December 6, 2023 • 61 mins
Since 2005 -- officially -- the United States has conducted a training program known as Exercise Flintlock. This program, which has multiple partners in various roles, aims to educate and prepare forces in Africa's Sahel region against the growing threat of non-state actors and terrorists. Proponents argue it saves lives. Critics allege it's another School of the Americas... and that the US may well be creating the same villains it claims to fight.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Noel.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
They called me Ben. We're joined as always with our
super producer Paul Mission controlled Decant. Most importantly, you are you.
You are here. That makes this the stuff they don't
want you to know. You guys, ever heard the uh?
I was thinking, what's a good way to get into this?
Have you guys ever heard the phrase the United States
as the World's police.
Speaker 4 (00:48):
Sure? Yeah, in that uh South Park movie for Team
America World Police, Right, that was the whole joke about
behind that movie.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Well, yeah, simply because we go around setting up military
bases in.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
A lot of places willy and or nilly mm hmm.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
And look, obviously Americans in the audience tonight are going
to be the first to point out this country has
serious problems if we're going to be diplomatic about it.
Also diplomacy that comes into play. But the facts on
the ground are the following. The United States, despite its shenanigans,
(01:29):
and despite some unethical actions, it has also maintained rule
of law. It is stabilized global trade. Right now, the
United States is helping fight pirates. That's right, folks. Pirates
are a thing again. And it turns out if if
he digs your vibe, Uncle Sam can and will provide
(01:50):
endless benefits to your government and military and military. Well,
first your military, and then maybe your military becomes your government,
as they say in the musical Hamilton, and it must
be nice. It must be nice to have Washington on
your side. This is the story of one such program,
a traveling show, if you will, called exercise flint Lock.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
What is it?
Speaker 3 (02:11):
Why do critics deem it controversial? Here are the facts.
Uncle Sam is a he's a busy boy. He's a busy,
busy boy. Just get out of the way so I
don't say it later. Whenever I see flint lock, I
think of flint stones and bedrock.
Speaker 4 (02:26):
Just putting that out there.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Yeah, yeah, I think about starting fires, don't you? That
is huh a little flint Yeah. So this this episode
is kind of like a what a breakoff from our
other places you Can't Go episode that we recently did,
just because we were looking at what was going on
in Africa and why there were so many coups going
(02:50):
on there pretty recently. And uh m, I don't want
to spoil it too much, but that's we're looking at
this specific thing called exercise Flintlock. That reminds me a
lot of our previous episodes we've done on large scale
military drills and almost like get togethers I guess that
(03:11):
have occurred like jade Helm in the.
Speaker 4 (03:13):
Past, picnics, you know that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
Yeah, a little bit of fellowship, you know, a little
bit of common interest shared, some light target practice, perhaps
some some ops.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Yeah, but in like jade Helm that we've covered in
the past, Like I said, you can find an episode
on it that was it's almost more of private military
contractors and companies that produce military gear kind of getting
together and showing off what's available right right, and then.
Speaker 4 (03:44):
Like a trade show almost it is like comic Con
with a.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
With a mixed in like urban battleground exercise kind of
thrown in there. You know.
Speaker 4 (03:53):
What was the one that the conspiracy theory was that
they did it at Walmart or something, or they jade home.
That was the one, Yeah, that ended up being bunk,
but it was. It was believable for a second.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
It was. I think it was due to concerns about FEMA,
because there were many pre made containers that were arriving
via rail. There was also a helicopter we talked about
that that was in a disused Walmart.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
They ended up being storage for some official use. They
were just using that or they're releasing that property for
official storage use.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
And you know, most people in the United States are
i would say, vaguely aware that Uncle Sam gets up
to some stuff abroad, except this as a known fact,
and don't often dig deeper into the specifics of these activities,
much less the economic forces at play unless they are
(04:49):
pointed toward exploration of these via you know, your favorite
media of choice. And it's true. The US has committed
numerous horrifically illegal as on foreign soil and spoiler on
its own people on its own soil in the past.
These acts continue in some version in the modern day
(05:11):
according to critics, and yes, the US economy makes a
great deal of profit from these activities year over year.
I was hoping, if it's okay with you guys, we
could throw to just one little, little juicy nugget from
old President Eisenhower, which our pal Rob Reiner also pointed
to you earlier.
Speaker 4 (05:30):
It's not a dinosaur shape because it might be a
dangerous nugget if that's the case. The thing you just said,
Ben about the horrific acts, illegal acts, it kind of
feels like one of those things where the sentiment is, well,
if we do it, it's not illegal. M you know,
I mean, you know, because we never make it to
any kind of criminal you know, like international court to
(05:53):
be judged.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
Well, unless you throw a little party like the Church Committee.
Again we just talked about with mister Ryan.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
And the United States does not respect the jurisdiction of
the ICC, the International Criminal Court. So former President Eisenhower
on his way out of office, this is something we
talked with our pal Rob about. He warned the United
States and indeed the world, that he was worried a
(06:22):
certain industry might take over what he saws the otherwise
noble mission of being the global police. Here's a short
clip from his farewell address.
Speaker 5 (06:32):
And the Councils of Government, we must guard against the
acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the
military industrial complex.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
Fun fact about that speech. He did write it himself,
and before he went to air with this farewell address,
he was calling it the military industrial Congressional complex.
Speaker 4 (06:59):
That it, Yeah, we wouldn't not have been considered a
dig on Congress, and so they thought it was too
much or what.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Well, somebody has got to authorize the war and the
you know the military actions. You know.
Speaker 4 (07:15):
Yeah, I just mean it got cut because it maybe
was considered a little too pointed, perhaps, right.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
Yeah hashtag Smedley Butler was right. Uh. There There is
another factor in this, which is that, in the process
of pursuing hegemonic power and year over year profits for
different connected companies, the United States does also ensure a
degree of when things work, stability, continuity, and safety. Depends
(07:43):
on your perspective, though, because a significant amount of US
military activity on foreign soil, it centers on what we
would call facilitation. We're not going to wage the war,
but we're going to teach you how wars are waged.
Speaker 4 (07:59):
We'll give you a little nudge, maybe a little help,
perhaps some armaments interested shout out.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
School of the Americas recently rewatched our old video on
the School of Americas and it holds up located for
a time in Fort Benning, Georgia.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Yeah, do we say what flintlock is exactly? I know,
I've kind of like vaguely talked about stuff that's like it.
But do we say exactly what it is yet?
Speaker 3 (08:25):
Flintlock is, Well, it depends on who you ask, right,
That's what we're saying because flintlock is one of those
facilitational activities. In its most recent iteration, it's two weeks
per year, right, and that started in two thousand and five.
But there's a long history to it because started around
(08:46):
the end of World War Two, the United States earned
a bit of a street rep for overthrowing unfriendly governments,
often through unethical means. We're talking propping up student movements,
quote unquote, arming secession groups like you pointed out, even
assassinating elected leaders couptata as functional policy. And for critics,
(09:10):
exercises like flintlock are a direct descendant of ethically questionable behavior.
But for supporters this is necessary. This is holding the
line from chaos.
Speaker 4 (09:24):
What makes it an exercise versus an operation?
Speaker 2 (09:28):
Okay, So I think that's what I want to get to.
I actually define it, so it is a special operations
counter terrorism exercise where there are all kinds of different
drills and training scenarios that the DoD often in the
US Army calls them regional forces, but it's really just
(09:50):
a bunch of different militaries and paramilitary groups that are
from what they call their African partners again, the d
D and the US Army, and it's a bunch of
partner nations within Africa that work together with the US
and with a couple other European countries to basically train
their militaries in their troops or you know, small groups
(10:12):
of their militaries in these counter terrorism special operations tactics.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
Police forces as well to militarize those Further, again, this
was not happening, is not happening in a vacuum. During
the Cold War, the USSR was doing very similar things,
we have to remember, and terrorist groups are doing similar
things now. Rival states are using proxies like Wagner, like
(10:41):
hiss Bolah and so on. We have to remember these things,
these tactics, this practice of facilitated learning. They are used
because they work. They are effective the way firearms are effective.
Their success is a matter of operational rather than moral
or ethical efficacy. So it doesn't matter to the gun
(11:04):
who get shot. It matters to the gun that the
gun works. And in the wake of Iraq and it sequels,
and notably the terrorist attacks of September eleventh, two thousand
and one, the US military industrial complex that Eisenhower warned
us about found an opportunity to normalize and mainstream a
never ending war. This comes in the wake of when
(11:28):
the US figured out, hey, what if we wage wars
on ideas? Right, there's the war on drugs drugs won.
There's a war on poverty that was very short lived
because it didn't do well in the polls. And then
of course there are culture wars. So this larger milieu,
this context is mission critical for US to understand. There
(11:50):
is an active war on terrorism. What is terrorism depends
on who you ask. It's definitely non state actors are
those are like? That's one of the big differences. What
makes a war on terror different from a war on
a state power.
Speaker 4 (12:06):
It's about optics, right, I mean, it's say one we
always say one person's freedom fighter is another person's terrorists
and all depending on how you label the terrorists, it
can be a convenient tool to making them an enemy
that you then need to eradicate and it you know,
you wage a certain amount of the war in the
war of public opinion. You know, nobody wants to think
(12:27):
that you're going after good guys who are trying to
liberate you know, their people. You have to be fighting
a bad guy.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Yeah, And it's really interesting because another aspect of flintlock
is to have these the individual countries and militaries not
only you know, fighting against terrorism with the within their
own territory, but to train them to share that information
right and to encourage the sharing of information across borders because,
(12:54):
as you said, been like terrorism, if you're fighting that
rather than a neighboring country, that thing could exist on
your land, right outside your land, deep in you know,
a couple of neighbors overs land. So it's interesting to
think about there needing to be some kind of united
front to really combat a concept like that. That could
(13:18):
be it could represent any number of different cells or organizations.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
Which are often fluid and decentralized. Three key differences between
a war on capital t terror versus the war on
a conventional state power traditional agreements like the Geneva Convention.
Those agreements erode those ideas about you know, the red Cross,
about journalism, et cetera. They fall to the wayside quite quickly.
(13:46):
And second, the opponent, the whatever represents capital t terror
has no limiting factors in terms of legality. The concept
of war crime is not a concept practiced by a
terrorist group. And they're the third. And it sounds like
a small detail, but I think it speaks directly to
(14:07):
some of the points we're bringing up. There's no clear
representative leadership, meaning there's often no single authoritative source to
declare victory or defeat altogether. That means you could be
fighting a war that does not end, it simply transforms.
This is true. Look at Boko Haram, look at isl Isis,
(14:28):
look at al Qaeda. These groups can function at an advantage.
A powerful state actor, yes, can become economically addicted to war,
and arguably the US and several European countries are in
that situation. However, a powerful enough non state actor can
(14:48):
leverage existing tensions and conflicts. Right, you know, Saudi Arabia
and Iran don't get along, So which one of them
is going to fund your newest project? And what do
they want? This means that these groups can at times
enjoy the advantage of power, state level power with very
(15:09):
few constraints that that power typically entails.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
I think the.
Speaker 4 (15:13):
Part about a lot of this that really I learned
this phrase recently Bakes my Noodle, is that there really
is no moral high ground. It's all just deal making.
It's like, who is going to benefit us in the
long term? How can we you know, whatever, in some
way walk away from it with some kind of upside.
