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'American Dominance': Boat Strikes, Cuba, and Latin American Pushback · The Real News Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: A few weeks ago, the U.S. State Department released this
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: video over X.
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: It's 1823. The map of the Americas is being redrawn.
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: Spain has spent centuries amassing a new world empire stretching
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: from Patagonia to California. Now their grip was slipping fast.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: The video is narrated by Kevin Marino Cabrera, the U.S.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: ambassador to Panama, and it's highly polished with images, map graphics, animations,
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: and dramatic music.
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: Monroe then declared a decree to Congress, among the boldest
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: diplomatic statements in American history.
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: The American continents, by the free and independent condition which
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: they have assumed and maintained, are henceforth not to be
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: The text of the post reads, The Monroe Doctrine has
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: shaped U.S. foreign policy for over two centuries. American dominance
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: in the Western Hemisphere will never be questioned again.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: But these were defensive applications, keeping European powers out, not
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: asserting American control over the hemisphere's affairs. That changed in 1895,
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: when Secretary of State Richard Olney invoked the doctrine, declaring
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: that the United States was practically sovereign over the Western
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: Hemisphere and demanded Britain submit to American arbitration. He had
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: redefined the doctrine. It was no longer just a warning.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: It was now a claim to regional primacy.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: The video is remarkable because it doesn't mince words or
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: attempt to paint a rosy picture of the United States.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: In five minutes and 31 seconds, it just lays out
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: the justification for the U.S. imperialism that has cast a
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: shadow over the region for the last two centuries up
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: until today.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: Three years later, war with Spain erupted. And when the
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: smoke cleared, it transformed the hemisphere. The United States expelled
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: Spain from Cuba, seized Puerto Rico, and stepped into the
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: world stage as a genuine imperial power with dominance over
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: the Caribbean. Just four years later, that dominance was tested again.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: German and British warships sailed into Venezuelan waters and blockaded
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: its ports over unpaid debts. Roosevelt intervened and declared if
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: a Latin American nation fell into chaos or instability, the U.S.
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: would step in and manage it. The doctrine had started
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: as a shield. Roosevelt had just turned it into a mandate.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: This was all a good thing, the video seems to say.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: A natural course of history that the U.S. should be
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: proud of and the rest of the region should just accept.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: And all this backstory is a lengthy setup for the
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: video to then make the case that Trump's actions in
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: Latin America are nothing more than a continuation of the
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: same model of imperialist intervention that the U.S. has carried
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: out since its inception, or at least since the beginning
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: of the 20th century, when Roosevelt declared his corollary to
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: the Monroe Doctrine.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: Fast forward to the modern era. where the doctrine has
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: found its latest champion in President Trump. Through the execution
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: of Operation Absolute Resolve, the United States seized Venezuelan dictator
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: Nicolás Maduro, transporting him to American soil to answer for
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: charges of narco-terrorism. This calculated maneuver delivered a resident signal
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: across the hemisphere, punctuated by President Trump's own declaration.
• 3:36
  Speaker 4: Under our new national security strategy, American dominance in.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: The Western Hemisphere, will never be questioned again. It's a
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: fascinating piece of propaganda that tries to place Trump's actions
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: as the logical next step in the long trajectory of U.S.
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: imperialism in the region.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: Over two centuries, Monroe's declaration had shaped U.S. foreign policy
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: across administrations and throughout fundamentally different geopolitical eras. What began
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: as a warning to European powers evolved into a framework
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: for regional dominance, one that remains the cornerstone of American
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: strategy in the hemisphere today.
• 4:19
  Speaker 5: What is extraordinary about that video is that it says
• 4:24
  Speaker 5: what has never really been said about the Monroe Doctrine
• 4:28
  Speaker 5: by US officials, which is that the Monroe Doctrine has
• 4:35
  Speaker 5: served as a pretext for U.S. intervention in the region and,
• 4:40
  Speaker 5: you know, is essentially there to ensure that the U.S.
• 4:45
  Speaker 5: has a great deal of political influence and economic influence
• 4:52
  Speaker 5: over the entire Latin American Caribbean.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: That is Alexander Main. I reached out to him to
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: get his take on this video. He's an old friend
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: and the director of international policy at the Center for
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C.
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: When Soviet missiles were discovered in Cuba in 1962, Kennedy
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: didn't need to invent a new framework. He simply invoked
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: the doctrine. The weapons had to go.
• 5:19
  Speaker 5: This video is saying that there is such a thing
• 5:23
  Speaker 5: as the U.S. empire, something that most U.S. officials have
• 5:29
  Speaker 5: never wanted to publicly... recognize and saying that that is
• 5:35
  Speaker 5: a good thing and that more needs to be done
• 5:39
  Speaker 5: to ensure that the U.S. can be an effective empire
• 5:45
  Speaker 5: over the entire Western Hemisphere.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: Key to this video, Alex says, is the idea that
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: brute military force must be deployed to achieve this imperialistic doctrine.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: And right now, that is being done under the pretext
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: of a new sort of war on terror. There's no
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: clear definition of exactly who or what narco-terrorist is. But
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: that might be part of the point. Alex says that
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: much like the Cold War's fight against communism, the vague
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: image of the narco-terrorist boogeyman allows U.S. authorities and their
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: allies to go after left-leaning opponents with force.
• 6:26
  Speaker 5: We're seeing something similar now. And I think this is
• 6:31
  Speaker 5: really what the U.S. is going to be relying on
• 6:37
  Speaker 5: under the Trump administration. They're going to be relying more
• 6:41
  Speaker 5: and more on military action and the threat of military
• 6:46
  Speaker 5: action in order to advance this vision of complete political
• 6:52
  Speaker 5: domination over the region.
• 6:56
  Speaker 6: Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: In Brazil, high-stakes elections are coming up in October. Advisors
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: for leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva saw the
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: timing and content of this video as a direct threat
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: against the president's re-election campaign, a sign that the Trump
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: administration has its sights on Latin America's largest country. According
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: to Brazilian columnist Valdo Cruz, Lula's advisors compared Trump's foreign
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: policy team, led by Cuban-American Secretary of State Marco Rubio,
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: to Madagascar Penguins piloting Air Force One. It's a reference
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: to the Madagascar cartoon.
• 7:36
  Speaker 7: Attention!
• 7:37
  Speaker 5: This is your captain speaking.
• 7:38
  Speaker 8: I've got good news and bad news.
• 7:40
  Speaker 9: The good news is we'll be landing immediately. The bad
• 7:43
  Speaker 9: news is we're crash landing.
