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3212 Un-Redacted · Conspiracy! The Show

0:00
Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, this is Adam, host of the podcast you're
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1:37
Speaker 2: Welcome to Conspiracy, the Show, the world's most trusted conspiracy
1:43
Speaker 2: Gary podcast, with your hosts Adam Todd Brown and Olivia Hidar.
1:58
Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, Welcome to a rip roar in good Time,
2:03
Speaker 1: an episode of Conspiracy Show. I'm Adam Todd Brown. Who
2:07
Speaker 1: are you.
2:07
Speaker 3: I'm Olivia Heidar.
2:08
Speaker 1: That makes us your hosts. Olivia, how's it going?
2:13
Speaker 3: Uh, it goes, it goes, you know, it's just fall energy.
2:18
Speaker 3: I'm enjoying it, which is nice.
2:20
Speaker 1: Pretty cold where you are.
2:21
Speaker 3: It is it has been really cold, which is actually
2:24
Speaker 3: kind of a nice change. Like it hasn't been getting cold,
2:29
Speaker 3: like very cold in November recently, so.
2:32
Speaker 1: It's been la cold where I am. I mean, it
2:35
Speaker 1: was fifty one when I got up this morning. But
2:38
Speaker 1: I also like when la gets this way. I like
2:41
Speaker 1: jacket weather. Yeah, I like layers. I'm a big guy.
2:44
Speaker 1: I need to cover up.
2:46
Speaker 3: I know what you mean.
2:47
Speaker 1: This this is the weather for it. We are talking
2:52
Speaker 1: about a thing today that's kind of a continuation of
2:55
Speaker 1: this week's episode of Unpopular Opinion. We did an episode
2:59
Speaker 1: of onun Pops this week that was about news stories
3:04
Speaker 1: that are not getting the attention they deserve, which is understandable.
3:09
Speaker 1: There's a lot going on in the world. I get it.
3:12
Speaker 1: One of those stories that we covered, though, was about
3:16
Speaker 1: this ABC News producer named James Gordon Meek, who back
3:22
Speaker 1: in April was rated by the FBI and has essentially
3:27
Speaker 1: fallen off the face of the planet since then. The
3:31
Speaker 1: Daily Mail of all outlets, did manage to track him
3:35
Speaker 1: down and confirm that he's alive, but if you go
3:39
Speaker 1: look at his Twitter, he hasn't tweeted anything since April
3:42
Speaker 1: twenty seventh, which is the day of the FBI raid.
3:45
Speaker 1: He was working on a book that has since scrubbed
3:49
Speaker 1: his name from any mention on the cover, any promotional stuff.
3:55
Speaker 1: It's very strange. And what's interesting about this dot com
4:00
Speaker 1: documentary that we're going to cover is it's the last
4:02
Speaker 1: thing he released. Yeah, and there's another producer on it,
4:07
Speaker 1: a guy named Brian Epstein. Not the Beatles Brian Epstein,
4:10
Speaker 1: this is a different Brian Epstein. He also abruptly quit
4:14
Speaker 1: his job at ABC News, and when Rolling Stone reached
4:18
Speaker 1: out to him about James Gordon Meek, he only said,
4:22
Speaker 1: I'm not commenting on that story and hung up the phone. Cool,
4:26
Speaker 1: but at the same time, having watched all of this documentary.
4:32
Speaker 1: I don't get the sense that this is what would
4:34
Speaker 1: have gotten him in trouble with the government.
4:39
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know. I mean it probably didn't help.
4:43
Speaker 1: Probably not. Yeah, but for one thing, after he vanished,
4:48
Speaker 1: the Department of Justice issued a statement. Because the FBI
4:51
Speaker 1: is not going to say anything, their take is just
4:54
Speaker 1: going to be that it's an active investigation. But the
4:57
Speaker 1: Department of Justice issued a statement that I'm paraphrasing, but
5:01
Speaker 1: they were like, hey, reminder, we passed a law last
5:04
Speaker 1: year that says the FEDS cannot seize a reporter's records
5:09
Speaker 1: even if they contained classified information, provided that reporter obtained
5:14
Speaker 1: them in the course of his or her job. So
5:18
Speaker 1: what the Department of Justice was essentially saying was, yeah,
5:23
Speaker 1: we raided this guy, but it's not because of what
5:25
Speaker 1: he was doing as a reporter.
5:27
Speaker 3: Uh huh. That makes a lot of sense.
5:29
Speaker 1: I don't know, Like, here's what it could also be.
5:34
Speaker 1: It could be, yeah, we didn't raid him specifically because
5:38
Speaker 1: of his work, but we raided him because of his work.
5:41
Speaker 1: We just like we couldn't go in and say, hey,
5:43
Speaker 1: we don't like what you're about to report on the
5:46
Speaker 1: Biden administration in Afghanistan, which is what that book that
5:50
Speaker 1: was coming out was about. Like, they can't explicitly raid
5:54
Speaker 1: the guy for that, but it is the kind of
5:56
Speaker 1: thing that could make them angry enough that they would
5:59
Speaker 1: go looking for a reason to raid this guy.
6:02
Speaker 3: I don't know, I don't know, I mean like, and
6:04
Speaker 3: it's also that you know, the Brian Epstein is also
6:09
Speaker 3: being cagey about it too, and so it does seem
6:12
Speaker 3: like it actually is related to his reporting, even if
6:15
Speaker 3: they're saying it can't be.
6:17
Speaker 1: Well, the thing about it being related to is reporting, though,
6:21
Speaker 1: is ABC has a huge legal team and it actually
6:26
Speaker 1: is not against the law to report on classified material.
6:30
Speaker 1: Like if you're in charge of it, you can't release
6:33
Speaker 1: that classified material without getting in trouble, but once it
6:37
Speaker 1: falls into a reporter's hands, it's not illegal to report
6:40
Speaker 1: on that shit. So ABC News, you would think if
6:44
Speaker 1: this raid happened because of a story he was working on,
6:47
Speaker 1: you would think their legal team would swing into action
6:50
Speaker 1: and defend this guy. And they're not saying shit. ABC
6:55
Speaker 1: has not said anything. They all they said is he
6:58
Speaker 1: abruptly quit for per no reasons, right, but that was
7:01
Speaker 1: like six months ago.
7:03
Speaker 3: Now, Yeah, Yeah, it sounds like there's a lot more
7:08
Speaker 3: to that story that we still don't know, like we
7:12
Speaker 3: need to. There's gonna be more that comes out about this,
7:16
Speaker 3: it feels like.
7:16
Speaker 1: But he's definitely that type of reporter. If you were
7:21
Speaker 1: compiling a list of reporters who would probably be offed
7:26
Speaker 1: by the government in some manner at some point, he'd
7:29
Speaker 1: be on the list for sure if you look into
7:32
Speaker 1: the kind of things he's reported on, Like he covered
7:36
Speaker 1: a story at one point about a soldier who was
7:40
Speaker 1: it turned out, was killed by like a member of
7:43
Speaker 1: his own unit, but initially the government blamed it on
7:47
Speaker 1: like isis or whatever. Sure, and he ended up in
7:51
Speaker 1: a face to face meeting with Obama over that story, which, yeah,
7:56
Speaker 1: I bet that's the point where Obama stops being the
7:59
Speaker 1: party president that you want to follow you on Twitter,
8:03
Speaker 1: right exactly, it starts starts being real. That was my
8:06
Speaker 1: Obama by the way, that it was great, Thank you,
8:10
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you.
