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The Gist
The Wars We Carry: From Iraq To Port-au-Prince
00:36:55
Jim O’Grady and Thomas Brennan discuss Reveal’s episode on the Marines who fought in Fallujah, exploring how the battle’s brutality and moral injuries still haunt them 20 years later. In the Spiel, Haiti’s use of drones against gangs runs up...
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- [00:00]
Mike Pesca
Foreign It's Friday, June 27, 2025 from Peach Fish Productions. It's the gist. I'm Mike Pesca. The Supreme Court handed down a big ruling today and it reminded me of an old Steve Martin joke. He goes to heaven and looks around and it's all like they said it be, pearly gates, fluffy clouds, angels. And Steve says in college they told.
- [00:25]
Adam Liptak
Me this was all bullshit.
- [00:27]
Mike Pesca
I was thinking on the Daily. Adam Liptac told me this was all bullshit. So I listened to the Daily whenever Lip Tac is on, that guy's great. My legal advisory firm is the podcast based firm of Liptac, Bazelon, Francesca and Shaw. So at issue here in this big ruling is, let us say, a lower court, perhaps based in Idaho, issues an injunction and then everyone in the country has to follow it. In Maine, in Florida. I will not name all the states, you know, many of them, the Biden administration did not like this. They did not like it when anti abortion activists shop things to a loon west Texas judge and he made a ruling that had to be followed in Maryland and Hawaii. Again, not naming all the states, but they didn't like it. The Trump administration also doesn't like it. They don't like it more because they're constantly being overruled by judges who were selected because they were judges in Maryland or D.C. or Massachusetts that might give a ruling to opponents of the Trump administration. Which isn't to say that judges everywhere would necessarily give the ruling, but this is how the game is played. And the Trump administration is saying two things. By taking case to the Supreme Court, the game should not be played that way. And also the specific game of birthright citizenship, they don't like that. So they bring this case to the Supreme Court and they also bring in the overall idea that lower courts somewhere shouldn't be binding the the hands of all courts everywhere. So here's what Adam Liptak, the New York Times Supreme Court correspondent actually said back in May.
- [02:02]
Thomas Brennan
I think the court will find a way to say that this particular injunction is okay. While nationwide injunctions generally are problematic, that.
- [02:14]
Mike Pesca
Is what happened on injunctions in general. And that's the important thing. And on the specific birthright question, the Supreme Court punted.
- [02:21]
Adam Liptak
That is coming probably next year because it's a hot topic.
- [02:25]
Mike Pesca
Lip Tac also said that what looked like a loser this whole case, a loser, turned out actually pretty well.
- [02:34]
Thomas Brennan
And that would mean that the litigation strategy, which a lot of people have been skeptical about, who have wondered why the administration went up on this issue on this vehicle, which is not particularly favorable to them on their argument about nationwide injunctions, might still turn out to be a pretty good idea.
- [02:54]
Mike Pesca
Indeed, from the Trump administration's perspective, it is. So 22 states sued over the executive order undoing birthright citizenship, and they all won. All the babies born in those 28 states are U.S. citizens. 28 states did not sue and those states are now operating under the executive order that undoes birthright citizenship. So let us say a baby is born in western Colorado to a family on a temporary visa. That baby is a citizen because that's the Colorado law. They're one of the 22 that sued. That baby gets an IRS number. That's an American baby. The baby then drives to visit his grandma in Reno, Nevada. Nevada, also one of the 22 states that sued. But to get there, the baby has to drive through Utah and that baby is not a citizen in Utah. That baby is could be technically deported. Do you see the problem? It's a trick question. It's that babies shouldn't be driving, but also the other complications that are right there. Now, there is a 30 day period before the implication of any of this, which will certainly be enough time for the highly organized Trump administration who only wants to do the right thing to get everything in proper working order. On the show today, Haitian gangs, a barbecue and international law. What is it good for? Barbecues are delicious. But first, the podcast series Reveal recently did an episode about a group of veterans of the Iraq war and what they're still going through 20 years later. Jim O' Grady reported the story and veteran Thomas Brennan of the site Warhorse, who was there in Fallujah and central to Jim's reporting and is here too. So now Jim o' Grady and Thomas Brennan on what they're still fighting through from Fallujah.
