Ed 0:00

All right, Kara, I got a question for you. Okay. Have you ever been in a situation where something went wrong and to a large degree it was your fault? Have you ever been in a position where you are like had to think about okay, when do I own up to it versus when do I try to cover it up and deal with it later?

Kara 0:22

Thankfully not. Usually just owning up to it will fix it. So that's what I do.

Ed 0:30

But do you ever had a situation where you're like, maybe this will just go away on its own? Or and then like if you speak up too early, could that actually inadvertently get you into more trouble than what it's worth?

Kara 0:44

Uh not necessarily.

Ed 0:47

Okay.

Kara 0:47

I'm also really good at staying out of trouble, maybe because I own up to it immediately.

Ed 0:53

Yeah, I guess this is a question more posed for myself because I get myself into trouble all the time. So yeah, like you've never ever had to like gauge when you had to like fess up to something. You just you just always knew.

Kara 1:06

Not yeah, not really. I mean, probably because I stay out of trouble. Usually it's more like if I need to tell somebody something, I can gauge when to tell them, but it's but it's more like just some information or like maybe some plans that we need to do or whatever, but it's never like something that I've messed up that I can remember.

Ed 1:24

Now, if you were a politician and you had millions of people looking to you and like say something came out that blew the lid off of all sorts of really shady stuff, when as you as the president, when do you address it or when do you kind of hope that it goes away?

Kara 1:42

Depends on what it is. That's a complicated question.

Ed 1:46

It is, yeah.

Kara 1:47

I don't know.

Ed 1:48

Like for like a personality. Well, that's the thing though, like that it it's a tricky thing to answer because like the details, as you're gonna see, will take an entire podcast episode. But it's almost like as a like a a lot of politicians, a lot of people that run for president, right? They get on the campaign trail and they make all these promises, and then when they actually get into office, you see like they it's suddenly trying to complete those promises are a lot harder than they originally thought it was going to be.

SPEAKER_02 2:20

Yeah.

Ed 2:20

And so it's like at what point in time do you be like, Yeah, you know what? On the campaign, I kind of messed up on that one.

Kara 2:26

But it's like you just say, you know what, on the campaign, I kind of messed up on that one.

Ed 2:32

But in today's population, you don't think that could like blow up in your face even more?

Kara 2:36

It might be refreshing.

Ed 2:37

Oh wow, that's a term I haven't heard uh often said in the past 10 years. The term or the word refreshing and politics at the same time.

Kara 2:48

You know, it might be refreshing.

Ed 3:03

Hello, welcome to the days dumpster fire, where we don't celebrate humanities, humanity people's successes, but it's they're hey, look, we we celebrate screw-ups here, okay? There you go. Yeah, yeah. I used to have that thing like completely burned into my brain, and then lately, like I've learned how to talk right.

Kara 3:23

Yeah, I know. I had to have it written down in front of me every single time.

Ed 3:29

Yeah, this is the day sometimes for where we don't celebrate humanity's successes, but its most fantastic failures.

Kara 3:36

There you go.

Ed 3:37

Got it. Been doing this for like what? I I found out that we've been doing this for like four years.

Kara 3:42

I know. It's been a hot minute. We've been at it.

Ed 3:45

Yeah, I was looking up some stats, and like um, and these stats are kind of dumb, but podcasters they always go for it where they look up all these obscure stats about their show, and I guess like 99.9% of podcasts like go out of business within the first year. Uh 90% don't make it past 10 episodes. Uh, our show is in the top like five percentile of podcasts out there. Yeah, because there's millions of them out there that are like dead. Yeah, it's true. So I like I don't know if that's really an accomplishment, but hey, they're numbers, and numbers don't lie, especially when they make you look good.

Kara 4:30

Yeah, yeah.

Ed 4:32

So I am your host, Ed. Uh, as with me always is Kara, the one that never gets in trouble.

Kara 4:40

Try not to. I try to stay out of trouble the best I can.

Ed 4:43

Yeah. Does that seem to work out well for you? Yeah. Yeah. I'm doing okay. Have you noticed that like there's some people that just can't avoid trouble?

Kara 4:51

Yeah, like a magnet.

Ed 4:52

Yeah.

Kara 4:53

Yeah.

Ed 4:54

Let's say they're not even necessarily a bad person, but this trouble just seems to come their way.

Kara 4:59

And it's not even their fault.

Ed 5:01

Yeah, they're like, I I have I literally had no idea what was happening, kind of a thing. And I and I think like if we were to subtract out the human being, if there was a job out there that trouble just gravitates towards, what job do you think that would be?

Kara 5:19

Anything in politics.

Ed 5:22

Yeah. Especially if you're president.

Kara 5:24

Yeah.

Ed 5:25

Like that's one of the things. Like, I I I would often like sit tell myself these little scenarios like, oh man, if I was president, I would do this, or if I was president, I would do that.

Kara 5:35

Um, but then I'd never want to be a president.

Ed 5:38

Yeah, and that's the thing though, it's like you see what they have to go through, like everything is their fault. And then may Lord have mercy on your soul when it is your fault. Yeah. And so, like, if you want to be hated by exactly 50% of the nation, become president.

Kara 5:56

Maybe more, depending on your track record.

Ed 5:59

Uh yeah, yeah. Yeah, at least 50% of the nation become president. So, like, to be a president, you gotta have like a very, very, very tough skin. You have to be a really, really good communicator. And given light of recent events, you you just gotta surround yourself with the right fall guys.

Kara 6:16

Or the right advisors.

Ed 6:18

Well, yes, the right advisors, but sometimes those advisors can go sideways on you.

Kara 6:23

Sometimes, but then sometimes they work really well, like for FDR.

Ed 6:27

Yes. Yep. Except for the one advisor that had something to do with polio. He didn't.

Kara 6:32

That was before he was president, so that is.

Ed 6:33

I know, I know, I know. It's like imagine if he had RFK as an advisor.

Kara 6:42

I don't I don't think that would happen under uh uh yeah, I don't think he would get selected for that.

Ed 6:48

So what we're talking about today, uh and and and this one is a humdinger. This one, I keep saying this every episode I do, I'm like, man, this one's gonna be crazy. This one's gonna be wild. This is it's like whenever I like barbecue something, like, man, these are the best ribs I've made yet. Yes, Ed, because you've made ribs now for like seven years straight, and they always get better and better than the ones before. Uh, following that logic, the first rack of ribs that I made that look more like burn evidence, like they're more carbon than anything. Those were technically the best ribs they've ever made. That's actually true. Yeah.

Kara 7:27

Because you haven't made ribs yet.

Ed 7:29

Yep. So even though they look, yeah, they they look like uh Luke Skywalker's aunt and uncle on Tatooine when they come back and they see like the charred skeletons out there.

Kara 7:40

That's a deep cut.

Ed 7:42

Actually, my favorite part about that whole scene is when Obi-Wan Kenobi says, like, these blaster shots are too precise to be sand people, they have to be from the Empire.

Kara 7:52

Yeah.

Ed 7:52

And then you look at the stormtroopers.

Kara 7:55

They miss everything.

