From Bandits to Narco-Terrorists

Summary

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History As It Happens: "From Bandits to Narco-Terrorists"

Host: Martin Di Caro
Guest: Michael Nagle (historian, author of Chasing America's Long War on Terror)
Date: December 12, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this thought-provoking episode, Martin Di Caro and historian Michael Nagle delve into how the language used by US leaders, media, and citizens to describe America's enemies—from Pancho Villa to Pablo Escobar to Osama bin Laden—has shaped foreign policy and justified military intervention for over a century. Drawing on examples from Nagle's new book, the conversation traces recurring patterns: how terms like "bandit," "savage," "terrorist," and "narco-terrorist" serve to dehumanize and delegitimize, enabling the US to skirt legal and moral constraints. Together, they unpack historical cases from the Philippines, Mexico, Nicaragua, and beyond, examining the consequences of military solutions, the roots of anti-US violence, and the enduring power of rhetoric in war-making.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Power of Language in Framing America’s Enemies

• Language as Delegitimization:

  • The terms used to describe opponents—"bandits," "savages," "narco-terrorists"—strip them of any legitimate cause and place them "beyond the pale."
  • Quote:

    "Language matters. The words US leaders, reporters and ordinary citizens have used to describe the enemy. Not only dehumanized, they delegitimized. As if they have no legitimate grievances or aims."
    — Martin Di Caro (03:30)

  • This justifies abandoning legal norms and human decency:

    "If America's enemies are beyond the pale, then the US doesn't have to follow the law either. A pattern that's been repeated in every failed intervention."
    — Martin Di Caro (03:41)

• Patterns Across Time:

  • Yesterday’s “bandits” are today’s “terrorists.”
  • The rhetoric justifying violence hasn’t substantially changed, only the labels.

2. Historical Case Studies: From Bandits to Narco-Terrorists

A. Pancho Villa and the “Bandit” Frame (Mexico, 1916)

• Villa was demonized as a "bandit" by American officials and media after the Columbus, NM raid, although he fought for poor Mexicans and local control during the Mexican Revolution.

• Official and press calls for his extermination:

  • General Nelson Miles: “...his bandits should be exterminated, and the quicker...are lined up in front of a wall and shot, the better off will be Mexico and the United States.” (05:28)
  • Editorial:

    “Cruel, perhaps, but highly efficient. And about the only way to accomplish the desired result, which is to get rid of Mr. Villa once and for all.”
    — Martin Di Caro quoting Olympia Daily Recorder (05:55)

• The fallout:

  • US launched the Punitive Expedition under General Pershing, but Villa was never captured.

• Key Insight:

  • The act of labeling rebels as mere criminals or “bandits” both obscures their political aims and legitimizes extreme countermeasures.

B. The Origins and Utility of "Narco-Terrorism" (1980s–Present)

• The 1980s saw the blend of anti-narcotics and anti-communist rhetoric, notably with Pablo Escobar.

• Quote:

  "This term would come to be applied to somebody like Pablo Escobar—personified in this individual, who, I argue in the book, for a time becomes the face of the longer running war on drugs. This will compel the United States to try to assist the Colombian government in his apprehension or his death..."
  — Michael Nagle (02:00, repeated and elaborated at 17:46)

• The term "narco-terrorist" justified covert military aid, training, and intervention in Colombia.

• Present parallels:

  • US actions off Venezuela’s coast today use the same justification language—labeling non-state actors “narco-terrorists” or “unlawful combatants” to circumvent legal process (11:43, 15:15).

C. The Continuing Pattern: Osama bin Laden and the “War on Terror”

• After 9/11, leaders described the enemy as existential and outside “civilization,” legitimizing extralegal responses (detention without trial, torture, targeted killing).

• Quotes:

  “This is the ISIS, this is the Al Qaeda of the Western Hemisphere.”
  — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth (06:27)

  "Another term or category that implies they're not protected under the laws of war or by any standards of basic human decency. So Hekseth is murdering them."
  — Martin Di Caro (06:43)

• Nagle questions why 9/11 was treated as an act of war, not a crime, and explores lost opportunities for a less militarized response (26:08).

D. Other Case Studies

• Philippines (Aguinaldo and the “Savages”):

  • Filipino rebels were labeled “savages” to justify harsh counterinsurgency after 1898.
  • Quote:

    "They're just a bunch of savages. They don't know what they're doing, they're not fit for self government. They don't have the temperament, the virtue..."
    — Michael Nagle (29:50)

• Nicaragua (Sandino as “Bandit”):

  • Augusto Sandino opposed US marines; labeled a common criminal, only to be later mythologized—his name lives on in the Sandinistas.

• Che Guevara (“Professional Revolutionary”):

  • Dismissed and belittled as a “professional revolutionary” when his ideology threatened US interests; failed at exporting revolution due to lacking local legitimacy.

3. Consequences of Dehumanization and Military Solutions

• Suppressing rebels by force rarely solves underlying issues; often leads to unintended blowback (e.g., 1980s Afghan jihad leading to global jihadism, Iraq and Afghanistan destabilization post-9/11).

• The drive to “kill the head” (Escobar, Bin Laden, Villa) is often symbolic, not strategic—problems persist or morph after their deaths (Escobar’s death failed to curb the drug trade [22:45], Al-Qaeda survived Bin Laden’s death [24:07]).

4. Is There an Alternative?

• Nagle and Di Caro question the effectiveness and morality of repeated military adventurism:
  • Why did 9/11 require a "war" and not a criminal investigation?
  • Are there ways to address grievances and crime without erasing the opponent’s humanity and political context?