- [05:01]
Adam Liptak
The public radio program and podcast Reveal recently had an episode that was interesting, exquisite, infuriating. In Fallujah, we destroyed parts of ourselves. It's looking back, you know, it's been 20 years, more than 20 years since the battle of Fallujah, we should say the battles of Fallujah. And it talks with a Marine company that encountered the toughest of losses. This was reported by the great Jim o' Grady and co reporting or involved in this was an outlet called the War Horse, which was founded in and is run by Thomas Brennan. Thomas served as an infantryman in Iraq and Afghanistan. And he was there and this was him and his unit recounting what happened.
- [05:48]
Mike Pesca
Thomas, Jim, welcome to the gist.
- [05:50]
Jim O'Grady
Hi Mike. Great to be here.
- [05:52]
Thomas Brennan
Thank you for having me.
- [05:53]
Adam Liptak
Let's, let's just start by talking about what was because Americans forget this was the biggest battle, the biggest urban battle, depending on how you judge things since Vietnam, maybe that America was involved in since World War II. What was going on and what were the stakes?
- [06:13]
Mike Pesca
Thomas.
- [06:16]
Thomas Brennan
So what was going on for me personally was I was a young, at the, at the time leading up to the battle, I was a private first class, brand new Marine, new to the infantry, and had been in Iraq for maybe three, four months. I, @ that point and at that time I didn't know about really anything. Like we were just told to go, told to be there. We were told to expect heavy casualties. I wasn't paying attention to the news back home. We knew there was an election going on, but other than that, the geopolitical aspect of Fallujah and where it fit into the grand scheme, scheme of things was not anything that I was tracking, you know, where I was as a young enlisted Marine on the ground.
- [07:12]
Adam Liptak
Jim if Thomas had been paying attention.
- [07:14]
Mike Pesca
It'S probably good for his own self.
- [07:16]
Adam Liptak
Preservation that he had.
- [07:17]
Mike Pesca
And what would he have seen or.
- [07:19]
Adam Liptak
Known or been privy to about Fallujah?
- [07:22]
Jim O'Grady
Well, we spoke to a former Marine who worked for years as a military lawyer and he says that when Marines get together they go through this litany of legendary, as in particularly brutal, blood soaked battles. And they include Iwo Jima, Belleau Wood, Fallujah. It's just that high up there in the memory of Marines as a difficult place to be. Where Thomas was with his unit in Alpha Company, of course this was in service of the Iraq war, which we dutifully note in the piece was founded on a lie. There were no weapons of mass destruction. The rationale for going in there was extremely thin. Thomas, in the piece you referred to the clown car of George Bush and others who gave you your orders. And you know, when I spoke to your fellow unit members about this, like, do you regret the fallacious reasons for this war at all that sent you into the battle of Fallujah? I got answers like, well, what were we supposed to know? We were 19, 20 years old. We had orders. The orders came from the military and the President, but ultimately the orders come from you, the American people. And I think you said something similar. Is that right?
- [08:51]
Thomas Brennan
Yes, I think that's right. I think that, listen, at the end of the day, we destroyed homes, we destroyed personal belongings. These were places that tens of thousands of people were. We did a lot of damage there. So I'm not trying to downplay any of the lasting human impact of, of what we did inside of Fallujah. But yeah, there is a certain part of it where I feel like we were just following orders. And I don't think it's wise to have 19, 20, 21 year olds guiding national security decisions. We should be able to trust our leaders that what we're being sent to do is sound in strategy and has sound judgment behind the decision that was made. And where I've grown increasingly frustrated is over the years hearing George Bush talk about the wars in a very flippant and dismissive way. And you know, referring to himself as a war criminal, like that's an indictment of the people you lead as well. So it's not just the failures in leadership that I now know happened, you know, when I was the young, disposable 19 year old American that raised their hand. But just like the compounding dismissiveness about those decisions over the years is, is really what I think is shameful and a very irresponsible use of our country's most valuable resource.