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: That is where we are at. A new definitive Monroe
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: Doctrine for the Western Hemisphere. And it's being fueled by
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: brute U.S. military force in the region. as we have
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: already seen unfold in unprecedented terms over the last year.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: And the Trump administration isn't just using those actions and
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: threats abroad. They're now going after progressive individuals and groups
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: in the United States, accusing them of being pawns of
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: foreign nations. People have even been subpoenaed.
• 8:17
  Speaker 10: There's nothing organic about it.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: It is funded, it is organized, and Cuba is a
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: part of that network, and in some cases, a critical
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: part of that network, It's like something out of the
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: McCarthy era or the Cold War. It's a fabricated witch hunt.
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: And as we will look at today, it's being supported
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: by artificial intelligence. But people across Latin America are also
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: organizing against the threats. All of that in a minute.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: This is Under the Shadows. an investigative narrative podcast series
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: that looks at the role of the United States abroad
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: in the past and the very present. This podcast is
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: a co-production in partnership with The Real News and NACLA.
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: I'm your host, Michael Fox, longtime radio reporter, editor, journalist,
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: the producer and host of the podcasts Brazil on Fire,
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: Stories of Resistance, and my new series, The Battle for
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: Free Speech. I've spent the better part of the last
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: 20 years in Latin America. I've seen firsthand the role
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: of the U.S. government abroad And most often, sadly, it
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: is not for the better. Invasions, coups, sanctions, support for
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: authoritarian regimes. Politically and economically, the United States has cast
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: a long shadow over Latin America for the past 200 years.
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: It still does. This is Season 2 of Under the Shadow,
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: Trump's Attack. Episode 13, American Dominance.
• 9:52
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: Let me just first say that I'm so excited to
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: be diving back into this season of Under the Shadow.
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: If you have been following this podcast, you'll know that
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: I was largely absent this summer. I was busy cranking
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: out my podcast about Trump's attack on free speech rights
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: today in the United States. It's called The Battle for
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: Free Speech. It's now out completely. You can listen wherever
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: you get your podcasts. I'll add a link in the
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: show notes. In July, we shared an episode from that
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: podcast on the Under the Shadow feed about the battle
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: underway in Brazil right now ahead of the general election
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: in October. I think it's really good. Before that, my
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: last Under the Shadow episode was about Hondurasgate back in May.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: So it's been a while. Today, I want to catch
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: up on several important developments related to U.S. intervention and
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: the pushback against it in the region. including the latest
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: boat strikes, the State Department's war on Cuba, and the
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: recent Pan-American Congress in Uruguay. These all fall under the
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: rubric of where we started at the top with the
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: video about the Dunrow Doctrine and Trump's promise that American
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: dominance in the Western Hemisphere will, quote, never be questioned again.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: In this episode, I'll look at ways that this is unfolding,
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: both abroad and inside the United States. and also how
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: progressive leaders in the region are very much continuing to
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: question American dominance and organizing against Trump's rhetoric and threats. Okay,
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: we begin in the abnormally warm waters of the Caribbean
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: and Pacific Oceans. These waters have been central to Trump's
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: military attack on the region, and this week marks a
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: sad anniversary.
• 11:40
  Speaker 4: When you come out and when you leave the room,
• 11:42
  Speaker 4: you'll see that we just, over the last few minutes,
• 11:46
  Speaker 4: literally shot out a boat, a drug-carrying boat, a lot
• 11:51
  Speaker 4: of drugs in that boat. And you'll be seeing that
• 11:54
  Speaker 4: and you'll be reading about that. It just happened moments ago.
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: On September 2nd, 2025, one year ago this week, Donald
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: Trump announced the first airstrike on a boat in the Caribbean.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: Trump said the boat allegedly carried drugs off the coast
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: of Venezuela. He later posted on True Social a video
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: of the airstrike, black and white, labeled unclassified. A missile
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: hits the boat and it explodes. The White House said,
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: without providing evidence, that it killed 11 alleged narco-terrorists. If
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: you remember, this is where I began this podcast series.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: Because for me, it marked a clear break with the
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: decades of U.S. foreign policy in the regions.
• 12:39
  Speaker 4: The U.S.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: Attack on that boat in early September was the very
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: first time the United States had launched a unilateral airstrike
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: or carried out a deadly military operation on its own
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: in Latin America in nearly four decades, not since the
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: 1989 invasion of Panama. According to Trump's National Security Strategy,
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: published in December 2025, his administration was planning to ramp
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: up U.S. intervention in the Americas with his new Trump
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine. He has made good on
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: that promise.
• 13:12
  Speaker 11: With the U.S.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: Invasion of Venezuela, the oil blockade of Cuba, the Shield
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: of the Americas initiative, and the boat strikes, the administration
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: labeled those strikes Operation Southern Spear. Secretary of Defense Pete
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: Hegseth joined Fox News Live to gush about the boat strike.
• 13:30
  Speaker 12: So we've got assets in the air, assets in the water,
• 13:32
  Speaker 12: assets on ships, because this is a deadly, serious mission
• 13:36
  Speaker 12: for us. And it won't stop with just this strike.
• 13:41
  Speaker 12: Anyone else trafficking in those waters who we know is
• 13:43
  Speaker 12: a designated narco-terrorist will face the same fate. And it's
• 13:47
  Speaker 12: important for the American people to protect our homeland and
• 13:49
  Speaker 12: protect our hemisphere.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: Hegseth was right about one thing. That strike was just
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: the beginning. They'd been ongoing since last year. There was
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: a two-month lull, which miraculously coincided with the World Cup
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: competition in the United States and.
• 14:13
  Speaker 5: Trump's grand 4th of July 250th anniversary celebration.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: But in recent weeks, the U.S. military has kick-started the
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: strikes again. This news report is from August 26 this year.
• 14:29
  Speaker 13: Human rights groups are condemning the latest round of U.S.
• 14:32
  Speaker 10: Military attacks on.
