Chapter 1: What is the background of Manuel Noriega and his relationship with the CIA?
Manuel Noriega was the dictator of Panama between 1983 and 1989. His right-hand man was Carlos Wick Green. I got a call from Jose Goldner in Panama and said, hey, do you want to come down to Panama to live with Carlos Wick Green and to interview him about his time in the regime with Noriega?
When I came down to Panama, I also uncovered several hundred CIA, DEA, and DOJ documents that back up Carlos' story and tell the true narrative of what really happened with the rise, rule, and fall of Noriega and his relationship with the CIA and the United States.
How exactly does that unfold?
I get a call from my buddy, Jack Moran, who lives down in Panama. His business partner is this guy, Jose Goldner.
Chapter 2: What led to the author's journey to Panama and the significance of Carlos Wick Green?
Jose is in his 50s and he sort of grew up in like a diplomat family. So would you be interested in speaking to Jose about this book sort of surrounding Noriega and Iran-Contra? And I said, Yeah, dude, I was living.
Was there a book that he'd already written or one that he was working on?
He had access to the people that... Okay. So he had access to all of these people that have never spoken before, right? Because people are very tight-lipped. And so I get on the phone with this guy. I'm in the pool house in Los Angeles. This is the story. This is the guy. His name is Carlos Wickery and he was Noriega's right-hand man. Would you be interested in coming down to Panama to meet him?
And then if he likes you to write his book. Mm-hmm. So I said, yeah. And then I got on a plane to Panama like a few days later. Never been before, barely speak Spanish. Show up at Jose's apartment. He basically says, okay, you know, starting tomorrow, we're going to meet Carlos. If he likes you, you'll be here for quite a while writing his book. You cool with that? And I was like, sure, whatever.
I meet Carlos the next day at like an Italian restaurant and him and Jose are speaking in Spanish for like 20 minutes. Carlos is cracking jokes. He sort of breaks into English a little bit. He's like speaking Spanglish. And then Jose says, hey, Carlos, you know, Killian is interested in writing a story. He's a young Irish writer. He's written four books. You know, I think he could do a great job.
So Carlos turns to me. And he sort of like scans me up and down. He, you know, he can switch between being like super friendly and like the nicest guy you'll ever meet to like having these really sharp eyes that really are penetrating you. Like they're assessing every single little part of your body because this guy was a triple spy. Right. He just like he was trained to do this.
So looks me up and down and he's a straight sociopath.
Oh, I guess sociopath behavior. Like I could be the I could be the nicest fucking guy. And then in a second. Whatever you need to be at that moment, right?
Well, you got to be to commit the sort of atrocities that this guy committed on behalf of Noriega.
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Chapter 3: How does the author prepare for interviews with Carlos and others?
They're trying to buy everything up.
Yeah. You don't want China, you know, being buddies with Canada and suddenly there's six bases in Canada and people are like, oh, it's none of your business. The fuck it's not.
Yeah, it's legit. People can say what they want, but it's a legit worry, and the Panama Canal is just so important.
It's the same problem that Russia has with the old Soviet bloc states where it's like, hey, we're going to put American bases or NATO – whatever in here. And of course Russia is like, no. Yeah. So you can kind of understand. It's kind of like you feel like, fuck you. That's none of your business. But when it's us, it's our bit. And now it's important. Yeah. Now it means something.
Totally. And people can say what they want. It sort of falls under this thing, the national security doctrine, which basically just means like the U.S. wants to put national security first. Right. That's what's important. Yeah. I think that's okay for anybody. They all should. Every country should do that, right? Yeah.
And that's part of the reason why sort of like Noriega and Omar Torrijos, like they really gained a lot of steam, right? They got a lot of power. But in 1976, Noriega claims that HW was pro-Panama. Doesn't really make that much sense, right? It's very much a lie, I think.
Oh, okay.
I was going to say, it still doesn't make sense.
He should be, they're both pro-Panama. Why aren't we buddies?
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Chapter 4: What events led to Noriega's rise to power?
Omar Trios was saying no. He was a socialist. He was on the side of the Sandinistas. Mysteriously dies in a plane crash sometime after. It happens. It happens. Yeah, mysteriously. Sometime later, Noriega becomes the dictator in 1983. CIA are asking a lot of favors of him to support their efforts in Nicaragua. Noriega does like weapons trafficking, things like that.
Chapter 5: How did the U.S. government interact with Noriega?
Oliver North and Point Dexter come to him in 1984. They say, thanks for helping us out in Nicaragua with all the weapons and the money and whatever. Now we want you to send Panamanian troops there and really dive into that for us. Noriega says no. As the years progress, he continues to say no to the U.S. government and CIA when they ask him for favors.
He's really focused on curbing the drug trade coming out of Colombia. The documents that I have prove that that he was just like basically stopping like all of that trade. Right. So a lot of those drugs coming out of Colombia could not go to the US.
Chapter 6: What were the consequences of Operation Just Cause?
Obviously, they did filter through, you know, and the CIA and the whole Barry Seale thing. That's how they got them in through the airplanes and through those trade routes. Right. 1986-87 rolls around, Iran-Contra is exposed, Noriega becomes a scapegoat. The media, the narrative, they find a way to shift the blame to Noriega.
The war on drugs starts, Nancy Reagan makes that announcement, and Noriega continues to contest. the US government as the years passed by. Reagan actually did say to Noriega right before HW became president, right at the very end of Reagan's term, second term, he said to Noriega, he's like, dude, you need to leave Panama. You need to stop doing this.
If you want to live, you got to get out of there.
Chapter 7: How did Noriega's story conclude after his capture?
He's like, you got to stop what you're doing and get out of there. And Noriega said, F you. You know what I mean? He said, F you. His ego got so big. HW comes into power in 1988. There's no democracy in Panama. All of the elections are BS. All of Noriega's guys and the dictatorship are running the country. So HW decides to launch Operation Just Cause.
which is the invasion of Panama, happened on December 20th, 1989. The US sent 27,000 troops to Panama with the intention of extracting Manuel Noriega to take him back to the US to stand trial.
Do you understand how insane that is? You have a dispute with the leader of another country. And you send in the military. You're making veiled threats like, oh, we'll come get you. So they indict him on drug trafficking.
Three different charges, racketeering, money laundering, drug trafficking.
Right. So they indict him. And are you saying that he wasn't doing that?
No, I think it's pretty obvious that he was.
Okay.
But they didn't have a lot of proof.
Right. Well, they've got an indictment. So they've indicted him. And you think, okay, so we've indicted Putin, like that Putin's been, you know, like I think the international court, like they're saying we'll arrest you if he ever leaves Russia. Russia and goes to other countries. They're going to arrest him and put him on trial in Belgium or something, wherever the UN is.
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