- [10:33]
Adam Liptak
Wait, what do you mean respond referring to himself as a war criminal.
- [10:38]
Thomas Brennan
There was a speech that he gave at the George W. Bush Institute down in Texas where he was talk, I believe it was about Ukraine and Russia, about some ruthless war criminal that was just invading a country for no reason. And when he should have said Ukraine, he said Iraq.
- [10:54]
Adam Liptak
Oh, I see, I see, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [10:56]
Thomas Brennan
And then he, and then he just laughed it off. So like those are the types of instances or when you hear a leader talk about how they should have taken another step to think about, well, was going on, you know, back in 2001, before we made such a gigantic decision of going to war. It's like those leaders are put in charge to show that restraint when young Americans lives are going to be on the line for the decisions they're making.
- [11:27]
Adam Liptak
So here the Americans are, they're 10,000 strong, mostly Marines, maybe even exclusively Marines. And they're going to for a second time.
- [11:37]
Mike Pesca
After Blackwater contractors were ambushed.
- [11:40]
Adam Liptak
There they go into this city, this urban environment where thousands of combatants have, as we are now learning anew the dangers of urban warfare have ensconced themselves in homes, but also not. And there are citizens there. The upshot is almost 100Americans would die. 1 to 2000 Iraqis would die, most of them combatants, they say. But tell me about your fellow serviceman, Brad Bradley Faircloth and a lot of the story and reveals about him.
- [12:15]
Thomas Brennan
Yeah, so first I want to, I Have to. You know, even though I'm a Marine, I still got to acknowledge the army and other branches that were. That were in Fallujah the. And from where I was on the ground in our squad, I can count the number of civilians that we saw on, you know, with. On both of my hands. And it was only when we were at the government center, once we pushed across the line of departure there, I'm confident saying I only saw combatants with. That were clearly armed.
- [12:48]
Adam Liptak
Right. Unlike Gaza, you know, there was a way out. And this was one of all. You know, just for context, this was one of the greatest mass migrations fleeing of a city that the region of the world had known up until Syria. But go ahead.
- [13:03]
Thomas Brennan
Yeah. And there were a lot of troops. Like, our unit went straight down the middle of the city, and a lot of the battalions that were to our right and to our left, they interacted with a lot more civilians that were. That were fleeing toward the outskirts of the city. So I just can't speak to that aspect of it because it wasn't my experience, but. No. Bradley Faircloth was, I mean, hands down, one of the top Marines in our. In our squad and just hell of a guy and just always talked about his mom, always talked about, you know, his football team back home, and would argue with guys about being the guy to kick in the door. Like, he felt like it was his job to lead, and we called him Brad the Barbarian sometimes. Guys, there was a point in the documentary where Meadows, the guy who was in the room with Brad when he was killed, talks about how he had to tell Brad. Like, it's not fair that you're assuming far more risk than the rest of us.
- [14:14]
Mike Pesca
Right.
- [14:14]
Adam Liptak
The guy who kicks in the door is the guy who's there immediately when anyone in the room is waiting for him.
- [14:19]
Jim O'Grady
Storm.
- [14:20]
Thomas Brennan
Yeah, they call it the fatal funnel. When you walk in, it's because the. The. Yeah, just a wall of lead can come your way when you walk in there. And that's. That's what happened to him when he walked into a house around Thanksgiving in 2004. You know, and it's looking back on it, like, there's. We had a BBC videographer that was there with us and very grateful they let us use the original footage of us inside Collusion, the documentary. And just watching the cameraman in the stack behind Marines walking downstairs, like, going into doors, like, and doing. Yeah, like, clearing the house. Like, I mean, the hair standing up on my arm, like, just thinking about it right now, it's Brad leading that Point is something I will always deeply respect because my job was demolitions and rockets. Like, I threw holes in a wall that other people ran through first or I shot a rocket that other people, you know, they ran through the. Through it first. So I had very few experiences of kicking in the door. And the few that I had were just. It's. It's. It's terrifying.