• 14:33
  Speaker 13: A high-speed boat in the Caribbean, which the Pentagon says
• 14:36
  Speaker 13: killed four narco-terrorists. This is now the second strike this week,
• 14:40
  Speaker 13: as the White House targets vessels accused of transporting deadly
• 14:43
  Speaker 13: drugs into the U.S. for the past year.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: But the whole justification for the first strike last September
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: and everyone's sense that they're fighting drug trafficking is just false.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: This has never been about fighting drug trafficking. Most of
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: the cocaine trafficked into the United States doesn't come from
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: Venezuela and it doesn't travel across the Caribbean but the Pacific.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: Fentanyl is the same thing. It's not made in nor
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: trafficked from Venezuela, despite Trump's discourse. Trump's campaign has been
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: about sending a message. even if it means carrying out
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: extrajudicial killings in international waters against innocent people, because it's
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: become clear that many of the boats they've hit haven't
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: been operated by narco-terrorists, but fishermen. And contrary to Trump
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: and Secretary of Defense Hegsett's claims, other Trump administration officials
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: admit that the strikes haven't decreased the amount of drugs
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: being run into the United States. In late July, the
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: Washington Post reported that both Pentagon and DEA officials had
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: said the boat strikes hadn't impacted the supply of cocaine
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: in the United States. Drug traffickers just developed new strategies.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: They were taking different routes, bigger boats, or relying more
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: on planes from clandestine airstrips. One DEA official who asked
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: to remain anonymous told the Post, quote, when you squeeze
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: the balloon on one side, it always expands on the
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: other side. They always find the weak spots and exploit them. Nevertheless,
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: the boat strikes have continued.
• 16:18
  Speaker 10: Welcome to the closing session hosted by the Secretary of
• 16:22
  Speaker 10: War and Chairman of the America's Counter-Cartel Coalition, the Honorable
• 16:27
  Speaker 10: Pete Hegseth.
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: Pete Hegseth spoke about this during a Counter-Cartel Coalition conference
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: in Panama City on August 12th.
• 16:37
  Speaker 12: We have knocked the narco-terrorists and the maritime domain on
• 16:40
  Speaker 12: their heels. We force them to adjust their tactics, techniques
• 16:45
  Speaker 12: and procedures, their TTPs, and operate outside of their comfort zones.
• 16:49
  Speaker 12: We are retaking the open seas and our maritime borders.
• 16:54
  Speaker 12: This is a bad time to get in a drug
• 16:56
  Speaker 12: boat in the Western Hemisphere.
• 17:04
  Speaker 6: In one year now, at least 68 publicly acknowledged strikes
• 17:10
  Speaker 6: on alleged drug trafficking vessels right in the Caribbean and
• 17:13
  Speaker 6: Eastern Pacific, extraditionally killing over 228 civilians.
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: Jake Johnston is the director of international research at the
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington. He also
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: runs CEPR's U.S. Escalation in Latin America tracker, which he
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: has updated almost daily since last year. I just want
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: to pause here for a moment to underscore that number.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: More than 228 civilians. And that is a number that's
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: likely to only continue to grow. Just to put that
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: into context, before the September 11th attacks, the 1995 Oklahoma
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: City bombing was the deadliest terror attack in the history
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: of the United States.
• 17:55
  Speaker 8: If it seemed like war yesterday, the reinforcements showed up tonight.
• 17:59
  Speaker 8: At the center of it all, of course, is the
• 18:01
  Speaker 8: bombed-out shell of the federal office building. And in its shadow,
• 18:04
  Speaker 8: the exhausted, who for a day and a half now
• 18:07
  Speaker 8: have sifted through its debris and counted its dead and
• 18:11
  Speaker 8: seen up close why they call it terror.
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: 168 people were killed in that bombing on the Alfred P.
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: Murrow Federal Building. It shocked the nation. Yet the United
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: States has unleashed a round of terror attacks over the
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: last year in international waters in the Caribbean and Pacific,
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: which have killed far more people than the second most
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: deadly terror attack in the history of the U.S. In fact,
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: the U.S. drug boat terror campaign is deadlier than both
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: the Oklahoma City bombing and the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting combined. Now,
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: it might seem strange that I'm making this comparison.
• 18:59
  Speaker 10: The U.S.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: Government has carried out the boat strikes. Individual perpetrators carried
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: out these other attacks. But I think it's an important
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: comparison to make. All are acts of terror. All are
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: illegitimate uses of violence without any legal founding.
• 19:15
  Speaker 5: The U.S.
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: Boat strikes aren't operations against enemy combatants in a time
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: of war.
• 19:20
  Speaker 10: The U.S.
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: Government hasn't carried out a trial against the victims or
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: offered any proof that the people killed in these raids
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: are actually drug traffickers. Their actions are illegal under international law,
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: and the result in all cases is the same, the
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: extrajudicial killing of innocent people, which undermines the basis of
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: the rule of law in the United States, the United Nations,
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: and most democratic countries around the world, that you are
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: innocent until proven guilty. Jake Johnston.
• 19:49
  Speaker 6: The is the sort of takeaway after a year is,
• 19:51
  Speaker 6: I mean, this is an assault on the rule of law.
• 19:53
  Speaker 6: This is assault on international law. And I think you
• 19:56
  Speaker 6: can see over the course of the year how these
• 19:59
  Speaker 6: strikes serve this broader purpose, right, of normalizing, rationalizing, and
• 20:05
  Speaker 6: sort of gaining at least some public acceptance of just
• 20:09
  Speaker 6: the sort of trampling of international law. And now we have, right,
• 20:13
  Speaker 6: sort of transitioned, or at least, you know, the U.S.
• 20:16
  Speaker 6: is saying they're transitioning from these boat strikes to land strikes.
• 20:23
  Speaker 4: It's there.
• 20:24
  Speaker 6: We've already seen, in fact, some strikes on land in Ecuador,
• 20:27
  Speaker 6: reportedly hitting a dairy farm, you know, reports of torture
• 20:31
  Speaker 6: of the farm workers who were there. And so you
• 20:33
  Speaker 6: can see how this can extend and expand. You can
• 20:42
  Speaker 6: see how the erosion of international law comes right back
• 20:44
  Speaker 6: here to home. And you have ICE agents killing U.S.
• 20:48
  Speaker 6: citizens in the streets with impunity, right? And these things
• 20:51
  Speaker 6: are connected. These developments are connected. And they certainly mutually
• 20:54
  Speaker 6: reinforce each other through this administration's policies.
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: Ecuador has been collaborating with the U.S. military under the
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: counter-cartel coalition which I looked at in episode eight of
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: this series, and not just on that dairy farm strike.
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: The United States has also taken some concerning actions against
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: boats off the Ecuadorian coast.
• 21:19
  Speaker 6: This started, you know, earlier this year, the bombing of
• 21:25
  Speaker 6: at least three fishing vessels off the coast of Ecuador,
• 21:29
  Speaker 6: which took place in a very different manner than these
• 21:31
  Speaker 6: other boat strikes we were talking about, where Southcom was
• 21:33
  Speaker 6: boasting boats. smut on the internet about them blowing up
• 21:37
  Speaker 6: boats right these ones were totally unacknowledged and you know
• 21:40
  Speaker 6: the reports that we've had from investigative outlets that have
• 21:42
  Speaker 6: looked into it local press in ecuador human rights organizations
• 21:45
  Speaker 6: etc i mean one of the boats first off is
• 21:47
  Speaker 6: still missing and all the crew members are still.