8:11
Speaker 3: You should put that on your SNL.
8:12
Speaker 1: Reel because you know I have an SNL reel.
8:16
Speaker 3: Right, And of course they would want you to play Obama.
8:20
Speaker 1: I mean, it wouldn't surprise me. They had Fred Armison
8:23
Speaker 1: play in Obama for god. Yeah that was fuite a while. Yeah,
8:29
Speaker 1: that was weird choice. But this documentary, it's another one
8:33
Speaker 1: of those stories. It does indeed cover some government malfeasance
8:38
Speaker 1: for sure, and it's the kind of thing. This is
8:41
Speaker 1: one of those documentaries that the really anti conspiracy theory
8:46
Speaker 1: crowd needs to watch because you can't. You can't just
8:50
Speaker 1: trust the government all the time. That's crazy. There's absolutely
8:54
Speaker 1: absolutely no cause for that, given history, all of recording history.
8:59
Speaker 1: There's no reason to trust the government all the time.
9:03
Speaker 1: And this is a documentary about how the government fucking
9:06
Speaker 1: lies sometimes, and they do it even in cases where
9:11
Speaker 1: like these are these are just dudes who were trying
9:13
Speaker 1: to serve their country man.
9:14
Speaker 3: Yeah, they definitely. These guys got fucked over and like
9:17
Speaker 3: the government lied and really did a number to these
9:21
Speaker 3: to the families of these guys. But yeah, yeah, I
9:24
Speaker 3: mean it's it's it's a weird, it's a weird story.
9:27
Speaker 3: I'd not heard about this at all.
9:29
Speaker 1: I don't think I knew that much about this either.
9:31
Speaker 1: Like it happened in twenty seventeen for one thing. Yeah,
9:36
Speaker 1: which a.
9:36
Speaker 3: Lot of stuff going on that.
9:37
Speaker 1: Yet, Yeah, that's that's prime Trump era, like anything that
9:41
Speaker 1: didn't involve getting Trump out of office. I was like,
9:43
Speaker 1: I don't fucking care. I don't have time for this
9:45
Speaker 1: shit right now. Aliens are they going to vote Trump out?
9:49
Speaker 1: Then I don't care. Right But the documentary it's on Hulu.
9:53
Speaker 1: It's called thirty to twelve, unredacted, and prior to being
9:59
Speaker 1: raided by the FB, James Gordon Meek was pushing this
10:03
Speaker 1: for like Emmy consideration. Yeah, and it is. It's a
10:07
Speaker 1: tear jerker, that's for sure.
10:09
Speaker 3: It's got its emotional moments that are often tinged with weirdness.
10:16
Speaker 1: I would say, yeah, it's one of those things where
10:19
Speaker 1: there's there's stuff you want to make fun of, kind
10:22
Speaker 1: of because this is a comedy podcast. But at the
10:25
Speaker 1: same time, it's like, oh man, maybe not this time.
10:29
Speaker 3: I mean, sure, yeah, it's it's a bummer obviously, like
10:32
Speaker 3: you never want anyone to be killed younger or whatever.
10:36
Speaker 3: But it's such an interesting glimpse into a certain subsection
10:42
Speaker 3: of America and our values with regards to the military
10:49
Speaker 3: and service and what these things mean and the nature
10:55
Speaker 3: of our mission abroad, which I find really interesting, which
11:01
Speaker 3: the documentary doesn't really it doesn't explicitly interrogate, but just
11:07
Speaker 3: by the nature of the story that it's telling, you
11:10
Speaker 3: can't help but wonder about these things about like especially
11:15
Speaker 3: about our mission, like what we're doing in these places,
11:19
Speaker 3: and you know, why we're sending people where we're sending them,
11:22
Speaker 3: and that sort of thing.
11:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, speaking of things happening during the Trump
11:28
Speaker 1: era that we didn't pay enough attention to. I would
11:32
Speaker 1: always tell people when the Mueller probe was happening that
11:37
Speaker 1: anytime a really big story comes down in that look
11:41
Speaker 1: around at the headlines and see what else is happening.
11:45
Speaker 1: In one case, all of these indictments came down the
11:49
Speaker 1: same time we were basically lobbying Congress to extend that
11:54
Speaker 1: authorization that lets us just do war in the Middle
11:58
Speaker 1: East in the name of fighting terrorism pretty much unchecked.
12:01
Speaker 1: We wanted to extend that to Africa also, Yeah, and
12:05
Speaker 1: I don't think it passed. But also the fact that
12:08
Speaker 1: it didn't pass had nothing to do with the public
12:11
Speaker 1: objecting to it, because the public didn't fucking know it
12:13
Speaker 1: was happening, because no one reported on it, no one
12:17
Speaker 1: talked about it, like it was just a blip on
12:20
Speaker 1: the radar. But it raises the same questions that even
12:24
Speaker 1: the families in this documentary raise, which is one of
12:27
Speaker 1: them just straight up says, I didn't know we needed
12:29
Speaker 1: troops in Africa, And it's like, it's because we don't.
12:33
Speaker 1: That's right, that's why. There you go, that's why you
12:36
Speaker 1: didn't know that.
12:37
Speaker 3: Yeah, And the reasons that the military officials in this
12:43
Speaker 3: documentary give for us for like our presence in Nize
12:48
Speaker 3: are not i mean like kind of not great, like
12:53
Speaker 3: just that like is something about like what was it
12:56
Speaker 3: like ninety percent of the foreign soldiers in the Middle
13:00
Speaker 3: least are from the area.
13:03
Speaker 1: Like northern Africa.
13:04
Speaker 3: Yeah, right, covered North Africa. But like, but that doesn't
13:08
Speaker 3: tell you how many people that represents, because we don't
13:12
Speaker 3: know the number of foreign soldiers are that are brought
13:15
Speaker 3: into the Middle East.
13:17
Speaker 1: So yeah, they could mean eleven of the twelve and
13:21
Speaker 1: it's like, well, we don't need troops there probably.
13:24
Speaker 3: Exactly this kind of what like That's what I'm saying,
13:26
Speaker 3: Like there's so much justification and none of it really
13:32
Speaker 3: makes sense, and it resulted in these guys being put
13:36
Speaker 3: in a fucked up situation that got them killed.
13:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, it covers the ambush killing of four American Special
13:45
Speaker 1: Forces troops by ISIS militants in Niger, which I always
13:51
Speaker 1: pronounced Niger.
13:53
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think the classic American pronunciation is Niger, but
13:59
Speaker 3: I think it's supposed to be Ni.
14:01
Speaker 1: Boy, does that set up some confusion when it comes
14:04
Speaker 1: to what you call people who are from niger which
14:08
Speaker 1: is right, Nigerians.