Ed 7:57

Like this is really too precise. Like, okay. I I had no idea that was a thing, but but yeah, uh like again, I I know I'm just gonna stand on my soapbox. I'm just gonna own it. This is gonna be my best episode yet. All right, then what I what I deem best episode is stuff that made me personally see things differently or made me learn something. Okay, so that's how I classify a good episode. If it gets one download, I mean that sucks, but I walked away with something cool, like a piece of knowledge, awesome. Because that means that one person I did listen to it walked away with something cool. So that's why we do it. Yes, yep. Which by the way, I do have an announcement at the end, like an actual progress report. So don't let me forget the progress report. Um, okay. So, yes, we are talking about the Iran Contra scandal, and uh this is probably one of the more recent episodes that I've ever done. But you know what? It's far enough in the past where we could talk about it and not get too politically divided given the climate today. Uh, probably because a lot of the people that were involved in this have just recently died. So take it as you wish. But the iron contra scandal is something that took place, uh, really it lasted for a long time. It lasted for like seven, eight years, but the whole event really kind of culminated in in 85 and 86. And this was like one of the first things I remember as a human being. Uh, Ronald Reagan was the first president I remember.

Kara 9:27

Okay.

Ed 9:28

As I was alive, because I was born in '82. Makes sense. And then I remember like having these flashes of images of like Reagan talking, because he has that very, very distinct voice. Like you can you can you can hear Reagan and be like, yep, that, that, that, that's Reagan versus like FDR or or whatever.

Kara 9:47

Uh I can pick out FDR.

Ed 9:49

Uh yeah. He's got that Atlantic accent.

Kara 9:53

Like maybe that's what it is. You can pick out JFK. That's pretty easy.

Ed 9:58

Actually, now that I think about it, like a lot of presidents have a very distinct voice. I wonder if that's almost like a characteristic of like uh like uh Teddy Roosevelt.

Kara 10:06

He was also the first president to record something, Teddy Roosevelt. Like audience.

Ed 10:12

But he was also like he also couldn't talk without his eyes being open either. He had to like close his eyes and yell into the mic.

Kara 10:19

That's because of the technology that was being on the mic.

Ed 10:25

Teddy is uh he's an interesting character.

Kara 10:27

He sure is.

Ed 10:27

But uh yeah, so we're gonna talk about Iran Contra or other names for it is the Iran Contra affair, or my personal favorite is Contra Gate. Nice. Uh, we have the Iran Initiative. That one came out of the administration because hey, let's let's leave the Contras out of this. Like that's like 50% of the dumpster fire here. So the the administration at the time they had the Iran Initiative, and then what most people call it is this the Iran Contra. Um depending on uh I actually no, it doesn't matter where you stand on it. This was a hot, hot mess of sure was of an ordeal. And uh it's kind of complicated, it goes all the way back to like World War II and all that stuff, but quick and short, I'm gonna fly through this because I got like 15 pages of notes, and I don't want to make this into like an eight-parter if I can avoid it.

Kara 11:20

Um, that's my job.

Ed 11:22

Yeah, yeah, and yours are like 60 pages.

Kara 11:26

Uh no, mine are huge.

Ed 11:28

So between 1981 and 1986, the Reagan administration, along with some top advisors inside the administration, tried to broker an arms deal with Iran, who was generally considered uh as an enemy of the United States for a multitude of reasons. We'll kind of dive into a little more here in a little bit. But the idea was that okay, America is going to sell weapons to Iran, and in return, the Iranian government was going to reach out to Hezbollah, which we a lot of you probably have heard recently, is still very much a thing going on. But the Iranian government was going to reach out to Hezbollah to release some American hostages that had been held for quite some time, and they were going to buy weapons from America to fight off the Iraqis, who was in the process of invading them. So it's a really kind of complicated uh Middle Eastern mess. And this has been going on the the Middle East ha I would say the Middle East has been a very, very complicated ordeal all the way back to like the end of the golden age of Islam.

Kara 12:36

Yeah. It depends on how far you want to go back to it. I would put it at like oh, I don't remember the year exactly, but somewhere around year one. AC. Okay.

Ed 12:47

Maybe I just well, year one that that was still like the Roman Empire.

Kara 12:51

I know.

Ed 12:51

There Islam wasn't even a thing.

Kara 12:54

I'm kidding.

Ed 12:55

Oh, oh. No, you're you're supposed to go, Carrie, you're supposed to go all the way back to the Big Bang.

Kara 12:59

Right. See, exactly.

Ed 13:01

13.4 billion years ago.

Kara 13:04

I I actually don't have a number in mind. I have a concept in mind, but there I don't have enough to support that concept in front of me right now.

Ed 13:13

So but I mean, if from my cursory understanding, like Roman Empire fell, and then you had the golden age of Islam, which they were really, really cool about like bringing in the Jews, bringing in the Christians, bringing in the Muslims, and and a lot of what they did was convert a lot of the texts over and they archived a lot of stuff. Like they preserved a lot of science and philosophy and religion and all that kind of stuff. And then towards the end, everything became really, really hardcore conservative. Everything the whole region became very isolated, and then you started throwing in like crusades and and all that, and it just went downhill. And this and the Middle East has been a very complicated thing ever since. But I would go back, yeah, I would say that it really became an issue right after World War II. And that that's a lot of the problems that we're seeing today in the Middle East stems from that, and uh and even more problems today, like as of like today, today, a lot of this kind of stems back from the Iran-Contra ordeal from the 80s. So getting back on track here, uh, the idea was that America was gonna sell weapons to Iran and Iran was going to uh like buy weapons from the Americans and then free hostages. And really, it it kind of started off as like, hey, let's try to market this as a peace deal. Like, hey, let's try to get on Iran's good side. Um, because after 1979, it really wasn't uh a very nice situation. But then America was going to use the money that they got from the Iranians to give to some counter-revolutionary group in Nicaragua that was trying to fight off like a communist regime.

Kara 14:58

Right.

Ed 14:58

So that's like the that's like the basic idea of the contra thing. So I guess we could just roll the credits and and call it a day.

Kara 15:06

Uh in and out show, that's it.

Ed 15:09

So yeah, basically, um, yeah, the issue was that the the scandal highlighted presidential powers, uh, what degree does it have to answer to an oversight committee? It also showed how much influence the news media had at the time. Uh, because like this is now a time period where everybody had TBs and even multiple TVs in their house. It shed light on to what extent the president needs to take responsibility for the actions of his like administrators and the people that work for him. So this isn't even calling into the question if the articles of impeachment can be written on such a situation. Like, we are I I think one of the reasons why this is such a mess is because there's not a lot of case law in American history that lawyers and judges can look at to be like, okay, this is how we need to proceed. So let's take a look at the setting here. So 1947, going up to 1991, the fall from World War II resulted in torn governments and one country pointing figures at the other country for one reason or another. All those agreements that we had during World War II really kind of fell apart, especially between America and the Soviet Union. Uh, even during the final months of World War II, the world superpowers couldn't help but accuse everyone uh that the other country was working towards world domination with their model of government as the selling force. By 1947, most of the allies had banded together to fight what would become known as the communist scare or the red scare. Uh, I think Winston Churchill called it the Iron Curtain, all sorts of names for it. And I think Winston Churchill was the guy that really got the whole Cold War going. He gave that speech in America where he said that the iron curtain of communism has fallen on the world and it's up to the free nations, i.e. America, to stop it. And like, who's gonna argue with Winston Churchill?