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Language and Legitimacy:

  • "Examining historical actors, language, attitudes, and tactics provides an illuminating window into past perceptions while exposing a crucial connective tissue across these seemingly disparate threats and conflicts."
    — Michael Nagle (31:24)

• On Blowback:

  • "This gets back to the concept of blowback... you can't see at the time. The US policy in Afghanistan is a success. It accomplishes what the Carter and then Reagan administrations ultimately want—but it will set the stage to enable international jihadists..."
    — Michael Nagle (40:21)

• On Escobar and Demand:

  • "It was Americans who were supplying the demand for the product."
    — Martin Di Caro (19:48)

• On US Selectivity and Hypocrisy:

  • "The United States does business with bad leaders all over the world or just learns to live with them or manage the problem rather than trying to do regime change."
    — Martin Di Caro (17:07)

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Important Segment Timestamps

• Understanding America’s Rhetoric:
  • (03:30–04:00) — The role of language in delegitimizing US opponents
• Pancho Villa, Bandits, and US Intervention:
  • (03:05–05:00) — Villa’s raid, the US military response, and public rhetoric
• The Invention and Use of “Narco-Terrorism”:
  • (02:00/17:46) — How the term was deployed from Escobar to modern justifications
• Escobar, US Policy, and the Drug War’s Effectiveness:
  • (19:15–24:07) — Escobar’s crimes, US response, and the (lack of) results
• War on Terror, Bin Laden, and 9/11:
  • (24:07–26:57) — Would a criminal approach have worked? What did war cause?
• Philippines, Savagery, and Torture:
  • (27:36–33:14) — US colonialism, Aguinaldo, and justifications for abuses
• Sandino and Banditry as Dismissal:
  • (44:28–45:36) — Sandino’s case and US labeling
• Che Guevara’s Failure and US Perception:
  • (46:16–49:55) — Why Che was feared and also misunderstood
• Student Attitudes and the Persistence of Military Solutions:
  • (51:54–53:30) — How those born after 9/11 see these continuing patterns

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Thematic Takeaways

• Recurring Patterns: Language evolves, but US justifications for overseas violence remain strikingly similar across decades and continents.
• Justification for Exceptions: Once the enemy is cast as “terrorist” or “bandit,” US leaders and society permit—and even demand—the exceptional: intervention, torture, assassination, indefinite detention.
• Cycles of Forgetting and Relearning: Public memory fades; new justifications are found for old practices, and the “war”—on bandits, drugs, terrorism—never truly ends.

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For Further Reflection

• To what extent does the language of war shape policy—and public consent—for intervention?
• Could alternative responses—focused on law enforcement, diplomacy, or demand reduction—be more effective, just, or lasting?
• How can recognizing the real motives and grievances of America’s opponents inform future policy and perhaps avert costly mistakes?

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A rich, historically grounded dialogue that reveals the connective tissue between 19th-century interventions and 21st-century “wars”—and invites lasting questions about language, legitimacy, and the uses (and abuses) of American power.

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Transcript

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Check out 15 minutes or less per line. Visit t mobile.comhistory as it happens. December 12, 2025. From Bandits to narco terrorists.

[Michael Nagle]

They hate our freedoms. Our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other.

[Martin DeCaro]

Peace on earth and goodwill toward men. Except narco terrorists.

[Michael Nagle]

Bandit at the border. Mancho Villa. Fabled brigands who almost precipitated war between the United States and Mexico.

[Martin DeCaro]

Language matters. The words US leaders, reporters and ordinary citizens have used to describe the enemy. Not only dehumanized, they delegitimized. As if they have no legitimate grievances or aims. Bandits, savages, guerrillas, terrorists. And now narco terrorists. If America's enemies are beyond the pale, then the US doesn't have to follow the law either. A pattern that's been repeated in every failed intervention. That's next as we report history as it happens. I'm Martin DeCaro.

[Michael Nagle]

The context of its creation was the idea that drug cartels were getting in league with leftist groups in south and Central America. That they had some sort of alliance of convenience. This term would come to be applied to somebody like Pablo Escobar, personified in this individual, who I argue in the book is really, for a time, becomes the face of the longer running war on drugs. And this will compel the United States to try to assist the Colombian government in his apprehension or his death. This will also enable or justify the United States having a very significant presence in Colombia in the 1980s, which was a key Cold War and hemispheric ally. This term was useful to justifying an American presence in Colombia. Now, a lot of it was certainly covert through trainers and aid. Money to go after a narco terrorist like Pablo Escobar was described.

[Martin DeCaro]

In March 1916, militiamen loyal to the Mexican peasant born revolutionary Pancho Villa attacked the border town of Columbus, New Mexico. It was a massacre, leaving 18Americans dead.

[Michael Nagle]

Here is the Mexican marauder whose men killed civilians and eight soldiers in the for repercussions were immediate. Soon the famed Texas Rangers set after Villa and his men. A few of his band were captured, but Villa escaped.

[Martin DeCaro]

Villa was usually referred to as a bandit or brigand in those days, Although, according to the National Council for History Education, a group that supports history teaching today, Pancho Villa was deeply committed to fighting for poor, rural Mexicans. His army included workers, farmers and ranchers. He attacked elite landowners and redistributed food supplies and land to local communities. Villa believed the revolution should break the power of the central government and give peasants more control over their lives. His forces played a major role in destabilizing the ruling class and challenging foreign influence in northern Mexico. Villa's actions, they say, helped turn the revolution into a broader social movement.

[Michael Nagle]

And on April 15, in Parral came the incident that brought action from the Mexican government. A skirmish between our troops and Mexico's in Coral resulted in the death of 40 Mexicans, despite official protests by Mexican President Carazo.

[Martin DeCaro]

But as mentioned, he also ordered the raid on a border town where civilians are butchered. Our guest in this episode will tell us why and what happened there. But the Woodrow Wilson administration reacted with hostility to the bloodbath in Columbus, as you might have expected, and ordered General John Pershing to lead 7,000 US troops into Mexico to capture Pancho Villa.

[Michael Nagle]

Mexican troops retreated before the American fighting men. Gonzalez withdrew, and a week after these historic pictures were made, Villa fled to the hills.

[Martin DeCaro]

They never did find the man who had once enjoyed Wilson's support to win the Mexican Revolution. But that support was gone by 1916, as historian Michael Nagel writes in his new book, Chasing America's Long War on Terror. After the Columbus raid, General Nelson Miles said Villa and his bandit should be exterminated, and the quicker that he and his followers are lined up in front of a wall and shot, the better off will be Mexico and the United States. Nagel goes on to say newspaper editorials echoed those sentiments. The Olympia Daily Recorder declared, to get rid of Villa, it'll be necessary to catch the ruffian by the throat and hold him up until he ceases to breathe. Cruel, perhaps, but highly efficient. And about the only way to accomplish the desired result, which is to get rid of Mr. Villa once and for all. Again, that was a newspaper editorial, Nagle says. More than just public posturing. Such language also permeated privately among U.S. officials. Secretary of State Robert Lansing noted that he wanted to pressure Carranza, the Mexican president, to do everything in his power to pursue, capture and exterminate this lawless element. In other words, kill them all. Counter cartel operations. And it's not counter cartel, as was mentioned. These are designated terrorist organizations, foreign terrorist organizations.