But it's not about saving the world. It's not about
(15:36):
protecting innocence. It's really about my feelings.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
It's about saving a version of the world there probably is.
People don't agree on which version, right. I mean, that's
and I love Bake my Noodle. That's a great one.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
So well. Just something to bring up in here is
that you're talking about who's going to fund it and
the I get we'll get deep into this, but in
the case of this giant excerpt size flintlock that we're
going to be talking about, it's not just the US
military and the partners, like the European partners coming in
with a bunch of money and saying, hey have some
free training. Right. This is the US and these contractors
(16:14):
and everybody that's working with them for this training, getting
these African countries to pay to be a part of it,
but then funds the entire thing, right, it's not just
some party that they're going to have. It gets funded
by the members the partners that are selected from the
African countries.
Speaker 3 (16:33):
And as long as you don't look too deep into
the forensic accounting of where the money to fund that
stuff comes from, then it's all well and good. There
are clear good and bad guys. The United States encountered
a renaissance of training and facilitation across South America, Asia,
parts of Europe, the continent of Africa. Uncle Sam started growing,
(16:56):
training and guiding militaries in a conflict it characterized as
a borderless conflict. The idea at first blush. Obviously, it's utopian.
Could we stop wars before they began? If we could,
then we would necessarily have to. It would be the
ethical thing to do. Flintlock grew from this milieu, and
(17:19):
that's part of why it continues today.
Speaker 4 (17:21):
It's like green War, you know, like you know, it's gosh,
it's just it's packaging this idea of a war without borders.
It's not possible. That's not how wars work. But it's
all about this kind of like pr line, It's sorry,
it's making me very very depressed.
Speaker 3 (17:39):
Well, this is this is us giving you some context.
This is us giving a little bit of a dance
in the shallow pool. Let's pause for a word from
our sponsors and dive into the deep water. Here's where
(18:01):
it gets crazy. All right, what is Flintlock? What is Flintlock?
Speaker 4 (18:05):
Well, first, flintlock is kind of an umbrella term that
describes a series of different, like you said, mad different
training programs. Again, sort of like exporting American tactics and
possibly a little bit of ideology, but definitely training and
hardware to other countries. So let's go to the United
States Africa Command street name AFRICOM, which is that makes sense.
(18:29):
It's a nice portmanteau. Here's how they describe this ongoing program. Flintlock,
US Africa Command's premier and largest annual special operations exercise,
has taken place annually since two thousand and five across
the Sahel region of Africa among nations participating in the
Trans Sahara counter Terrorism Partnership and are planned by African
(18:53):
partner nations Special Operations Forces, Special Operations Command Africa and
the US. I'm in a state to develop the capacity
of and collaboration among African security forces to protect civilian populations.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
Great ten ten, No notes, right, there's a lot of
somewhat vague language there.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
Right.
Speaker 3 (19:18):
The Trans Sahara counter Terrorism Partnership is something that a
lot of people in the West probably haven't heard of,
because why would you know about this if you weren't
looking this statement the REDNAL. It's from twenty twenty three. However, Flintlock,
going to your earlier point about an umbrella term, flintlock
is much older as an idea. It dates back to
(19:41):
the nineteen sixties when Special Forces Group, it was a
tenth Special Forces Group where they were attempting to fight
against communism. They were training to they were training forces
in Denmark and Germany West Germany of course, and Spain
and Greece. Yeah, in an attempt to prevent the spread
(20:05):
of fascism. There were bulwarks against the Domino theory, which
we talked about a little bit earlier, and it continued
after that and.
Speaker 4 (20:13):
With Rob Reiner, if I'm not mistaken right, the Domino theory,
we talked about communism as kind of this ghoul that
had to be dealt with and sort of justified a
lot of ends.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
Specifically Vietnam, Southeast Asian theater. And we have to remember
that on the other side of the Cold War equation,
the USSR was looking at capitalism in much the same
way Exercise Flintlock. This is a cool little bit of history.
It continued some version of it. And we know that
(20:44):
the Road Show moved to the United Kingdom in the
nineteen eighties, and we know part of this due to
extremely unfortunate death. Sergeant first class, a guy named Clifford
Strickland died testing something that is super cool. It's the
Skyhook system. Remember that from Christopher Nolan's Batman.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
Oh yeah's immediately what came to mind. Yeah, wait, I
don't know that is what is that skyhook.
Speaker 4 (21:13):
Was Remember of the scene where he gets extracted with
like a like a harness and then like basically.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
He takes the accountant out. Yeah, eval accountant.
Speaker 4 (21:23):
Uh, he's in Tokyo or something like. He's definitely out
of the country and it's meant to be like a
military level extraction kind of.
Speaker 3 (21:31):
I believe he's in Hong Kong because the government of
China will not uh extradite one of their own. That's
the line there, right, and so so anyway, the flintlock
also has this experimental aspect to it, right. There's a
lot of tried and true training and tactics, and then
(21:52):
at least in the nineteen eighties there were a couple
of more innovative things that went spectacularly wrong. And when
people talk about flint lock now, they're not really talking
about that stuff from decades ago. They're referring to the
ongoing training program via AFRICAM and It's Partners that began
in two thousand and five. The less sexy, less cool
(22:16):
name for this kind of stuff is JCEE T joint
Combined Exchange training. Stabbing the fingers to wake up anybody
who fell asleep hearing that.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
Oh no, you're a chicken again. Oh sorry about that time.
Speaker 4 (22:32):
The worst thing you could possibly see. Please don't chase
me around a campfire, tiny dinosaur.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Sorry, Well, just this exercise is so complicated and weird,
and it's got such a history, Ben, thank you for
finding all this stuff in the history is it's it's
so nuts, but it's it's weird to think that it's
not just US military. It's not just United Kingdom military
(23:01):
and those two Western forces and their interests and what
training that's being provided, right, the tactics that those two
countries have, they're bringing in all kinds of other partners.
I think Germany has been a part of it for
quite a while. They're they're a major part of AFRICAM
in general. But and it's not just US military training.
(23:24):
It's also like US intelligence from the FBI that gets
involved to share tactics for policing. As you said, there
these these exercises get involved with the local police forces
as well as the Department of Justice to help out
with you know, how to actually bring justice to the
bad guys once you get a hold of them, or
(23:44):
how to pursue those things. And even the State Department
of the United States when it comes to those anti
terrorism activities and how to track down basically how to investigate,
track down and then in a weird way question like
local civilians of residence, like just of a residential area
(24:06):
where maybe something has gone down, you're tracking leads, how
to interrogate people. It's really crazy how just multifaceted this
series of exercises.
Speaker 3 (24:16):
Is another important point there in terms of the intelligence
stuff and the State Department stuff. From my understanding, there's
a significant amount of instruction put into what we will
call hearts and minds projects like not only how do
we find the people were calling the bad guys this decade,
(24:38):
but how do we also persuade civilians in rural areas
that we are, in fact the good guys. How do
we frame and guide their perspective?
Speaker 2 (24:49):
Well, yeah, how do we get those people to raise
a hand right the whole see something, say something? Kind
of mentality? You can see that getting injected into this.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
Hey I'm a strange or from Langley, snitch on your
cousin for me. What's gonna happen? He's probably gonna die,
you know. But well you gotta tell you that up front.
You guys like blue jeans, you guys like fifty cent.
Speaker 4 (25:13):
It's the same way the cops do you and they
try to get you to flip on somebody. They say, oh,
you'll be fine, we'll protect you, don't worry about it,
and then you know they don't and you end up dead.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
And again again we are when we talk about this,
when we talk about things like Flintlock, I think it's
very important for us to say we are in no
way accusing the people who are operating there of being
super villains. We're not saying they're out there to do
evil stuff. Again, if you look at the official rationale,
(25:46):
and if you look at the types of programs, which
you know some of it's classified for sure, but if
you look at what they're doing, they are attempting to
empower people. They are attempting to power local governments that
would otherwise potentially be overrun by the consequences of previous
(26:07):
similar exercises. Whatever. It's true. Well, yeah, or.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
Our despots and dictators, I mean, there are you know,
there are moneyed interests, right that have strings attached to
other powers, Like that's kind of what you mean, like
other very powerful countries that have economic interests in various
African countries that have various troves of resources, right that
(26:34):
can be extracted, and we know that those often the
governing bodies can be manipulated, depending on what kind of
purse you're thrown around.
Speaker 3 (26:43):
Yeah, yeah, shout out to Wagner right street name Russia,
shout out to Shout out to our good friends working
for Uncle Gee. You know what I mean, Shout out
to shout out to France's public relations to for still
trying to make them look like the good guys in Africa.
Speaker 4 (27:03):
They're pretty charming. Yeah, well the French.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
Maybe in Paris. You should see them when they're out
in the field.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
So fair enough.
Speaker 3 (27:11):
Yeah, so, US Special Forces in the current iteration of Flintlock,
they kick it twice a year in the African continent
for this training, and the most recent version happened March
first through fifteenth of twenty twenty three. It's a win
win or that's how it's seen, and there is validity
(27:33):
to the concerns the threat of nebulous terrorists or separatist groups.
It looms large on humanity's first continent, specifically now in
twenty twenty three, Flintlock is attempting to provide expertise and
security for nations being affected by chaos in the sy Hel.
(27:54):
Like you mentioned though the Soy held region of Africa.
There are a lot of chaotic groups there have we'll
say it ties to larger global entities at times, and
they themselves again going back to tactics, many of these
groups also have training and in some cases equipment that
(28:14):
is state actor level and as such, it could overwhelm
domestic state forces that historically have struggled with corruption, with
funding and honestly with decent training, because you need experienced
people when you're engaging in this sort of business.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
Well, and let's talk about the specific countries that have
been involved in this. Many of them have been involved,
like from early in the process, back in two thousand
and five when this version of let's say, this version
of Flintlock began, right and so have it continued on.
Others have joined up more recently. But you know, the
stuff I was looking at, guys, was from around twenty
(28:56):
twenty when Flintlock was occurring then and then just looking forward.
But I'll just we can list off some countries here.
African nations that have been in partners for Flintlock include Burkina, Fasso, Cameroon, Chad,
Cabo Verde, Guinea, Molly, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Ghana.
(29:20):
There's just there a ton of countries that have been involved,
and we're going to talk about a little bit. There
may be a reason that you've heard some of those
names pretty recently in the news.
Speaker 3 (29:35):
Yeah, oh boy, so right right now, earlier this year,
As you said, Matt, the newest iteration of flint lock
was conducted. It is international. It was conducted in Ghana
and Cote de Vore, not French speakers. Ivory Coast. You
might also know it as we are talking this time,
(29:55):
around thirteen hundred military personnel from all told twenty nine
countries in some capacity. Basically, and I know this might
make some of our fellow conspiracy realists who are veterans,
I know it might make some of us a little
salty to hear it, But basically you could call it
a pop up version of the School of the Americas.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
Dude, or what was the training camp where uh the
oh gosh, we just talked about it with Robert Reiner
Cuban exiles were being trained for sniping and where Lee
Harvey Oswald you know, apparently showed up and was trained.
Speaker 3 (30:32):
To use the twenty five six that it was something
like that, but he was, ah, that was the group
of dudes. You were sponsored by the CIA. That wasn't
where they hung out. They came out. I think I
don't know how to Dave imbusters were almost there work close.