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: Missing people from some of those boats were killed and
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: others have been returned to the country but that was
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: only after being abducted on the high.
• 21:56
  Speaker 6: Seas and onto a nondescript boat in the middle of
• 21:59
  Speaker 6: the ocean with uh you know gringo looking guys with u.s
• 22:03
  Speaker 6: flags on their their their uniforms and being taken to
• 22:05
  Speaker 6: el salvador of all places before facing your torture and
• 22:09
  Speaker 6: abuse and then eventually being released back to ecuador where
• 22:12
  Speaker 6: they face no charges it should be noted and you
• 22:18
  Speaker 6: mentioned in each of these cases the reporting indicates that
• 22:20
  Speaker 6: ecuador and coast guards actually stopped the vessels and cleared
• 22:23
  Speaker 6: them prior to them being bombed.
• 22:27
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 22:27
  Speaker 6: And there's obviously there's been reporting. The Washington Post reported
• 22:29
  Speaker 6: a few weeks ago that this was part of a
• 22:32
  Speaker 6: clandestine CIA operation. The New York Times has come out
• 22:35
  Speaker 6: with reports, you know, sort of suggesting that the potential
• 22:38
  Speaker 6: involvement of private military contractors.
• 22:41
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 22:42
  Speaker 6: So there's tremendous questions that remain exactly about who is responsible,
• 22:46
  Speaker 6: who is involved.
• 22:47
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 22:47
  Speaker 6: Why this was happening. But what seems quite clear is that,
• 22:50
  Speaker 6: you know, U.S. intelligence is operating out of El Salvador,
• 22:53
  Speaker 6: a CIA base that was quite active during the dirty
• 22:57
  Speaker 6: wars in the 80s.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: Jack here is referring to what we learned from reporting
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: in the Washington Post in mid-August, which broke the news
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: that a covert CIA program based in El Salvador was
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: likely behind the Ecuadorian boat attacks.
• 23:12
  Speaker 7: According to the.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: Post, a plane operating out of El Salvador's small Ilopango
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: International Airport was likely responsible for the attacks. During the 1980s,
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: this airport was also a launching pad for U.S. operations
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: in nearby Nicaragua.
• 23:28
  Speaker 6: This didn't come out of nowhere, right? I mean, it
• 23:29
  Speaker 6: is really based on the past. And a lot of
• 23:31
  Speaker 6: the people who are involved in this are really rooted
• 23:33
  Speaker 6: in those previous episodes of right-wing dictatorship and U.S. interventionism
• 23:38
  Speaker 6: in the region. And so, in a lot of ways,
• 23:40
  Speaker 6: it is a return to that earlier period.
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: There is another country in the region whose conflict with
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: the United States harkens back to U.S. intervention of the past.
• 23:50
  Speaker 11: Cuba.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: So, back in Episode 7, we looked in-depth into the U.S.
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: actions against Cuba, and in particular, the devastating oil blockade
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: which is strangling the country. And it's still ongoing. The
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: situation in the country has only deteriorated. It's ironic. because
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: the United States brags about how they're sending aid to
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: the country. And yet the U.S. is solely to blame
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: for the crisis.
• 24:18
  Speaker 5: The U.S.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: Government could fix the problem almost overnight by just lifting
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: the embargo, both the oil blockade and the larger embargo
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: that the U.S. has had in place in some shape
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: or form for more than 65 years. Belly of the
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: Beast is a Cuban investigative journalism outlet based in Havana.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: I spoke with Belly of the Beast's Liz Fernandez in
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: my previous Cuba episode of this series. A couple of
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: weeks ago, they released this great video report titled Helping
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: Cuba While Destroying Its Economy. The word helping is in quotes.
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: Here's a clip. It starts with Belly of the Beast
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: journalist Joan Rodríguez standing on a Cuban street.
• 25:00
  Speaker 14: Good news for us here in Cuba. The United States
• 25:04
  Speaker 14: is here to help.
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: Secretary of State Marco Rubio appears on screen. In Spanish,
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: he says, I want to tell you that we in
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: the United States offer to help you not only alleviate
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: the current crisis, but also to build a better future.
• 25:18
  Speaker 14: A better future delivered in cardboard boxes.
• 25:22
  Speaker 13: This is the first of a $ 100 million humanitarian aid
• 25:24
  Speaker 13: package promised by Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
• 25:27
  Speaker 14: The U.S. government is donating 700 boxes of food and
• 25:31
  Speaker 14: hygiene products. Each one is supposed to last 10 days.
• 25:36
  Speaker 14: That's nice, although... It might be even nicer if they
• 25:41
  Speaker 14: had simply lifted the oil blockade.
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: The video cuts to numerous Cubans who are suffering. They
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: give us 20, 24 hours without electricity, says one elderly resident.
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: It's the whole day cooking with coal, says a woman.
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: I haven't had water for three and a half months,
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: says another woman.
• 26:01
  Speaker 14: The boxes of aid are welcome because people here are desperate.
• 26:07
  Speaker 14: If someone breaks your legs and offers you an aspirin,
• 26:11
  Speaker 14: you'll take the aspirin. But when you wear soft, your
• 26:15
  Speaker 14: legs are still broken.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: That is the state in Cuba right now, a country
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: on life support. The United States could fix it, but
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: it doesn't want to. It wants the people to suffer.
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: an indirect way to try and force regime change, or
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: at least that has been the stated policy since the
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: beginning of the embargo in the 1960s. And the Trump
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: administration is blatant about its motives. On July 20th, the U.S.
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: State Department released a 100-page report titled Cuba, the Capital
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: of 21st Century Communism. It essentially accused Cuba of infiltrating
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: the U.S. left over the last half century and being
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: behind a host of progressive organizing. Everything from Black Lives
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: Matter and George Floyd protests to pro-Palestine encampments on university
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: campuses and, quote, the rise of Antifa. It's incredible because
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: it makes the United States look like it's in the
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: crosshairs of this tiny Caribbean country. The U.S., a country
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: that is nearly 90 times larger than Cuba, and has
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: a GDP that is more than 300 times the size
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: of the islands. The report makes no mention of the
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: countless U.S. attempts to overthrow or assassinate Fidel Castro, undo
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: the Cuban Revolution, and above all, the decades-long U.S. blockade
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: on the country. Instead, the document paints the United States
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: as the victim of a Cuban plot to overthrow U.S.