[Michael Nagle]

Our generation spent the better part of.

[Martin DeCaro]

Two decades hunting Al Qaeda, hunting isis. Well, as the President said, this is the isis. This is the Al Qaeda of the Western hemisphere. And that was Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth recently puffing himself up over the Trump administration's extrajudicial killings of alleged narco terrorists. Another term or category that implies they're not protected under the laws of war or by any standards of basic human decency. So Hekseth is murdering them. Now, this does feel unprecedented. But more broadly here, the attacks on narcoboats follow a long historical pattern of rendering America's enemies as outside the acceptable boundaries of civilization. Savages, bandits, rebels, insurrectionists, terrorists. Different words with the same meaning. Because these enemies are morally disqualified. And in the case of Osama bin Laden and radical Islamists after 9 11, because they also pose an existential threat to everything we value, the U.S. may use any means to stop them.

[Michael Nagle]

The brutality is shocking. The report reveals at least five detainees were subjected to what it calls rectal feeding interrogation procedures that went on for months.

[Martin DeCaro]

It was good policy. It was properly carried out. It worked very, very well.

[Michael Nagle]

So even these cases where they went beyond the specific legal authorization, you're okay with it? I am.

[Martin DeCaro]

Now. The point here is not to defend bin Laden or anyone else for that matter. He was a fanatic and a mass murderer. But he didn't attack the United States because he hated our freedom. Although it is pretty clear bin Laden did not share Western values. Osama Bin Laden was a critic of U.S. free foreign policy in the Middle East. Pancho Villa was a Mexican revolutionary, not a mere bandit. Augusto Sandino revolted against the US violation of Nicaragua sovereignty in the 1920s and 30s. Che Guevara was a true believer in Socialist Revolution. All these men and others are profiled in Michael Nagle's new book, Chasing Bandits. Through a Historical Lens, he compels us to question the necessity and costs of the global war on terrorism. Maybe there was a better way to deal with evil incarnate rather than by invading other countries. Maybe our use of language blinds us to the dangers of military adventurism. Our conversation Next Ever notice how ads.

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[Michael Nagle]

Thanks, Martin. Appreciate you Having me on.

[Martin DeCaro]

Well, you've written a very thought provoking book and only 158 pages of text. Congratulations. You know, patterns in history are so important. We're going to dive into the past in a second. But I want to start with what's happening right now because it does relate to your book. The Trump administration's policy toward Venezuela, apparently part of the war on drugs, the never ending war on drugs. But unlike Colombia, say, when Pablo Escobar was alive, Venezuela is not a large source of drugs to the United States. Actually, Colombia is still number one in cocaine. So what do you see happening here? What are the motivations? What is driving this US Effort to possibly do regime change there?

[Michael Nagle]

I think there's a couple of vectors at play here, and one of them is what I would probably call the latest case of chasing bandits, non state actors who are deemed to be a threat to the United States that the administration believes requires a violent and militarized response against them. And what you do see here is this nexus, I think, of the war on drugs, which has been going on, off and on since the Nixon administration, with the war on terror. And I think it's evident in how these targets are being depicted. And I think the terminology is really important. This is something that I get into in the book. But in the case of those targets off of Venezuela, they're being depicted as narco terrorists, unlawful combatants, and also savages. This kind of terminology, I think, is used to justify the kind of extrajudicial means in which the Trump administration is pursuing these individuals. A second vector is in this notion of regime change. There's pressure being put to bear on the regime of Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela. And there's also a long history of the United States trying to overthrow unfavorable governments in Latin America and indeed throughout the world through either overt or covert means, and usually ones with the leftist kind of orientation. Stephen Kinser's book Overthrow, which came out about 20 years ago, I think that does a very good job of giving a synopsis of all these kinds of episodes in American history. And so I think those are the two vectors going on here in this particular case. And it is also reflective, both of them, of the kind of muscular foreign policy that Trump wants to project both at home and abroad.

[Martin DeCaro]

How about Rubio's anti communism?

[Michael Nagle]

I think that's also a part of it. I don't think Trump himself is all that ideological. I think he's. I think Trump himself is more transactional. And indeed, I think you kind of see that the recent national security study that just, that just came out, which emphasizes more of access to resources and markets and so forth. But you bring up Secretary Rubio. I think if there's anyone in the upper echelon of the Trump administration's foreign policy team, he might be the one most ideological. I mean, he's of Cuban descent. His, his parents left Cuba before the Castro led revolution. Rubio certainly has no love socialist Cuban government, which has been a key ally of Venezuela for the last quarter century. And I think you had a recent guest on Alex Avigna who suggested that Rubio's interest in Venezuela is really just kind of, he kind of has Cuba in mind in the longer term. And I do think there's something to that.

[Martin DeCaro]

Still, none of this makes sense. Yes, the United States has a very long history of intervention, military intervention, and also covert operations in Latin America going back a century or more. Several of these countries have been invaded or occupied more than once. But in these instances, even when the intervention wasn't justified, you could see the reason for it. But here I don't see anything that makes any sense because Venezuela is not a threat to the United States. It's not a major producer of drugs. Zero. Fentanyl. Right. Fentanyl comes from Mexico. So I guess I'm struggling to see why they're doing this. And of course, the narco terrorism, labeling these people beyond the pale, they're so beyond the pale, their crime is so heinous that they do not deserve any protections. They could be murdered in the water.

[Michael Nagle]

There is seemingly a lack of coherent message from the Trump administration in terms of going after Maduro. When the Bush administration was putting the pressure on Saddam hussein back in 2002, 2003, before the invasion, there was at least a coherence, I think, of a message here, you know, relative to weapons of mass destruction, trying to bring freedom and democracy to, to Iraqis and Saddam's grievous human rights record. What with what's going on in Venezuela here, you don't really see any of that, man.

