Manuel Noriega

when the uh narco trade like really kicked up a notch in the 80s with like escobar and that stuff the dea came into the picture way more than the cia because communism was no longer like the greatest threat to america it was it then became like the narco trade which was like an even bigger threat um and so noriega just became more important and more powerful and the dia dea started collaborating collaborating with him a lot more than the cia did

Even though the CIA were still using him for intelligence when it came to, like, Fidel Castro and basically any socialist or left-leaning leader in Latin America.

They just, like, used Noriega to get that information or to, like, butter them up.

Because intelligence is, like, a business, right?

Like, Noriega goes to Castro and he says, hey, the CIA want to know about this.

Can you give me enough to feed them?

Yeah.

So I can get the check.

Dude, exactly.

Yeah.

Right now I'm working on a story about this guy, Nicky Kelly.

It's an Irish story.

In the late 1970s, him and a group of other guys in the Irish Republican Socialist Party, speak of socialists, were arrested because the Irish state thought that they robbed this train.

And they associated them with the IRA.

And Nicky fled the country.

And while he was gone, the other guys basically got proved innocent that they were not members of the IRA and they did not rob this train.

So Nicky thought it was cool to come back.

He comes back, the Irish state throws him in prison anyway.

There's this thing called the Special Criminal Court in Ireland.

It's like a jury-less court.