs should be illegal. I think that they should. be um regulated rather than controlled as rather  than being a controlled substance that's totally. illegal. Um but I'm inclined to your point of view  about the rehabilitation of large numbers of of.

drug people of drug users. Um I think that drugs  are one of the most salient features of American. society or the worse. um and that we have a just  are as a country we have a big big drug problem. and you see that affecting the military you know  more than ever and yeah I guess I shouldn't be. you're well of course you're absolutely right it's  like the thing about getting older is it's like. it's so hard to readjust your previous perceptions  of things but you're right of course you shouldn't.

be I should not be shocked that there's a drug  problem in the military there's a drug problem. everywhere else there's a drug problem in suburbia  there's a drug problem in the inner city there's a. drug problem in rural America we just have drug  problems America. Bottom line. Let me say this. in response to what you're saying about rounding  people up and putting them into into detox wards. I think that's better than arresting them and  putting them in prison for for using drugs. Of course. Well, of course. And probably cheaper,  too. It's not even like compared to what how much.

aid have we sent to Israel to kill people in Gaza?  Like I don't know. Money is not an issue. Well, I mean on some level it is an issue, but it's  also it's an expression of your priorities. Mhm. What I spend money on in my family is  an expression of what I care about. Well, what I mean is you care about your own people and  the kids who were literally standing there like. this. Like, how can you allow that? Or people  lying in their own feces on the sidewalk. Like, that's so shameful. It's a mark of shame against  all of us. Those are Americans. And I I don't.

think we should put them in jail. I completely  agree with you. That's not a crime as much as. it's a tragedy. It's a crime against them. They're  committing a crime against themselves. Yeah. Don't. allow that. Would you allow your child if you if  you had a child who was addicted to fentanyl, like. standing like this, you'd be like, "I'm going to  chain you to the freaking radiator until you get. better. I love you that much." Wouldn't you? Yes.  Yes. We should love our fellow citizens that much. Mhm. But we hate them. And we call it compassion.  That's hate. It's not compassion. Sorry. Just.

nothing bothers me more than that. It is upsetting  to see the degree of um degradation as a result of. um you know the drug industry industry. Yeah. And  they've been reduced to something less than human. beings. Yes. Um and there's a lot of uh factors  that go into that. There's a lot of causes and. one of them is um something we're really not  here to talk about today, but it's the downward.

mobility that we see in our society and the lack  the lack of economic prospects that people have. strongly agree. Especially if they don't have  an elite education. Yep. Um the cost of housing. There's a lot of reasons why totally agree. End  up like zombies. But you could also I mean I Yes, I say that often. I mean it sincerely and um we're  tiny number of the worst people are taking all the. money. I totally agree with that. Oh, you're  a socialist. No, I'm not. I'm an American who.

remembers a middle class country and I would like  to have that again. That's it. even though I'm not. middle class. But anyway, whatever. Leaving that  aside, you can say there are a lot of reasons your. house is on fire. But the first response is to put  it out. You know, we probably should upgrade the. electrical after this or put a lightning rod on  the roof or whatever. We can take steps to prevent. it happening again. But right now, you need hoses  and water. And if you see Americans dying of drugs. on the street, I'm you know, you have to stop that  immediately. Those are human beings with souls.

They're your countrymen. Mhm. And I think that  uh you know the government now under Trump what. they're trying to do is declare war on Mexican  drug cartels or on the Venezuelan government. And this I think is totally misguided and will  be ineffectual if they actually go through with. it because well certainly the Venezuela thing is  a product of Yeah. The thing is, we're talking. about the complicity of the US government and the  international drug trade. And you think that's.

real? Oh, I definitely think that's real. And  it's again, it's not what I was saying before. It's not, you know, a top- down conspiracy where  that's actually the purpose. It's a side effect. of our imperialism and the permanent war paradigm.  And in Mexico, I've spent a lot of time in Mexico. before I was working on this book as a reporter,  uh, reporting on the drug wars there, the cartel. wars there. And it's one thing, you know, Trump  can tell people, he can tell his voters, we're.