- [15:45]
Adam Liptak
There's no procedure for rotation.
- [15:48]
Mike Pesca
There's. Because, as you say, that's the deadliest position.
- [15:51]
Adam Liptak
And if one person is doing it over and over again, it seems unfair.
- [15:56]
Thomas Brennan
Well, so you. Yes, yes, you would rotate. But also, like, some people are. Some people are bigger in stature than others.
- [16:07]
Adam Liptak
And Bradley was 6:2 and strong and said, I want this.
- [16:11]
Thomas Brennan
Right? And then on the flip side, like, there are guys that were much smaller that, you know, were better at doing different jobs or, you know, were the. The people having to unfortunately, like, go down into, like, little caves or things. So there were, like, things. Everybody contributed something. And even if you kicked in the first door, you'd go in, you'd go into another room, and then somebody else would have to kick in another door. Like, there was always another door. And it was never, like, it was really a competition. That was. Brad was efficient. And efficiency in action is helps. Is what helps you take a house. It's what helps you take a city. Violent, efficient action. And he was efficient at kicking indoors.
- [16:59]
Adam Liptak
Now, Thomas mentioned that BBC documentary. I think I had seen that, but. But clips of it are played in this episode of Reveal. Jim, had you seen that documentary before or were you assigned this or somehow got this story? However a reporter gets the story and then availed yourself of it.
- [17:16]
Jim O'Grady
That was serendipity. Assigned the story, was writing it up and was just doing online research and came across it and while watching it, realized, oh, this is about these guys. And there's also tape of Bradley Faircloth himself describing what it's like to enter a house in the chaos when someone throws a grenade at you. So that's how I came across.
- [17:43]
Adam Liptak
Right, because the story you're assigned is a story of veterans who are struggling and in some specific cases, have been not treated well by the va. That's the assignment. And then it just turns out that this specific group of veterans have this documentation and documentary about him.
- [18:06]
Jim O'Grady
That's right. The bulk of this Reveal episode is about the aftermath of war, what Thomas and his unit went through, and how they have been coping, or in some cases, not coping so well for 20 years after Fallujah. And so to set that up, There has to be some glimpse into the threshing machine of combat and just the grotesqueness of it and the fierceness and the pressure to just convey to the listener how this can stay with someone for the rest of their lives. This is so profound that it marks before and after in a person's life. And hence the importance of helping veterans deal with their not only real wounds, but psychological wounds and moral wounds.
- [19:01]
Adam Liptak
There is a few of the veterans that you talk to and who was the one who accepted therapy, got into therapy, and then became a therapist?
- [19:12]
Jim O'Grady
Yeah, that's a guy named Mike. Ergo, he was a team leader in Alpha Company. He came back from war in very bad shape. Flashbacks while walking down the stairs. And he'd have to like, hunch onto the floor, drinking, doing drugs to the point that he got suicidal. And he would drive on his motorcycle a million miles an hour down the freeway in California in sort of a semi blackout state. And as he said, not committing suicide, but seriously tempting it until his wife said, look, you know I love you, but I can't go down this road with you anymore. And that's what shocked him into cleaning himself up and eventually getting to therapy. Although to that point, as he says, I thought it was. I had no interest in therapy. I'm an infantryman, I'm a tough guy. I don't need therapy. It's not going to help me anyway. But it did help him to the point where he became one himself. And now he does that for a living, helping other veterans therapeutically.
- [20:25]
Adam Liptak
Thomas, how in touch were you with. I'm sure it's different levels for different guys, but how in touch were you and the other members of the unit, and how aware were you of what everyone was going through in the years, decades afterwards?