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: capitalism and Western society. The summary for the report reads,
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: Cuba's assault on the United States was never at root
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: a quarrel over economic policy or sovereignty or even ownership
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: of a particular territory. It was a revolution against Western
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: civilization itself, waged in part because via the novel and
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: insidious method of persuading the children of the West to
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: turn against their own inheritance. Let me just repeat that.
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: Persuading the children of the West to turn against their
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: own inheritance. I'm not exactly sure what that inheritance is,
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: but the report paints activist and leftist organizations in the
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: United States as willing pawns in Cuba's evil plans to
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: subvert the United States. The document reads, Through its cultivation
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: of American activists, its infiltration of American universities, its sprawling
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: influence and espionage networks, and its position as the spiritual
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: hub of the Third World Revolution, becoming a pilgrimage destination
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: for generations of new left activists and intellectuals, Cuba has
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: played an instrumental role in shaping America's radical left from
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: the 1960s through to today. It singles out organizations like
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: the Vencidemos Brigade, Pastors for Peace, and the anti-war group
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: Code Pink as essentially Cuban front groups. It's a ridiculous
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: claim because these are solidarity organizations that literally carry humanitarian
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: aid to countries harmed by U.S.
• 29:24
  Speaker 14: Policies.
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: And this idea in the Cuban report assumes that everyone
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: in the United States should just be on board with U.S.
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: administrations that punish other countries and peoples for not bowing
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: to Uncle Sam. The document also accused the New York
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: Political Education and Community Center, the People's Forum, and the
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: National Lawyers Guild of being influenced by Cuba. The document states,
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: From its very first years of existence, the National Lawyers
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: Guild operated as a de facto communist front group. designed
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: to organize and agitate for revolution in the United States.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: It's interesting that the document also spends three and a
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: half pages discussing the Democratic Socialists of America's support for Cuba.
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: At a time when DSA is growing and actually winning
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: primaries ahead of the U.S. November midterm elections, It's clear
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: that Marco Rubio's State Department is interested in doing all
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: it can to paint that group as Cuban-influenced. The document
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: sums up all of this by saying, quote, These groups
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: collectively represent one of the single largest, most sophisticated, and
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: dangerous vectors for hostile foreign influence in modern American history.
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: Too bad that statement is not only totally conspiratorial, it
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: is also not based on realities.
• 30:52
  Speaker 15: And it was shocking on every page to see the
• 30:55
  Speaker 15: way in which the State Department's report was reiterating the
• 31:00
  Speaker 15: same claims, many of them very fraudulent claims, that had
• 31:03
  Speaker 15: been leveled against American solidarity activists in the 1960s and 1970s, right?
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: Belly of the Beast recently interviewed historian Tayshaun Lattner about
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: this report. In his 2018 book, Cuban Revolution in America,
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: Lattner writes about how generations of activists in the United
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: States have found inspiration in Cuba, but he says that
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: if State Department officials were reading his book, they completely
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: missed the point and blew it out of context.
• 31:31
  Speaker 15: But in reading Rubio's report, it was enormously clear that
• 31:36
  Speaker 15: they were reiterating, you could almost say regurgitating, the same
• 31:40
  Speaker 15: claims and some of the same material that had been
• 31:44
  Speaker 15: circulating in the 1960s and 1970s. The FBI and the
• 31:48
  Speaker 15: CIA both produced copious reports reports that claimed to, let's
• 31:56
  Speaker 15: not say prove, because I don't know if even they
• 31:59
  Speaker 15: themselves would have used that terminology, but they tried to
• 32:02
  Speaker 15: demonstrate a linkage between American solidarity movements and the Cuban revolution.
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: That is what they're doing now. Even before the report
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: came out, the Trump administration was already investigating activists for
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: traveling to Cuba in March for the Nuestra America convoy.
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: Their solidarity groups brought 20 tons of humanitarian aid to
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: the Caribbean island. In May, roughly 40 U.S. activists were subpoenaed,
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: including progressive influencer Hassan Piker and Code Pink founder Midia Benjamin,
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: who I've spoken with in this podcast. In the days
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: following this Cuba report's release... Several groups that were mentioned
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: in the document were also subpoenaed to testify before Congress,
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: including the People's Forum, Breakthrough News, and the Tri-Continental Institute
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: for Social Research.
• 32:57
  Speaker 6: Are you agents of foreign influence?
• 32:58
  Speaker 11: I'm an agent of my own conscience.
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: Manolo de los Santos is the director of the People's Forum.
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: He responded to the Trump administration's allegations against his organization
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: on MSNL in late July.
• 33:10
  Speaker 11: I've been moved constantly by the belief that the United
• 33:13
  Speaker 11: States has to do better and that we can change
• 33:15
  Speaker 11: the reality in this country. If we were to accept
• 33:17
  Speaker 11: what this committee is demanding from us, it essentially would
• 33:21
  Speaker 11: be to accept that people in the United States have
• 33:23
  Speaker 11: no right to protest, no right to organize, no right
• 33:25
  Speaker 11: to express their differences with the U.S.
• 33:27
  Speaker 5: Government.
• 33:28
  Speaker 11: The Trump administration is mired in a series of failures.
• 33:31
  Speaker 11: It has been incapable of convincing the American people that
• 33:35
  Speaker 11: deporting millions of immigrants is the right thing to do.
• 33:38
  Speaker 11: And therefore, it goes after the people who organize in
• 33:40
  Speaker 11: defense of immigrant families. The fact that we stand with
• 33:43
  Speaker 11: the Palestinian people, that we say no to a blockade
• 33:46
  Speaker 11: against Cuba, these are not fringe positions. These are the
• 33:48
  Speaker 11: positions of majority of Americans right now. It's our consciousness
• 33:51
  Speaker 11: that's moving us to say that these things are wrong
• 33:54
  Speaker 11: in our society.
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: Jake Johnston.
• 34:00
  Speaker 6: Yeah, it's a great example of our interventionist foreign policy
• 34:04
  Speaker 6: blowing back at home, right? And seeing these connections, right?
• 34:07
  Speaker 6: I mean, this is pretty clearly for the Trump administration,
• 34:09
  Speaker 6: you know, part of going after its domestic opposition ahead
• 34:12
  Speaker 6: of midterm elections, you know, consolidating its own political power.
• 34:15
  Speaker 6: But of course, at the same time, justifying its illegal
• 34:19
  Speaker 6: blockade and siege of Cuba in doing so.