14:11
Speaker 3: Well it's well, no, it's actually it's Nigeri. And then
14:15
Speaker 3: you see it's actually it is kind of confused. I mean,
14:18
Speaker 3: this is all the fault of the French and Dutch colonists,
14:23
Speaker 3: who know who invaded this land, but the people are Nigeri.
14:30
Speaker 3: And then something belonging to the people, like they talk
14:33
Speaker 3: about the military, and that's Niegeri in with an e.
14:38
Speaker 1: Right with an e, as opposed to Nigerian with an.
14:42
Speaker 3: Which is yeah and a per which who is a
14:45
Speaker 3: person from.
14:46
Speaker 1: Ni Nigeria not Niger And I I.
14:49
Speaker 3: Don't know if Nigeria is supposed to be pronounced Nigeria.
14:53
Speaker 3: I am hopelessly American. I can't.
14:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, no clue, but I don't think so I've
14:58
Speaker 1: never heard it pronounce that way.
14:59
Speaker 3: I don't think I haven't either.
15:01
Speaker 1: So Operation Detachment Alpha, that is the name of this unit. Basically,
15:07
Speaker 1: it's there's several Operation Detachment ALPHA units in the military,
15:12
Speaker 1: and this was thirty two twelve ODA thirty two twelve.
15:17
Speaker 3: Right, they're the eighteen that's like they literally described them as.
15:21
Speaker 3: This is like who the EIGHTEAM was based off of.
15:24
Speaker 1: Right, So this all happens in Los Angeles.
15:27
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, and the face is there and mister T.
15:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, they put you know, sleeping pills in mister T's
15:34
Speaker 1: milk to get them over here.
15:36
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're in their van and then isis pops.
15:39
Speaker 1: Right, classic stuff classic?
15:41
Speaker 3: Actually, they I think they were. They were in a
15:44
Speaker 3: van or something.
15:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, they were in like a Hyundai SUV's Yeah.
15:48
Speaker 3: Yeah, they weren't like military.
15:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, like should they not be in hummers? They're in
15:54
Speaker 1: like soccer mom cars that park themselves and things.
15:58
Speaker 3: But I mean, like that goes in to like a
16:01
Speaker 3: I'm sure we'll talk about a big part of this
16:03
Speaker 3: story is like the level of preparation that these guys
16:06
Speaker 3: had when they went out on their mission, Like they
16:09
Speaker 3: weren't prepared for a right attack.
16:13
Speaker 1: One of the first things that comes up. They talked
16:15
Speaker 1: to the families of the four men who were killed,
16:19
Speaker 1: which were staff Sergeant Dustin Wright, staff Sergeant Brian Black,
16:24
Speaker 1: Sergeant first Class Jeremiah Johnson, Sergeant La David Johnson. Those
16:29
Speaker 1: were the four men who were killed. Yeah, and they
16:32
Speaker 1: obviously interview their families extensively in this documentary. And one
16:36
Speaker 1: of the first things that comes up is in regards
16:39
Speaker 1: to La David Johnson, where the first reports that come
16:43
Speaker 1: out are that some people were killed, but also Ladevid
16:47
Speaker 1: Johnson was maybe taken hostage by ISIS, which turned out
16:51
Speaker 1: not to be true, but that came from the military, which,
16:56
Speaker 1: if nothing else, is just kind of irresponsible.
17:00
Speaker 3: Yeah, like absolutely.
17:02
Speaker 1: They interview a guy named Mark Mitchell, who was the
17:04
Speaker 1: former Assistant Secretary of Defense, and he says, if he
17:08
Speaker 1: could find the person who delivered that initial report, this
17:13
Speaker 1: is a quote, he said, he would fucking choke them.
17:16
Speaker 3: Yeah.
17:19
Speaker 1: I enjoyed that, And yeah, you can tell he means
17:21
Speaker 1: it too, like he's really fucking mad when he's talking
17:24
Speaker 1: about this, Yes.
17:26
Speaker 3: And I get it. Yeah, it's fucked up.
17:29
Speaker 1: And he talks about how there was just from the
17:32
Speaker 1: get go kind of a reluctance on the part of
17:35
Speaker 1: the military to tell the truth about this. I honestly
17:40
Speaker 1: feel like there's a point where they try to get
17:43
Speaker 1: these dudes killed because they know what you mean, because
17:48
Speaker 1: the same person who orders them to go on this
17:51
Speaker 1: mission is also the same one who refuses to let
17:55
Speaker 1: other US troops go in and help, like the French
17:58
Speaker 1: end up saving US. Irony alert. Yeah, and the same
18:02
Speaker 1: guy like it seemed like he knew he fucked up
18:05
Speaker 1: and was like, eah, it might be better off if
18:07
Speaker 1: everyone just dies.
18:09
Speaker 3: Yeah, it seemed like there was a lot of ass
18:11
Speaker 3: covering going on. It was really suspicious right from the jump.
18:16
Speaker 1: James Gordon Meek appears on camera in this Yeah he does.
18:21
Speaker 3: It's interesting. I didn't realize at first that he was
18:24
Speaker 3: like such a creative hand behind it until things kind
18:28
Speaker 3: of got going.
18:29
Speaker 1: Yeah. Unfortunately we never see him standing or walking because
18:34
Speaker 1: the fact that he's just sitting at a desk kind
18:36
Speaker 1: of conceals that he is a giant. He's like six
18:41
Speaker 1: seven I think.
18:42
Speaker 3: He I mean, like he looks like a big guy
18:45
Speaker 3: even though he's seated, Like, yeah, he obviously seems like large,
18:49
Speaker 3: like in physique.
18:50
Speaker 1: And so he says that he talked to Jeremiah Johnson's
18:55
Speaker 1: mother and that he told her he would find out
18:58
Speaker 1: what really happened. Right. One of the first real fuck
19:03
Speaker 1: faces who comes up in this is a guy named
19:06
Speaker 1: Colonel Moses. Yeah, he's I would argue, one of the
19:10
Speaker 1: two true villains in this. I mean, aside from the
19:14
Speaker 1: hundreds of ISIS troops who killed these four.
19:17
Speaker 3: Dissure in the American military industrial.
19:20
Speaker 1: Right right right, Patriot Act, you know everything we did
19:25
Speaker 1: after nine to eleven, those are all villains too. But
19:28
Speaker 1: this Colonel Moses fuck face.
19:30
Speaker 3: Yeah, he sucks. He's a bad guy.
19:32
Speaker 1: He's the only person who suffers zero reprimands or ramifications
19:39
Speaker 1: from this. Yeah, pretty much. He right out of the gate,
19:44
Speaker 1: also starts delivering conflicting stories about what happened, especially again
19:49
Speaker 1: regarding the David Johnson. Yeah, where he first says he
19:54
Speaker 1: was in the back of the truck and the truck
19:56
Speaker 1: hit a tree and he was ejected nine hundred meters away.
20:00
Speaker 1: It's like, God, damn, how hard did that truck hit
20:02
Speaker 1: that tree?
20:04
Speaker 3: Right? How fast were they going?