Kara 17:01

Like, okay, right after World War II.

Ed 17:05

Yeah, yeah. He's like a legend already at that point. So, um, so long story short, America along with Britain and France agreed that the Soviet Union was on a mission to spread its communist ideals to the rest of the world and democracy be damned. Uh, the Soviet Union had already imprinted itself on Eastern Europe shortly after World War II, hence the Berlin Wall and all that kind of stuff. And the in the 50s and 60s, the quote unquote red menace, that that's what like McCarthyism and stuff like that really worded it. That red menace or communism was moving into Southeast Asia, such as Korea and Vietnam and China. Uh we're hopefully anybody who's listening to this podcast is familiar that Korea and Vietnam were oh boy. Yeah, those those were hot messes in American in American history.

Kara 17:57

If you don't, we do have an episode on Vietnam. Go check it out.

Ed 18:00

Yeah.

Kara 18:00

I think it's two. Yeah, I think it's two-parter.

Ed 18:02

And I may and I may do an episode on Korea. Cool. I I grew up watching MASH, which is all about the Korean War. It was really intended to protest the Vietnam War, but that was still too fresh on people's minds. So they just defaulted to the Korean War. And um, you know, hey, let's make fun of the Korean War in return. People can understand why the Vietnam War was such a mess. So leaders like Winston Churchill and uh a long series of presidents like Truman and Eisenhower, JFK, so on and so on, like it didn't matter if they were Democrat or Republican, these presidents all had to run on the premise that the Cold War was a thing, that the commies were everywhere, and every single president basically following Truman all the way up until Ronald Reagan had to at some degree deal with the whole communism thing.

Kara 18:57

Yeah, and you do get um a pretty good gist of it in that Vietnam episode, particularly in the beginning, up to Johnson.

Ed 19:05

Yeah.

Kara 19:05

So if you are curious and you want more information on that, you can kind of I tried to lay that out loud so you can kind of see the steps.

Ed 19:13

Yeah, because it was like it was almost viewed as a disease.

Kara 19:16

Yeah.

Ed 19:17

Like that's how that's how the American politicians really portrayed it. It was uh you know, like you would get blacklisted because you had like the communist disease. It was it was like like McCarthy always walked around thinking that you could catch communism.

Kara 19:36

Yeah, I want to do an episode on McCarthy.

Ed 19:38

Yeah, yeah, he would be he would be an interesting one, and like how there's a lot of celebrities like Lucille Ball, uh, because she got blacklisted for being a communist, and McCarthy was trying to ruin her career, and that didn't work. Like, so much of what McCarthy tried to do to ruin these people just backfired on him. Yep. So yeah, McCarthy, that guy was special, he sure was. He reminds me of the uh uh of like my mom who would come out and say, like, yeah, I don't hang around gay people, you could catch gay. No, no, that's not how that's not how that works.

Kara 20:15

That's not that's not it.

unknown 20:17

No.

Ed 20:19

So by the time the 70s and 80s came around, the concept of a cold war was so heavily ingrained in in people's minds. It was in the American Zeitgeist, it was in Saturday Night Live, it was in the news. Like people like in the 50s and the 60s, people were terrified of a potential nuclear war, but by the 70s and 80s rolled around, it had been beaten into everybody's heads so much that they were just like, all right, cool. Yay, communism, yay, democracy. Yeah, I think by the time the 80s rolled around, people were getting pretty fed up with the whole thing and they were ready for it to be over with. Today's story doesn't have to do with like the Cold War in terms of like, you know, America and Russia wanting to blow each other up with nuclear warheads, but instead, it kind of revolves around the spread of communism in Central America, which was really, really, really close to home for any president in office, regardless of political party. So, like, even Carter, who preceded uh Reagan, had to be like, oh boy, like we we need to keep an eye on this. Kennedy with the Cuban Missile Crisis, um and the biggest. You know, just like yeah, like every president once once communism switched hemispheres and it came towards America, a lot of presidents had to show some concern over it because yeah, they may not get elected as a result. In 1981, a newly elected uh Ronald Reagan saw democracy get booted out. So he saw that communism was now being The reigning force of control in Nicaragua. And it didn't take long for the Reagan administration to conclude that if something didn't happen soon, then Reagan would have his own Cuban Missile Crisis to contend with. So yeah, the Sandinistas were the group that basically did away with the original Nicaraguan government. The Sandinistas took over and they were very, very socialist. They were very, I won't not socialist, but they were very communist. And um it it was the concern that oh man, that's gonna make it super easy for the Soviet Union to get nuclear warheads over to America.

Kara 22:40

So like it's very reminiscent of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Ed 22:45

Exactly. Yeah, and a lot of the politicians that were in office were around then. There's also a lot of politicians that were also around during Vietnam, and so they had their own legitimate concerns. This is where the dumpster fire is gonna emanate from what do we do but the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, and then how do we overthrow it? Well, we overthrow with the help of counter-revolutionaries called the Contras. The Contras were the ones that were very they well, they said they were democratic, uh, but they were like anti-communist more than they were democratic, uh, anti-communist, and they were going to chase out the Sandinistas and bring democracy to Central America, blah blah blah blah blah.

Kara 23:32

If you want um a comparison, it would be like the Sandinistas were the Empire and the Contras were the rebels in Star Wars.

Ed 23:42

Yeah.

Kara 23:42

Very basically minus all of the intricacies.

Ed 23:48

Yeah, it and really it turns out that the Sandinistas and the Contras were they're pretty much two sides of the same coin. Yeah, it's very simple.

Kara 23:58

The atrocities that both sides were committing and the anti-humanitarian acts they were doing and and all that, like it's not far off to what was happening in Vietnam in the 50s, where they had um a government that claimed it was democratic, but it was actually a dictatorship.

Ed 24:16

Yeah, and and like literally the French and then eventually the Americans were getting involved with what really could be argued is the wrong side. It and yeah, it's it's a a crazy, crazy mess. So, part one Nicaragua Who by 1980, the idea of a Cold War between America and the Soviet Union was getting so drawn out that nearly 40 years of proxy wars, political assassination, spy versus spy, and a space went uh space race went by yeah, went by the Americans, and I suspect the Russians were starting to think the same way. We're actively looking for anyone who could get us out of perpetual conflict. So I think the 80s was coming to a head with terms like people were getting tired of this, and on both sides. The Cold War was not like World War II. There were really no major battles uh to justify sending troops all over the world. The Red Scare, which wasn't honestly really wasn't that much of a threat. Uh, being a communist wasn't a mental illness or a contractable disease. Like we look at it now with 2020 hindsight vision. We're like, yeah, it really wasn't. Was communism really that bad? Like, was it really gonna bring down America? No, no, it no, it really wasn't going to do that. And and people were kind of coming to terms with like, oh, wait, it's not really a disease, it's not a mental illness, it's we're it's fine, guys. Many people didn't feel the same way about the Korean Vietnam conflicts as the previous generations thought of World War II. There was no Hitler or Third Reich or an evil Japanese Japanese Empire to rally against, right? A lot of people were looking at Korea and night from the 1950, 1952, and then what was Vietnam? That was like what 1963 to like 72?

Kara 26:06

78, I think. No, not that late. It went into the city. But yeah, anyway, it went it went up into 73.