It was one of those. It was definitely one of
those or something like it. But the aim of flintlock
(30:55):
is to again empower local governance, right, empower the local
armed forces, which does often involve militarizing the police such
that they can continue things that we often take for
granted in the United States. Just to be very clear,
one example would be the peaceful passage of power. Right.
(31:19):
The fact that for quite some time the United States,
a very young country, has successfully and peacefully passed from
one president to another, even when they clearly hate each other.
Like the fact that that has happened for a couple
centuries is kind of cool, and it's not super common
(31:42):
in world history for that kind of thing to occur,
So there is validity to the statement about this. But
there's also the other side. One of the big factors here,
it's not altruism. One of the big factors is to
ensure the spice flows, whatever the spice may be, to
ensure the stability of global trade and therefore indeed the
(32:05):
global economic system as it is currently understood.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
Guys, if you don't mind, I'd love to read a
quick quote from R. Clark Cooper. Though we talked about before,
this guy is a part of the I guess he's
a part of the State Department. Let's say, and he
is speaking at the closing ceremonies for Flintlock twenty twenty,
and he's talking about I think the same thing, but
not saying it out loud. Does that make sense? He's
(32:31):
speaking around it in a way.
Speaker 3 (32:33):
Let's hear it. Let's hear the dance.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
Peez. Okay, Oh, there's a lot of there's a lot
of stuff in here.
Speaker 3 (32:39):
But less I'm so excited.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
Okay, it's kind of long. Bear with me, here we go.
But more than being an opportunity for us to each
improve individually, Flintlock is an opportunity for all our nations
to grow together in a healthy partnership. But not all
partnerships are healthy. But the one we celebrate here today
(33:03):
is how can I tell simple? Because it's a partnership
based on mutual respect and shared values, not self interest
and exploitation. Because partnership contributes to self sufficiency, not lasting dependency.
Speaker 4 (33:19):
Is that not a little condescending?
Speaker 2 (33:21):
It does feel that way to me, But I don't know,
I don't know, but it's I just gotta I gotta
say this so you get the feel of the way
he's talking to everybody and you just wonder is he
talking to the leaders right or is he talking to
the you know, each individual person who is participating. I'm
gonna keep going just a little bit furtherer quote and
(33:43):
to sustainable capability, not burdensome debt. Partnership is not just
a means to an end, but a path which we
value for the friendships it creates and the lessons we
all learn side by side. Our relationship is one of cooperation,
mutual respect, and transparency. And today no other nation can
(34:06):
match the United States commitment to the continent. Oh well,
we're talking about the US wanting to assert itself in
the entirety of the African continent as Papa safety, Papa money,
you know, like I'm the He's like, yeah, global police, Like,
(34:32):
we're gonna keep you saying we're gonna help you stay safe,
and we're gonna help you be prosperous, and we're here
for you.
Speaker 3 (34:37):
We're gonna teach you to fish and hey, if that
means you end up in our navy, tight, that's exactly.
Speaker 4 (34:44):
Georgia Public Broadcasting here in Atlanta has this that they
adopted this new slogan a handful of years ago, and
I despise it because it has the same vibe as
this is Georgia Public Broadcasting. We respect and appreciate your intelligence.
The way they say it, the sound of the voice
is just like really really, that feels like, so we're
(35:05):
really texting you in a relationship after an argument.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (35:09):
I don't know if it's the best opener, but that
quotation from from Big Coops is is in line with
the earlier statements and signals that the US and the
global West have given to the nations of Africa. And
the tough part about that is that while those statements
(35:33):
have been made and broadcast, they occur in step with
some troubling things, not just resource extraction. That's old beans.
But tune in for our previous episodes on that. And
if you just hear that statement right like you're sitting
there and you've never met this guy for some reason,
(35:55):
you know nothing about colonialism, et cetera, and this and
the various companies controlling it, then you might say, well, who, buddy,
this sounds fantastic. Thanks Big Coops.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
Can't wait. You know what, if you hear that right now,
I was gonna say, if you didn't join in this year,
then man you're gonna want to get in next year.
Speaker 3 (36:18):
We want to teach you talents. Sure, yeah, we want
get on the boat. Get on the boat with us,
is what they're saying. And what do the tank? That's
what they're always saying. Yet, so also, to be fair,
given that millions, millions of millions of innocent people have
been murdered, assaulted, tortured, forced out of their communities by
(36:41):
terrorist or separatist organizations, several of which again seem to
have their own pretty high end training, then the question
again becomes a moral quandary. Who would not want to help?
How could you look at this situation and not become involved.
We're gonna pause for word from our response, and then
we're going to explore pretty unpleasant badger in this bag.
(37:10):
We're back. As we've seen in the case of the
School of Americas for the Americas, excuse me, as well
as in the cases of various like student activists and
freedom fighter groups, there isn't a lot of oversight applied
to what happens post training. Teach you all these insurrection techniques,
(37:32):
all these interrogation techniques, will teach you why the third
story is a great place for your enemies to hang
out and then after that, you know, do you dog?
Speaker 2 (37:45):
Yeah? Well, And one of the one of the first
things that exercise flint Lock focuses on is getting the
upper command levels together and doing training with those individuals
in small groups, right, and y'all, I don't want to
get too conspiratorial, but it feels like Concy Well, I
(38:09):
feel like if you're I don't know, I feel like
if you're on the pulpit right in the way that
it feels like Cooper kind of is when he's speaking
about what Flintlock's doing. If you're having a small session
with the upper echelons of these individual partner countries, it
feels like you could almost be preaching to them a
(38:30):
philosophy more so even than tactics, at least at that
upper level, because you've you're trying to make everybody see
the same picture or vision.
Speaker 3 (38:41):
Sure. And also the tough thing about speaking from the
pulpit is you don't hear the whispers in the pews,
and I think that's the ghost that comes to haunt
programs like Fliplock. I mean, the big concern to your point,
mat the big concern is is kind of ideological and
it's an ideology that on the surf is any decent
(39:01):
person can agree with. Human beings should have a say
in their government. You should be able to vote for things.
Human beings should have a reliable, predictable day to day,
year over year sense of safety and security. Right, and
also have the room for luxuries, for aspirations and so on.
(39:23):
These are all very basic things. It's crazy that they
become a hot take so often in the history of humans.
But like, the big concern then is that you can
train people to the best of your ability, right, not
just in tactics, which tactics are. Tactics can be perishable, right,
(39:45):
just like intelligence. The way to conduct a war back
in the day of Napoleon is not the way to
conduct a war today. If you march a bunch of
people just straight in a series of lines, they're gonna die,
They're gonna get killed. But ideal may not be perishable.
And the idea is going back to the example of
(40:06):
firearms having no moral self evaluation. You're teaching people to
be guns, and you are at the same time asking
them to retain enough humanity to only fire at the
quote unquote bad guys. And you're hoping that they will
agree with you for the rest of their lives on
(40:28):
who is the bad versus the good guy?
Speaker 4 (40:30):
What's that expression? If you're a hammer, then everything starts
to look like a nail. You know.
Speaker 2 (40:36):
Yeah, but it's such some of it is such specialized tactics,
for like the like the breach and clear kind of thing,
the close quarters tactics, the it's some of its goria
style stuff that you would be carrying out. I it
feels like the stuff you would need to stage a coup.
Speaker 3 (40:56):
We let's start a coup. It's not just a show.
It's true. These insurrection tactics. Again, they are instituted and
taught and to a degree institutionalized because they work. And
there's a deeper thing here. If we're getting conspiratorial. Another
cool thing about this is well, not cool, interesting, intellectually fascinating.
(41:22):
If you are the source of the education, if you
are the source of the insurrection tactics and the coup mechanisms,
that also means that you can recognize when those are
being applied somewhere else. So if if somebody studies at
your school and then they go out into the streets
(41:43):
of the world and they say Hey, guys, I learned
something interesting about how you might seize a government facility.
Then you are going to recognize it because you taught
that game first, right, So there is I think an
implicit added benefit to this. I mean that the problem
(42:03):
is you can't control the gun, you can't give it
a conscience, You cannot dictate people's minds. The Manchurian candidate
has never successfully been created. So the same people trained
by the US, by Canada, France, Italy, Germany, all the
other ones, they can leverage their knowledge to become something
very similar to the monsters they were originally trained to fight.
Speaker 2 (42:27):
Yeah, what happens when somebody you've trained like that and
given an ideological seed, right, that then grows and you see,
let's say you're in the upper echelons of a country like, oh,
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (42:43):
Nepal.
Speaker 2 (42:44):
Okay, sure, let's say Nepaul, and you watch the governing
the people who are governing that country. You can physically
see and hear about and know the corruption that's happening
at the upper levels. Is that person going to want
to stop that corruption because you've gone through this training
that specifically is anti corruption along with being anti terrorists
(43:09):
and anti terrorism, and no question, because these things are
linked together, right, And I'm not saying corruption at the
highest levels. I'm not saying that that's right. I'm saying
that that is probably pretty common in every country everywhere,
always corruption of the upper levels. But if you've been
(43:32):
trained specifically to see that, and then you've got ways
to fight that thing and like ways to think about
fighting that corruption, it just it feels like you're setting
up a bunch of dominoes and then just waiting for
one of them to fall eventually that you don't control.
But you've set the dominoes up in a way that
when that first one does fall, you know, you kind
(43:54):
of understand the outcome.
Speaker 3 (43:56):
They control the chaos. Yeah, and there's also I mean
the other side. First off, we're not taking shots at Nepal.
They did have a coup in two thousand and five,
but you know that's just because coups are very in
fashion right now. They're like the hottest thing.
Speaker 2 (44:13):
Yeah, we could have said Gabon or Nigerer or Guinea
or Burkina, Fosso or Chad or Molly or Sudan.
Speaker 3 (44:21):
Now keep it coming, drop the beatnal Oh.
Speaker 2 (44:22):
And that's just me naming a couple of names. According
to Al Jazeera, in an article he run August thirtieth,
there have been forty five coups on the African continent
out of the fifty four nations since nineteen fifty. So
forty five since nineteen fifty.
Speaker 3 (44:40):
Oh yeah, and there were some. Some of the new
coups that dropped recently are gonna surprise surprise, folks. Let's
build on this historical fact, right, Let's build on the
historical fact that, yes, people have trained what they thought
(45:01):
of as sheep dogs to protect a herd from wolves.
And in some cases they would have you believe that
the dogs just joined up with the wolves. In any case,
it's the sheep that suffer. That is an historical fact.
If we branch into the realm of conspiracy, then we
ask a more dangerous question. Our interrogation continues leading us
(45:22):
to wonder, what if the same forces training these folks
are picking and choosing suitable candidates to lead future coups.
To your example, Matt, what if what if you are
in those halls of power? Right, You've studied in Paris,
you attended Fort Benning, you know you've you've got some
bona fides. You hang out at a couple of training sessions,
(45:45):
and one day, as your disillusion about the state of
your nation, you get a phone call, right or you
have an interesting conversation, maybe best to keep it off
written record, And the next thing you know, you're getting
a lot of support from a student group you never
heard of. Right, you gotta You've got a suddenly very dedicated,
(46:07):
very talented group of civilians, and they share your concerns
about the nature of barium supplies. Right, excuse me, the spirit,
the hearts and minds, whatever, Like what if? What if
the United States and its allies are purposely creating sources
of future conflict and instability with the thought being they
(46:31):
can control the resulting chaos.