20:05
Speaker 1: But then later he told family members that David Johnson
20:08
Speaker 1: was driving the truck that they were in, And then
20:11
Speaker 1: when you see the vehicles involved, there's no way he
20:14
Speaker 1: was in back because again it's like a Hyundai Tucson
20:18
Speaker 1: or some shit.
20:19
Speaker 3: Right, it was wild. I was not expecting to see
20:23
Speaker 3: the actual Like they show the helmet cam footage of
20:27
Speaker 3: this attack and it's.
20:28
Speaker 1: It is harrowing. Yeah, very Yeah. And there's another guy,
20:34
Speaker 1: will Wright, who is the brother of Staff Sergeant Dustin Wright.
20:39
Speaker 1: He was told Dustin was killed by mortar fire. Yeah,
20:44
Speaker 1: but also he was sent to identify the body. And
20:47
Speaker 1: he was former military and he had seen bodies that
20:51
Speaker 1: were killed by mortar fire, and he was like, Nope,
20:55
Speaker 1: that's not how my brother died. That is not mortar fire.
20:58
Speaker 1: He was just like shot.
21:00
Speaker 3: Yeah. He said it was a man who had stood
21:03
Speaker 3: his ground and was riddled with bullets.
21:05
Speaker 1: Yeah. So right out of the gate, the families feel
21:09
Speaker 1: like they're being lied to.
21:11
Speaker 3: Yeah.
21:11
Speaker 1: And the next person they talked to is a pretty
21:13
Speaker 1: important character in this Major Alan van Son, Company commander
21:18
Speaker 1: of the third Special Forces Group. He was essentially the
21:22
Speaker 1: leader of this unit that carried out this mission, like
21:26
Speaker 1: he was responsible for training them and preparing them, which
21:31
Speaker 1: that's a very important detail. Later on, right, he said
21:36
Speaker 1: he joined the army. He doesn't like explicitly say he
21:40
Speaker 1: joined the army because he watched Rambo a bunch, but
21:43
Speaker 1: he does kind of does this kind of imply it,
21:45
Speaker 1: and man, what a weird take to come away from
21:49
Speaker 1: the movie Rambo with.
21:51
Speaker 3: Yeah, and yet not the weirdest reason that someone in
21:56
Speaker 3: this documentary gives for someone joining the military.
22:00
Speaker 1: There are a couple weird ones.
22:02
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would say there are two that are even
22:05
Speaker 3: like we get three and the other two are weirder.
22:09
Speaker 3: So yeah, but like I just the one that blew
22:12
Speaker 3: me away was the sister of Jeremiah Johnson, tearfully explaining
22:17
Speaker 3: that after saying that he talking about what a great
22:22
Speaker 3: guy he was and he was such a kind and
22:24
Speaker 3: gentle man and a protector, and she's like, and she says,
22:28
Speaker 3: and he wanted to He said he wanted to join
22:30
Speaker 3: the army to legally kill people and blow shit up.
22:34
Speaker 3: Sounds like a great guy.
22:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, And the way she says it, because she not
22:39
Speaker 1: only says that that was his reasoning, and she goes
22:41
Speaker 1: and I said, Okay, that works like that, Like that
22:45
Speaker 1: wasn't a concerning thing to hear someone say at all. Yeah,
22:49
Speaker 1: like you're about to legally kill people?
22:52
Speaker 3: That would be which I would say a red flag.
22:55
Speaker 1: Kind of implies that there's just this burning desire to
22:58
Speaker 1: kill people inside. Yes, and the only that's how.
23:03
Speaker 3: I interpret that. Like if someone said that to me,
23:06
Speaker 3: I would be concerned for my safety.
23:10
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, I'd be like, you know, I have plans
23:14
Speaker 1: the rest of the time until you leave for the military. Yeah,
23:19
Speaker 1: oh bye, yeah.
23:22
Speaker 3: Yeah, So that's yeah. Anyway, just really stuck out to
23:27
Speaker 3: be that line.
23:28
Speaker 1: And so he was the Advance Operations Base commander in Niger,
23:34
Speaker 1: Alan Vanson. I mean he was there to train African
23:38
Speaker 1: soldiers because they needed to fight ISIS and al Qaeda
23:43
Speaker 1: on our behalf and for no other reason.
23:46
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, that's it. I don't know about this guy.
23:49
Speaker 3: I don't know about him. He seems reasonable, but I
23:53
Speaker 3: don't trust him. He's got too many teeth.
23:56
Speaker 1: He's got shockingly straight teeth.
23:59
Speaker 3: Very large like in the face, and just in general,
24:04
Speaker 3: I don't know. Again, like the Rambo thing just kind
24:06
Speaker 3: of I think set me on edge for the rest
24:09
Speaker 3: of the movie.
24:10
Speaker 1: It is such a weird take because it's not like
24:12
Speaker 1: the military treated Rambo. Well, no, that's the whole point
24:16
Speaker 1: of those movies, Like, well, how does that make you
24:19
Speaker 1: want to join the military.
24:22
Speaker 3: Yeah, And also remember he's like I'm here to.
24:24
Speaker 1: Hunt for Rambos and kill him.
24:26
Speaker 3: Remember how Rambo I think his Rainbow three had the
24:29
Speaker 3: title card that the movie is dedicated to the brave
24:33
Speaker 3: Muja Hadeen fighters against Yes, one of the best title
24:40
Speaker 3: cards in the history of cinemas.
24:46
Speaker 1: That look did not age well, and I did find
24:51
Speaker 1: the fact that they had so much video of this
24:54
Speaker 1: guy planning this mission ahead of time was yes. Interesting.
24:59
Speaker 3: I was like, I was really shocked because I thought
25:03
Speaker 3: that that was like a re enactment at first, and
25:05
Speaker 3: then you see la David Johnson in the footage. I'm like, oh, well,
25:09
Speaker 3: this is like film quality footage that was being shot
25:14
Speaker 3: at the time. Yeah, it's really wild.
25:17
Speaker 1: David Johnson seems awesome.
25:19
Speaker 3: Yes, I mean, yeah, he's he's he's the best of
25:22
Speaker 3: the bunch that we that we hear about.
25:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's there's this fun footage of him just chopping
25:29
Speaker 1: it up with the Nigerian soldiers, Nagerie soldiers, him cutting hair,
25:36
Speaker 1: and then there's this news story, yeah about how he
25:40
Speaker 1: lived in Miami and how he would ride his bike
25:44
Speaker 1: from home to his his job but the bike only
25:47
Speaker 1: had one wheel.
25:48
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was interesting, like he was like a local celebrity. Apparently,
25:53
Speaker 3: like every apparently a bunch of people in his area
25:57
Speaker 3: like knew him because they would see this guy doing
26:00
Speaker 3: a permanent wheelie on his bike all the time.
26:03
Speaker 1: And there's this footage of him riding on this ledge
26:06
Speaker 1: that is right next to traffic. Yeah, on what you're talented.
26:10
Speaker 1: It's like, goddamn, that's neat.
26:12
Speaker 3: He should have joined the circus.