Ed 26:31

Okay, so a long time. So the Cold War was nothing more than a bunch of vague threats, retaliation if one side imposed a political theory on another country that was for the most part indifferent to the pros and cons of democracy and communism. So this was kind of the big issue was that uh communism had to spread and it would focus on very, very small countries uh that were already kind of like split up, broken, poor, downtrodden. And they would the Soviet Union would really hit them up and be like, Hey, have you found communism today? Like sending out like missionaries and stuff like that. And basically these little countries would be like, I don't know, I don't think communism has anything that we could use. But then the Soviets would be like, Hey, we'll give you tons of money and weaponry to become communists. Oh, okay, oh put it that way, fine. Not really a most sustainable model, but but yeah, it and and America would do the same exact thing. You know, whatever small country was really poor, then Americans and and the Soviets would come in and try to sell their form of government as like the solution to their problems. And a lot of times, if the communist government that came in sucked, they would get chased out, and then democracy would take over. And then a lot of times, if democracy sucked, then communism would take over.

Kara 27:49

The opposite actually happened a lot too, where the poor country is because they were war-torn by what kind of government they wanted to have. So whatever government took over, then they would seek out the Soviet Union, or they would seek out China for support, or they would seek out the US for support, or Britain, or whatever.

Ed 28:06

Oh, yeah, yeah. So yeah, so it wasn't just solely the Soviets and the Americans selling democracy, is a lot of times these countries were going to America or the Soviet Union and be like, hey, yeah, yeah, so so yeah, I mean, yeah, I can definitely see that. Like Tibet really, really reached out to America.

Kara 28:26

Vietnam tried to do that too. I think Korea tried to do that. Uh I think China tried to do that before they were on their feet, they got Soviet support.

Ed 28:35

So I think by the time the 1980s rolled around, poor countries did one of two things. If they're if things are hard and your government is a corrupt democracy, then you would overthrow it, install communism. If things were hard and your government was communist and corrupt, then you would overthrow it and instill democracy in its place. Or you would reach out to, you know, a respective democracy or a communist government for help. Really, if your government sucks, you're gonna try something else.

Kara 29:04

That that's yep, that's generally the consensus.

Ed 29:07

Right? If you go into a doctor and he gives you a medication and it doesn't work for whatever reason, you want to try something else. Literally the human nature of it all. If you look at who America supported in the Cold War so that they could attack the Soviets in any way possible, you'd notice that a lot of those folks who gladly took American weaponry and money later became enemies of America. So, like when we look at um Osama bin Laden's and uh we we look at Saddam Hussein, we look at a lot of the people that America fighted in the 90s and 2000s, it was because they were actually allied with America at one point in time, and they were armed with American money and and weaponry. Perfect case in point we have like Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, Cuba, Syria, all of them received aid from America and then later on turning out to be hostile towards America. Anyways, I digress. That's like a whole nother episode. In 1978, Nicaragua was controlled by President Anastasio Somoza, who ran the country with an iron grip and uh committed all sorts of human rights violations, you know, uh bogus court cases, executions, galore, torturing, you know, all the all the third-world despot things you do. You had President Anastasio Somoza, he was actually democratic, but committed all sorts of war crimes. The Sandinistas chased him out because they were communists, but then it turned out that they were no different than the Somozas. And so then once the Sandinistas kind of got super criticized, then the Contras came in. And the Contras were like, no, no, no, we're democratic, we're democratic, and then they started their movement to push out the Sandinistas. The Carter administration had to active uh had to actively despise the Sandinistas because, in order for them to take over in Nicaragua, uh they needed help from the Soviet Union and Cuba, which made them hardcore communists in the eyes of American politics. So now Carter's it's like, uh, why do we care? Like, why should America get involved with this? I love how most of these countries, like Korea, Vietnam, and all like a lot of these lands that these Soviet versus American conflicts took place on, nobody in America knew where they were at. Like you actually they actively had to go to a map. Even people that were in Korea, the you know, they were listening to the radio in 1951 and hearing about the French involvement in Vietnam, and a lot of Americans in Korea are like, where the heck is Vietnam? What's a Vietnam? Not realizing that it's like right next door, it's just across the bay. Like it's it's not that they were all kind of in the same area. So I I just find that kind of funny how Americans were like, okay, I guess we're gonna get involved in another war. Uh, who cares? Because I don't even know where they're at, right? It's like at least with Japan and and Germany, people knew where those countries were at. That's probably because of World War II. Yeah, the the size of it and all that stuff. And World War II is way more personal of a fight for America versus Korea and Vietnam, where it was just like, if the communists win, how does that affect us? Yeah. Whereas, like, if Japan won or Germany won, that would have far larger ramifications for America.

Kara 32:45

Yeah, there's there's a lot of um like relationships that are involved in that in terms of after World War II and the the allies that we had at the period, and then on top of that, it has a lot to do with um the decolonization after World War II that was happening. So a lot of these communistic um tendencies had to do with the fact that a lot of these countries were once colonies of some various European power, and they didn't want to be a democratic society because they were under a democratic empire and they didn't want that.

SPEAKER_02 33:22

That's a good point.

Kara 33:23

So you also have that happening, and that explains why the US probably was not as familiar because those were European colonies, not American colonies.

Ed 33:33

Yeah, that that that's that's a really good point because you look at Vietnam, the Viet Cong originally started to fight the French to get them out of their country because Vietnam was like a French colony, they were fighting for their own freedom and they needed help. So, well, Russia's to the north of us.

Kara 33:53

Well, well, they went to the Americans first, and then they said, No, we're not gonna help you. So then they went to China, that's right, and then yeah, and then China was like, Yeah, we will help you.

Ed 34:04

So yeah, same thing, yeah, and that was the same thing with uh Korea.

Kara 34:07

Yep.

Ed 34:08

In fact, the Chinese were way more involved with Korea. That was yeah. I I knew a guy that was uh in my apartment complex as a kid growing up, he was on the Pousan perimeter when the Chinese finally got involved. Probably one of the most horrific ordeals in modern world history. But hey, another episode for another day. So by 1981, Ronald Reagan was sworn into office and he inherited Jimmy Carter's communist kerfuffle in Central America. And I don't think there was any president that would be like, yay, cool. Yeah, like man, I can't wait to deal with this. It's just yeah, it's just uh and another thing, especially like in the 80s, America was kind of going through a recession, and I think Reagan was more focused on on that. He was the he was like the your American uh he was like a he was a like the typical American Republican who was just like, why do we have to be involved in everybody's affairs? Why can't we just focus on America? Like kind of well, that's how the repo that's what the Republicans ran on for a lot of the 50s. Now, today it's obviously in the past couple decades, it's gotten a lot more complicated. But yeah, Reagan was like, yay, another international problem. Um, Nicaragua was the new battle front. Yeah, Star Wars. Man, there's gonna be a Star Wars soon episode. Um, it was the new battlefront on the war against communism that American population had seen time and time again over the decades, and it was starting to get a little old. Regardless of political parties, Reagan had to keep up the tradition of fighting the war against communism no matter where in the world uh the fight would go. So Reagan vowed to support the Contras in bringing down the Sandinistas and sticking it to the Soviets yet again. Uh, Reagan was very, very much uh anti-communist, right? He was a part of that generation that won World War II, and he did believe that communism was a stain on earth and it was the new threat and all that stuff. So, as much as he really didn't want to have to deal with Nicaragua, he was more than happy to go up against the the Soviet Union. That's just how he was. Um, much like a lot of the other uh conflicts America got involved with in the past, people had to look at a map of Central America to figure out where Nicaragua was. The American people and their subsequent politicians wanted to make sure that this newest conflict to end communism didn't turn into another Korean or Vietnam War.