[Martin DeCaro]

It's not about democracy either. Donald Trump doesn't care about.

[Michael Nagle]

Not at all. Not at all. That's. That's not what's being discussed.

[Martin DeCaro]

And I don't see where Venezuela is threatening any even commercial interests, which used to be a driver of some of these interventions. Right. Businesses would need help.

[Michael Nagle]

Well, there's also, course, Venezuelan oil, but that is the key resource in the region that is of interest to the United States. But Maduro and Venezuela in general has been A thorn in the United States side in terms of foreign policy for the last 25 years, going back to Hugo Chavez, who would constantly needle President Bush during the global war on terror. When he passes away, Maduro takes over and he's kind of a pale imitation of Chavez. Doesn't have nearly the same charisma that Chavez had. And by all accounts, Maduro has, has been a terrible dictator and presence for Venezuela and Venezuelans, completely ignoring elections. So in no way is this to suggest that Maduro is not a bad guy, but it is something that should be up to the Venezuelans to decide what they want to do with him. If you get the United States involved, and if you're talking about even a decapitation strike in some way, shape or form, that's going to blow the lid off of the other issue that the Trump administration is really concerned about, which is migration, trying to stem migration out of Venezuela, out of places of disorder in Central and South America. This is going to certainly exacerbate the problem. Yeah.

[Martin DeCaro]

And the United States does business with bad leaders all over the world or just learns to live with them or manage the problem rather than trying to do regime change. So of course Maduro's not a good guy. He's an illegitimate leader insofar as the last election he lost, but he stayed in power anyway. But yeah, narco terrorism you identify in the book. CIA issued a report for the first time about what is narco terrorism in the mid-1980s. What is it? It's the act of using violence to just keep the authorities off the backs of the cartels. Let us do our business and if you interfere in our business, we're going to kill you.

[Michael Nagle]

The context of its, its creation was the idea that drug cartels were getting in league with leftist groups in south and Central America, that they had some sort of alliance of, of convenience. This term would come to be applied to somebody like Pablo Escobar, personified in this individual, who I, I argue in the book is really, for a time becomes the face of the longer running war on drugs. And this will compel the United States to try to assist the Colombian government in his apprehension or his death. This will also enable or justify the United States having a very significant presence in Colombia in the 1980s, which was a key Cold War and hemispheric ally. This term was useful to justifying an American presence in Colombia. Now a lot of it was certainly covert through trainers and aid money to go after a narco terrorist like Pablo Escobar was described.

[Martin DeCaro]

Some of the Quotes you cite in the book could be pulled from today's headlines. Robert Torricelli of New Jersey. Escobar and his ilk represent a threat to law abiding civilized societies throughout the hemisphere, and they must be brought to justice. And here's a clip from a 1989 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. Chairman Joe Biden questioning a Max Myrmelstein, a former drug smuggler for the Medellin cartel.

[Michael Nagle]

Although the cocaine trade provides enormous profits, are they looking at new businesses to get themselves involved in? Or is it they just see the cocaine gravy train there as long as they needed? Or. I mean, is there any. No. Escobar. Pablo Escobar is an extremely ambitious individual. Sometime mid to late 1983, he started experimenting with and growing poppies in Colombia for the production of heroin in Colombia.

[Martin DeCaro]

Now, Escobar was a real problem. He was also one of the wealthiest people in the world, did about $2 billion in business. More of a problem for Colombia than, say, U.S. security. But the argument was made similar to how it's being made today. This person, as you say, he personified the war on drugs or his organization and other cartels in Colombia were actually threatening the security, the safety of Americans. The other side of that, though, is that the United States, it was Americans who were supplying the demand for the product.

[Michael Nagle]

I know the podcast listeners can't see it, but I'm nodding my head with everything that you just said here back in the 1980s under the Reagan administration, they do connect drug cartels and the scourge of illegal narcotics as a national security issue. That's how it's framed. It's interesting. One of the things in the research that I did for the Escobar chapter in particular is conversations between the Colombian government officials and American officials in which the American officials are telling the Colombians, hey, how come you're not doing more to stop these drug cartels? And the Colombians come back and say, hey, it's a business. If you the Americans weren't supplying the demand and the market for this stuff, we wouldn't have such a problem.

[Martin DeCaro]

Yeah, you cite a statistic in the book. It's really unbelievable. 5.7 million Americans were regularly using cocaine in the mid-80s.

[Michael Nagle]

Escobar, I admit, is one of the outliers in that he may have dressed some of his approaches in a political or patriotic kind of bent. He was briefly an alternative member of Congress in Colombia. He allegedly harbored ideas of maybe running for president in Colombia. But all that, I think, was just kind of window dressing for trying to protect his business. And as you had mentioned, you know, he's doing about $2 billion worth of sales in the 1980s, which was an enormous sum in its date, still is to this day. You know, he's on the Forbes 10 most wealthy list, even though Escobar is framed as a narco terrorist. And so for that reason, I think he connects with some of these other case studies that I have in the book. I do recognize that he is less politically oriented than some of the other individuals that I write about.

[Martin DeCaro]

I didn't realize that he was behind the bombing of a passenger plane using dynamite that killed everyone on board. But the person that he really was after, one person. So he blows up an entire plane. That person actually didn't board the plane. Judges, police officers, politicians, opposing cartels. There were hundreds upon hundreds of murders. But some Americans were killed in all of this as well. Some Americans did die due to this violence. And it prompted American officials to talk publicly about going in there, but not to topple the Colombian government to go and get him. He was finally hunted down and killed. Did it really make a difference? The killing of Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar is sending a tougher message. At least that is the hope of Colombian and US officials. Mr. Escobar was gunned down yesterday, and Colombian authorities say its message to UN no one expects the death of Colombian.

[Michael Nagle]

Drug lord Pablo Escobar to put much of a dent in the world cocaine trade.

[Martin DeCaro]

But it does put an end to.

