Caitlin Clark Highlights Reel
Watch it here.
One of my trainers is an officer in the Navy Reserve, but he’s done two tours abroad, both times in connection to the Navy SEALs, the first in Iraq and the second in Afghanistan.
Like me, his political views range from conservative to Libertarian. Unlike me, he’s had direct experience with US conflicts overseas.
His respect for and attachment to his fellow soldiers is very strong, but the belief he once had in the purpose and integrity of US foreign policy was severely fractured by what he saw with his own eyes.
I thought of him when I was putting together this issue.
Just One Thing: Drug Trafficking in the Military
I came across the following little essay by John Leake, a writer I follow, in Courageous Discourse – a good source for content about Big Government, Big Business, Big Health, and Big Media.
He writes about a murder he once investigated that was committed by a soldier who had recently returned from a tour in Afghanistan – and then he recommends an interview that Tucker Carlson did with Seth Harp, the author of The Fort Bragg Cartel, a book about another murder (a double murder) involving members of Delta Force, the most elite unit of soldiers in the American military.
Read the article. Watch the interview. And then you can decide if you want to read the book. Or you can wait till they make a movie about it, for they surely will.
“24 Unsolved Murders”
This is the interview referred to in John Leake’s article, above – Tucker Carlson talking to Seth Harp, author of the book recommended below, about murder and drug trafficking taking place inside America’s largest military base.
The Fort Bragg Cartel
By Seth Harp
I haven’t read this book yet, so I won’t review it. But here is a promotional piece for it that makes me want to read it:
“In December 2020, a deer hunter discovered two dead bodies that had been riddled with bullets and dumped in a forested corner of Fort Bragg, North Carolina. One of the dead men, Master Sergeant William ‘Billy’ Lavigne, was a member of Delta Force, the most secretive ‘black ops’ unit in the military.
“A deeply traumatized veteran of America’s classified assassination program, Lavigne had done more than a dozen deployments in his lengthy career, was addicted to crack cocaine, dealt drugs on base, and had committed a series of violent crimes before he was mysteriously killed.
“The other victim, Chief Warrant Officer Timothy Dumas, was a quartermaster attached to the Special Forces who used his proximity to clandestine missions to steal guns and traffic drugs into the United States from abroad, and had written a blackmail letter threatening to expose criminality in the special operations task force in Afghanistan.
“As soon as Seth Harp, an Iraq war veteran and investigative reporter, begins looking into the double murder, he learns that there have been many more unexplained deaths at Fort Bragg recently, other murders connected to drug trafficking in elite units, and dozens of fatal overdoses.
“Drawing on declassified documents, trial transcripts, police records, and hundreds of interviews, Harp tells a scathing story of narco-trafficking in the Special Forces, drug conspiracies abetted by corrupt police, blatant military cover-ups, American complicity in the Afghan heroin trade, and the pernicious consequences of continuous war.”
Have the CIA and the US Military Been Involved in Massive Heroin Trade Between the US and Afghanistan?
As I admitted above, I haven’t read Seth Harp’s book yet – but judging from Tucker Carlson’s interview with him, and from a bit of research I asked Nigel to do, it’s pretty clear that members of the US military and the CIA have been involved in importing heroin into the US for about 40 years.
Here are some of the facts:
Historical Background
Since the Soviet Afghan War (1979-1989), Afghanistan has become the world’s largest producer of opium, the raw material for heroin. Despite US claims to eradicate drug production, the heroin trade has persisted and even expanded over the decades.
CIA’s Alleged Role
Multiple investigative reports and whistleblower testimony suggest that the CIA has maintained secret relationships with drug traffickers in Afghanistan. The most cited example is its support for the Mujahideen fighters, who allegedly turned a blind eye or directly profited from heroin trafficking to fund their military efforts against the Soviets.
Operation Mockingbird & Ongoing Allegations
Historically, critics and some whistleblowers, like Gary Webb, claimed the CIA intentionally allowed or engaged in drug trafficking to fund covert operations, including during the Iran-Contra scandal. Webb’s 1990s reporting linked CIA-supported Contra rebels to cocaine trafficking in California, and reputedly involved drug money helping fund operations in Central America and Afghanistan.
Afghanistan After 2001
After the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, the country once again stabilized its position as the world’s top opium producer. Despite NATO’s anti-drug efforts, reports suggest that elements within the Pentagon, intelligence agencies, and local warlords continued to profit from opium cultivation and heroin trafficking, often with tacit or active support.
US Military and CIA Ties
Some declassified documents and investigative reports point to the CIA’s continued ties with Afghan warlords, some of whom are deeply involved in heroin trafficking. Evidence indicates that these relationships allowed traffickers to operate with minimal interference, and some officials have alleged that the US tolerated or indirectly benefitted from the opium trade as a stabilizing tool.
Whistleblower Testimonies & Reports
* Gary Webb’s 1990s reporting claimed that the CIA-funded Contras supported drug trafficking. His work was heavily criticized but remains influential among skeptics.
* Ron Paul, in various speeches, alleged that American military and intelligence support in Afghanistan has helped drug traffickers grow their influence.
* Recent investigative journalism (e.g., by Brown University’s Watson Institute and independent researchers) highlights ongoing concerns about the drug trade’s persistence and possible complicity or actions by US agencies.
Official Denials & Lack of Transparency
The US government and CIA officially deny any direct involvement in drug trafficking. However, a lack of full transparency and ongoing classified operations keep suspicions alive. Many experts argue that the drug trade in Afghanistan remains, in part, fueled by clandestine relationships that serve strategic or financial interests of certain powerful actors.