Kara 36:48

It's a fair argument.

Ed 36:50

Yeah, like and this was a bipartisan. This was both Democrats and Republicans are like, guys, the 60s and 70s sucked. Like, let's not do that again. For two years, the Reagan administration vowed to support the Contras and their noble fight until word got out that the CIA had been laying underwater mines and the harpers around Nicaragua. Thank you, CIA, for overstepping your bounds. That's uh that's wonderful. And we're gonna see that a lot. We're gonna see departments and administrators really step outside of their scope. Like the problem, the reason why this turned into such a dumpster fire is that you had people that weren't supposed to be acting like this, acting like this. So, word got out the CAA was placing underwater bombs around Nicaraguan ports. I'm not sure why CAA was doing this. I didn't really dive into too much about it because it was just gonna open up another can of worms, another rabbit hole, and then this would turn into like a 12-parter. But my guess is that the CAA was doing it to dissuade Soviets from sending missiles into Nicaragua. Kind of like uh like with Cuba, where the Soviets were sending missiles to Cuba. I think they say it was like, hang on here, if we get ahead of this now, we can deter the Soviets from wanting to send missiles in there and blow themselves up. So I think it was like a barbed wire defensive mechanism. But Congress had enough of this American involvement uh with what was clear in Nicaragua's own fight to deal with and no one else's for that matter. Okay. All it would take is a Soviet commercial vessel to accidentally get blown up, or some other communist-leading country's watercraft to strike a mine, and suddenly America is now embroiled in what could easily balloon into World War III. Like that that's literally how sensitive it could have gotten. And and you know, that's exactly how the Soviets would word it too. Like they would send a military vessel out with nuclear warheads on it, it would hit a mine, blow up, sink in the bottom of the ocean, and then the Soviets would be like, oh my god, we had women and children on there. It was full of orphans, and then the imperialistic Americans attacked it, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then, oh Lord, here we are. And and and it went both ways, guys. It it it really did. Like when the Lusitania sank, oh my god. The the propaganda that came out of that. Granted, there weren't women and children on there, but it was also packing a lot of armament and weaponry that was being sent to Europe by the Americans who said that they weren't gonna get involved. So, but yeah, America, it's like America, the government left that part out, left out the munitions that they had on there, but boy, those women and children that died. That's a tragedy. And I'm sounding really insensitive right now, but no, it's true. It's uh it's kind of the sad reality of it. So, on top of the prospect of accidentally causing an international holy hubbub with the use of underwater mines sinking ships, word got out that the Contras were also committing atrocities, just like the Sandinistas. That's the problem when you try to help out these countries that are like run by despots. It's like it's like uh like in Africa, right? You have those small little countries where it's like every week it's a new warlord that takes over. We're like, well, which one do you side with? Because you get rid of the old warlord and you put a new one in, and they're committing the same exact atrocities that the old one did to send a different group of people, and then you kick that warlord out and you put another one in there, and then they start committing a whole different set of atrocities. It's just like I'm beginning to think the world really doesn't care about American democracy and McDonald's and Walmart. And if they're not asking for it, don't make them have it. Yeah, that's kind of how I'm getting. Yes, I I don't want to see starvation, I really don't want to see countries get ripped to pieces, I don't want to see innocent people getting killed and all that kind of stuff. But man, there's a point where we just gotta draw a line in the sand, be like, no degree of aid that we give the situation is gonna fix it.

Kara 40:47

Well, there's also different kinds of aid. There's humanitarian aid where you're just giving like food and water to people who need it, and then there's military aid.

Ed 40:55

Yes.

Kara 40:56

Those are two very different types of aid.

Ed 40:59

One is neutral, right? When you're giving food and water medicine to a group of people, you don't care who's the enemy and who's not. Right. You're just trying to help sick and injured people, right? But as soon as you provide one bullet or one missile, or one rocket, or one grenade, now you're taking sides. Yeah. It's a it's it's a great time to be alive. And and and guys, we're still dealing with it to this day. It is such an ongoing thing. This was such a polarizing discovery because Reagan was quoted saying that the contras were akin to the American version of the founding fathers. In other words, the whole fiasco in Central America was only getting worse and worse, and there was no clear winner there. Which ultra-corrupt war crime committing atrocity inducing military hordes should be in charge of Nicaragua? That is the question to answer. I don't know. I don't know what the answer is to that. Uh, more importantly, who cares about Nicaragua? Honestly, the Americans at that time who are struggling to like pay bills and whatnot, like, why? What are we doing? And it's sad because, like, hey, America does have the wealth and the resources to help, but why? Because, you know, 50s and 60s of it all.

Kara 42:10

Pretty sure America depends on the aid too. So, like, if you were you have to keep that in mind, there's this one thing to to help, and then there's one thing to send in guns.

Ed 42:20

Well, and and it also just occurred to me, too, like the whole Somalia thing in the 90s. America was giving food and medicine and stuff like that, but what was happening? The warlords were taking it, selling all that stuff to buy guns and bullets to support their cause. So it's like even by helping them, it was helping the most recent warlord. So, like it was dumb. It was it's it's a really, really nasty situation. The whole international help thing is beyond crazy. Um, so in 1983, Congress passed the Boland Amendment. I think it was the name after Senator Boland who proposed it. Uh, this isn't like an amendment in the Constitution, this is more like an amendment on how policy can be handled. This is a beautiful example of checks and balances. This is where Congress is going to the Reggie administration, and this amendment basically stated, okay, Mr. President, in your administration, we the members of Congress are putting our foot down. You cannot be providing support for the Contras inside Nicaragua. You can't be sending them guns, you can't be sending, you can't put be putting boots on the ground like Mr. President, we're just telling you stay out of this. And this is being spoken by 300 or 435 representatives and 100 senators. So 535 people representing the American population have spoken and said, Mr. President, don't get involved. And Reagan, uh, he actually signed it. Uh so this was very bipartisan. This was the Boland Amendment was was. Pretty cool because it was one of the last few pieces of legislation that was very, very bipartisan, and it was signed by the congressional and the executive branch by the different parties. Yeah, it this this is in case somebody was wondering what checks and balances look like between Congress and the executive branch, this is it. This is exactly it. Like Congress has the ability. Yes, the president is the commander-in-chief, he can use American military forces for realistically whatever he wants, but Congress has the power to defund it. Congress can be like, sorry, Mr. President, you're done with this interaction overseas, whatever. We're defunding you from using that. And suddenly soldiers aren't going to be so willing, and generals and whatever aren't going to be so willing to fight a uh a war when they're not getting paid. Yep. So, checks and balances. Uh, I think, in my opinion, that was the most beautiful thing that came out of the development of the constitution in the late 1780s. And and and and and folks, the constitution did not exist in 1776. No, it didn't even exist after America ended the Revolutionary War.