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: Here's the thing. I read through the report shortly after
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: it was released, and one thing stood out for me
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: above everything else. It was like the report was grasping
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: at straws, like it was trying to string together a
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: random hodgepodge of people and groups to make the case
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: that Cuba had infiltrated the United States and was responsible
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: for leftist dissent going back decades. It seemed like it
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: was generated with artificial intelligence. So I tested it. I
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: ran it through some of those sites online where you
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: can see how much a document was likely created using AI.
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: One of the results came back with a 96% chance
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: that it was made with artificial intelligence. ChatGTP told me
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: the likelihood that, quote, AI was substantially involved in producing
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: or editing this report was high, roughly 80 to 90%. Now,
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying that it was completely AI generated. I
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: don't believe that. But the State Department did likely use
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: substantial artificial intelligence in research gathering, writing, and editing. Okay,
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: you might be saying, so what? A lot of people
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: are using artificial intelligence today. Well, here's the problem. AI,
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: we know, has the tendency not to argue with us,
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: but to give us back what we want to hear.
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: It helps us to find information that will support our
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: beliefs or our objective, regardless of if they're based on
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: fact or not. It's called AI bias. And look, it's
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: one thing if AI is being used to write an
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: email to a friend or to help me pick out
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: my clothes. I think I look good in blue, thank you.
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: Those have very little, if any, geopolitical implications. It's another entirely, however,
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: if you're using this to develop an official government document
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: that will guide public policy and which will be used
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: to attack your political opponents. That is dangerous. And it
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: means that AI is being weaponized to benefit a certain
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: political class and silence dissent. In other words, government censorship.
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: There has been limited discussion about the possibility that Marco
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: Rubio's Cuba document was likely created with the help of AI.
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: And I wanted to get a deeper sense of the implications.
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: What does that actually mean? So I reached out to
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: Tal Hagen.
• 36:48
  Speaker 10: There we go.
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 36:50
  Speaker 5: Fantastic.
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: Okay, so Tao, this is what I'm trying to figure
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: out today. You might remember him from my episode about
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: disinformation and deep fakes on Venezuela earlier this year. He
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: is an online AI watchdog. He's now the director of Otis,
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: which provides human-run intelligence services. Anyway, he's an expert on
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: artificial intelligence, and I wanted to get his analysis of
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: what it means when AI is being used to develop
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: policy like this. And let me just say that I
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: didn't ask him specifically about the Cuba document because I
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: wanted his objective opinion about the concerns over the use
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: of AI in these circumstances. Because we know that if
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: you go on a chat GTP and you're chatting with
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: chat GTP and you're saying, like, oftentimes it's going to
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: give you back what you want.
• 37:35
  Speaker 7: Do we see the same thing in reports and documents
• 37:38
  Speaker 7: where if you're looking for something, if you're trying to
• 37:41
  Speaker 7: find something, the document that is produced through AI has
• 37:45
  Speaker 7: the possibility of also giving you kind of what you're
• 37:48
  Speaker 7: looking for because you're asking it to go out there
• 37:51
  Speaker 7: and find stuff that would make your statement true.
• 37:55
  Speaker 5: That makes sense.
• 37:56
  Speaker 10: Yeah, at the end of the day, something that we
• 37:57
  Speaker 10: need to understand with AI is that AI always agrees
• 37:59
  Speaker 10: with us. It always wants to give you a simple,
• 38:02
  Speaker 10: fast answer. It doesn't argue with you.
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: Tal says that you can test this by asking AI
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: something in two different ways. One, where you're trying to
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: get it to agree with you about something. And the other,
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: where you're playing a devil's advocate and you're trying to
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: get it to agree with you about the exact opposite thing.
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: Depending on how you phrase your question, you can get
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: either result.
• 38:24
  Speaker 10: But AI almost always will give you what you want.
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: But Tao says that doesn't necessarily make it untrue or false.
• 38:33
  Speaker 10: For example, maybe I've collected all the evidence and then
• 38:36
  Speaker 10: I've asked AI to compile that into a comprehensive report
• 38:40
  Speaker 10: for me. It's still my information. I just asked AI
• 38:42
  Speaker 10: to help me build it. So it's not an AI
• 38:44
  Speaker 10: made report. It's an AI enhanced report. So that's also
• 38:49
  Speaker 10: complicates things because just because it was AI generated doesn't
• 38:52
  Speaker 10: mean it wasn't real.
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: It also doesn't mean that it was. For instance, Tal says,
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: it all depends on the input or information that you
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: give the AI tool.
• 39:02
  Speaker 10: Sometimes it also has access to the web, but it
• 39:04
  Speaker 10: doesn't actually understand what's true, what's false. And especially in
• 39:08
  Speaker 10: evolving crises, when things are just happening right now, whatever
• 39:12
  Speaker 10: is on the web, that becomes the truth. And I've
• 39:14
  Speaker 10: seen AI mess this up a lot. And so the
• 39:17
  Speaker 10: bias is from what information you even provided in those documentations.
• 39:21
  Speaker 10: Because when you're providing, when you provide them with documentation,
• 39:24
  Speaker 10: I will ask you, how do you know this is true?
• 39:26
  Speaker 10: How do you know this is true? Where is this from?
• 39:27
  Speaker 10: The AI doesn't ask you that. It just assumes that everything,
• 39:30
  Speaker 10: you've given it is correct. It doesn't start refuting your sources.
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: Tao says many officials and government departments, not just in
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: the United States, are now using AI.
• 39:41
  Speaker 10: A lot of the governments, agencies, and individuals are using
• 39:45
  Speaker 10: AI now to craft their official responses. We know there was...
• 39:49
  Speaker 10: Some government official on Twitter who put out a post
• 39:51
  Speaker 10: and like he accidentally left in the prompt of making
• 39:54
  Speaker 10: it sound better.
• 39:54
  Speaker 16: Madam Speaker, another concern relates to expectations.
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: There was also this Canadian politician who read an AI
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: prompt in the New Brunswick legislature.
• 40:07
  Speaker 16: Here's a more natural flowing version of that section that
• 40:09
  Speaker 16: reads like a legislative speech rather than a series of
• 40:12
  Speaker 16: short points. Madam Speaker, the U.S.
• 40:14
  Speaker 10: Government released photos of their war room and you could
• 40:17
  Speaker 10: see them using AI, like writing different types of prompts.
• 40:21
  Speaker 7: Should we be concerned about governments, entities that are creating
• 40:27
  Speaker 7: policy and an increasing use of AI and what that
• 40:32
  Speaker 7: might mean for the policies that they are creating?
• 40:36
  Speaker 10: Even when you're writing in the chat room, you're creating
• 40:39
  Speaker 10: what you want or you're creating a policy decision with AI.