26:14
Speaker 1: Yeah. I wonder if he like just wanted to ride
26:17
Speaker 1: his bike that way, because there had to be someone
26:19
Speaker 1: who saw that and was like, hey, well you need
26:21
Speaker 1: a bike wheel, Like, we'll just give you a bike.
26:22
Speaker 3: Yeah, parently, I like, I don't know like this. Yeah,
26:26
Speaker 3: the sequence of events that kind of popped into my
26:28
Speaker 3: mind is that he had a bike and was okay
26:32
Speaker 3: at doing wheel He's on it, and the wheel fell
26:35
Speaker 3: off and instead of you know, probably didn't have enough
26:38
Speaker 3: money to get a new bike or a new wheel
26:40
Speaker 3: and so made the best of it and it just
26:42
Speaker 3: became his thing, I guess. Yeah, but he's interesting. He's
26:47
Speaker 3: an interesting guy.
26:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I was really there's a lot of that
26:50
Speaker 1: in this documentary, and I'm gonna be honest, I fast
26:52
Speaker 1: forwarded through some of it because we were on a
26:55
Speaker 1: time crunch. I mean just the part where you're getting
26:57
Speaker 1: to know the individual soldiers who were killed, because this
27:02
Speaker 1: is the part where the sister is like, he just
27:05
Speaker 1: wanted to legally kill people and blow stuff up, And
27:08
Speaker 1: I'm like, all right, I'm trying to stay on everyone's
27:10
Speaker 1: side here. Let's just yeah, let's just fast foot. We
27:13
Speaker 1: don't have to agree on everything to agree that. Look,
27:17
Speaker 1: this is a tragic, tragic situation.
27:20
Speaker 3: I don't think what happened to these guys was good.
27:24
Speaker 1: Like, I'm not horse not. Of course, this is a
27:27
Speaker 1: very sad documentary.
27:29
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's very sad. But also I think it's fair
27:34
Speaker 3: to say that maybe some of their some of these
27:36
Speaker 3: people's motivations may not have been.
27:38
Speaker 1: Pure, right that. I think that is very safe to say. So, Yeah,
27:44
Speaker 1: there's this extended section of the documentary. David Johnson gets
27:48
Speaker 1: the mention here because he was the only one riding
27:51
Speaker 1: his bike on one wheel. So cut to five months
27:56
Speaker 1: after the gunfight in Tongo Tongo, that's where this happened.
28:00
Speaker 1: This takes responsibility for the ambush and they release a
28:04
Speaker 1: video about it, and that video includes footage from Jeremiah
28:08
Speaker 1: Johnson's helmet camera. Yeah, and this is where the military's
28:12
Speaker 1: version of events starts to unravel. The government comes out
28:17
Speaker 1: and in front of the whole world after this video
28:20
Speaker 1: comes out, they say that the men who were killed
28:23
Speaker 1: were part of basically an inept group that didn't train, yeah,
28:27
Speaker 1: or prepare well enough to be able to deal with
28:29
Speaker 1: the situation they were in. Yeah, people weren't happy about
28:33
Speaker 1: that because it sounds a whole lot like what us
28:36
Speaker 1: lefties like to call victim blaming.
28:40
Speaker 3: I mean, it's a it's an insane stance, and it
28:44
Speaker 3: is what really makes you think there is something else
28:49
Speaker 3: going on here, because there is. It is so hard
28:54
Speaker 3: to believe that the fucking Pentagon would come out and
28:57
Speaker 3: be like, yeah, our guys sucked. They were these guys,
29:01
Speaker 3: they were just they you know, we we kind of
29:04
Speaker 3: fucked up on these guys. They didn't they weren't trained
29:07
Speaker 3: well or whatever. Like it just as it was such
29:10
Speaker 3: a weird statement.
29:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, the government is normally not this quick to throw
29:16
Speaker 1: veterans under the bus. Like normally you have to like
29:20
Speaker 1: come back home and try to claim medical benefits for
29:23
Speaker 1: some disability that you got while in the military, and
29:26
Speaker 1: right then you find out they do not have your
29:29
Speaker 1: back at all, Yeah, this was immediate, like as soon
29:32
Speaker 1: as they died, the government was like, fuck these inepp motherfuckers.
29:36
Speaker 3: Yeah, like we treated the Abu Gray Guards better than
29:41
Speaker 3: we Yeah, treated these fucking guys who died.
29:44
Speaker 1: And the claim from the government is that ODA thirty
29:48
Speaker 1: to twelve didn't follow the proper chain of command and
29:52
Speaker 1: didn't inform their commanding officers of the real intent of
29:56
Speaker 1: their mission. Basically, they're saying they were ill prepared and
29:59
Speaker 1: they went off on a rogue mission that they weren't
30:02
Speaker 1: supposed to go on. And he says, he basically implies
30:06
Speaker 1: that if the chain of command knew what they were doing,
30:09
Speaker 1: the mission would have been planned better and more successfully
30:12
Speaker 1: and people would have lived, right, which ends up being
30:16
Speaker 1: the exact opposite of what actually happened. It seems it's.
30:20
Speaker 3: It's just wild, like it's one of the most like
30:24
Speaker 3: unbelievable things that happens in the documentary, this statement.
30:30
Speaker 1: But then there's also the USA Africa Command Report AFRICAM
30:37
Speaker 1: is the acronym for it, and they released their report
30:41
Speaker 1: and they basically say the same thing, Like that's essentially
30:44
Speaker 1: their version of events too, is that, yeah, they just
30:47
Speaker 1: weren't trained that well, and they weren't good and they
30:49
Speaker 1: weren't supposed to be out on this mission.
30:51
Speaker 3: They went rogue, Like yeah, that just that that it's
30:56
Speaker 3: so it's so insane that that's their their reasoning here
30:59
Speaker 3: is that these these guys went roue. That is such
31:02
Speaker 3: an accusation.
31:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a huge accusation. And everyone who is interviewed
31:08
Speaker 1: in this is like, no, they didn't, like, they would
31:11
Speaker 1: not do that, And it becomes pretty clear that no,
31:15
Speaker 1: they did not do that. That is not at all
31:17
Speaker 1: what happened.
31:18
Speaker 3: Because yeah, for like for what they're like, it's because
31:21
Speaker 3: they wanted to chase this one guy down, Like, give
31:24
Speaker 3: me a fucking break. There's a million dudes just like
31:27
Speaker 3: this guy they wanted to hunt down.
31:31
Speaker 1: And a thing I found weird that they don't really
31:35
Speaker 1: touch on in the documentary, So maybe it's not as
31:38
Speaker 1: weird as it seems to me, but their claim about
31:40
Speaker 1: this being a rogue mission, there were three missions that
31:44
Speaker 1: happened in the course of this incident, and what they're saying,
31:49
Speaker 1: what the government was saying, was that that first mission
31:51
Speaker 1: they went on was the rogue mission. Yeah, but nothing happened.
31:55
Speaker 1: They didn't, like, that's not when the shootings happened that
31:59
Speaker 1: like none of it was a very uneventful thing where
32:02
Speaker 1: they just basically wasted their time driving to the spot
32:06
Speaker 1: and looking for someone who wasn't there, and they turned
32:08
Speaker 1: around and went back to base. So how was that
32:11
Speaker 1: the cause? That makes no sense?