Speaker 2 (46:35):
I mean, that's what the picture looks like from here.
Speaker 3 (46:40):
We can't prove it.
Speaker 2 (46:41):
We can't prove any of that. It's there's a there's
an intercept article. I think we're gonna get to where
there's an interview. Nick, Yeah, dude, some of the quotations
in there, and like the takeaway from that, God, I
can't wait to discuss it together. Okay, go ahead.
Speaker 4 (46:57):
When we were talking to Rob, like I kind of
naive on purpose, I guess, asked, but to what end
does it make sense for us to be in the
conflict in Vietnam when everyone knew it was a disaster
and it wasn't going well, Like, why is it such
a big deal to stay in there? And you know,
he very kindly patted me on the head, young lad,
and said, the military industrial complex, you dunce like that
(47:20):
was created. It was manufactured. It was a realization that like,
this is big business, and this is you know, if
we can maintain circumstances where we're in control of this
flow of money, largely money that doesn't even have to
be accounted for, then we're going to enrich everybody that
we know, and that you know, we'll have infinite favors forever.
(47:43):
I know I'm oversimplifying it, but it's it's kind of wild.
Speaker 2 (47:49):
Yeah, And it doesn't hurt that you're gonna have a
lot of natural resources to extract in these specific strategic
places as well.
Speaker 3 (47:58):
And at first this idea might sound trivial, right or abstract,
we have to remember this does occur in the historical record.
There was hard provable precedent for the use of proxies.
You know, shut out Afghanistan. The Soviets did with the
mujah deemed correct in that situation, and the US actively
(48:21):
did the same thing. The trained, funded, otherwise empowered separatist
proxy groups that later became their enemies when the geopolitical
winds shifted. And look, we cannot accuse the United States
of provably creating monsters with active malicious intention, especially when
the simpler explanation may fall down to plain old negligence
(48:46):
or factions within these agencies. And this alphabet soup I mean.
And yet you know sam Mednik had this point. The
military junta's ruling Mali and Burkina US are getting military
support from Russia. Molly's also working with the Wagner group.
(49:06):
Let's go to David Pugli's from the Ottawa Citizen. He writes,
African soldiers trained by US and Allied special forces at
Flintlock have track records of launching coups to remove civilian
elected governments from power in their home nations. In July.
He's talking, I believe in twenty twenty two. Oh no,
(49:26):
he's talking in twenty twenty three. In July, military officers
who had trained previous Flintlock exercises ousted Niger's democratically elected
president at a coup data, there's a pickle. There's a
pickle there.
Speaker 2 (49:40):
Well, and often there are there's a set of circumstances
that someone from the outside I'm just as an example,
me reading about the circumstances around a coup like that
feel like, Oh, there's a series corruption there, or there
was a real conflict of interest, or there's something right
that's being talked about, and you go, oh, I could
see maybe there was a coup in that country. I
(50:03):
think maybe from the outside perspective, the way these coups
get reported on, it's almost like it's justified sometimes, but
I don't know. Often maybe I'm just personally confused about
it because it does seem like there's something else at
play behind the scenes that we don't get privy to.
Speaker 3 (50:21):
M m yeah, very black Monday murders, right, the vassals
of the lattice and so on. Yeah. Like in recent
years to that point, officers trained by the United States
have launched seven successful coups and sometimes even get the
coups on coups. Domestic US news doesn't often break a
(50:43):
sweat reporting this. There are just too many celebrities to
pay attention.
Speaker 4 (50:47):
To cous on Coups domestic US news. I was hoping
there would be an additional end rhyme, but that was good.
Speaker 2 (50:55):
Enough for me.
Speaker 3 (50:56):
Oh thanks, Noel, Yeah, we could totally. Well, let's just
drop a mixtape on it, like Coups on Coups. I
think it will work. We also we owe a great
deal of debt to investigative journalists who are all woefully
underpaid and if they're honest, they're not working for institutional forces.
This is someone we're very grateful to introduce Matt. You
(51:20):
mentioned him earlier. Nick Urce writing for The Intercept in
twenty twenty two, he has this guy put the work in,
He put the time in, the blood, sweat and the
boots on the ground. He was deep into the coup
in Burkina fass Out and this coup that he spoke about,
(51:42):
he was intensely studying. It was led by a guy
named Paul Enri Sandalgo Damiba, and this guy studied in Paris,
the Military College in Paris. He also has a degree
in criminology from France and he spent a few years
in the US for training. He went on to serve
(52:03):
as the interim president of Burkina Fassau from January thirty
first of twenty twenty two to September thirtieth of the
same year. Things went sideways for him. He lost power,
he was overthrown in. Can you guess, would anyone care
to guess? Well, it wasn't an election, that's for sure. Yeah,
(52:31):
like Kuzan kuz on KU's. So the results are obvious.
There is a significant correlation between individuals trained by Western
forces in things like exercise fliplock and then later cous
coupdata you know, all day and so the question is
we can't prove a conspiracy exist, but why does this
(52:55):
pattern seem so strong? So maybe we end it here. Again,
we cannot emphasize this enough. The personnel training individuals via
flintlock and via other things like flintlock, it is not unique.
They are not weird super villains. They're not hanging out,
you know, like drinking the blood of the young or
(53:16):
whatever and saying I can't wait to ruin lives. They
are genuinely working to do quite the opposite, to save
the lives of innocent people. But again, all the stuff
they're teaching, it knows no real ethical constraint. You know,
the window that you push someone out of. That window
(53:36):
never asks you why the person is falling, you know
what I mean, It's just a window, or it's just
a gun. And these things are measured in terms of
practical application rather than philosophical coziness and comfort. So is
the United States and its Western allies. Are they creating
the enemies they may fight in the future. If so,
(53:57):
are they doing this on purpose? That's a pretty complicated question,
And the problem with that as a conspiracy is that
it describes a lot of long term planning aptitude that
historically doesn't exist. I'm just gonna say it, Yeah, a
lot of the conspiracies are just covering up previous mistakes.
Speaker 2 (54:18):
To me, it feels more alike inception, philosophical inception, and
that's really I think that's really all you have to
do in these train on the ground exactly how to
the tactics to get it done, and then get the
top people who control the people who can do those things,
(54:39):
like train them in the philosophy of the way things
should be so that when those individuals observe things like
government corruption, all that stuff occurring, they can actually use
the tools that they have at their disposal to stop
that from happening.
Speaker 3 (54:55):
I wonder what kind of to the point about ideology,
I wonder what kind of spirational books are given right
on the syllabus on the heart time flips? Is it
tracts well? Is it like eyeing rand at the shrugged?
Is it laws of war or laws of power?
Speaker 4 (55:13):
Is it sun sou?
Speaker 3 (55:15):
Is it chicken soup for the teenage soul soul?
Speaker 2 (55:20):
Perhaps it's I was watching a video. It was titled
Flintlock Exercise. It was posted like in twenty sixteen, and
there's this guy Ltc. William D. Rose Road Special Operations
Command Africa. He he, guys, I just want to see
what you think about this. He says. This quote an
African proverb that they our partners like to quote often
(55:44):
is when your neighbor's house is on fire, you helped
to put it out in order to safeguard your own,
which sounds very good to me, right. That sounds like, yes,
this is cooperation across countries for the greater good. If
somebody's house is on fire wanted to burn, mind, so yeah, selfishly,
I'm gonna help you put it out. But also I
(56:04):
care about you enough. I think it sounds really good
to me. Just wonder what you guys think about that
as like a part of the philosophy that's being taught.
Speaker 3 (56:14):
I watched the video as well. I saw it via
who is this dev grew five O two two.
Speaker 2 (56:21):
That was the accessible one.
Speaker 3 (56:23):
Yeah, yeah, that's the that's the that's the one you
can find most easily on YouTube. In this in this conversation,
I would say again, these people are acting in good faith,
these instructors, these veterans who have survived some crazy thing.
This is also an opportunity, a much needed opportunity for
(56:46):
special forces to acquire training and experience. There's a reason
this exists. It's maybe multiple birds one stone situation, right,
But but are all the birds they're aiming for? The
birds the Americans and the global civilian population want to hit.
Speaker 4 (57:07):
They're the ones that, as long as they're birds, hit
them all day long. I'm sorry, guys, I'm out of
the metaphor into literal birds.
Speaker 2 (57:16):
Well that's fine. We know you feel about birds and.
Speaker 4 (57:19):
All I know, it's my brand. I got to say
it every now and again.
Speaker 2 (57:22):
Just along with this other training they're also providing, like
civil aid right, or so you might call a humanitarian aid,
working with clean water sources in smaller villages, working with
hospitals to get them up to date in like updated
and orphanages. Even this is all according to that same
(57:45):
person that we were quoting here, Lieutenant William D. Rose.
And they're also working with outreach activities, like numerous outreach
activities in the small areas where they're having the flintlock exercises. Again,
in my it's good, it's they're helping people, right, But
you're also painting a picture of where this help is
(58:07):
coming from, and you know the type of help that
you're going to provide. It just all it builds on
that Cold war thing to me in some weird way, you.
Speaker 3 (58:20):
Know, I agree with you, and i'd like I proposedly
end with a question and something that's bothering me more
and more often for many years now. Yes, waging war
on terrorist however, defined waging war on the quote unquote
bad guys, hostile states. That's all well and good, But
what about the private industries that enable the chaos? What
(58:42):
about those who profit by the existence of war, regardless
of victory or failure toward a specific side. These are
often global conglomerates. They make money either way. So what
about waging war on those corporations proven private industries doing hard?
Will the United States or a similar power ever start
(59:04):
a school like that?
Speaker 2 (59:06):
No, No, that's.
Speaker 4 (59:08):
Only called aerarchi. It would be burning down all that
we've built. We've worked so hard to get to where
we are. Why would you want to do that? What
are you some kind of nihilists?
Speaker 3 (59:18):
I just want like an ltc rows of some sort
saying you know, like far in the future, saying you know,
little known fact. We actually train the Halliburtons once upon
a time and the Halliburton Haliburtons right right, right, folks.
There's so much more we did not get to. We
(59:40):
have endeavored to be even handed about this, to point
out things we cannot prove, to point out patterns that
do exist. And most importantly, we want to hear from you.
Let us know your thoughts, not just about things like
exercise flintlock, but about other similar mechanisms throughout the world.
Shout out to Dulu technology, et cetera, et cetera. We
(01:00:02):
try to be easy to find online.
Speaker 4 (01:00:04):
Oh boy, do we ever? And I'd like to think
we succeed You can find us at the handle Conspiracy
Stuff on XFKA, Twitter, Facebook. We have our Here's where
it Gets Crazy Facebook group where you can join in
on the conversation around episodes. People still go to Facebook.
Speaker 2 (01:00:20):
I hope you do.
Speaker 4 (01:00:21):
It's a good group, good people there, and we also
are that on YouTube or Conspiracy Stuff show on Instagram
and TikTok.
Speaker 2 (01:00:28):
We have a phone number and a voicemail system. Call
one eight three three STDWYTK, give yourself a cool nickname,
and then you've got three minutes. Say whatever you'd like.
We're excited to hear from you when you do call in.
Please let us know if we can use your voice
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(01:00:50):
please don't use this. If you've got more to send,
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not instead send us an email.