- [20:42]
Thomas Brennan
I think it's fair to say that the majority of us, it ebbed and flowed over time. When we first came back, for the first few years, we stayed in touch, you know, over social and calls, and people would come back and visit the base and things like that. And then you kind of got to settle into life and you have to face the transition and you drift apart a little bit. You still talk every once in a while, but then I think, you know, part of it is once you start feeling a little and processing it more, at least for me, like in some of the guys I can speak to, like, it hurts to revisit it. So you just, like, you know, part of the cycle, it's the avoidance. Like, you avoid the people that you were closest with and the people that you, in my opinion, should be connecting with the most because they make you feel less crazy, they make you feel less alone. And then I think it was really probably around like the 15 year mark, we kind of really started to connect a little bit more than we were. And yeah, that, that kind of, that was this natural progression where it just, it made me a little bit more able to revisit the story. And like, I, I, I didn't want to tell it for the 20th anniversary. I didn't think I was ready to tell it for the 20th anniversary. And for me, the reason why I wanted to tell the story and why I did for the 20th was it when Gaza kicked off and they were saying, send in the Marines that have experience in Fallujah. They can teach the Israelis how to make this be a success. For me, as somebody, at that point, that would have been like 18, almost 19 years removed from it. It's like, success. Like, I wouldn't wish, I wouldn't wish the psychological that we've been through on anybody in this world. Like, in my mind, I thought, like, I'm like, oh, well, that's kind of ironic. Like, the Israelis were telling us about mental health when our wars were kicking off, and now they're dooming their service members to a lifetime of moral injury. Like, like, we're experiencing. So, yeah, like, for me, it was just like, seeing it was hard. It's hard enough. Like, people being, like, off Fallujah, like, oh, that, that was crazy. You know, that was intense. Like, it kind of, it, I don't know. It, it is what it is to me. Like, it's my military experience. But then to have somebody be like, oh, we're gonna point to this as a success when it's like, we leveled that city, like, we made a majority of it inhabitable for people when they came back. Like, and now, like, kids are sick and families are sick and like, yes, they're doing better. Yeah, at what cost? Like, and how does that, how is that success?
- [24:15]
Adam Liptak
Yeah, it's like, I don't know if there was some horrific school shooting, if someone said, let's send the kids who experience Columbine, it's like, well, why the same re. Traumatized people. I understand as a fighting unit, mission accomplished, but you're pointing to everything other than a fighting unit.
- [24:36]
Thomas Brennan
I mean, if your mission, if your mission is to go in and like, the, the mission of the Marine Corps Rifle squad is to locate, close with and destroy the enemy, like, and to do it as fiercely and efficiently and as fast as possible. Like if that's your mission and you want everything destroyed in between and that.
- [24:55]
Mike Pesca
Is the fade out. Yes, there's a lot more going on. Jim's very insightful. Thomas is compelling. We bring you compact interviews. However, I do have the offer of longer, lengthier, more in depth interviews. If you are a Pesca plus subscriber, go to subscribe.mike pesca.com get all the shows without ads. Get all the Pesca plus material. Get it all, have it all wash over you. Never have to suffer through the fade out again. And now the spiel Haiti, desperate, poor, violent, overrun by gangs, is doing what desperate, overwhelmed violence, besieged governments do. It's what Ukraine did to Russia. It's utilizing technology, specifically drones, to fight back. Injecting this technology into the fight is isn't perfect, but if things were perfect, you wouldn't desperately reach for these measures. As the Wall Street Journal reported three weeks ago, Haiti's beleaguered government launches drones against gangs, which is definitely more high stakes than hands across America. A million people in Haiti have been displaced by the violence. Gang led violence, not drone induced violence. And there have been massive food shortages. The UN has no appetite for putting in peacekeeping forces, so they reach for tech and drones. And who is there to help? Well, as Scripps News reports, it's the American Victor Prigozhin.
- [26:36]
Erik Prince
Dramatic video posted by Haiti's police and since taken down appears to show armed drones striking gang strongholds in Port au Prince. Now we're hearing that Blackwater founder Erik Prince is linked to a secret task force involved in those drone operations.