32:13
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know. I mean, it doesn't make sense
32:16
Speaker 3: because it's a lie.
32:18
Speaker 1: Yeah. And so they returned to base, and as they're
32:22
Speaker 1: almost back to base, they get in order from their superiors,
32:29
Speaker 1: their high command, that they are to go to a
32:32
Speaker 1: different location where this terrorist whose name I massively misspelled
32:39
Speaker 1: in the notes, Doom dou chefoo, that's who they were
32:42
Speaker 1: looking for. Was this one terrorist? That is the government's
32:45
Speaker 1: claim almost immediately is that it's confusing. Follow along at
32:51
Speaker 1: home if you can. This group went on a rogue
32:54
Speaker 1: mission looking for this guy, it didn't find him, and
32:58
Speaker 1: then when they were coming back to base, their superiors
33:02
Speaker 1: sent them on an approved mission to go look for
33:05
Speaker 1: this guy. Yeah, which it's a strange, strange turn of events.
33:10
Speaker 3: Yep, it doesn't make sense because it's a lie.
33:14
Speaker 1: And what ends up happening is this other mission that
33:18
Speaker 1: they're sent on. It's going to take them like six
33:20
Speaker 1: more hours and the team they're like, the Niger team
33:24
Speaker 1: that they're traveling with has been like working for eighteen hours.
33:28
Speaker 1: Everyone's tired. They were prepared for a day trip that
33:32
Speaker 1: is now turning into an overnight mission, so they don't
33:35
Speaker 1: have the necessary supplies. But they're supposed to just be
33:39
Speaker 1: the backup team. A team is going to go in
33:41
Speaker 1: on helicopters first and like like shoot and blow shit up,
33:46
Speaker 1: and then this backup team is going to come in.
33:49
Speaker 1: But weather gets really bad and the helicopter team is
33:54
Speaker 1: not able to fly in, so of course they abandon
33:57
Speaker 1: the mission altogether and everyone goes back to base just joking.
34:02
Speaker 1: This group is ordered to go in as the primary
34:06
Speaker 1: group instead, no backup, no helicopter cover, and they actually
34:11
Speaker 1: have a photo of one of them on a satellite
34:15
Speaker 1: phone with their commanding officers basically saying this, this is
34:20
Speaker 1: a terrible idea, like we were going to die if
34:23
Speaker 1: you send us in to do this. And for one thing,
34:26
Speaker 1: does that sound like a team who just pulled off
34:29
Speaker 1: a rogue operation that was so gung ho looking for
34:32
Speaker 1: this guy that they ignored chain of command to go
34:35
Speaker 1: looking for him. And now when their superiors are saying
34:40
Speaker 1: go look for him. They're like, no, no, no, no, no,
34:42
Speaker 1: bad idea. I don't want to do it.
34:43
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well they're so rogue they want to do whatever
34:46
Speaker 3: the opposite of their superiors want to do. Yeah, for
34:51
Speaker 3: no reason.
34:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, it makes no sense, and those objections get overruled.
34:58
Speaker 1: One of the people they end up contacting is Lieutenant
35:03
Speaker 1: Colonel Painter. He is the other really big fuck face
35:06
Speaker 1: in all of this, Yes, Moses and Painter. Moses is
35:11
Speaker 1: Painter's superior, and Painter is Alan van Son. He is
35:18
Speaker 1: Painter is his superior. And then Alan van Son is
35:21
Speaker 1: in charge of this unit that went on this mission.
35:24
Speaker 1: He's in charge of training and preparing them for it.
35:29
Speaker 1: So Painter tells them, no, you still you still got
35:33
Speaker 1: to go do it? And uh, it doesn't go well, No,
35:36
Speaker 1: it goes very badly. And for some reason, that part
35:42
Speaker 1: where one of them what was his name, was it
35:46
Speaker 1: Perezini was? It was Captain Perezini was the guy's name
35:49
Speaker 1: who called with his objections. For some reason, that part
35:54
Speaker 1: where he objected to this mission is never shared with
35:57
Speaker 1: the public. It's not in the AFRICAM report. That just
36:02
Speaker 1: never comes up. Even worse, they blame him for this
36:06
Speaker 1: mission failing, Like the government comes out and says, you know,
36:09
Speaker 1: it's actually that guy's fault because he was supposed to
36:11
Speaker 1: be leading everyone and he did he did bad. He
36:15
Speaker 1: did bad. Yeah, it's nuts.
36:18
Speaker 3: Yeah, it is. This whole thing is crazy.
36:22
Speaker 1: So the way this attack happened, they went on this mission,
36:26
Speaker 1: they travel six hours, nothing happens, and again they're coming
36:31
Speaker 1: back from there, heading back to the base and they
36:34
Speaker 1: stop in this village called Tongo Tongo to get more
36:38
Speaker 1: supplies and meet up with village leaders. There's a weird
36:41
Speaker 1: claim in the documentary that the village leader like kept
36:44
Speaker 1: this meeting going longer than usual to like aid the
36:48
Speaker 1: people that pulled off this ambush, and they just like
36:50
Speaker 1: mention that and move on.
36:52
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well it was because like the meeting just didn't
36:57
Speaker 3: like it. They were waiting for some thing that never
37:02
Speaker 3: ended up arriving, and it just happened to be long
37:04
Speaker 3: enough for there to be an ambush and waiting. So yeah,
37:08
Speaker 3: there was suspicion. Who knows, it's impossible to say now
37:12
Speaker 3: at this point.
37:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, whatever the case, the convoy they're traveling in gets
37:17
Speaker 1: ambushed and they are massively outnumbered. Yeah, and eventually most
37:23
Speaker 1: of the vehicle's fleet, but the one carrying three of
37:27
Speaker 1: the men who were killed for some reason stays behind
37:31
Speaker 1: or otherwise gets stuck inside this kill zone. And there's
37:36
Speaker 1: video of all of this, and it's harrowing, Like you
37:40
Speaker 1: see the moment where the guy who's wearing the helmet
37:43
Speaker 1: that is filming the helmet cam footage gets shot and dies,
37:48
Speaker 1: like you see him fall, like you only see his hands,
37:52
Speaker 1: but right, But it's it's intense, it's it's crazy, terrifying,
37:58
Speaker 1: And the rest of the rout is down to like
38:01
Speaker 1: sixty rounds of ammunition and they are trapped, and this
38:04
Speaker 1: is the point where they reach out to high command
38:07
Speaker 1: and request assistance, and they, for some reason, their superiors
38:12
Speaker 1: refuse to allow American troops to go in and help. Yeah,
38:16
Speaker 1: it makes no sense, like nope, the only I'm sorry,
38:20
Speaker 1: the only way it makes sense. And this obviously like
38:23
Speaker 1: hasn't been proven and no one's suggesting it's the case.
38:26
Speaker 1: But the only way it makes sense of is if
38:29
Speaker 1: it's that like real movie villain shit where this guy's like, oh,
38:32
Speaker 1: I fucked up so bad that it might be in
38:36
Speaker 1: my best interest for these dudes to die, so I
38:38
Speaker 1: don't lose my career.