Speaker 3 (01:00:57):
We are conspiracy at iHeart dot com.
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Speaker 2 (00:24):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Noel.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
They called me Ben. We're joined as always with our
super producer Paul Mission controlled Decant. Most importantly, you are you.
You are here. That makes this the stuff they don't
want you to know. You guys, ever heard the uh?
I was thinking, what's a good way to get into this?
Have you guys ever heard the phrase the United States
as the World's police.
Speaker 4 (00:48):
Sure? Yeah, in that uh South Park movie for Team
America World Police, Right, that was the whole joke about
behind that movie.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Well, yeah, simply because we go around setting up military
bases in.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
A lot of places willy and or nilly mm hmm.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
And look, obviously Americans in the audience tonight are going
to be the first to point out this country has
serious problems if we're going to be diplomatic about it.
Also diplomacy that comes into play. But the facts on
the ground are the following. The United States, despite its shenanigans,
(01:29):
and despite some unethical actions, it has also maintained rule
of law. It is stabilized global trade. Right now, the
United States is helping fight pirates. That's right, folks. Pirates
are a thing again. And it turns out if if
he digs your vibe, Uncle Sam can and will provide
(01:50):
endless benefits to your government and military and military. Well,
first your military, and then maybe your military becomes your government,
as they say in the musical Hamilton, and it must
be nice. It must be nice to have Washington on
your side. This is the story of one such program,
a traveling show, if you will, called exercise flint Lock.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
What is it?
Speaker 3 (02:11):
Why do critics deem it controversial? Here are the facts.
Uncle Sam is a he's a busy boy. He's a busy,
busy boy. Just get out of the way so I
don't say it later. Whenever I see flint lock, I
think of flint stones and bedrock.
Speaker 4 (02:26):
Just putting that out there.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Yeah, yeah, I think about starting fires, don't you? That
is huh a little flint Yeah. So this this episode
is kind of like a what a breakoff from our
other places you Can't Go episode that we recently did,
just because we were looking at what was going on
in Africa and why there were so many coups going
(02:50):
on there pretty recently. And uh m, I don't want
to spoil it too much, but that's we're looking at
this specific thing called exercise Flintlock. That reminds me a
lot of our previous episodes we've done on large scale
military drills and almost like get togethers I guess that
(03:11):
have occurred like jade Helm in the.
Speaker 4 (03:13):
Past, picnics, you know that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
Yeah, a little bit of fellowship, you know, a little
bit of common interest shared, some light target practice, perhaps
some some ops.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Yeah, but in like jade Helm that we've covered in
the past, Like I said, you can find an episode
on it that was it's almost more of private military
contractors and companies that produce military gear kind of getting
together and showing off what's available right right, and then.
Speaker 4 (03:44):
Like a trade show almost it is like comic Con
with a.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
With a mixed in like urban battleground exercise kind of
thrown in there. You know.
Speaker 4 (03:53):
What was the one that the conspiracy theory was that
they did it at Walmart or something, or they jade home.
That was the one, Yeah, that ended up being bunk,
but it was. It was believable for a second.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
It was. I think it was due to concerns about FEMA,
because there were many pre made containers that were arriving
via rail. There was also a helicopter we talked about
that that was in a disused Walmart.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
They ended up being storage for some official use. They
were just using that or they're releasing that property for
official storage use.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
And you know, most people in the United States are
i would say, vaguely aware that Uncle Sam gets up
to some stuff abroad, except this as a known fact,
and don't often dig deeper into the specifics of these activities,
much less the economic forces at play unless they are
(04:49):
pointed toward exploration of these via you know, your favorite
media of choice. And it's true. The US has committed
numerous horrifically illegal as on foreign soil and spoiler on
its own people on its own soil in the past.
These acts continue in some version in the modern day
(05:11):
according to critics, and yes, the US economy makes a
great deal of profit from these activities year over year.
I was hoping, if it's okay with you guys, we
could throw to just one little, little juicy nugget from
old President Eisenhower, which our pal Rob Reiner also pointed
to you earlier.
Speaker 4 (05:30):
It's not a dinosaur shape because it might be a
dangerous nugget if that's the case. The thing you just said,
Ben about the horrific acts, illegal acts, it kind of
feels like one of those things where the sentiment is, well,
if we do it, it's not illegal. M you know,
I mean, you know, because we never make it to
any kind of criminal you know, like international court to
(05:53):
be judged.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
Well, unless you throw a little party like the Church Committee.
Again we just talked about with mister Ryan.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
And the United States does not respect the jurisdiction of
the ICC, the International Criminal Court. So former President Eisenhower
on his way out of office, this is something we
talked with our pal Rob about. He warned the United
States and indeed the world, that he was worried a
(06:22):
certain industry might take over what he saws the otherwise
noble mission of being the global police. Here's a short
clip from his farewell address.
Speaker 5 (06:32):
And the Councils of Government, we must guard against the
acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the
military industrial complex.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
Fun fact about that speech. He did write it himself,
and before he went to air with this farewell address,
he was calling it the military industrial Congressional complex.
Speaker 4 (06:59):
That it, Yeah, we wouldn't not have been considered a
dig on Congress, and so they thought it was too
much or what.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Well, somebody has got to authorize the war and the
you know the military actions. You know.
Speaker 4 (07:15):
Yeah, I just mean it got cut because it maybe
was considered a little too pointed, perhaps, right.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
Yeah hashtag Smedley Butler was right. Uh. There There is
another factor in this, which is that, in the process
of pursuing hegemonic power and year over year profits for
different connected companies, the United States does also ensure a
degree of when things work, stability, continuity, and safety. Depends
(07:43):
on your perspective, though, because a significant amount of US
military activity on foreign soil, it centers on what we
would call facilitation. We're not going to wage the war,
but we're going to teach you how wars are waged.
Speaker 4 (07:59):
We'll give you a little nudge, maybe a little help,
perhaps some armaments interested shout out.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
School of the Americas recently rewatched our old video on
the School of Americas and it holds up located for
a time in Fort Benning, Georgia.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Yeah, do we say what flintlock is exactly? I know,
I've kind of like vaguely talked about stuff that's like it.
But do we say exactly what it is yet?
Speaker 3 (08:25):
Flintlock is, Well, it depends on who you ask, right,
That's what we're saying because flintlock is one of those
facilitational activities. In its most recent iteration, it's two weeks
per year, right, and that started in two thousand and five.
But there's a long history to it because started around
(08:46):
the end of World War Two, the United States earned
a bit of a street rep for overthrowing unfriendly governments,
often through unethical means. We're talking propping up student movements,
quote unquote, arming secession groups like you pointed out, even
assassinating elected leaders couptata as functional policy. And for critics,
(09:10):
exercises like flintlock are a direct descendant of ethically questionable behavior.
But for supporters this is necessary. This is holding the
line from chaos.
Speaker 4 (09:24):
What makes it an exercise versus an operation?
Speaker 2 (09:28):
Okay, So I think that's what I want to get to.
I actually define it, so it is a special operations
counter terrorism exercise where there are all kinds of different
drills and training scenarios that the DoD often in the
US Army calls them regional forces, but it's really just
(09:50):
a bunch of different militaries and paramilitary groups that are
from what they call their African partners again, the d
D and the US Army, and it's a bunch of
partner nations within Africa that work together with the US
and with a couple other European countries to basically train
their militaries in their troops or you know, small groups
(10:12):
of their militaries in these counter terrorism special operations tactics.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
Police forces as well to militarize those Further, again, this
was not happening, is not happening in a vacuum. During
the Cold War, the USSR was doing very similar things,
we have to remember, and terrorist groups are doing similar
things now. Rival states are using proxies like Wagner, like
(10:41):
hiss Bolah and so on. We have to remember these things,
these tactics, this practice of facilitated learning. They are used
because they work. They are effective the way firearms are effective.
Their success is a matter of operational rather than moral
or ethical efficacy. So it doesn't matter to the gun
(11:04):
who get shot. It matters to the gun that the
gun works. And in the wake of Iraq and it sequels,
and notably the terrorist attacks of September eleventh, two thousand
and one, the US military industrial complex that Eisenhower warned
us about found an opportunity to normalize and mainstream a
never ending war. This comes in the wake of when
(11:28):
the US figured out, hey, what if we wage wars
on ideas? Right, there's the war on drugs drugs won.
There's a war on poverty that was very short lived
because it didn't do well in the polls. And then
of course there are culture wars. So this larger milieu,
this context is mission critical for US to understand. There
(11:50):
is an active war on terrorism. What is terrorism depends
on who you ask. It's definitely non state actors are
those are like? That's one of the big differences. What
makes a war on terror different from a war on
a state power.
Speaker 4 (12:06):
It's about optics, right, I mean, it's say one we
always say one person's freedom fighter is another person's terrorists
and all depending on how you label the terrorists, it
can be a convenient tool to making them an enemy
that you then need to eradicate and it you know,
you wage a certain amount of the war in the
war of public opinion. You know, nobody wants to think
(12:27):
that you're going after good guys who are trying to
liberate you know, their people. You have to be fighting
a bad guy.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Yeah, And it's really interesting because another aspect of flintlock
is to have these the individual countries and militaries not
only you know, fighting against terrorism with the within their
own territory, but to train them to share that information
right and to encourage the sharing of information across borders because,
(12:54):
as you said, been like terrorism, if you're fighting that
rather than a neighboring country, that thing could exist on
your land, right outside your land, deep in you know,
a couple of neighbors overs land. So it's interesting to
think about there needing to be some kind of united
front to really combat a concept like that. That could
(13:18):
be it could represent any number of different cells or organizations.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
Which are often fluid and decentralized. Three key differences between
a war on capital t terror versus the war on
a conventional state power traditional agreements like the Geneva Convention.
Those agreements erode those ideas about you know, the red Cross,
about journalism, et cetera. They fall to the wayside quite quickly.
(13:46):
And second, the opponent, the whatever represents capital t terror
has no limiting factors in terms of legality. The concept
of war crime is not a concept practiced by a
terrorist group. And they're the third. And it sounds like
a small detail, but I think it speaks directly to
(14:07):
some of the points we're bringing up. There's no clear
representative leadership, meaning there's often no single authoritative source to
declare victory or defeat altogether. That means you could be
fighting a war that does not end, it simply transforms.
This is true. Look at Boko Haram, look at isl Isis,
(14:28):
look at al Qaeda. These groups can function at an advantage.
A powerful state actor, yes, can become economically addicted to war,
and arguably the US and several European countries are in
that situation. However, a powerful enough non state actor can
(14:48):
leverage existing tensions and conflicts. Right, you know, Saudi Arabia
and Iran don't get along, So which one of them
is going to fund your newest project? And what do
they want? This means that these groups can at times
enjoy the advantage of power, state level power with very
(15:09):
few constraints that that power typically entails.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
I think the.
Speaker 4 (15:13):
Part about a lot of this that really I learned
this phrase recently Bakes my Noodle, is that there really
is no moral high ground. It's all just deal making.
It's like, who is going to benefit us in the
long term? How can we you know, whatever, in some
way walk away from it with some kind of upside.
But it's not about saving the world. It's not about
(15:36):
protecting innocence. It's really about my feelings.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
It's about saving a version of the world there probably is.