[Michael Nagle]

One of the bloodiest criminal careers in history. Seemingly not. We still have essentially a war on drugs going on in the 21st century. I closed the chapter by comparing what George H.W. bush was saying relative to the war on drugs, and then 10 years later, his son Bush, 43, basically saying the same thing about, hey, we're winning this war on drugs. We're winning. I committed our nation to an ambitious effort to cut drug use by limiting demand, reducing supply, and helping addicts get treatment. Over the past six years, we've made great strides toward these goals. Parents, teachers, mentors, and counselors have done fantastic work to educate children about the dangers of drug abuse. Law enforcement officers have risked their lives to cut the supply of drugs on city streets. And with help from our international public partners, we're pursuing drug dealers around the world and interdicting supply before it reaches our shores. But yet, Colombia is still one of, if not the largest supplier of cocaine to the United States in the present. The death of Escobar is really just a blip in the Wider war on drugs. Colombia is certainly exposed to less narco violence than it was in the 1980s, but by no means is the drug war over.

[Martin DeCaro]

This is also this issue we're talking about now is part of this larger pattern killing the heads of enemy groups in the hope that that will solve a problem. So bin Laden. The United States eventually did get bin Laden in 2011. That's a decade into the war on terrorism. But Al Qaeda had already been reduced and scattered, and bin Laden had to flee to Pakistan by that point. Did killing bin Laden make a big difference?

[Michael Nagle]

I opened that chapter with just how close the US comes to getting him at Tora Bora in December 2001. He's basically cornered this very mountainous region between Afghanistan and Pakistan. I asked this with my students in my War on Terror class here at Nichols College. How could the war on terror have been different if bin Laden had been caught in December 2001, either captured or killed? Does the United States stay in Afghanistan for 20 years? What else does this do relative to other counterterrorism operations that the United States pursues after that? That includes the war in Iraq, which exacerbates the war on terror to an astronomical degree. I think the failure to get bin Laden in December 2001 is going to have huge repercussions. That enables or justifies the United States staying in Afghanistan for as long as it does to expand this war on terror as a truly global war on terrorism, with Iraq as the next main theater of operations. But the United States is also going to get involved in actions or training missions in something like 80 countries. So it expands significantly to the tune of, you know, roughly $8 trillion estimated to be spent or committed on this.

[Martin DeCaro]

That's right. Once we're done paying for the health care of all the veterans for the rest of their lives. That has to be included in that $8 trillion estimate. But yeah, hundreds of thousands of people dead, millions displaced, political instability, society shredded in Iraq, in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Right. American prestige and standing has taken a major hit. Maybe a different course could have been or should have been taken at the time.

[Michael Nagle]

This is another question I've often asked. Why did it have to be a war on terror? Why was 911 not necessarily pursued through a criminal justice orientation as previous cases of terrorism had been pursued? And they still are to this day. But after 9 11, you're going to see counterterrorism be much more militarized. And that's something that even President Bush, in his memoir, writes about. I think the only person who even Questioned him about that kind of language at the time was Senator Tom Daschle. Bush basically responds, well, is 911 a breach of protocol? No, 911 was an act of war. Because of the scale of the attack and the mindset at the time, the emotional component at the time I think compels the Bush administration and the American people to we gotta go to war. We have to go hard at whoever just hit us.

[Martin DeCaro]

Well, the question of military power, the limits of military power, its usefulness, these go back all the way to the very first examples you cite in your book. But the results or the long term unintended consequences, they are often foreseeable. So let's talk then about the examples in your book six and all. We've already mentioned bin Laden and Pablo Escobar and about. We've talked, talked a little bit of what's happening now in Venezuela. You begin the book with the Philippines became a US colony in 1898. There was an uprising in the Philippines against the US presence there in the early 1900s. Aguinaldo, why did you begin with the Philippines?

[Michael Nagle]

So I'll even go back a little bit further how this whole book kind of came to be. It was inspired by an undergraduate class I teach here at Nichols College about the war on terrorists. I started at Nichols in 2014 and at the time I wanted to come up with a class that historicized the contemporary war on terror. So I was doing research for the class. I came up with this list of these individuals, these non state actors who somehow threatened or challenged American interests abroad. I found a lot of through lines in the rhetoric and how these individuals are talked about. These are all individuals who are had a great deal of notoriety in their day. As I was looking at these examples, I could see a framework developing here of these are really kind of post 1898 challengers. 1898 I think is a very important point in American foreign policy in the sense that you do see the development of America's overseas empire. I think it's unquestionable. Now there's some historians who I think could make a good case that the United States has been an empire from day one, I think certainly after 1898, unquestionably with the foreign lands that it's taking, the colonization that takes place extra continentally. What I see in the Philippines is rebellion against the United States, attempt to annex the Philippines and it's led by Emilio Aguinaldo. And he briefly was an ally of the United States in the conflict against Spain. Aguinaldo had been fighting against the Spanish colonizers in the 1890s thought that by helping the United States get rid of Spain and get Filipino independence, that's what he had been led to believe. When that's not going to take place, then he sets his sights against the United States. And he's described, and he and his supporters, his fighters are described as savages. That term also has a long history. But the way in which Aguinaldo is described as a savage, which also tends to humanize him, I think that's part of this through line of this kind of terminology that I see across these different case studies.

[Martin DeCaro]

Sure, today's terrorists were yesterday's bandits.

[Michael Nagle]

That's right.

[Martin DeCaro]

It delegitimizes and depoliticizes their causes, makes them sound like just common criminals when they actually were fighting for something. In this case, what was Aguinaldo fighting for?

[Michael Nagle]

Primarily independence, of course, with himself as president, as head of whatever independent government the Philippines could potentially be. But that, as you say, was blunted by this idea that, oh, they're just a bunch of savages. They don't know what they're doing, they're not fit for self government. They don't have the temperament, the virtue in which they would fight through guerrilla tactics, hit and run attacks, booby traps, that was used as evidence Aguinaldo and his men were savages. And Aguinaldo is also conscious of this kind of terminology. And in fact, he initially tries to fight against the United States through more conventional means because the Spanish had been denigrating the Filipinos. And so Aguinaldo initially was trying to show not just the Americans, but the rest of the world, that the Filipinos could fight in the same kind of quote unquote civilized ways as everybody else. That is a disaster. It does not work well for them at all. So he moves more to these kind of hit and run tactics, booby traps and so forth. And the Filipinos do this not necessarily because of some sort of cultural failure, but it's more practical to mitigate the overwhelming American firepower that they were facing.