38:40
Speaker 3: That's the vibe that I got from all of the
38:43
Speaker 3: information presented.
38:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, like when the guy who orders you to go
38:48
Speaker 1: in is also the guy who refuses to send in help,
38:52
Speaker 1: that's a bad look. It's a very bad look. And again, yeah,
38:56
Speaker 1: the French end up being the ones who I don't
39:00
Speaker 1: know how they got wind of this, but they just
39:02
Speaker 1: send a fighter jet in as like a show of force,
39:06
Speaker 1: and isis is like, fuck, man, we're motorcycles. We gotta
39:09
Speaker 1: get the fuck out of here like this that's gotten
39:12
Speaker 1: way out of hand now and that's all it takes.
39:14
Speaker 1: And then France goes in with helicopters and gets everyone out.
39:18
Speaker 1: Why couldn't we have done that?
39:19
Speaker 3: Yeah, seems like very doable. And yeah, I mean, like,
39:24
Speaker 3: like you said, the only explanation seems to be that
39:27
Speaker 3: this guy for like one of these people dead because
39:31
Speaker 3: he fucked up.
39:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like, I know that sounds extreme, but explain it otherwise,
39:37
Speaker 1: like there's no other reason he is extreme. Yeah, there's
39:40
Speaker 1: no other reason to refuse to help these men, So
39:44
Speaker 1: there's no actual evidence that they went rogue. So the
39:48
Speaker 1: next question, and I didn't see this twist coming. The
39:52
Speaker 1: next question becomes well, why were they told to keep
39:54
Speaker 1: going even though the team raised all these concerns, And
39:59
Speaker 1: that's when James Gordon Meek mentions this third vehicle, Yeah,
40:03
Speaker 1: there was a reconnaissance team. They were supposed to be
40:07
Speaker 1: just Nigeri locals, I guess, like a Nigeri reconnaissance team.
40:12
Speaker 1: James Gordon Meek says. He confirmed they were actually three
40:16
Speaker 1: CIA operatives who just happened to be based in Niger
40:21
Speaker 1: and just happened to be there, just conveniently, there with
40:26
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of military cover that did not want
40:29
Speaker 1: to be there. And it turns out they were the
40:32
Speaker 1: ones hunting Dondo chef Wu, hoping he'd lead them to
40:37
Speaker 1: an American man who'd been kidnapped in the area, a
40:40
Speaker 1: guy named Jeffrey Woodkey. Except Jeffrey wood Key's not mentioned
40:43
Speaker 1: in any of the planning. He's not mentioned in that
40:46
Speaker 1: Afrikaan report. He's not mentioned anywhere until way, way way later,
40:51
Speaker 1: when the military is trying to justify this mission that
40:54
Speaker 1: got four dudes killed. Then they're like, oh, we were
40:57
Speaker 1: trying to save an American.
40:58
Speaker 3: Yeah, we have no evident twelve knew that this guy
41:03
Speaker 3: even existed.
41:04
Speaker 1: No, and God damn it, who were those three dudes
41:08
Speaker 1: in that car? That is an interesting question.
41:10
Speaker 3: I would like to know.
41:12
Speaker 1: And from there the documentary just kind of it gets
41:16
Speaker 1: into like typical cover up shit. The government starts blaming
41:20
Speaker 1: people who don't need to necessarily be blamed. I still
41:24
Speaker 1: think it's weird that Alan van Sond takes the brunt
41:27
Speaker 1: of the punishment for this.
41:29
Speaker 3: Yeah, but absolutely it's he's absolutely a scapegoat.
41:33
Speaker 1: He's the guy who the government said was responsible for
41:37
Speaker 1: training these forces and therefore he was derelict in his duties, right,
41:42
Speaker 1: And he gets the kind of reprimand that bay like
41:45
Speaker 1: he asked the guy who gives him the reprimand like, Okay,
41:48
Speaker 1: where do I go from here? And he's like, you
41:51
Speaker 1: ain't got to go home, but you do have to
41:53
Speaker 1: get the fuck out of here, like exactly, he has
41:56
Speaker 1: no future in the military at all. And this guy
42:00
Speaker 1: was in the United States when this attack happened. His
42:05
Speaker 1: wife was wife delivering a child. Yeah, and he finds
42:10
Speaker 1: out the morning that child is born that this attack
42:13
Speaker 1: has happened, and someone says you need to come in
42:15
Speaker 1: to work. And then at the end of the day
42:17
Speaker 1: the government is like him it's all his fault. It's
42:20
Speaker 1: all the guy, the guy who wasn't there or involved.
42:23
Speaker 1: It was him.
42:24
Speaker 3: It was him, nuts, very nuts.
42:27
Speaker 1: And meanwhile, Colonel Moses and Lieutenant Colonel Painter are never
42:33
Speaker 1: really reprimanded. Painter gets a reprimand of some sort, but
42:37
Speaker 1: he's also promoted to colonel shortly thereafter.
42:40
Speaker 3: He doesn't. Yeah, he doesn't get the dismissal he gets.
42:43
Speaker 3: He just gets the reprimand. Like right, Van Song got
42:47
Speaker 3: the reprimand that and it was like the reprimand said
42:50
Speaker 3: like and now now pack your.
42:52
Speaker 1: Shit, Yeah, please leave. Colonel Moses meanwhile, no reprimand, no punishment,
42:58
Speaker 1: no ramifications at all. Shocker. But he's also like he
43:03
Speaker 1: was one of the people, like he was the person
43:07
Speaker 1: in charge of the person who fucked all this up.
43:10
Speaker 3: Well, it's like, so I can't remember who who in
43:13
Speaker 3: the documentary was. One of the family members said like
43:15
Speaker 3: why did the book why did the book stop with
43:17
Speaker 3: this with him? Like why why? Like what's the point
43:20
Speaker 3: of the chain in command if the people at the
43:23
Speaker 3: very top aren't getting in trouble or making bad decisions.
43:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, no one who made these the decisions here got
43:31
Speaker 1: in any trouble. It's a really depressing documentary.
43:35
Speaker 3: It is. It's also very depressing that the will Right,
43:41
Speaker 3: the brother of one of the guys who died in
43:44
Speaker 3: the wake of this, decides to re enlist in the
43:47
Speaker 3: military at age thirty three. Yeah, and obviously his parents
43:53
Speaker 3: are like very against the idea and they don't want that,
43:58
Speaker 3: Like they're like, this is pointless, and it is, and
44:01
Speaker 3: like it just seems like he wants revenge and that's
44:04
Speaker 3: really a fucked up reason to join the military.
44:07
Speaker 1: Does it seem like he wants revenge or does it
44:09
Speaker 1: seem like he wants to die, because there is that
44:12
Speaker 1: scene where he talks about how his brother died and
44:15
Speaker 1: he literally says, I'm jealous, Like yeah, he says, as
44:19
Speaker 1: a warrior, that's how I want to die. And it's
44:23
Speaker 1: like who this is and this is dark.