People don't agree on which version, right. I mean, that's
and I love Bake my Noodle. That's a great one.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
So well. Just something to bring up in here is
that you're talking about who's going to fund it and
the I get we'll get deep into this, but in
the case of this giant excerpt size flintlock that we're
going to be talking about, it's not just the US
military and the partners, like the European partners coming in
with a bunch of money and saying, hey have some
free training. Right. This is the US and these contractors
(16:14):
and everybody that's working with them for this training, getting
these African countries to pay to be a part of it,
but then funds the entire thing, right, it's not just
some party that they're going to have. It gets funded
by the members the partners that are selected from the
African countries.
Speaker 3 (16:33):
And as long as you don't look too deep into
the forensic accounting of where the money to fund that
stuff comes from, then it's all well and good. There
are clear good and bad guys. The United States encountered
a renaissance of training and facilitation across South America, Asia,
parts of Europe, the continent of Africa. Uncle Sam started growing,
(16:56):
training and guiding militaries in a conflict it characterized as
a borderless conflict. The idea at first blush. Obviously, it's utopian.
Could we stop wars before they began? If we could,
then we would necessarily have to. It would be the
ethical thing to do. Flintlock grew from this milieu, and
(17:19):
that's part of why it continues today.
Speaker 4 (17:21):
It's like green War, you know, like you know, it's gosh,
it's just it's packaging this idea of a war without borders.
It's not possible. That's not how wars work. But it's
all about this kind of like pr line, It's sorry,
it's making me very very depressed.
Speaker 3 (17:39):
Well, this is this is us giving you some context.
This is us giving a little bit of a dance
in the shallow pool. Let's pause for a word from
our sponsors and dive into the deep water. Here's where
(18:01):
it gets crazy. All right, what is Flintlock? What is Flintlock?
Speaker 4 (18:05):
Well, first, flintlock is kind of an umbrella term that
describes a series of different, like you said, mad different
training programs. Again, sort of like exporting American tactics and
possibly a little bit of ideology, but definitely training and
hardware to other countries. So let's go to the United
States Africa Command street name AFRICOM, which is that makes sense.
(18:29):
It's a nice portmanteau. Here's how they describe this ongoing program. Flintlock,
US Africa Command's premier and largest annual special operations exercise,
has taken place annually since two thousand and five across
the Sahel region of Africa among nations participating in the
Trans Sahara counter Terrorism Partnership and are planned by African
(18:53):
partner nations Special Operations Forces, Special Operations Command Africa and
the US. I'm in a state to develop the capacity
of and collaboration among African security forces to protect civilian populations.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
Great ten ten, No notes, right, there's a lot of
somewhat vague language there.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
Right.
Speaker 3 (19:18):
The Trans Sahara counter Terrorism Partnership is something that a
lot of people in the West probably haven't heard of,
because why would you know about this if you weren't
looking this statement the REDNAL. It's from twenty twenty three. However, Flintlock,
going to your earlier point about an umbrella term, flintlock
is much older as an idea. It dates back to
(19:41):
the nineteen sixties when Special Forces Group, it was a
tenth Special Forces Group where they were attempting to fight
against communism. They were training to they were training forces
in Denmark and Germany West Germany of course, and Spain
and Greece. Yeah, in an attempt to prevent the spread
(20:05):
of fascism. There were bulwarks against the Domino theory, which
we talked about a little bit earlier, and it continued
after that and.
Speaker 4 (20:13):
With Rob Reiner, if I'm not mistaken right, the Domino theory,
we talked about communism as kind of this ghoul that
had to be dealt with and sort of justified a
lot of ends.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
Specifically Vietnam, Southeast Asian theater. And we have to remember
that on the other side of the Cold War equation,
the USSR was looking at capitalism in much the same
way Exercise Flintlock. This is a cool little bit of history.
It continued some version of it. And we know that
(20:44):
the Road Show moved to the United Kingdom in the
nineteen eighties, and we know part of this due to
extremely unfortunate death. Sergeant first class, a guy named Clifford
Strickland died testing something that is super cool. It's the
Skyhook system. Remember that from Christopher Nolan's Batman.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
Oh yeah's immediately what came to mind. Yeah, wait, I
don't know that is what is that skyhook.
Speaker 4 (21:13):
Was Remember of the scene where he gets extracted with
like a like a harness and then like basically.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
He takes the accountant out. Yeah, eval accountant.
Speaker 4 (21:23):
Uh, he's in Tokyo or something like. He's definitely out
of the country and it's meant to be like a
military level extraction kind of.
Speaker 3 (21:31):
I believe he's in Hong Kong because the government of
China will not uh extradite one of their own. That's
the line there, right, and so so anyway, the flintlock
also has this experimental aspect to it, right. There's a
lot of tried and true training and tactics, and then
(21:52):
at least in the nineteen eighties there were a couple
of more innovative things that went spectacularly wrong. And when
people talk about flint lock now, they're not really talking
about that stuff from decades ago. They're referring to the
ongoing training program via AFRICAM and It's Partners that began
in two thousand and five. The less sexy, less cool
(22:16):
name for this kind of stuff is JCEE T joint
Combined Exchange training. Stabbing the fingers to wake up anybody
who fell asleep hearing that.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
Oh no, you're a chicken again. Oh sorry about that time.
Speaker 4 (22:32):
The worst thing you could possibly see. Please don't chase
me around a campfire, tiny dinosaur.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Sorry, Well, just this exercise is so complicated and weird,
and it's got such a history, Ben, thank you for
finding all this stuff in the history is it's it's
so nuts, but it's it's weird to think that it's
not just US military. It's not just United Kingdom military
(23:01):
and those two Western forces and their interests and what
training that's being provided, right, the tactics that those two
countries have, they're bringing in all kinds of other partners.
I think Germany has been a part of it for
quite a while. They're they're a major part of AFRICAM
in general. But and it's not just US military training.
(23:24):
It's also like US intelligence from the FBI that gets
involved to share tactics for policing. As you said, there
these these exercises get involved with the local police forces
as well as the Department of Justice to help out
with you know, how to actually bring justice to the
bad guys once you get a hold of them, or
(23:44):
how to pursue those things. And even the State Department
of the United States when it comes to those anti
terrorism activities and how to track down basically how to investigate,
track down and then in a weird way question like
local civilians of residence, like just of a residential area
(24:06):
where maybe something has gone down, you're tracking leads, how
to interrogate people. It's really crazy how just multifaceted this
series of exercises.
Speaker 3 (24:16):
Is another important point there in terms of the intelligence
stuff and the State Department stuff. From my understanding, there's
a significant amount of instruction put into what we will
call hearts and minds projects like not only how do
we find the people were calling the bad guys this decade,
(24:38):
but how do we also persuade civilians in rural areas
that we are, in fact the good guys. How do
we frame and guide their perspective?
Speaker 2 (24:49):
Well, yeah, how do we get those people to raise
a hand right the whole see something, say something? Kind
of mentality? You can see that getting injected into this.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
Hey I'm a strange or from Langley, snitch on your
cousin for me. What's gonna happen? He's probably gonna die,
you know. But well you gotta tell you that up front.
You guys like blue jeans, you guys like fifty cent.
Speaker 4 (25:13):
It's the same way the cops do you and they
try to get you to flip on somebody. They say, oh,
you'll be fine, we'll protect you, don't worry about it,
and then you know they don't and you end up dead.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
And again again we are when we talk about this,
when we talk about things like Flintlock, I think it's
very important for us to say we are in no
way accusing the people who are operating there of being
super villains. We're not saying they're out there to do
evil stuff. Again, if you look at the official rationale,
(25:46):
and if you look at the types of programs, which
you know some of it's classified for sure, but if
you look at what they're doing, they are attempting to
empower people. They are attempting to power local governments that
would otherwise potentially be overrun by the consequences of previous
(26:07):
similar exercises. Whatever. It's true. Well, yeah, or.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
Our despots and dictators, I mean, there are you know,
there are moneyed interests, right that have strings attached to
other powers, Like that's kind of what you mean, like
other very powerful countries that have economic interests in various
African countries that have various troves of resources, right that
(26:34):
can be extracted, and we know that those often the
governing bodies can be manipulated, depending on what kind of
purse you're thrown around.
Speaker 3 (26:43):
Yeah, yeah, shout out to Wagner right street name Russia,
shout out to Shout out to our good friends working
for Uncle Gee. You know what I mean, Shout out
to shout out to France's public relations to for still
trying to make them look like the good guys in Africa.
Speaker 4 (27:03):
They're pretty charming. Yeah, well the French.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
Maybe in Paris. You should see them when they're out
in the field.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
So fair enough.
Speaker 3 (27:11):
Yeah, so, US Special Forces in the current iteration of Flintlock,
they kick it twice a year in the African continent
for this training, and the most recent version happened March
first through fifteenth of twenty twenty three. It's a win
win or that's how it's seen, and there is validity
(27:33):
to the concerns the threat of nebulous terrorists or separatist groups.
It looms large on humanity's first continent, specifically now in
twenty twenty three, Flintlock is attempting to provide expertise and
security for nations being affected by chaos in the sy Hel.
(27:54):
Like you mentioned though the Soy held region of Africa.
There are a lot of chaotic groups there have we'll
say it ties to larger global entities at times, and
they themselves again going back to tactics, many of these
groups also have training and in some cases equipment that
(28:14):
is state actor level and as such, it could overwhelm
domestic state forces that historically have struggled with corruption, with
funding and honestly with decent training, because you need experienced
people when you're engaging in this sort of business.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
Well, and let's talk about the specific countries that have
been involved in this. Many of them have been involved,
like from early in the process, back in two thousand
and five when this version of let's say, this version
of Flintlock began, right and so have it continued on.
Others have joined up more recently. But you know, the
stuff I was looking at, guys, was from around twenty
(28:56):
twenty when Flintlock was occurring then and then just looking forward.
But I'll just we can list off some countries here.
African nations that have been in partners for Flintlock include Burkina, Fasso, Cameroon, Chad,
Cabo Verde, Guinea, Molly, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Ghana.
(29:20):
There's just there a ton of countries that have been involved,
and we're going to talk about a little bit. There
may be a reason that you've heard some of those
names pretty recently in the news.
Speaker 3 (29:35):
Yeah, oh boy, so right right now, earlier this year,
As you said, Matt, the newest iteration of flint lock
was conducted. It is international. It was conducted in Ghana
and Cote de Vore, not French speakers. Ivory Coast. You
might also know it as we are talking this time,
(29:55):
around thirteen hundred military personnel from all told twenty nine
countries in some capacity. Basically, and I know this might
make some of our fellow conspiracy realists who are veterans,
I know it might make some of us a little
salty to hear it, But basically you could call it
a pop up version of the School of the Americas.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
Dude, or what was the training camp where uh the
oh gosh, we just talked about it with Robert Reiner
Cuban exiles were being trained for sniping and where Lee
Harvey Oswald you know, apparently showed up and was trained.
Speaker 3 (30:32):
To use the twenty five six that it was something
like that, but he was, ah, that was the group
of dudes. You were sponsored by the CIA. That wasn't
where they hung out. They came out. I think I
don't know how to Dave imbusters were almost there work close.
It was one of those. It was definitely one of
those or something like it. But the aim of flintlock
(30:55):
is to again empower local governance, right, empower the local
armed forces, which does often involve militarizing the police such
that they can continue things that we often take for
granted in the United States. Just to be very clear,
one example would be the peaceful passage of power. Right.