• 40:43
  Speaker 10: You're creating the report. But the problem is that your
• 40:46
  Speaker 10: critical thinking skills are diluted because you're asking AI simple questions.
• 40:53
  Speaker 10: You're asking it to do the heavy labor. And if
• 40:56
  Speaker 10: you say, find me an issue, find me an issue,
• 40:58
  Speaker 10: and then solve that issue, you're not the one solving
• 41:00
  Speaker 10: that issue. And it's solving an issue just based on
• 41:02
  Speaker 10: general information from the public. The problem with AI when
• 41:09
  Speaker 10: it's used by many different individuals is it replaces your
• 41:12
  Speaker 10: own critical thinking. where you no longer are researching the work,
• 41:17
  Speaker 10: you're just editing it. That's what essentially what it becomes.
• 41:21
  Speaker 10: You become an editor. You stop being a researcher. And
• 41:24
  Speaker 10: so instead of you looking at all these different sources,
• 41:27
  Speaker 10: trying to understand what the truth is here, what's the
• 41:29
  Speaker 10: facts and what's the narratives being driven, you're allowing the
• 41:32
  Speaker 10: AI to just compile random pieces of information through its
• 41:38
  Speaker 10: token generation. And that's the result that you're getting at.
• 41:40
  Speaker 17: We will make America proud again. We will make America
• 41:46
  Speaker 17: safe again. And we will make America great again.
• 41:53
  Speaker 9: Thank you.
• 41:53
  Speaker 5: God bless you.
• 41:54
  Speaker 9: Thank you.
• 41:56
  Speaker 16: Thank you.
• 41:58
  Speaker 10: It's why we like things that rhyme.
• 42:00
  Speaker 14: There's a whole reason.
• 42:00
  Speaker 10: The reason that a lot of political slogans are rhymes
• 42:03
  Speaker 10: is because things that sound good are right. You know,
• 42:08
  Speaker 10: if it sounds good, it's right. It's why... When you
• 42:11
  Speaker 10: look at the comment section of a right-wing activist or
• 42:15
  Speaker 10: a left-wing activist, all of its supporters say, this sounds amazing,
• 42:18
  Speaker 10: this is so good, because they're hearing what they want
• 42:20
  Speaker 10: to hear. And so even though the policy that they're
• 42:22
  Speaker 10: writing or they're talking about might be complete and utter bullshit,
• 42:28
  Speaker 10: it sounds good. But it's not based on factual information.
• 42:31
  Speaker 10: The same thing is happening with AI, where it sounds
• 42:34
  Speaker 10: good to the user, but they don't actually know what
• 42:36
  Speaker 10: it's based on. And so they're essentially being driven by
• 42:39
  Speaker 10: just a random algorithm.
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: In other words, ask AI to give you a report
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: that says Cuba has infiltrated the U.S. left and is
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: behind protest movements in the United States going back decades,
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: and it will do your bidding. We can't know for sure,
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: but that likely sums up Marco Rubio's Cuba report. With
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: or without AI, This Cuba report is a dangerous weapon
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: that is now being deployed against progressives and opponents of
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: the Trump administration. Jake Johnston.
• 43:17
  Speaker 6: I mean, you know, I think just about everybody who
• 43:19
  Speaker 6: read it laughed, right? But it is serious because this
• 43:22
  Speaker 6: is about justifying war crimes. I mean, what we're doing
• 43:26
  Speaker 6: to Cuba right now is an act of war. It
• 43:28
  Speaker 6: is illegal and is an act of war. And yet
• 43:30
  Speaker 6: here we are justifying it and at the same time
• 43:32
  Speaker 6: sort of demonizing the opposition, the domestic opposition to those
• 43:36
  Speaker 6: very actions, right?
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: The opposition to Trump's policies has also been organizing abroad.
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: On August 21st, 150 leaders from 15 countries from across
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: the hemisphere and Europe met in Montevideo, Uruguay for this
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: year's Pan American Congress. It's an event founded three years
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: ago with the stated goal of fostering, quote, solidarity among
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: peoples and sovereignty among nations. It's been an important event
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: for organizing the left in the region. The first two
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: summits were held in Colombia and Mexico, both then countries
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: run by progressive governments. CIPR's Alex Main, who I spoke
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: with at the top, attended the conference.
• 44:22
  Speaker 5: You know, the bulk of the people that were there
• 44:25
  Speaker 5: are lawmakers who are, you know, doing their best to
• 44:29
  Speaker 5: try to push forward progressive policies despite... often being in
• 44:35
  Speaker 5: the minority, and despite dealing with increasingly authoritarian right-wing governments. So,
• 44:42
  Speaker 5: you know, they had a lot to share.
• 44:44
  Speaker 9: Good afternoon, everybody. I'm Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal. I represent the
• 44:48
  Speaker 9: great state of Washington in the United States. I'm the
• 44:51
  Speaker 9: first Indian American woman in the United States Congress. We
• 44:57
  Speaker 9: are here, my esteemed colleague Chewy Garcia and I, because
• 45:01
  Speaker 9: we want to be very clear about two things. Number one,
• 45:04
  Speaker 9: we oppose the Trump administration's Don Roe foreign policy doctrine.
• 45:14
  Speaker 9: We oppose the unilateral executive actions that Donald Trump has
• 45:19
  Speaker 9: been taking without our congressional authority for boat strikes, extrajudicial
• 45:24
  Speaker 9: killings in the Caribbean and the Pacific Ocean. We oppose
• 45:29
  Speaker 9: the use of military might, of economic tariffs to try
• 45:33
  Speaker 9: to bully and coerce nations into actions that do not
• 45:38
  Speaker 9: benefit the people of those sovereign nations. And we oppose
• 45:41
  Speaker 9: the election interference of the United States in other nations' elections.
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: Talk of President Donald Trump's onslaught on the region was
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: front and center, as were discussions about how to push back.
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: Uruguayan Congresswoman Inés Cortés spoke to the press. She said,
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: above all, the issue that cuts across the different workshops
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: and debates is the current situation in which we still
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: have the United States interfering in the local politics of
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: each of our countries more than ever.
• 46:19
  Speaker 10: The United States is a military power.
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: The former Honduran minister of defense and the former presidential
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: candidate for Honduras' leftist Libre Party, Rixi Moncada, said they
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: must stand for national sovereignty and a multipolar world. She
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: said the United States is a military, technological and financial power,
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: but the world is no longer unipolar. China, India, Brazil, Russia,
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: the BRICS, they're all participating in defining the new international order.