Kara 45:19

I have a whole soapbox about this.

Ed 45:21

Uh yeah, yeah. It's it's called the Articles of Confederation. That was the original government.

Kara 45:27

Correct. And then that wasn't really working, so they had to refine it.

Ed 45:32

Yeah. Yeah, that they basically they concluded that the federal government wasn't powerful enough to do its job. So they scrapped it and then they came up with the constitution, which gave the federal branch way, way more powers, but there was also checks and balances put in place.

Kara 45:48

Correct. Um, and I can I might I might do a little soapbox for myself in terms of 1776 versus 1783 and why we celebrate July 4th, and it's a whole thing, and I might write it up and put it on the website for you guys.

Ed 46:03

Yeah. Well, because everybody's like, oh 1776 is when America became a country.

Kara 46:09

No, well, symbolically.

Ed 46:11

Uh yeah, I mean you've had to pick a date. Yeah, yeah. If you had to pick a date, cool. But you still had to like America still had to defeat the British.

Kara 46:21

Yeah, like I said, I have a soapbox. I'll type it out. I'll put it on the website in Kira's Corner.

Ed 46:26

Soapboxes, yeah. We do have that on our website, the daysimstifier.com, where we have our uh our little speaking platforms where we can kind of share our own ideas on there. Um, so yeah, and we've also done some really, really wild updates on the website, but we'll talk about that towards the end. It's Kara and I have been going gangbusters on the website, and she did some really, really, really cool updates yesterday that I want to talk about. But okay. So the Boland Amendment basically hamstrung Reagan and his administration from getting involved and overthrowing the Nicaraguan's government, regardless of whatever despot was in charge of it. Part two. Meanwhile, in the Middle East. So we have the whole Contra thing going on. Now we've got the Middle East. And I want to have like that Batman thing that transitioned from the 1960s show that yeah, like because we kind of bounced back and forth, like time zones and dates and people and all that stuff. So, but keep Contra the Boland Amendment and all that stuff, keep all that in the back of your mind because Reagan also adopted this mess. So if the mess in Central America wasn't enough to keep the administration busy full time, the Middle East made it so that everyone had to work overtime to figure things out. If you think the situation in the Middle East is complicated, well, back in 1979, it was just as complicated, if not more, than it is today. Uh, America had always had a strained relationship with Iran, and uh and this Iran-Contra scandal did nothing to ease those tensions. Uh, the strained relationship dates back to the end of World War II, but for the purposes of this episode, we're gonna pick up after an event that took place in 1979 in Iran. And oh, by the way, 1979 was also when the whole Sandinista thing took place, and then Iran um an event took place there in 1979. So 1979 was a kind of a big year for a lot of countries. Also, on a side note, and I'm not saying this actually happened, like these events, but 1979 is the year reportedly the most amount of paranormal activities took place. Like, I don't know if they happened or not, but people were reporting in seeing weird things in the skies and weird apparitions, and like 1979 saw like the largest uh reporting of like weird cryptids and and stuff like that, as well as all these government revolutions, and it was a it was a weird year.

Kara 49:08

That's another soapbox I could go off on, but I'll save it. That's another soapbox I could go off on, but I'll save it.

Ed 49:15

Oh, the old like what happened in 1979?

Kara 49:18

No, just paranormal activity.

Ed 49:20

Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I I I don't know. I I find the topic fun. I don't think any of it's real, but it's for their fun stories.

Kara 49:28

That's why like like I said, I have a soapbox. I'll I'll save it.

Ed 49:32

Yay! I can't wait to read your soapbox.

Kara 49:35

Yeah.

Ed 49:36

That sounds weird. Now that I think that I'm gonna read Kara's box. Let's go.

Kara 49:42

I don't like that. Anyway.

Ed 49:47

Anyway, so long story short, 1979 uh was governed by a Iran was governed by a monarchy due to the Cold War. The Iranian monarchy found itself accepting weaponry and other forms of aid from the United States uh to hold off an ever-growing threat from the Soviet Union. There's that Cold War thing. Like Cold War is like under all of this because the Soviet Union was like, oh man, we want a peace of the Middle East too. So like all the 1979, America was supporting Iran in terms of fighting the Red Scare, but that all changed in 1979 when a revolution took place that ousted the Iranian monarchy and essentially instated a government we all know today as the Islamic Republic. The Republic thought that the monarchy was corrupt and was taking money and resources from America to further monetary endeavors, etc. They were kind of right. The monarchy was taking money and support from America for their own monetary endeavors. Again, soapbox. Uh the Islamic Republic wanted a more pure relationship between the people, Islam, and the government. Basically, they wanted a theocracy, and that's that's what they got. If you look at how Iran's run today, yeah, it's uh it's a theocracy. Apparently, in March of 1979, the referendum was conducted, which showed that 98.2% of Iranians preferred the new government, and by December of 1979, a constitution was written establishing a theocratic democracy where Islam and the government would share the same set of laws. So basically, somehow, 98% of the population was on board with this. I love voting outside of America, especially when it comes to like Russia and China and a lot of these other countries, where what was it uh last election Putin got 99.998% of the vote for Russia.

Kara 51:48

Well, I remember too, again, the Vietnam episode, the same thing happened in Vietnam.

unknown 51:52

Yeah.

Kara 51:53

Uh dictator who said that he was democratic, but he wasn't. Same thing. Yep. It happens. Yeah.

Ed 51:58

I mean, like North Korea, same thing. Uh they call it the Democratic Republic of it. It's not democratic. It's front. Or like China. China, uh, Xi Jinping, they get um, he gets elected uh with like almost a hundred percent of the vote. Meanwhile, in America, it's like it is so split, it's almost like we gotta count these hanging chads in Florida to figure out who's gonna be the president. That may have been a little before your time. That was I know what you're talking about. Yeah, the El Gore um Bush incident. So, yeah, apparently 98% of the people wanted this new theocracy. Now, here's the thing: this is an idea that sits well with Western cultures, separation of church and state goes all the way back to like the 17 and 1800s when a supreme leader of Iran by the name of the I uh by the name of Ayatollah Ru Ruholla uh Kameani. Sure. Don't quote, don't quote me on that, but close enough. Um, announced that Islam and Iran and Iranian government were going to be the same thing. Western countries paused for a moment and reconsider the relationship with Iran, uh, especially like England and America and France. And France is very atheistic, they really separate church and state. Iran did the same thing when they when they established a theocracy. They're like, do we really want all this Western involvement? Like they just want to really kind of keep to themselves to an extreme. One of the first agreements to be reconsidered on both sides was the cessation of supplying in arms and supplies to Iran for the purposes of holding back the Soviets. I'm not sure who initiated the decision because the Kart administration wasn't too fond of the ultra-conservative Islamic uh republic, and the Islamic Republic really didn't want the West meddling with their country. So it's one of those things, let's all agree to disagree. And if they just left it at that, great. To put things in perspective a bit, the Iranian Republic had the policy of liking neither America nor the Soviet Union. Uh, they viewed the Americans as the great Satan, and the Soviets were the lesser Satan.

Kara 54:11

Cool.