(31:19):
The fact that for quite some time the United States,
a very young country, has successfully and peacefully passed from
one president to another, even when they clearly hate each other.
Like the fact that that has happened for a couple
centuries is kind of cool, and it's not super common
(31:42):
in world history for that kind of thing to occur,
So there is validity to the statement about this. But
there's also the other side. One of the big factors here,
it's not altruism. One of the big factors is to
ensure the spice flows, whatever the spice may be, to
ensure the stability of global trade and therefore indeed the
(32:05):
global economic system as it is currently understood.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
Guys, if you don't mind, I'd love to read a
quick quote from R. Clark Cooper. Though we talked about before,
this guy is a part of the I guess he's
a part of the State Department. Let's say, and he
is speaking at the closing ceremonies for Flintlock twenty twenty,
and he's talking about I think the same thing, but
not saying it out loud. Does that make sense? He's
(32:31):
speaking around it in a way.
Speaker 3 (32:33):
Let's hear it. Let's hear the dance.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
Peez. Okay, Oh, there's a lot of there's a lot
of stuff in here.
Speaker 3 (32:39):
But less I'm so excited.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
Okay, it's kind of long. Bear with me, here we go.
But more than being an opportunity for us to each
improve individually, Flintlock is an opportunity for all our nations
to grow together in a healthy partnership. But not all
partnerships are healthy. But the one we celebrate here today
(33:03):
is how can I tell simple? Because it's a partnership
based on mutual respect and shared values, not self interest
and exploitation. Because partnership contributes to self sufficiency, not lasting dependency.
Speaker 4 (33:19):
Is that not a little condescending?
Speaker 2 (33:21):
It does feel that way to me, But I don't know,
I don't know, but it's I just gotta I gotta
say this so you get the feel of the way
he's talking to everybody and you just wonder is he
talking to the leaders right or is he talking to
the you know, each individual person who is participating. I'm
gonna keep going just a little bit furtherer quote and
(33:43):
to sustainable capability, not burdensome debt. Partnership is not just
a means to an end, but a path which we
value for the friendships it creates and the lessons we
all learn side by side. Our relationship is one of cooperation,
mutual respect, and transparency. And today no other nation can
(34:06):
match the United States commitment to the continent. Oh well,
we're talking about the US wanting to assert itself in
the entirety of the African continent as Papa safety, Papa money,
you know, like I'm the He's like, yeah, global police, Like,
(34:32):
we're gonna keep you saying we're gonna help you stay safe,
and we're gonna help you be prosperous, and we're here
for you.
Speaker 3 (34:37):
We're gonna teach you to fish and hey, if that
means you end up in our navy, tight, that's exactly.
Speaker 4 (34:44):
Georgia Public Broadcasting here in Atlanta has this that they
adopted this new slogan a handful of years ago, and
I despise it because it has the same vibe as
this is Georgia Public Broadcasting. We respect and appreciate your intelligence.
The way they say it, the sound of the voice
is just like really really, that feels like, so we're
(35:05):
really texting you in a relationship after an argument.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (35:09):
I don't know if it's the best opener, but that
quotation from from Big Coops is is in line with
the earlier statements and signals that the US and the
global West have given to the nations of Africa. And
the tough part about that is that while those statements
(35:33):
have been made and broadcast, they occur in step with
some troubling things, not just resource extraction. That's old beans.
But tune in for our previous episodes on that. And
if you just hear that statement right like you're sitting
there and you've never met this guy for some reason,
(35:55):
you know nothing about colonialism, et cetera, and this and
the various companies controlling it, then you might say, well, who, buddy,
this sounds fantastic. Thanks Big Coops.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
Can't wait. You know what, if you hear that right now,
I was gonna say, if you didn't join in this year,
then man you're gonna want to get in next year.
Speaker 3 (36:18):
We want to teach you talents. Sure, yeah, we want
get on the boat. Get on the boat with us,
is what they're saying. And what do the tank? That's
what they're always saying. Yet, so also, to be fair,
given that millions, millions of millions of innocent people have
been murdered, assaulted, tortured, forced out of their communities by
(36:41):
terrorist or separatist organizations, several of which again seem to
have their own pretty high end training, then the question
again becomes a moral quandary. Who would not want to help?
How could you look at this situation and not become involved.
We're gonna pause for word from our response, and then
we're going to explore pretty unpleasant badger in this bag.
(37:10):
We're back. As we've seen in the case of the
School of Americas for the Americas, excuse me, as well
as in the cases of various like student activists and
freedom fighter groups, there isn't a lot of oversight applied
to what happens post training. Teach you all these insurrection techniques,
(37:32):
all these interrogation techniques, will teach you why the third
story is a great place for your enemies to hang
out and then after that, you know, do you dog?
Speaker 2 (37:45):
Yeah? Well, And one of the one of the first
things that exercise flint Lock focuses on is getting the
upper command levels together and doing training with those individuals
in small groups, right, and y'all, I don't want to
get too conspiratorial, but it feels like Concy Well, I
(38:09):
feel like if you're I don't know, I feel like
if you're on the pulpit right in the way that
it feels like Cooper kind of is when he's speaking
about what Flintlock's doing. If you're having a small session
with the upper echelons of these individual partner countries, it
feels like you could almost be preaching to them a
(38:30):
philosophy more so even than tactics, at least at that
upper level, because you've you're trying to make everybody see
the same picture or vision.
Speaker 3 (38:41):
Sure. And also the tough thing about speaking from the
pulpit is you don't hear the whispers in the pews,
and I think that's the ghost that comes to haunt
programs like Fliplock. I mean, the big concern to your point,
mat the big concern is is kind of ideological and
it's an ideology that on the surf is any decent
(39:01):
person can agree with. Human beings should have a say
in their government. You should be able to vote for things.
Human beings should have a reliable, predictable day to day,
year over year sense of safety and security. Right, and
also have the room for luxuries, for aspirations and so on.
(39:23):
These are all very basic things. It's crazy that they
become a hot take so often in the history of humans.
But like, the big concern then is that you can
train people to the best of your ability, right, not
just in tactics, which tactics are. Tactics can be perishable, right,
(39:45):
just like intelligence. The way to conduct a war back
in the day of Napoleon is not the way to
conduct a war today. If you march a bunch of
people just straight in a series of lines, they're gonna die,
They're gonna get killed. But ideal may not be perishable.
And the idea is going back to the example of
(40:06):
firearms having no moral self evaluation. You're teaching people to
be guns, and you are at the same time asking
them to retain enough humanity to only fire at the
quote unquote bad guys. And you're hoping that they will
agree with you for the rest of their lives on
(40:28):
who is the bad versus the good guy?
Speaker 4 (40:30):
What's that expression? If you're a hammer, then everything starts
to look like a nail. You know.
Speaker 2 (40:36):
Yeah, but it's such some of it is such specialized tactics,
for like the like the breach and clear kind of thing,
the close quarters tactics, the it's some of its goria
style stuff that you would be carrying out. I it
feels like the stuff you would need to stage a coup.
Speaker 3 (40:56):
We let's start a coup. It's not just a show.
It's true. These insurrection tactics. Again, they are instituted and
taught and to a degree institutionalized because they work. And
there's a deeper thing here. If we're getting conspiratorial. Another
cool thing about this is well, not cool, interesting, intellectually fascinating.
(41:22):
If you are the source of the education, if you
are the source of the insurrection tactics and the coup mechanisms,
that also means that you can recognize when those are
being applied somewhere else. So if if somebody studies at
your school and then they go out into the streets
(41:43):
of the world and they say Hey, guys, I learned
something interesting about how you might seize a government facility.
Then you are going to recognize it because you taught
that game first, right, So there is I think an
implicit added benefit to this. I mean that the problem
(42:03):
is you can't control the gun, you can't give it
a conscience, You cannot dictate people's minds. The Manchurian candidate
has never successfully been created. So the same people trained
by the US, by Canada, France, Italy, Germany, all the
other ones, they can leverage their knowledge to become something
very similar to the monsters they were originally trained to fight.
Speaker 2 (42:27):
Yeah, what happens when somebody you've trained like that and
given an ideological seed, right, that then grows and you see,
let's say you're in the upper echelons of a country like, oh,
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (42:43):
Nepal.
Speaker 2 (42:44):
Okay, sure, let's say Nepaul, and you watch the governing
the people who are governing that country. You can physically
see and hear about and know the corruption that's happening
at the upper levels. Is that person going to want
to stop that corruption because you've gone through this training
that specifically is anti corruption along with being anti terrorists
(43:09):
and anti terrorism, and no question, because these things are
linked together, right, And I'm not saying corruption at the
highest levels. I'm not saying that that's right. I'm saying
that that is probably pretty common in every country everywhere,
always corruption of the upper levels. But if you've been
(43:32):
trained specifically to see that, and then you've got ways
to fight that thing and like ways to think about
fighting that corruption, it just it feels like you're setting
up a bunch of dominoes and then just waiting for
one of them to fall eventually that you don't control.
But you've set the dominoes up in a way that
when that first one does fall, you know, you kind
(43:54):
of understand the outcome.
Speaker 3 (43:56):
They control the chaos. Yeah, and there's also I mean
the other side. First off, we're not taking shots at Nepal.
They did have a coup in two thousand and five,
but you know that's just because coups are very in
fashion right now. They're like the hottest thing.
Speaker 2 (44:13):
Yeah, we could have said Gabon or Nigerer or Guinea
or Burkina, Fosso or Chad or Molly or Sudan.
Speaker 3 (44:21):
Now keep it coming, drop the beatnal Oh.
Speaker 2 (44:22):
And that's just me naming a couple of names. According
to Al Jazeera, in an article he run August thirtieth,
there have been forty five coups on the African continent
out of the fifty four nations since nineteen fifty. So
forty five since nineteen fifty.
Speaker 3 (44:40):
Oh yeah, and there were some. Some of the new
coups that dropped recently are gonna surprise surprise, folks. Let's
build on this historical fact, right, Let's build on the
historical fact that, yes, people have trained what they thought
(45:01):
of as sheep dogs to protect a herd from wolves.
And in some cases they would have you believe that
the dogs just joined up with the wolves. In any case,
it's the sheep that suffer. That is an historical fact.
If we branch into the realm of conspiracy, then we
ask a more dangerous question. Our interrogation continues leading us
(45:22):
to wonder, what if the same forces training these folks
are picking and choosing suitable candidates to lead future coups.
To your example, Matt, what if what if you are
in those halls of power? Right, You've studied in Paris,
you attended Fort Benning, you know you've you've got some
bona fides. You hang out at a couple of training sessions,
(45:45):
and one day, as your disillusion about the state of
your nation, you get a phone call, right or you
have an interesting conversation, maybe best to keep it off
written record, And the next thing you know, you're getting
a lot of support from a student group you never
heard of. Right, you gotta You've got a suddenly very dedicated,
(46:07):
very talented group of civilians, and they share your concerns
about the nature of barium supplies. Right, excuse me, the spirit,
the hearts and minds, whatever, Like what if? What if
the United States and its allies are purposely creating sources
of future conflict and instability with the thought being they
(46:31):
can control the resulting chaos.
Speaker 2 (46:35):
I mean, that's what the picture looks like from here.
Speaker 3 (46:40):
We can't prove it.