going to declare war on Mexican drug cartels, and  people will buy into that because they see them, you know, they as vicious criminals and murderers  who are pumping drugs into this country. So, it's easy to see why they would be for that. But,  well, I feel that way. I see them that way. The. reality is that Mexican drug cartels don't really  exist in the same way that we've been taught to. believe in them by Netflix and Hollywood. Um,  in fact, there's a recent book. It's an academic.

book. It's not the easiest to read, but I think  it has an important thesis. It's by a Mexican. academic named Oswaldo Zala, and it's called uh  drug cartels do not exist. What he means by that. provocative thesis is that there are not the type  of organizations that we see represented in shows. like Narcos. Take El Chapo Guzman for example,  the uh famous drug lord who was captured I guess. 2015 16. Um the US government to date has seized  no assets belonging to him. None. Why is that? I.

thought he was one of the world's richest men.  He's on Forb's list. Was one of the world's. richest men. No assets. Not in zero. Um, you  reserve that only for Russian oligarchs. Well, I. don't think they can find any. They can't find any  because the drug industry in Mexico is incredibly. complex. The first thing to understand is that  it's not a collection of organizations. It's a.

market. And the demand component of that market  is in the United States. So people in this country. wanting drugs is the battery that's running this  whole thing because once there's that demand. supply inevit suppliers inevitably arise to feed  it and in Mexico those suppliers yes there are. low-level traffickers. There are the people who  the disposable people who are bringing the drugs. across the border the disposable hitmen who are  14 years old and carrying out hits. But the real.

power behind the drug industry in Mexico is the  military and the police, politicians, um, lawyers, deep pocketed investors. They're the ones that are  going in on drug trafficking ventures essentially. as joint ventures, as investments. It's much  more um organic and spontaneous than we're led to. believe. the the organization to the extent that  it exists can be found in highle you know army.

generals or highle police officers who are taking  a cut from all the little fish who are swimming. through um certain drug trafficking routes. So the  sort of idea that we have of a cartel where it's. just bad guys hiding out in their layer having  meetings with the bosses that just simply doesn't. exist in Mexico. So, El Chapo, just to get back  to the original example, um, was described as a. billionaire. We got a pretty what seemed like a  pretty detailed accounting of the revenue. Well,

no, we didn't. I mean, you're talking about the  DEA and the and the DOJ. I mean, this they they. are capable of manufacturing narratives. They're  lawyers. They um are prosecutors. You know, they can put this stuff together and and make this  case. Look, I'm not saying that El Chapo wasn't. a drug trafficker. He was to he was um but he  consistently claimed that he was a small fry and. he had like four guys with him at the time that he  was arrested. Um I thought he had like a private.

zoo with white lions. And where is that? I haven't  seen that. I've seen his pictures of his mom's. house in Sloa, but there was that time that Sean  Penn went to go visit him. Yeah. Did that look. like the lair of a drug traff? He looked like an  ignorant compacino up there. He had like chickens. in cages and stuff and and he was a clearly a very  naive person when when Shawn Penn uh interviewed. him like he wanted he was entrapped into this by  a desire to give flowers to Kate del Castillo the. the Mexican actress who was with Shawn Penn.  I digress to some degree. The point is but the.

bottom line is they've I just want you to say it  again. They've the US government nor the Mexican. government's never confiscated any of this wealth  that right we were told he had. That's right. Because the real power behind the drug industry  in Mexico is the political class that's like this. with the United States security state that is  fun that gets all of their you know the Mexican. army the me things have changed in Mexico by the  way. This is a moving target to discuss because. Mexico starting in 2018 has gone through profound  political changes for sure. Um be the beginning of.