Ed 54:11

So it's safe to say that Iran, they kind of hated the whole democracy versus communism thing more than anything else. So I kind of see where they're coming from. I can't I can only imagine the rhetoric that was getting blasted at them this during this time. The one country that did capitalize on the whole, Iran, and America no longer working together thing, uh, was Iraq. So Iraq really comes to play in the 1990s with Saddam Hussein, Desert Storm, and all that stuff. But in the 80s, Iraq looked at this agreement that America was no longer going to be sending arms to Iran. Iraq was like, hold my beer, here we go. And this is exactly what happened on September 22nd, 1980, and what turned out to be like a nine-year-long war. I'm not too sure why the countries hated each other so much, but this has just been going on forever. Um, Iraq invaded the uh what was it, the southeastern um attacking the western regions. I'm sorry, yeah, they attacked the western regions of Iran in September 22nd. So this this whole new war was breaking up between Iran and Iraq, and it all started because America was no longer supporting Iran on anything. So now Iran's kind of like uh crap. We didn't think this one through. By the mid-1980s, so this is when the whole Iran contra affair was taking place. Iran was getting in pretty bad shape, and they kind of actually did need some help from the United States. The issue was that they didn't have anything the US wanted to broker with, right? It's one thing to be like, hey, America, we'll give you all this stuff if we can get this stuff. It was more like, hey, America, we need all your stuff, but we have nothing to give you. Now, let's move over to Lebanon, July 1982. That's the year that I was born. I don't remember this event, probably because I was born in December 1982, not July. But even if it did happen in December, I wouldn't remember it. I was too busy being a little blob of fat and flesh and all that stuff. Yeah. Um, and an Islamic extremist group called Hezbollah, so backed by the Iranians, it's still that way today, took over 100 hostages, 25 of them were American, and suddenly Iran had their bargaining chips. So Iran uh the Hezbollah kind of operates independent of Iran, but Iran is like, hey, we're gonna give you a lot of support to do what you need to do, but we're not too directly attached to you. The truth of the matter is that the Middle Eastern countries had already a strained, complicated relationship with America dating back to the Jimmy Carter days, and organizations like Hezbollah like taking hostages because they could be used to make demands or prevent American retaliatory responses when American and Israeli buildings like embassies were being bombed. It is well known that Americans, and and I know this for a fact, Americans don't like seeing innocent Americans get injured or killed overseas, needlessly, uh especially like women and children. Like, that's kind of like our Achilles heel, is we don't want to see children getting killed, period, regardless where they're at in the world. So if once Americans started seeing their own people, like innocent people being taken hostage, they look critically to their leader leadles, to their leaders to get the person, to get that person or persons out of the situation. Iran knew exactly how to strike America and how to play the hostage game, probably because they looked at the Vietnam War. Uh the Viet Cong they would take women and children and strap a bunch of dynamite on them and send them into American bases and then blow themselves up. And I knew a guy, and he was in Vietnam, and his job was to shoot women and children as they approached the base because you just didn't know. You you had no idea, you couldn't trust anyone. And some of them did have explosives on them, some of them didn't. And uh that really, really messed him up. Whereas the Viet Cong, they're like, Yeah, whatever. It's women and children, they don't do much anyways.

Kara 58:28

I disagree with that sentiment.

Ed 58:30

What do you mean?

Kara 58:34

North North the way North Korea operated was what what it was not Korea, Vietnam. Yeah, sorry. What it was was the government, the communistic government that was taking over were using innocent farmers and things like that at gunpoint to their advantage. So you can't say that the entire North Korean military government, whatever, yeah, sorry, Vietnamese government or whatever, you can't say that they were all like, oh screw the women and children. Well, just people in general, the military, the government, whoever was doing that, there were some who were doing it willy-nilly, but that's a very Western perspective of oh well they didn't care because they were the enemy. But they did. But they were willing to go any means necessary, whereas the Americans had a harder time with it. But that doesn't mean that it didn't mess them up.

Ed 59:33

Yeah, I'll I mean, all I know because you're right. I I my my perceptive my perspective is very skewed because I was raised by people from Vietnam and whatnot. And obviously they're gonna have very, very stark opinions about it, but it was in their literature, it was in their propaganda. The Viet Cong was really, really big on net. They did not want women and children in their forces. Um, in fact, they were strongly encouraged that women and children, the only thing they really could do for their country was to die. And that was their prophet. That doesn't a lot of propaganda, but that kind of tells you or tells me what they believed in. At least the guys that were producing it.

Kara 1:00:12

It was their propaganda. Yeah, well, the guys that were producing it, but that's very different. Because if you look at, say, like Nazi Germany, they had propaganda that necessarily didn't sit well with regular Germans, it was just the Nazis.

Ed 1:00:26

Yeah, exactly. And and and the Viet Cong was kind of like that. The Viet Cong was um, and actually, I shouldn't say Viet Cong. The Viet Cong was like their regular army. Uh, but they had, but there was also the other faction, kind of like the Nazis. And the Vietnam, they had these guys were your guerrilla warfare, these were your uh win at all costs. Well, that was your Viet Cong. Well, no, the Viet Cong started off as it was a regular army unit, yeah, and then they split off into their own faction, and they were more complicated. Yeah, but it was always the there was still the Viet Cong regular army unit, but then as the war evolved, the Viet Cong remained the same, but then there was that other group that became more like the Nazis, where that was the Viet Cong.

Kara 1:01:15

You have it flipped. Hmm? You have it flipped. Yeah, you do.

Ed 1:01:20

No, because America only had like one or two major involvements with the Viet Cong, and that was like Eodrang and stuff like that, unless they had like the Viet Minh's regular army.

Kara 1:01:33

I'm double checking. Okay, yeah, so PAVN, so the People's Army of Vietnam, that was the general army. And then the Viet Cong was the guerrilla force that you're talking about.

Ed 1:02:00

Okay, so then I will say then the Viet Cong did not value women and children quite the same way as the West did. No, but you can't say that the People's Army didn't No, but the People's Army, I mean, I and I and I didn't say that. I I was focused more on the the group of people that America really really had to fight against, like the main enemy. And you look at their propaganda and all that kind of stuff. Um, and I and I do hate to say it, but we see it in the Middle East. Same thing. Uh women and children are not valued as uh to the pedestal that like Western nations put women and children on.

Kara 1:02:38

Yeah, I just have a hard time using absolutes. There's always um there's it's great. Yeah, but there's it's always going to be a great granular.

Ed 1:02:47

I know, but the thing is though, it's just like when you're talking about a group of people that is trying to overthrow an American military force, and their propaganda says the only thing that women and children can do is die for their country.

Kara 1:03:01

Yeah, but the key word is propaganda. The key word is propaganda.

Ed 1:03:06

So under that logic, then there were good Nazis.

Kara 1:03:09

Nazis versus Viet Cong? Those are two very different things, but I will say that in terms of Nazis, they were brainwashed by the propaganda and which turns changed their morales, which makes them not good people. You could say the same thing about the Viet Cong.