44:27
Speaker 3: There's no reason those aren't mutually exclusive, Like there they
44:31
Speaker 3: could very well both be true. But like, he definitely
44:35
Speaker 3: seems like just the fact that he specifically says I'm
44:40
Speaker 3: not doing this for revenge kind of makes me think
44:43
Speaker 3: he's doing it for revenge.
44:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, a little bit. Yeah, it is a shocking documentary,
44:50
Speaker 1: but I'm also pretty sure this isn't what got James
44:53
Speaker 1: Gordon Meek disappeared, because for one thing, you'd think the
44:59
Speaker 1: government would have done something to try and stop it,
45:02
Speaker 1: as opposed to like being all reactionary about it. But
45:06
Speaker 1: the fact that that other ABC News producer who worked
45:10
Speaker 1: on this also quit and just like hasn't been seen
45:14
Speaker 1: since I don't know, like it. It doesn't really bring
45:18
Speaker 1: up anything that the Biden administration would want to disappear
45:24
Speaker 1: this guy over. But it does bring up things that
45:26
Speaker 1: the American government as a whole might have a problem with.
45:30
Speaker 1: And he was about to get off into reporting on
45:33
Speaker 1: things the Biden administration would have a huge problem with,
45:37
Speaker 1: right being his reporting on the withdrawal from Afghanistan, which
45:42
Speaker 1: he was a week away from accepting an award for
45:45
Speaker 1: his reporting on that. So who knows.
45:50
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean that obviously adds a entire weird dimension
45:56
Speaker 3: to this whole documentary that will I mean, yeah, it's
46:00
Speaker 3: still resolved. I Yeah, I don't think that. I mean,
46:03
Speaker 3: it seems unlikely that this alone is what could have
46:08
Speaker 3: led to that. Yeah, at the same time, it you know,
46:13
Speaker 3: maybe it's part of a pattern. I don't know, it's
46:17
Speaker 3: it's it's a it's a that is such a weird story.
46:20
Speaker 1: It is, and I'm interested to see if we're ever
46:24
Speaker 1: going to get any resolution or is Yeah, James Meek
46:28
Speaker 1: just done as a writer and reporter.
46:32
Speaker 3: Now yeah, yeah, I mean, like I said earlier, it
46:35
Speaker 3: does seem like there's a lot of information here that
46:38
Speaker 3: we're missing that surely, I mean, I mean, surely it'll
46:42
Speaker 3: come out eventually, like but who knows? Who knows?
46:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean eventually they even with this documentary, they
46:50
Speaker 1: mentioned that I think it's the Afrocom report. The redactions
46:55
Speaker 1: in that were classified for twenty five years, So it's
47:00
Speaker 1: gonna be a while before we hear anything about this story,
47:04
Speaker 1: and probably about James Gordon Meek too.
47:06
Speaker 3: Yeah, and who in twenty five years would even who's
47:09
Speaker 3: gonna care? Yeah, anything about this.
47:12
Speaker 1: As if we're going to be a country in twenty
47:14
Speaker 1: five years, right.
47:15
Speaker 3: Exactly, I mean for sure, yeah, but like, yeah, the
47:18
Speaker 3: only people who will remember this story in twenty five
47:21
Speaker 3: years are the family members yep of these guys who died.
47:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, O bad times, bad, bad times. But I think
47:31
Speaker 1: that's our episode, right, I think, so this is I
47:34
Speaker 1: would recommend this documentary, especially if you're good especially if
47:38
Speaker 1: you're a skeptic about the government lying, Like, come on,
47:42
Speaker 1: the government lies all the time. Get a life.
47:44
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean you listen to this show you're a
47:46
Speaker 3: skeptic about the government lying.
47:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, So what do we have to plug before we
47:52
Speaker 1: get out of here? One thing you can get yourself
47:55
Speaker 1: a shirt Conspiracy the Show shirt.
47:58
Speaker 3: Yeah.
47:59
Speaker 1: They are available until November thirtieth, That is the last
48:03
Speaker 1: day to order them. It's a it's a pre sale.
48:06
Speaker 1: Go to unpops dot co slash shop and you can
48:10
Speaker 1: speaking of redacted. Oh, I feel good hopping on that
48:14
Speaker 1: piggybacking on the title of this documentary to promote our shit.
48:18
Speaker 1: But there is uh the Conspiracy the Show Redacted document shirt.
48:24
Speaker 3: Yeah.
48:25
Speaker 1: You can see me and Olivia exactly where the fuck
48:28
Speaker 1: we belong, right in the middle of a redacted government
48:32
Speaker 1: file that you can wear on your chest.
48:36
Speaker 3: Yeah. It's a dope shirt. Highly recommend. It's really cool.
48:41
Speaker 1: And we're just kind of we're testing out a new
48:44
Speaker 1: way to do merch and there there might be some kinks.
48:47
Speaker 1: We're gonna try and get all of these out by Christmas,
48:51
Speaker 1: like you should have them by Christmas. We're not doing
48:53
Speaker 1: international orders this time. Because that is a whole nightmare.
48:57
Speaker 1: But they will be available again for international buyers. But
49:01
Speaker 1: the thing is they won't be available again at this
49:04
Speaker 1: price because we're just first starting it out. The shirts
49:07
Speaker 1: are a little cheaper then they would usually be. So
49:11
Speaker 1: go get one at a at a bargain on Pops
49:14
Speaker 1: Dot Coe slash shot. That's all. Yeah, that's all I got.
49:18
Speaker 1: There was probably an ad for that also at some
49:20
Speaker 1: point during this episode, So sorry for doubling up. But
49:24
Speaker 1: Patreon users, you don't hear ads, so you're hearing one now, Olivia.
49:30
Speaker 1: What else do we have to plug?
49:32
Speaker 3: Well, you can listen to going back our lost Watch podcast,
49:39
Speaker 3: which I've just been having a blast doing, very fun.
49:45
Speaker 3: And how you gotta do is subscribe to the Conspiracy
49:49
Speaker 3: or the Unpops Patreon and you get you get get
49:53
Speaker 3: all those and you can listen watch along with us.
49:56
Speaker 3: It's a it's a good.
49:57
Speaker 1: Time, very good times. Yeah, we're cloat. We're ozing in
50:00
Speaker 1: on the end of season one, which means that that
50:03
Speaker 1: pod will be public soon. But in the meantime, if
50:06
Speaker 1: you subscribe to bonus episodes, you can go listen to
50:09
Speaker 1: that too. A whole extra yeah thing, you get bonus
50:13
Speaker 1: episodes of this podcast and you get a whole other podcast.
50:16
Speaker 3: What a deal.
50:17
Speaker 1: Nuts, It's nuts.
50:19
Speaker 3: And you can follow me on the dying platform Twitter.
50:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's grim things. Things are looking bad for Twitter.
50:31
Speaker 3: It's fun to watch, and I think that's it.
50:34
Speaker 1: Let's get out of here. Olivia say goodbye bye, goodbye everybody.
50:38
Speaker 1: We love you.
50:44
Speaker 3: People.
50:45
Speaker 1: You're kind of a love. Data over a love, nada
51:02
Speaker 1: over a love Later