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: Multi-polarity is a reality and our stance must not be
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: to trade one form of subordination for another. The Latin
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: American dilemma is not Washington versus Beijing. We want relations
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: with all the nations and peoples of the planet, to
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: engage with everyone, to submit to no one. There were
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: also discussions among progressive leaders from Trump-allied countries where democracy
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: is being rolled back And there's a breakdown of the
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: rule of law and respect for institutions. Alex Main said
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: the meeting went a long way in helping to build
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: solidarity between progressive leaders from across the region and leftist
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: leaders in the United States.
• 47:31
  Speaker 5: For instance, in Ecuador, and we're beginning to see this
• 47:34
  Speaker 5: in Colombia and also in Honduras. Both those countries, of course,
• 47:40
  Speaker 5: are now governed by right-wing governments since quite recently. So.
• 47:46
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I think it was important for the U.S. delegates
• 47:50
  Speaker 5: to be hearing from these other countries in the region.
• 47:53
  Speaker 5: They're all impacted in different ways by the Trump administration's policy,
• 47:57
  Speaker 5: by the so-called Donro doctrine, which is really very heavily interventionist. And,
• 48:06
  Speaker 5: you know, they heard about U.S. electoral interference. They heard
• 48:10
  Speaker 5: about the U.S. support for, you know, the expansion of
• 48:14
  Speaker 5: militarization in the region. And this pretext of a war
• 48:20
  Speaker 5: on so-called narco-terrorism to, in a lot of places, bend
• 48:26
  Speaker 5: the laws or declare states of emergency and deploy the
• 48:34
  Speaker 5: military and engage in egregious violations of human rights. So
• 48:41
  Speaker 5: there was a lot to take away for these U.S. delegates.
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: Alex explained that on top of the Congress people who
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: were in attendance, you had staffers for Senator Bernie Sanders
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: and Chicago Congressman Jonathan Jackson, as well as a number
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: of delegates who won primaries and who will likely be
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: elected to Congress in November.
• 49:00
  Speaker 5: Three of them belonging to the Democratic Socialists of America,
• 49:05
  Speaker 5: the other one supported by the Democratic Socialists of America.
• 49:09
  Speaker 5: You know, I think it was very productive, and I
• 49:11
  Speaker 5: think certainly the U.S. delegates left Montevideo with commitments to
• 49:17
  Speaker 5: themselves to do a lot more on Latin America that is,
• 49:22
  Speaker 5: of course, suffering a new era of extremely aggressive interventionism
• 49:30
  Speaker 5: from the current Trump administration.
• 49:33
  Speaker 11: But it wasn't all about the United States.
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: Alex says there were meetings about the impact of artificial
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: intelligence on these countries, a session about green industrial development, multilateralism,
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: and of course democracy, peace, and security.
• 49:52
  Speaker 5: That is what was kind of important about these sessions,
• 49:55
  Speaker 5: is that there was a lot of information sharing, experience sharing,
• 50:02
  Speaker 5: and people talking about various policy ideas that can be implemented,
• 50:09
  Speaker 5: sometimes at the congressional level, but also, you know, the
• 50:13
  Speaker 5: pendulum is bound to swing back in the other direction
• 50:17
  Speaker 5: in spite of the best efforts of the Trump administration
• 50:20
  Speaker 5: and some of the other more authoritarian governments in the region.
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: Why are we in Uruguay?
• 50:28
  Speaker 5: I absolutely came away with a sense of hope from
• 50:32
  Speaker 5: the conference in Montevideo. Because one, you know, you had
• 50:37
  Speaker 5: a lot of strong leaders from the region that despite
• 50:41
  Speaker 5: the rise of authoritarianism everywhere are not giving up. In fact,
• 50:48
  Speaker 5: they are optimistic about the future and about, you know,
• 50:53
  Speaker 5: returning to power. They know it's in many cases going
• 50:57
  Speaker 5: to be a tough process because in many some instances, democracy,
• 51:04
  Speaker 5: the rule of law and so on have to be reestablished.
• 51:07
  Speaker 5: So it's going to take, you know, very strong people's
• 51:09
  Speaker 5: movements to do that. But they really seem up to
• 51:13
  Speaker 5: the task. And what was also very encouraging was just
• 51:15
  Speaker 5: the amount of young leaders from the region, kind of
• 51:20
  Speaker 5: a new generation of progressive leaders that, you know, have
• 51:27
  Speaker 5: very big plans for their countries and for the for
• 51:31
  Speaker 5: the region and in particular for regional integration between Latin
• 51:35
  Speaker 5: American and Caribbean countries.
• 51:38
  Speaker 3: The final declaration referenced Simón Bolívar' s.
• 51:40
  Speaker 5: Historic Panama Congress, which took place 200 years ago this year.
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: It read, August 23rd, we therefore unite to combat the
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: renewed doctrine of domination in all its forms, defending the
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: rights and freedoms won across centuries of struggle for self-determination,
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: collaborate from our respective legislatures to advance our own vision
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: of hemispheric cooperation based on solidarity between peoples and sovereignty
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: among nations. They plan to meet again in Brazil next year.
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: Hi folks, that is all for this episode of Under
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: the Shadow. I'm now getting back on track and I
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: will be bringing you much more in the coming weeks,
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: both about Trump's shadow looming over the upcoming Brazilian elections
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: and the shocking revelations in the wake of the arrest
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: of Argentine right-wing election fixer Fernando Serimedo. If you can't
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: wait for my reporting on Brazil, I've just released a
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: 10-minute video from Sao Paulo. I'll add a link in
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: the show notes. Also, please check out Belly of the
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: Beast's reportings. They are so, so good at what they do.
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: Many thanks to the team for allowing me to use
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: clips from their footage. I've added links in the show notes.
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: In the meantime, as always, you can find me on Patreon.
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: That's patreon.com forward slash MFOX. There you can also support
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: my work, become a monthly sustainer, or sign up to
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: stay abreast of all the latest on this podcast and
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: my other reporting across Latin America. You can find a
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: ton of content there exclusively for my supporters. As always,
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: if you're looking for more information, news, and reporting on
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: Trump's onslaught, both on communities within the United States and abroad,
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: please check out The Real News and NACLA. Both of
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: them are publishing daily, indispensable reporting. The theme music is
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: by my band, Monte Perdido. You can find us on
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: Spotify or wherever you stream music. This closing music playing
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: right now is off our 2024 album, Ofrenda. I hope
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: you check it out. Under the Shadow is a co-production
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: of The Real News and NACLA. It's produced in partnership
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: with Global Exchange. This episode was written, researched, reported, and
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: produced by me, Michael Fox. The script was edited by
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: Heather Geis. Thanks for listening.
• 54:11
  Speaker 5: See you next time.