[Martin DeCaro]

It was also seen as a form of racial degeneracy too.

[Michael Nagle]

Certainly another factor of this as well, that these are non white individuals who are daring to challenge the United States. The savagery terminology is also, I think, borrowed from the Indian wars. A lot of these American officers who are in the Philippines were veterans of the Indian wars of the 19th century. So this kind of terminology is then applied and put on to Filipinos.

[Martin DeCaro]

You say here, examining historical actors, language, attitudes and tactics provides an illuminating window into past perceptions While exposing a crucial connective tissue across these seemingly disparate threats and conflicts. Such considerations offer a way to think about the global war on terrorism as more than just a modern Middle east centric conflict. I used the term patterns in the very beginning, so yeah, I think it does go all the way back. Even before the founding of the United States, the Native Americans, Native peoples are not going to fight a line battle with English colonists. There's another side to this coin, though, that you identify here. Because our opponents acted so savagely or like bandits, like criminals, that then justifies the United States to throw away the laws of war and act in the same way.

[Michael Nagle]

That's a big part of this as well. It justifies the breaking or bending of established rules of engagement. Filipinos who are captured or suspected of aiding these rebels are subjected to tortures like the water cure, pouring water down somebody's throat to instill the feeling, or actual drowning and suffocation, stomping on their stomachs, getting all the water out and doing it all over again to try to get some sort of information by calling them savages. These kinds of approaches are then seen as just. We're going to see that even into the 21st century with the global war on terror. By calling insurgents unlawful combatants. This will then justify the indefinite detention of individuals at Guantanamo Bay, also subjected to extraordinary rendition, enhanced interrogation techniques, or torture, if you will. The language in which the enemy is described justifies breaking or bending of established rules of engagement that would not be applied to prisoners or detainees of state actors.

[Martin DeCaro]

The counterinsurgency in the Philippines ultimately does prevail, doesn't it? I mean, what were the reasons for that?

[Michael Nagle]

Yes, although it does take a while. This is a, I think, an often forgotten war in US history where you're going to see over 4,000 US service members will die in the Philippines. And there's various estimates of just how many Filipinos die to the tune of hundreds of thousands, perhaps. So it comes at a tremendous cost and consequence for not just the United States, but also for the local indigenous populations.

[Martin DeCaro]

Another pattern I detected in, in your book was how some of these figures went from being romanticized heroic figures receiving praise from American politicians and journalists, to then becoming savages or bandits when they turned against us, to maybe then even later on having the reputations rescued again. I mean, Pancho Villa, Jose Doroteo Arango, Arambula, he was a bandit and a criminal, right? But he was also, I mean, what was he fighting for in the Mexican Revolution?

[Michael Nagle]

There's so many different shifting Alliances there. A lot of this is hard to keep track of. From my own reading of Villa, I don't find him all that ideological or even all that politically oriented. He just kind. He had his private militia. He wanted to have northern Mexico. He seemed pretty content with that. The thing about Villa is that as all these different parties are fighting with each other in the Mexican Revolution, the United States is trying to figure out which horse to bet on. And it seems initially that Villa, despite his kind of criminal outlaw background prior to the Mexican Revolution, in which he was fairly widely known even in the United States, the United States supports him because for the most part, Villa seems to leave American businesses and property alone. Alone in the areas that he has a great deal of influence, that he has his private militia, they might be going after Spanish property owners and businesses, but he tends to leave the Americans alone. So that gives the United States a sense that, oh, maybe this is a guy that we can work with. Let's bet on this horse to maybe prevail in the Mexican Revolution. And if we have a guy like Villa, who we have a good relationship with, this could be good for American business and property owners in Mexico. As this war is continuing and the Mexican Revolution continues, his fortunes seem to. By late 1915, the Woodrow Wilson administration kind of changes horses in midstream, supports Villa's rival, Venustiano Carranza. And this is something that's going to set off Villa and he's going to start to set his sights on the United States from there.

[Martin DeCaro]

So he crosses the border with his people, although I guess it's disputed whether he was there or not. Right. His raiders go across the border into a town in the United States right on the other side of the Mexican border and commit a massacre.

[Michael Nagle]

His men had done something like that about two months earlier, sent Isabel. They stopped a train and they. They take anybody who's an American off the train and kill them. There's one survivor. So two months later, March 1916, there's about 400 members of Villa's militia who attacked the town of Columbus, New Mexico, which is right over the border, kill 18Americans, and then they flee back.

[Martin DeCaro]

And this news is slashed across the country. People are outraged.

[Michael Nagle]

The way in which VIA is described, the outrage that Americans had. I think there's a lot of parallels with American reactions to 9 11. This is on a much smaller scale, but nevertheless, this is a private foreign party that has attacked the United States and killed Americans on American soil. It is one of, if not the worst such attack until 9 11. Now, via doesn't do many interviews, he doesn't really write much of anything that I could find, at least compared to the other men that I, that I examine here. So understanding his motivations is a little unclear, but I think the historical consensus is that he was trying to goad the United States into a wider war, a wider conflict by bringing US troops into Mexico. This would then provoke a clash with the Mexican nationals controlled by Carranza. And so I think he's, his hope was to try to start up this wider war, which is one of the things that terrorists try to do, is to go a response.

[Martin DeCaro]

And often terrorists miscalculate themselves because that response in Bin Laden's case he believed the United States, he believed Americans didn't have it in them to get him this time because of past experience where the United States withdrew from places after they had been punched in the nose. Another issue here too is the anger, understandable anger and outrage that followed the attack obscures or ignores the reasons why the opponent is doing this, the enemy is doing this. Which is not to say we should justify it. You have to understand it. And it took a long time for Americans if they ever have to try to understand why Bin Laden did what he did, which again is not to justify it. And Bin Laden's not necessarily accurate either, half truths and exaggerations. But his qualms were with U.S. foreign Policy.