Amllo. Sure. The Amlo period. Yeah. Amllo and then  his successor Claudia Shiny. But at the bottom, especially in the northern states of Mexico along  the Texas border, Yep. I don't think so much has. changed there. And if you just take a state  like Tamalipas, which is just south of Texas, um which has probably the highest intensity  of drug trafficking anywhere in the world, uh bringing it to the United States. Who are the  real powers there? I mean, you could say it's the.

Gulf Cartel or you could say it's Losettas. These  are the organizations that we've been trained by. the media to believe um are the sort of uh puppet  masters. they're making all this happen. By the. way, I I bought that story line totally. Okay. I  mean, I have no other information. I don't speak. Spanish. I don't I don't know. But I mean, I've  just sort of assumed that was true. The real drug. traffickers there, the real power, the idea that  the we often also hear that the Mexican state is. outgunned by drug traffickers. In fact, I made  a comment about that earlier about how the high.

power weapons that they have. There's some element  of truth to that, but the reality is that the. cartels are not a threat to the Mexican state. In  fact, they're an appendage of the Mexican state in. a certain way. And the the elite class in Mexico,  the kind of a shadow paramilitary structure of, let's say, a state government like the state  government of Tamalipas and the police forces. there and the military divisions that are  stationed there. And we're not going to go. to war with those people because there are allies.  I mean, people may not realize this, but there's.

close security cooperation between the US and  Mexico. Yes. I mean, they're armed. The Mexican. army, we arm them. We give them their Blackhawk  helicopters and their armored vehicles and also. the state police forces in the north of Mexico.  We arm all of them and they get training from the. state department and from American police officers  and so on. And they're the the real cartel to the. extent a cartel exists. And you can see that in  other places in the world, notably in Colombia, um where you know it again it's changing there  because they also have a new president. Latin.

America is changing rapidly in recent years. But  for p in the past for many years in Colombia, the Colombian um federal government and the  and the Colombian military have been the the. biggest drug most responsible for moving the most  weight in drugs, I would say. And once again, they're closely backed by the US government.  So to bring it home and wrap up this point, you can say we're going to target drug cartels  in Mexico, but the fact is one, they have no. idea who these people are, the people that they're  setting up as as drug traffickers. They may have.

developed some targets to fight a war. You need  not only political will, you need targets. Um, that was a problem incidentally, parathetically  in Afghanistan. It was hard for them to develop. targets there because it's such a big remote  country. Anyway, in Mexico, they're not going to. be able to find those targets. And to the extent  that they are, they're going to be people that are. protected by the State Department and the CIA. And  so, it's just not going to happen. This is this. drug war, this uh war on Mexican drug cartels. I  don't see it happening. And if it does, it'll be.

in the nature of very isolated strikes. So, what  is the answer? The you have to address the demand. The demand is what's causing all this. So long as  why can't anyone just why I here's what I don't. understand. So is good. Okay. Soiety is the key  to joy and productivity and like having a useful. life. Making it worth being here in the short  period that we are. I believe that through much.

experience. I've never heard any leader in our  country say that. Saying about Mexico. No about. sobriety. The goal ought to be clear thinking. you  know, whatever within the bounds of human nature, but like virtuous life. I don't know. Try to be  cleareyed, hardworking, decent, and sober. Like, I don't I don't No one like there's no kind of  goal set by our leaders. Like, maybe you shouldn't. be wasted all the time. Maybe you should get off  your freaking SSRIs, which make you impotent,

by the way, you know, or your benzoazipines or  your beer or your weed. Like, no one even says. that. I mean, I think they're all on drugs. I  think everyone's on drugs. I think the whole US. government's on drugs. I totally agree. I mean,  look at the people at the highest level. I mean, don't want to cast just reckless aspersions, but  here's something that's concrete. Rolling Stone, a magazine I've written for for many years,  reported on drug use in Trump's first White House,

um, and in fact, Trump's personal doctor, Ronnie  the Candyman Jackson, they called him. He was. uh an admiral, if I'm not mistaken, in the  Navy, a physician um who was demoted by the. Navy for running an unlicensed pharmacy in the  White House because he was giving Trump's people. um prescription drugs without a prescription  and for free. And even if you're the president's. personal physician, that's illegal. Uh so there's  evidence that all of those people were and you see. it in their behavior as well. And I I'm not just  picking on the Republicans here because look at.