- [26:56]
Mike Pesca
Erik Prince of the group formerly known as Blackwater. His presence has human rights groups up in arms, which of course they decry as illegal. Last week the New York Times had a headline using drones to fight gangs, Though it may be illegal, by the time that headline got online, it became a little more emphatic. Haiti is using drones to fight gangs. Here's why that's likely to be legal. The Haitian government has turned to drones to go after gang leaders who have captured much of the capital. But legal experts say that violates international law. The Times explains that the Haitian government has been fighting a losing battle against Viv Anselm, a coalition of gangs that formed last year and attack government institutions like police stations and jails. These gangs raise money through extortion, kidnappings and tolls at roadblocks, and control more than 80% of Port au Prince. Vivan Sam, by the way, is Creole for live together. Ironically, even more ironic is that their status As a gang is what allows human rights lawyers to say, hold on, this isn't technically an armed conflict. Huh? The legality of lethal drone strikes comes down to whether a nation is engaged in an officially declared armed conflict. The Times reports while thousands of Haitians have been killed, buildings have been set ablaze, and hospitals and ambulances have been attacked. The violence is not considered an armed conflict. Ok, sorry to be all. Take your fancy pants learning and shove it up your pie hole here. Also, I'm not sure that's where the pie hole goes. Some. Some of the fancy pants learning is for pie hole orientation. But come on. How does an expert, which means he or she is, required a level of expertise to qualify oneself as an expert. How can such a person also come to the conclusion that attacking hospitals, ambulances and killing thousands of people doesn't count as an armed conflict? How many thousands? Well, Haiti's homicide rate is 62 per 100,000. That might be low, by the way. If the US had that homicide rate, we'd have 20000 murder victims. This is an armed conflict, my friend. Unless my friend is a human rights expert. Okay, The Times is helpful in explaining how the experts get to this conclusion. Under international humanitarian law, an armed conflict is considered to be taking place if two criteria are met. And then the person typing that had to duck because bullets were flying through the window. Now here are the two criteria. First, there has to be a level of intensity.
- [29:36]
Thomas Brennan
And.
- [29:36]
Mike Pesca
And they allow that. That is a bar Haiti probably meets, especially given the disastrous humanitarian consequences over the year. Experts say. All right, okay. Those experts still experts in my eyes. Until we get to the second criteria, which the Times describes as trickier. The armed groups must be organized with a clear chain of command and a top commander delivering, enforcing orders. But since they're gangs, armed gangs in conflict with police, I guess it can't be an armed conflict at this point. Maybe the experts should say, I think we have stumbled across a flaw in the rules. I know it is the knowledge of the rules that makes us confers upon us our status as experts. But, you know, perhaps a tweaking of the rules is in order. I don't know. Don't want to jeopardize the expertise. But back to that headline. Haiti is using drones to fight gangs. Here's why that's likely to be illegal. Illegal to whom? Not to the Haitians who are fighting for their lives. When you say illegal, you probably should say under international humanitarian law, which is, from what I've seen, inadequate to address this conflict. This is an armed conflict. There I said it. Drag me off to the Hague. And now you see why the drone strikes do not have the favor of the human rights community who of course are working out of apartments in Port au Prince in their office buildings. And capitian. No, no, no, they're in Geneva, they're in the Netherlands. Opining from afar I would be too. It's dangerous there. It's kind of an armed conflict. And of course these headlines I think in this coverage is getting attention in places like the New York Times because of Erik Prince of Blackwater infamy, brother in law of Betsy Devos tied to Donald Trump. He is nefarious. But even nefariousr is Jimmy Cherizier, the murderous Haitian gang leader who goes by the Namdi non gear barbecue. Barbecue is not just cunning, deadly and delicious. He's also farsighted because he chose not to organize his consortium of criminal gangs with a clear chain of command, delivering and enforcing orders. I got to tell you, if someone in the Haitian military could stumble across an org chart where tidbits reports to ham hawks who kicks it upstairs to Churrascaria, then maybe the experts will change their mind. If only. I hope if they have written orders, if these gangs maybe have written down orders to torture locals until their meat is practically falling off their bones, then the Red Cross might allow the Haitian government, such as it is, to take out barbecue by remote control device, which to be honest, has always been Jeff Bezos his dream. Another country close by, somewhat close by. A besieged population trying not to die. It is El Salvador where naive Bukele engineered a massive crackdown on murder. Some stats 2015 El Salvador murder capital of the world. 