“Chasing the Dragon”
This riveting 42-minute video, produced by the FBI, showcases the experience of young Americans who became addicted to heroin.
Gob-Smacked in NYC
I’m in NYC for a week to attend the wedding of one of my nine beautiful, intelligent, and talented nieces. K and I have been holed up in The Wall Street Hotel, which is – interestingly enough – on Wall Street. It’s my first time here, and I wasn’t sure what to expect since the nightly rate is less than $350 (which is hostel-level pricing in the Big Apple). But it’s quite nice – comfortable, clean, well designed and decorated, and with a great vintage-looking bar staffed by bartenders that know what a “double” really means.
Later this week, we’ll move to The Fifth Avenue Hotel (which is… well I bet you guessed where it is located). We’ve stayed there “many times before,” according to K, but nowadays my long-term memory is about 45 seconds, so I’ll be interested to see if it’s as nice as The Wall Street Hotel.
We spent yesterday afternoon with G, K’s sister, and G, her main man, touring the neighborhood, which included a stop at “Ground Zero,” the 9/11 Memorial – two enormous square craters occupying what used to be the footprint of the Twin Towers.
I’ve visited this memorial before, and I remember being impressed by it – by its size and the way the names of the dead were arranged, in no discernible way, along the bronze-plated parapet that encloses it. But this time I had an additional response it – to the depth of the granite walls and the way the water streamed down their sides to a smaller square opening at the center, whose bottom cannot be seen, giving the impression that the water is falling into an endless black abyss. It was not a sentimental response to the human tragedy of 9/11. It was a gut reaction to the genius of the monument’s design, to the aesthetic and intellectual brilliance of it. It felt almost perfect.
I’m trying to think of any American memorial I’ve seen that has had this powerful of an effect on me. Not the Washington Monument. Not the Lincoln Memorial. Not even the Statue of Liberty, although if I were sentimental about the history of American immigration, Lady Liberty might come close.
About a dozen years ago, I was finishing a book and needed several weeks of semi-isolation to get it done. It was summer and K had plans for us to spend time in NYC, so we decided to book a hotel in Battery Park for six weeks. It was close to Downtown and Brooklyn, where we had friends and children, and it was isolated enough to give me the seclusion I needed.
Battery Park borders on the Financial District, which was – except during work hours on work days – a ghost city of granite, steel, and glass buildings so high that you could walk for blocks on a sunny day in the shade. It felt vacant and impersonal. I left thinking I’d never stay there again.
But here we were. And this time, the vibe was very different.
Most notably, there were lots of human beings moving about – not just during working hours, but in the evening and on the weekend. Most of them were tourists, like we were, but some of them looked local. (There is a reason for that. After 9/11, the city made the area very livable by putting in many pathways and small parks along the Hudson River, and more than a few former buildings that had held banks and insurance companies were converted to apartment buildings.)
In a single afternoon, we saw not only the 9/11 Memorial and the four towers of the new World Trade Center Complex, but the “Oculus,” the largest, the most elaborate, and the most elegant train station I have ever seen. (It is also, quite probably, the most expensive. I read that the architect, Santiago Calatrava, was given a $2 billion budget to get it done, and he finished it 12 years later, well past the deadline, for a total of $4 billion.)
The “Oculus” by Santiago Calatrava, opened to the public March 3, 2016
We also visited St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church (an architectural stunner, having been designed by the same architect that did the “Oculus”), which is both a working church and a monument to the Greek Orthodox religion.
St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church by Santiago Calatrava, 2022
And we spent some time admiring these two monumental sculptures…
“Red Cube” by Isamu Noguchi, 1968
“Group of Four Trees” by Jean Dubuffet, 1972
But what really floored me – and why this didn’t happen when I was here before I don’t know – was the dozens and dozens of astonishingly massive and beautiful buildings that were designed and built during the two boom periods of the Industrial Revolution, and particularly during the “second” revolution from about 1870 to 1930, when NYC became not only the financial and trade center of the United States, but of the entire world.
Looking at these buildings this time, I could see, in the use of materials and the level of craftsmanship, the impact of that immense economic transition – the greatest expansion of wealth (for all economic classes) in history.
I could also see a reverence for the ancient roots of Greek and Roman architecture and art, as well as affection for the neoclassical reinterpretation of those roots that spread all over the world in the second half of the 19th century.
I was in awe – swept away by the same sort of emotional reaction I have had when touring places like the Roman Coliseum, Vatican City, and, when I was much younger, the mansions of Andrew Carnegie, Cornelius Vanderbilt II, Henry Clay Frick, and even Vizcaya, James Deering’s estate in Miami.
I’m writing this at The Wall Street Hotel bar, loosened up by a double Milagro Reposado on the rocks and still inspired. I was looking around all afternoon, gob-smacked and thinking, “What an amazing place this must have been to live in when those buildings were built.” The world was in the throes of the greatest spurt of wealth creation in human history, and the financial heart of it was right here in this square mile of New York City.
I actually wondered if America could be that great again!
I’ve been hitting you up with some hard-core political and economic stuff lately, so I thought I’d give you a break and put out an issue of visual briefs – a curated collection of about 20 short videos culled from about 60 I clipped in the past 30 days.
Enjoy them. I’ll be back to my job of irritating your happiest thoughts and beliefs in another few days.