look at Kla Harris for example. I don't know her  personally and I can't say for sure but did she. seem like someone who was you know taking a lot of  prescription pills? Well I worked for someone like. that in television who was the head of a network  who I mean we used to joke this person's on benzo. like just deadeyed. I mean, you see that so much  talking nonsensically, like weird, you know, laughing, weird reactions, people who just are not  quite there in a certain way and they seem kind of.

zonked out in a certain way. Yes, that's the whole  country. That seems like a lot of our top leaders. Um, so my question is why does no one ever mention  that and and just say like here's what the go, you know, we all fall short of the goal. It's  not even judging I'm not judging anybody. I'm. not qualified to judge anybody, but like I  do think it's important to articulate the. goal. And why shouldn't someone say the goal is  sobbriety? Um, you know, again, I'm not here to be.

a drug warrior or paternalistic or to uh lecture  people who struggle with substance abuse, but I. certainly agree with you um that that we should  that that should be a value. You should know, Seth, that the real danger is Sharia law. Sharia  law. And you can tell when you go to a place like. Abu Dhabi or Riad, like, "Oh man, I hope we don't  ever wind up with a society like this with a rape. rate of zero where you leave your keys in your  Lamborghini and don't ever worry about it being.

stolen." And you know, if people want to get  wasted, they do it at home. You know what I. mean? Yeah. I I Boy, I hope we don't wind up with  that. Mhm. Yeah. I think that I mean, Sharia law. is obviously just a punchline. I don't know that  too many people actually believe in the reality. of that. And I mean sure, like I said, you know,  I'm a lawyer. I actually studied legal philosophy. Sharia is not that different from um other uh  legal codes. Um a lot of our own legal code,

the Anglo-Saxon common law, Anglo-American  common law derives ultimately from uh. religious authorities. Hope so. There's a lot of  universal um there's a lot of universal values in. Hammurabi's code is recognizable. I wouldn't want  to live under it. It's kind of kind of punitive, but it's not like from another planet. Mhm. The  oldest legal code that we have, Hammurabi's code. It's like it's not like you sort of know what  he's talking about, right? Look, they I agree. Yeah. And look, they put up ten commandments  in front of the I live in Austin, Texas,

and they put up the ten commandments in front of  the state capital, and that's controversial among. um you know, religious libertarians, but I'm  of the view that they I'm happy to see them put. the ten commandments up there if they would just  follow them, you know, agree. Starting with thou. shalt not kill. Uh I couldn't agree more. So, let  me just put a bow on this really super interesting. conversation. Thank you. um with the question  like how were your interactions during the two.

and a half years you were writing this or more  um with the author with like DoD for example with. the Pentagon like you must have called over there  to the PIOS and said you know I have the list of. following questions like how did they respond to  you in general they just didn't respond and I was. in touch with them um just yesterday because uh  Politico is publishing an excerpt of the book and. so we had to go back to them again for comment  and the fact that it involves Delta Force. The.

fact that it involves a special mission unit, you  know, they said that explicitly in the response. that I got from USA yesterday. They said because  your question implicates a special mission unit, you know, our policy is to not comment. So, for  the most part, they didn't give me anything. I. was on my own. But So, here you have a documented  case of one of their guys murdering someone in his. house. Mhm. Obviously, there was drug trafficking.  that was indisputably drug use, narcotic use by.

federal employees and they don't have to answer  any of your questions because the missions are. shrouded in secrecy. Um, uh, yes, that's right. In  general, that's right. I will say, you know, I try. not to be, um, I try to be fair when possible, uh,  or to give credit where credit is due. There was. an a case where the um Senate Armed Services  Committee uh questioned the commander SOCOM, which is an umbrella formation above J- Sock and  above all these units. Questioned him um in a.