5,000 murders. They have a population of only 6 million. So there's. It's almost double Haiti's current atrocious rate. Then Bukele comes in and he lowers it too. And this is an offsided stat because how could you not reach for it? El Salvador today has a lower homicide rate than Canada. But there is a tradeoff, a huge tradeoff to say the least. 80,000 people imprisoned. And this is a pretty fair headline from foreign affairs. A year ago, the cost of El Salvador's crime crackdown. Bukele has reduced homicides but eroded democracy. That is fair. This all bears monitoring, as does the fact that Bukele is credited by his population a lot to the tune of a 90% approval rating. People can finally walk down the streets without fear. However, just now there's been a big report issued by ProPublica detailing the deals Bukele has made with MS.13. One way to interpret this is that he made hard choices. He held his nose. He dealt with some truly loathsome actors because those actors really held sway and could greatly affect murder rates. That's not the conclusion ProPublica comes to. It's a conclusion I consider while reading their report. Here's a kind of stupid conclusion to draw from the report, one that puts aside the idea of trade offs. This sentiment was voiced by Kara Swisher on the Pivot podcast.
- [33:58]
Kara Swisher
It looks like he's not pushing back crime. He's just like he's getting. One of the things in the story is he's getting people like there was a lot of crime in the streets and so there'd be dead bodies on the streets. And what MS.13 is doing at his behest is burying them. So it's, you know, it's sort of. I don't. This guy is. I think this guy is going to be eventually cooked.
- [34:18]
Mike Pesca
Yeah, that is untrue. He definitely pushed back crime. I'll read from the ProPublica article. In a previously unreported development, US federal agents came to suspect that Bukele and members of his inner circle had diverted US funds to the gang as part of the alleged deal to provide it with money and power in exchange for votes and reduced homicide rates. The votes part, it's called corruption. The reduced homicide rate is called smart good governance. If you pay a gang not to kill, that is more direct than paying law enforcement to try to kill the gang, especially via illegal drones. The ProPublica report is good, is thorough. I give a credit US law enforcement, specifically the Vulcan task force. So you know they're doing this as unemotionally as possible. Believes Bukele's success was partly bought through secret alliances with MS.13 leaders, through a refusal of US extraditions of those leaders, and through a misuse, to say the least, of US aid. There is a way to see this as making tough choices in a hard situation. And really, isn't that preferable to drones that human rights groups say are illegal? Maybe I'm not criticizing the article's conclusions, but I don't see many good solutions being offered. Not from the New York Times, not from ProPublica, not from the human rights community. For citizens who have an acute desire not to be murdered, you could say the media portions of that critique. Their job is not to offer solutions. But you should hint at the tough tradeoffs in the coverage. I say, so what? I'm not seeing are all the reports on the good, honest, efficient, moral, free, victimless ways to go from a land of rampant murder to a land of less rampant murder without some serious tradeoffs. Because doing so may be, or if you prefer, is likely impossible. And that's it for today's show that just is produced by corporate Cory Warra. Our development officer for the Virginia Territory is Michelle Pesca.
- [36:28]
Adam Liptak
The same thing further south for the.
- [36:30]
Mike Pesca
Florida Territory is Astrid Green. The production coordinator is Ashley Kahn. Kathleen Sykes co edits the Gist list. Or maybe she edits and I co collaborate. Not really sure, still working that out. But she's on the Gist list, which you could go to Mike pesca.substack.com improve do Peru and thanks for listening.