Speaker 2 (46:41):
We can't prove any of that. It's there's a there's
an intercept article. I think we're gonna get to where
there's an interview. Nick, Yeah, dude, some of the quotations
in there, and like the takeaway from that, God, I
can't wait to discuss it together. Okay, go ahead.
Speaker 4 (46:57):
When we were talking to Rob, like I kind of
naive on purpose, I guess, asked, but to what end
does it make sense for us to be in the
conflict in Vietnam when everyone knew it was a disaster
and it wasn't going well, Like, why is it such
a big deal to stay in there? And you know,
he very kindly patted me on the head, young lad,
and said, the military industrial complex, you dunce like that
(47:20):
was created. It was manufactured. It was a realization that like,
this is big business, and this is you know, if
we can maintain circumstances where we're in control of this
flow of money, largely money that doesn't even have to
be accounted for, then we're going to enrich everybody that
we know, and that you know, we'll have infinite favors forever.
(47:43):
I know I'm oversimplifying it, but it's it's kind of wild.
Speaker 2 (47:49):
Yeah, And it doesn't hurt that you're gonna have a
lot of natural resources to extract in these specific strategic
places as well.
Speaker 3 (47:58):
And at first this idea might sound trivial, right or abstract,
we have to remember this does occur in the historical record.
There was hard provable precedent for the use of proxies.
You know, shut out Afghanistan. The Soviets did with the
mujah deemed correct in that situation, and the US actively
(48:21):
did the same thing. The trained, funded, otherwise empowered separatist
proxy groups that later became their enemies when the geopolitical
winds shifted. And look, we cannot accuse the United States
of provably creating monsters with active malicious intention, especially when
the simpler explanation may fall down to plain old negligence
(48:46):
or factions within these agencies. And this alphabet soup I mean.
And yet you know sam Mednik had this point. The
military junta's ruling Mali and Burkina US are getting military
support from Russia. Molly's also working with the Wagner group.
(49:06):
Let's go to David Pugli's from the Ottawa Citizen. He writes,
African soldiers trained by US and Allied special forces at
Flintlock have track records of launching coups to remove civilian
elected governments from power in their home nations. In July.
He's talking, I believe in twenty twenty two. Oh no,
(49:26):
he's talking in twenty twenty three. In July, military officers
who had trained previous Flintlock exercises ousted Niger's democratically elected
president at a coup data, there's a pickle. There's a
pickle there.
Speaker 2 (49:40):
Well, and often there are there's a set of circumstances
that someone from the outside I'm just as an example,
me reading about the circumstances around a coup like that
feel like, Oh, there's a series corruption there, or there
was a real conflict of interest, or there's something right
that's being talked about, and you go, oh, I could
see maybe there was a coup in that country. I
(50:03):
think maybe from the outside perspective, the way these coups
get reported on, it's almost like it's justified sometimes, but
I don't know. Often maybe I'm just personally confused about
it because it does seem like there's something else at
play behind the scenes that we don't get privy to.
Speaker 3 (50:21):
M m yeah, very black Monday murders, right, the vassals
of the lattice and so on. Yeah. Like in recent
years to that point, officers trained by the United States
have launched seven successful coups and sometimes even get the
coups on coups. Domestic US news doesn't often break a
(50:43):
sweat reporting this. There are just too many celebrities to
pay attention.
Speaker 4 (50:47):
To cous on Coups domestic US news. I was hoping
there would be an additional end rhyme, but that was good.
Speaker 2 (50:55):
Enough for me.
Speaker 3 (50:56):
Oh thanks, Noel, Yeah, we could totally. Well, let's just
drop a mixtape on it, like Coups on Coups. I
think it will work. We also we owe a great
deal of debt to investigative journalists who are all woefully
underpaid and if they're honest, they're not working for institutional forces.
This is someone we're very grateful to introduce Matt. You
(51:20):
mentioned him earlier. Nick Urce writing for The Intercept in
twenty twenty two, he has this guy put the work in,
He put the time in, the blood, sweat and the
boots on the ground. He was deep into the coup
in Burkina fass Out and this coup that he spoke about,
(51:42):
he was intensely studying. It was led by a guy
named Paul Enri Sandalgo Damiba, and this guy studied in Paris,
the Military College in Paris. He also has a degree
in criminology from France and he spent a few years
in the US for training. He went on to serve
(52:03):
as the interim president of Burkina Fassau from January thirty
first of twenty twenty two to September thirtieth of the
same year. Things went sideways for him. He lost power,
he was overthrown in. Can you guess, would anyone care
to guess? Well, it wasn't an election, that's for sure. Yeah,
(52:31):
like Kuzan kuz on KU's. So the results are obvious.
There is a significant correlation between individuals trained by Western
forces in things like exercise fliplock and then later cous
coupdata you know, all day and so the question is
we can't prove a conspiracy exist, but why does this
(52:55):
pattern seem so strong? So maybe we end it here. Again,
we cannot emphasize this enough. The personnel training individuals via
flintlock and via other things like flintlock, it is not unique.
They are not weird super villains. They're not hanging out,
you know, like drinking the blood of the young or
(53:16):
whatever and saying I can't wait to ruin lives. They
are genuinely working to do quite the opposite, to save
the lives of innocent people. But again, all the stuff
they're teaching, it knows no real ethical constraint. You know,
the window that you push someone out of. That window
(53:36):
never asks you why the person is falling, you know
what I mean, It's just a window, or it's just
a gun. And these things are measured in terms of
practical application rather than philosophical coziness and comfort. So is
the United States and its Western allies. Are they creating
the enemies they may fight in the future. If so,
(53:57):
are they doing this on purpose? That's a pretty complicated question,
And the problem with that as a conspiracy is that
it describes a lot of long term planning aptitude that
historically doesn't exist. I'm just gonna say it, Yeah, a
lot of the conspiracies are just covering up previous mistakes.
Speaker 2 (54:18):
To me, it feels more alike inception, philosophical inception, and
that's really I think that's really all you have to
do in these train on the ground exactly how to
the tactics to get it done, and then get the
top people who control the people who can do those things,
(54:39):
like train them in the philosophy of the way things
should be so that when those individuals observe things like
government corruption, all that stuff occurring, they can actually use
the tools that they have at their disposal to stop
that from happening.
Speaker 3 (54:55):
I wonder what kind of to the point about ideology,
I wonder what kind of spirational books are given right
on the syllabus on the heart time flips? Is it
tracts well? Is it like eyeing rand at the shrugged?
Is it laws of war or laws of power?
Speaker 4 (55:13):
Is it sun sou?
Speaker 3 (55:15):
Is it chicken soup for the teenage soul soul?
Speaker 2 (55:20):
Perhaps it's I was watching a video. It was titled
Flintlock Exercise. It was posted like in twenty sixteen, and
there's this guy Ltc. William D. Rose Road Special Operations
Command Africa. He he, guys, I just want to see
what you think about this. He says. This quote an
African proverb that they our partners like to quote often
(55:44):
is when your neighbor's house is on fire, you helped
to put it out in order to safeguard your own,
which sounds very good to me, right. That sounds like, yes,
this is cooperation across countries for the greater good. If
somebody's house is on fire wanted to burn, mind, so yeah, selfishly,
I'm gonna help you put it out. But also I
(56:04):
care about you enough. I think it sounds really good
to me. Just wonder what you guys think about that
as like a part of the philosophy that's being taught.
Speaker 3 (56:14):
I watched the video as well. I saw it via
who is this dev grew five O two two.
Speaker 2 (56:21):
That was the accessible one.
Speaker 3 (56:23):
Yeah, yeah, that's the that's the that's the one you
can find most easily on YouTube. In this in this conversation,
I would say again, these people are acting in good faith,
these instructors, these veterans who have survived some crazy thing.
This is also an opportunity, a much needed opportunity for
(56:46):
special forces to acquire training and experience. There's a reason
this exists. It's maybe multiple birds one stone situation, right,
But but are all the birds they're aiming for? The
birds the Americans and the global civilian population want to hit.
Speaker 4 (57:07):
They're the ones that, as long as they're birds, hit
them all day long. I'm sorry, guys, I'm out of
the metaphor into literal birds.
Speaker 2 (57:16):
Well that's fine. We know you feel about birds and.
Speaker 4 (57:19):
All I know, it's my brand. I got to say
it every now and again.
Speaker 2 (57:22):
Just along with this other training they're also providing, like
civil aid right, or so you might call a humanitarian aid,
working with clean water sources in smaller villages, working with
hospitals to get them up to date in like updated
and orphanages. Even this is all according to that same
(57:45):
person that we were quoting here, Lieutenant William D. Rose.
And they're also working with outreach activities, like numerous outreach
activities in the small areas where they're having the flintlock exercises. Again,
in my it's good, it's they're helping people, right, But
you're also painting a picture of where this help is
(58:07):
coming from, and you know the type of help that
you're going to provide. It just all it builds on
that Cold war thing to me in some weird way, you.
Speaker 3 (58:20):
Know, I agree with you, and i'd like I proposedly
end with a question and something that's bothering me more
and more often for many years now. Yes, waging war
on terrorist however, defined waging war on the quote unquote
bad guys, hostile states. That's all well and good, But
what about the private industries that enable the chaos? What
(58:42):
about those who profit by the existence of war, regardless
of victory or failure toward a specific side. These are
often global conglomerates. They make money either way. So what
about waging war on those corporations proven private industries doing hard?
Will the United States or a similar power ever start
(59:04):
a school like that?
Speaker 2 (59:06):
No, No, that's.
Speaker 4 (59:08):
Only called aerarchi. It would be burning down all that
we've built. We've worked so hard to get to where
we are. Why would you want to do that? What
are you some kind of nihilists?
Speaker 3 (59:18):
I just want like an ltc rows of some sort
saying you know, like far in the future, saying you know,
little known fact. We actually train the Halliburtons once upon
a time and the Halliburton Haliburtons right right, right, folks.
There's so much more we did not get to. We
(59:40):
have endeavored to be even handed about this, to point
out things we cannot prove, to point out patterns that
do exist. And most importantly, we want to hear from you.
Let us know your thoughts, not just about things like
exercise flintlock, but about other similar mechanisms throughout the world.
Shout out to Dulu technology, et cetera, et cetera. We
(01:00:02):
try to be easy to find online.
Speaker 4 (01:00:04):
Oh boy, do we ever? And I'd like to think
we succeed You can find us at the handle Conspiracy
Stuff on XFKA, Twitter, Facebook. We have our Here's where
it Gets Crazy Facebook group where you can join in
on the conversation around episodes. People still go to Facebook.
Speaker 2 (01:00:20):
I hope you do.
Speaker 4 (01:00:21):
It's a good group, good people there, and we also
are that on YouTube or Conspiracy Stuff show on Instagram
and TikTok.
Speaker 2 (01:00:28):
We have a phone number and a voicemail system. Call
one eight three three STDWYTK, give yourself a cool nickname,
and then you've got three minutes. Say whatever you'd like.
We're excited to hear from you when you do call in.
Please let us know if we can use your voice
and message on one of our listener mail episodes. It's
totally fine. If you don't want to, just say hey,
(01:00:50):
please don't use this. If you've got more to send,
maybe links, maybe attachments, all that kind of stuff, why
not instead send us an email.
Speaker 3 (01:00:57):
We are conspiracy at iHeart dot com.
Speaker 2 (01:01:19):
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