[Michael Nagle]

I'll give you an example relative to Bin Laden, he has the so called fatwa in 1998 in which he's laying out these reasons why he believes all Muslims should kill Americans. It's not just enough to say, oh, as bush did after nine, 11, oh, they're killing us because they hate our freedoms. Americans are asking why do they hate us? They hate what they see right here in this chamber, a democratically elected government. They're living leaders, are self appointed, they hate our freedoms, our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other. It's much more complicated than that. I think Bin Laden was much more specific about his grievances against the United States. You know, he was opposed to the US military presence in Saudi Arabia. He was opposed to American support of Israel and policies against Palestinians. He was opposed to the economic embargo of Iraq in the 1990s that grievously affected hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians. So there were specific aspects of this. But if you just say oh the guy hates our freedoms, that obscures any kind of deeper self reflection. So it's important to understand, but it Certainly doesn't justify understanding.

[Martin DeCaro]

Helps you come up with the right remedy, if there is one. I've talked about putting boots on the ground in a lot of these places. That was counterproductive. And of course, after 9, 11, a lot of Americans weren't aware or maybe not even interested in revisiting the key 1980s. The United States didn't directly deal with bin Laden or directly give him money, but dealt with people who were in league with bin Laden. And, you know, this was raised at the time. There was a famous interview that Ziggy Brzezinski gave to a reporter who asked him, do you regret now because this started under the Carter administration, Brzezinski was a Carter official. Do you regret giving jihadists weapons, money, organization, legitimacy? And Brzezinski's response was, well, you have to look at it in the perspective of history. What was more important at the time? Defeating the Soviet Union in Afghanistan or riling up a bunch of Muslims?

[Michael Nagle]

This gets back to the concept of blowback, of course, where something that might work well initially is going to have adverse effects in the long term that you can't see at the time. And I think certainly what was going on in Afghanistan in the 1980s, if you just looked at it in a vacuum, the United States gets exactly what it wants in the 1980s by helping the mujahideen fight against the Soviet Union on the ground, makes the Soviets literally bleed for 10 years to such an extent that the Soviets have to turn and leave in 1989. At the time, the US policy in Afghanistan is a success. It accomplishes what the Carter and then Reagan administrations ultimately want. But it will set the stage to enable international jihadists to then eventually set their sights not just on the United States, but in other countries around the world, because Afghanistan will also be a breeding ground for foreigners, a lot of Arabs to come into Afghanistan to kind of cut their teeth as jihadists fighting against the Soviet Union. And then once the Soviets are out of the picture, okay, well, who's the other big bad empire making our lives miserable? It's the United States. And so that sets the stage for, I think, the 21st century. And as the resistance continues the fight, we and other responsible governments will stand by it. The support that the United States has been providing, the resistance will be strengthened rather than diminished, so that it can continue to fight effectively for freedom. A just struggle against foreign tyranny can count upon worldwide support, both political and material. The goal of the United States remains a genuinely independent Afghanistan free from external interference, an Afghanistan whose People choose the type of government they wish. An Afghanistan to which the 4 million refugees from Soviet aggression may return in safety. And yes, in honor. On behalf of the American people, I salute Chairman Kalis, his delegation, and the people of Afghanistan themselves. You are a nation of heroes, Guys. Thanks for helping me carry my Christmas tree.

[Martin DeCaro]

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[Michael Nagle]

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[Martin DeCaro]

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[Michael Nagle]

I'm not. Of course he did. Right, Santa? You know my elf Drewski here. He handles the nice list.

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[Michael Nagle]

Right. So he's opposed to the presence of U.S. marines in his country, who were there ostensibly as peacekeepers. Nicaragua had been going through civil war off and on for over a decade and a half. And when U.S. marines come in to try to keep the peace and all the Warring parties agreed to this, except for Sandino. So he'll stage this kind of low intensity rebellion in the Nicaraguan hinterlands. He's not overly popular among Nicaraguans in general. It's mostly just in the rural countryside. He will get the attention though of Latin Americans at the time, but then also over the next few decades. He believes that the presence of US Marines is a violation of Nicaraguan sovereignty. He wants them out. He will stage this low intensity conflict for about six years. And then once the Americans leave in January 1933, he will lay down his arms shortly afterwards as well. He upholds his end as well. He's not seeking any political office, he's not seeking any spoils. And then it's about a year later that he will be killed by forces loyal to Anastasio Somoza, who's head of the Nicaragua National Guard, which was a creation of the United States.

[Martin DeCaro]

That's right. He was referred to as a plain bandit, to borrow the title of that chapter. Yeah, it's right to point out that not all Nicaraguans were opposed to the presence of Marines in their country at the time. So, Che Guevara. I gotta say, I didn't know a lot about Che Guevara before reading your book, except for, you know, the basics that everyone knows. You point something out here. I'm not even sure if you did this intentionally, but you point something out about him. He made the same mistakes that the imperialists made. When he went around trying to export revolution, he found himself being looked at as some foreign intrusive force that didn't belong where he was.

[Michael Nagle]

Of course he wouldn't have seen himself that way in large part because he was fighting capitalism and he was distinctly anti capitalist socialist. I think the way Che would have seen it at the time is that, no, I'm trying to help you people from the evils of capitalism that has made life difficult. Now he does have these missions in the Congo first and then Bolivia, and he's trying to remake the success of the Cuban revolution in these other places. And the idea is that if we can duplicate what happened in Cuba, in say the Congo for example, and then this would attract other like minded fighters, there'll be success in the Congo and they can take it to other places in Africa which can liberate the continent from capitalist imperialism and that's a complete failure. Then he tries to do the same thing in Bolivia. And Bolivia is also specifically targeted because it's right in the heart of South America. His hope is he's going to Bring in these other fighters, inspire this war of national liberation against capitalism and against American imperialism. And then those fighters can then take that, export it to their own countries, including his native Argentina.

[Martin DeCaro]

Like a reverse domino theory.

[Michael Nagle]

It's a failure in both cases. Even in the Congo, he writes a diary. One of the lines he has in there is that this is the story of a failure. The group is too small. They don't have enough supplies. In a lot of cases, they don't even speak the language. He tries it again in Bolivia, and it's even more of a disaster.