committee, a Senate committee about my reporting  for Rolling Stone. Uh and asked him to address, you know, the cases of drug trafficking and  unsolved murders. And um General Brian Finton, who at the time was the commander of SOCOM, said  that he was concerned about it and said that it. was unacceptable, said that they were laser  focused on eradicating it. But whether those. uh sentiments that they expressed to to members of  Congress was actually backed up with real action, I don't know. I don't know. [Music] Do you see  the possibility of reform? You know, I don't think.

that I'm very critical of in this book of every  single presidential presidential administration. since 2001. Bush, Obama, Trump, and Biden. None  of them I give a pass to any of them. But I do see. uh Trump's influence here to be uniquely negative  because of the way that he surrounds himself. with some of the craziest people in the special  operations community. elevates these people who.

who among their own colleagues are considered um  loose cannons, not credible. You know, there's the. case of Eddie Gallagher where Trump made it such  a big part of his brand to defend this disgrace. to the Navy Seals who was turned in by his own  teammates for killing a bunch of people for no. reason. I mean, you're talking about guys who are  not bleeding heart liberals by any stretch of the. imagination. They're there with Chief Gallagher  next to him, seeing what he's doing, and they're. not okay with it. They turn him in. The command  wants nothing to do with Gallagher. They also.

think that he's an embarrassment and a disgrace  and a murderer, but Trump intervenes to prevent. him from from losing his uh trident. Um, and  Trump touts him and he becomes this big influencer. and so forth. So that type of incredible  irresponsibility and malignancy on Trump's. part, his his uniquely malignant influence as  commander-in-chief, I think augers very poorly for. the possibility of um reform in at least in the  next 3 years. Well, you want honest, competent,

um decent military because you know it's the  purest expression of power that a government has, the power to kill people. And you have to think  that they're operating on a different and elevated. moral plane. They can't just be like an outlaw  state. You know what I mean? Yes. That's what. I was saying before about the founding of the US  Army 250 years ago. It is a core institution in.

for our country, for our nation. Um so to see the  degree of decline um it's everywhere um you know. possible to observe is very concerning. Um, and I  really don't think people are aware of the degree. to which the military is incapable of fulfilling  its functions. Um, I don't know that you can say. that the US has the most powerful military in the  world anymore. Uh, I think that you a strong case.

could be made that China has a more competent  military even though they they have never been. in combat. They have totally untested. So there's  a big caveat there. But just looking at on the. surface like I don't think Chinese soldiers are  trafficking drugs and killing each other. I don't. think Chinese soldiers are are dropping dead from  fentanyl overdoses right and left. And also China. has a much bigger army than us. While our army is  shrinking to a degree that's really shocking. I. mean they're really running out of people. Uh this  year recruiting was a little bit better but you're.

still talking about you know a long long deficit  in recruiting. The army's never been smaller than. it is right now. they can't get qualified uh  helicopter pilots, let's say, as we saw. So, um, you know, tragically demonstrated over the  Battoic River in January. So, I think that, you know, be beyond just the drugs, um, there's  a lot of reasons to be concerned, you know, about the the health and and viability  of the US military in general. Boy,

that's a sad story. Seth, thank you very much for  that. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it. [Music]. So, it turns out that YouTube is suppressing  this show. On one level, that's not surprising. That's what they do. But on another level, it's  shocking. With everything that's going on in the. world right now, all the change taking place  in our economy and our politics, with the wars. we're on the cusp of fighting right now, Google  has decided you should have less information. rather than more. And that is totally wrong.  It's immoral. What can you do about it? Well,

we could whine about it. That's a waste of  time. We're not in charge of Google. Or we. could find a way around it. A way that you  could actually get information that is true, not intentionally deceptive. The way to do that on  YouTube, we think, is to subscribe to our channel. Subscribe. Hit the little bell icon to be notified  when we upload and share this video. That way, you'll have a much higher chance of hearing actual  news and information. So, we hope that you'll do.