[Martin DeCaro]

And US Officials see him as a major threat, almost a larger than life romanticized figure, even though he's not really capable of doing all that much. I mean, that's another linkage in your examples that these personalities were viewed in Washington as a threat to U.S. interests, U.S. security, even though often they were leading bands of 20, 50, maybe 100 ragtag soldiers. Not that they didn't do damage in some of the instances you raise in your book. Across the six examples, I mean, there was a lot of violence, but Guevara seemed to be a total failure.

[Michael Nagle]

The thing about Che that made Americans nervous is that he was this very eloquent, charismatic figure espousing socialism at the time. And we're talking here in the early 1960s, this idea was that socialism would only come about from the barrel of a tank. The idea that one could seduce an audience into accepting socialism is one of the reasons, I think, Che was seen as dangerous. He was, again, very charismatic. He was essentially the de facto foreign minister of the new Cuban government. So he had all these connections and taking all these meetings around the world. And even he goes to the United nations in 1964 and he denounces the United States. That kind of vocal animosity toward the United States is something that Kennedy and then Johnson officials are going to be like, oh, this is not something that we want to see transpire. When the word gets in that that he's in Bolivia. I think, to the United States credit, give particular credit to the local Bolivian ambassador. He's advocating for a lighter footprint, to not give tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in weaponry to the Bolivian government to take out Che. Let's go with a lighter footprint. Let's give the Bolivians the same kinds of stuff we would have been giving all the other countries in Latin America.

[Martin DeCaro]

He wasn't called a bandit or a terrorist, which is a more modern term. He was called a professional gorilla or professional revolutionary, which was another way of dismissing demeaning or Dehumanizing him, which is one of the main themes of your book, the use of language to describe enemies of the United States.

[Michael Nagle]

Well, when they're calling him a guerrilla and a professional revolutionary, yeah, it's meant to denigrate him. Especially the professional revolutionary idea to suggest that Che is not principled, that he's only doing this fighting and rabble rousing for his own self glorification. You know from my own, my own reading of Che is that he was very principled, that he truly believed in what he was, was fighting for. When he's in, in Bolivia, they can't recruit a single local to help them. But he's also not trying to do it through threats or through the barrel of a gun. I have a brief epilogue in the conclusion about ISIS and the way ISIS was trying to win supporters and just by killing anybody who went against him. Che does not do that in Bolivia. And so there is a principle and an ethic to how he conducted himself. But by calling him a professional revolutionary that is meant to denigrate that or just kind of ignore any kind of principle he might have stood for.

[Martin DeCaro]

Well throughout the Cold War the United States across multiple administrations didn't want to take seriously the appeal of socialism to local people. The indigenous nature of some of these Marxist movements he's always looked at as some nefarious outside meddling by the Soviet Union and then in Cuba too. Now Cuba's behind exporting revolution. Although in this case with Che, he did want to export the revolution. He just failed at it disastrously. He didn't listen to his own advice. He didn't have local legitimacy on the ground in Bolivia, just as say the United States didn't have legitimacy on the ground in South Vietnam. Right. So it had trouble finding reliable partners there. Last thing here, Michael, about your very thought provoking book. You mention how you teach this now to your students. These are younger people who grew up, who were born after 9 11. How do they view that war? Do they see it as a total failure or an unnecessary war despite what happened on 9 11?

[Michael Nagle]

Not necessarily. The longer I teach this, the older I get. It feels like the younger the students get. Whereas in 2014 when I first taught this, this was something that was much more in the forefront. The global war on terror was much more in the forefront of students minds. They remembered 9 11, they remembered the death of Bin Laden. Tonight I can report to the American people and to the world that the.

[Martin DeCaro]

United States has conducted an operation that.

[Michael Nagle]

Killed Osama Bin Laden, the leader of Al Qaeda. And a terrorist who's responsible for the murder of thousands of innocent men, women and children. Now in 2025, most of the students that I teach, they weren't even born on 9 11. They have virtually no memory. The death of bin Laden and the war on terror has kind of receded in the minds of most students. And in fact, in terms of American foreign policy priorities, it's not even so much counterterrorism as much anymore. The emphasis is more on great power rivalry with China and Russia and so forth. I think a lot of students are coming at the class curious, but not with a lot of reformed ideas relative to the war on terrorists they're going in. But I do try to point out that it is still relevant today. It's still going on to some extent. We still have American troops in Iraq and Syria, continent of Africa. We have US troops all over the continent. On a smaller scale. Yeah.

[Martin DeCaro]

And the larger pattern, the larger pattern, we're not dealing with Islamists in the Caribbean. We're dealing with narco terrorists.

[Michael Nagle]

Yeah.

[Martin DeCaro]

It justifies using the already existing war fighting machine that's been put in place.

[Michael Nagle]

The militarism of American foreign policy over, you know, really since, you know, since World War II was still in place. The idea of going after so called narco terrorists now is something that's also, I think, justifying the continued emphasis of a militarized, muscular foreign policy. As I've said, and I'll say again, we've only just begun striking narco boats and putting narco terrorists at the bottom.

[Martin DeCaro]

Of the ocean because they've been poisoning the American people. And Joe Biden tried to approach it with kid gloves and allowed him to.

[Michael Nagle]

Come across the border.

[Martin DeCaro]

Cartels take over communications, community.

[Michael Nagle]

20 million people, hundreds of thousands of Americans poisoned. And President Trump said, no, we're taking the gloves off. We're taking the fight to these designated terror organizations.

[Martin DeCaro]

And it's exactly what we're doing. So we're stopping the drugs, we're striking.

[Michael Nagle]

The boats, we're defeating narco terrorists and.

[Martin DeCaro]

We'Re seeing, and Peter, you may say one thing, that drugs coming in through the sea by sea are down 91%. On the next episode of History as it happens, who was James Garfield? James Garfield? You mean the guy who was president for a few months in 1881? Well, there's a hit television series on Netflix about him. But you can listen to the next episode of this podcast with Jeremy Surry. We talk about James Garfield in American history. That is next as we report history. History as it happens. Make sure to sign up for my newsletter. It is free. Go to substack and search for history as it happens.

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