Ed 1:03:26

Yeah. So yes, we could make the argument there was probably a handful of people that did put women and children in high esteem, but ultimately the ones that were in charge weaponized women and children, and yeah, and that ultimately doesn't sit well with America. Americans, I don't think there's ever been a time in American history where Americans thought, like, okay, hey, let's strap bombs into women and children and send them into the enemy. Uh, granted, we've never been in a situation like that before. Whereas like a lot of these countries, admittedly, like you look at Vietnam, they've been in a constant state of war since the height of imperialism. Like, it has always been their thing, whereas like America, what civil war? You know, that was pretty much it. So you're right. I should not use absolutes, but I I I do kind of lean towards for the sake of simplicity, for the sake of argument, uh, that I I do, and this is the American in me, I do lean towards absolutes when it was such a massive, massive problem for the Americans to navigate, and a lot of women and children openly signed up for it, which is strange because like women or children shouldn't be signing up for anything.

Kara 1:04:43

Yeah.

Ed 1:04:43

So, anyways, uh, I'm not sure where the where the hell I was even going with all that. Um oh, yeah. So basically put, you know, Americans really have a problem with uh innocent people being harmed. And then when that goes on, Americans really do turn to the political leaders to be like, hey, you need to figure this out. So hostages were taken, and now Reagan, like people were going to Reagan, like these families of the hostages were going to Reagan, and they're like, What are you doing about this? How are you gonna get them home? What's going on? Why can't you get them home? You know, and and it was getting to the point where a lot of these families were ambushing press conferences and stuff like that, and just bombarding the uh Reagan and his security counsel and all that stuff with these really hard questions that he he can't answer. And that kind of leads me to part three here, which is Reagan's promises. If there's one thing I can blame and not blame a president for is what he says during the campaign trail uh to get him in office. A president candidate, a presidential candidate has to say some pretty outrageous things. He has to speak in absolutes. Like you look at a president, even and uh President Obama, man, I remember when he. Was running, and like he had to just rail against the Republicans on so many different things, especially the involvement in the Middle East, the whole um war on terror, and all that kind of stuff. And he had to speak in absolutes, and uh, you know, that that's just what they have to do to get in. The American population puts so much stock in a president that if anything goes wrong, then it's because of him, because of him, rather than the 100 senators, 435 representatives, or the hundreds of thousands of other government officials. Like the president is the first person that's gonna get blamed for everything, and it's still that way to this day. There could be a plane crash in Canada, it's the president's fault. Um, conversely, something good could happen, and then the president will take credit for it. Like it's it's it's a very being a president, it's very polarizing in so many different ways. Um, which is the reason why I don't think you see a lot of middle of the road people like John McCain. Um, he he ran on the platform that I'm a maverick, I'm gonna do what is best for the country regardless of political party, and he lost the election, right? Americans wanted somebody that was one side or the other, none of this meet in the middle crap, which probably worked fine a couple decades before. So, therefore, the president will need to make some insane promises to win over the people, and he probably knows full and well that most of those, if not all those promises, really aren't possible. I think a lot of that ties into the fact that the presidential candidates don't have security clearance or the sitting president does, and the promises he's making are strictly based off of speculation and just good old fashioned hope and prayer. Like that's that's all they can do until they actually get elected and they have the security given to them and they can see what's really going on, that's all they can do. And I remember seeing, I remember President Obama, he gets elected, and then he came out of that first security meeting as president-elect, and he kind of had like this glazed look on his face. And uh, and I remember that press conference because I so, Mr. President, what did you learn here that that you know corroborates your stance on the Republican Party and what President Bush was doing? And and he was just like, uh, um, we're gonna work hard, secure the freedom for America, protect our allies, just all the really generic answers. And I don't want to say he backtracked on his promises, but he quickly realized that a lot of what he said during the campaign trial was not so black and white and not so easy to deal with. Like, president does not have all this power in the world. The American population puts a lot of stock in the president that if anything goes wrong, then it's like 100% his fault, regardless of whether it is his fault or not. It's just the nature of the beast. And I think it's just human nature, it's just easier for the human mind to blame one person for everything rather than blaming um everyone on one thing. It's just we want to try to find the the most direct route. And if it's easier to politically nail someone to a cross, go for it. Not not fully realizing that it's a lot more nuanced, it's a lot more complicated. Uh what kind of like well, I just did it with the whole Viet Cong thing and how they don't value women and children the same as the West do. I I would still I still kind of hold on to that point of view, but you also bring up the valid point that it wasn't 100%.

Kara 1:09:36

Right.

Ed 1:09:37

In fact, there's nothing in human history or humanity where it's ever going to be 100%.

Kara 1:09:41

Nope. That's why historians don't go don't like absolutes. Any historian you're gonna talk to, they're gonna be like, I'll make you an argument, but every argument you read, the wording is very characteristic.

Ed 1:09:53

Yeah, yeah, and but where in the science, uh, sciences they they want that absolute, they want they're trying to find that one statement that explains everything. And I think that's the difference between between the two. But um, but yeah, like me personally, if for me, it's just easier to rationalize. Oh, the Via Kong had no problems taking women and children, strapping explosives onto them and and weaponizing them. That that's kind of what the Via Cong did.

Kara 1:10:20

They did that, but it's more nuanced than that.

Ed 1:10:23

Yeah, I know it's more nuanced than that, but not by much, in my opinion. It it was a very, very, very common tactic. And but again, I'm going down that path. It's just easier just to say the Via Cong rather than to say most of the Via Cong or a portion of them, or yeah, whatever. Like I'm doing that that human nature thing right now, where for me it's just easier to rationalize using absolutes.

Kara 1:10:50

And I know a Sith only and my brain is trained not to do that, so it's it's just kind of funny the way we but yeah.

Ed 1:10:57

Uh so yes, uh a Sith only deals in absolutes. So fine. I think red lightsabers look cooler, anyways.

Kara 1:11:06

So I'm Obi-Wan, guys.

Ed 1:11:11

Yes, yeah, you're the you're the one that's you you have the high ground. I'll get you underestimate my powers, Obi-Wan.

Kara 1:11:22

I get the blue lightsaber.

Ed 1:11:24

That's yeah, you also die in like the next episode, but anyways.

Kara 1:11:29

Obi-Wan doesn't die in the next episode, he lives till he's like 80 million years old. He's just on tattooing. He's fine.

Ed 1:11:37

So he chops up Anakin in episode three. Episode four. But Anakin turned dead.

Kara 1:11:45

I'm talking about Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan doesn't die.

Ed 1:11:47

He dies in episode four.

Kara 1:11:48

How? Because he helped Luke. Yeah. That doesn't make sense. Oh, oh, and then this would be episode three. I'm here now, everyone. Yes, but he was really old. Yeah. He was really old when he was.

Ed 1:12:00

Yeah, yeah, we're not talking about the 20-30 years that took place in between the two. I'm just saying that you you if you're gonna be the Obi-Wan, you're gonna die in the next episode. I'm also gonna lose all.

Kara 1:12:12

Fine, I'll be Yoda.

Ed 1:12:14

Yeah, who gets so fed up listening to Luke Skywalker's questions that he just chooses to die.

Kara 1:12:22

I love him so much. I I love that anyway.

Ed 1:12:25

Like you know, you're a school teacher when you're laying there listening to your student ask stupid question over and over and over again, and you'd just rather evaporate.

Kara 1:12:36

Anyway, anyway, so but yes, for now on, just know I'm Yoda.

Ed 1:12:41

Okay, yeah, you're you're you're Yoda now.

Kara 1:12:43

That's me. I'll be Yoda. Enjoy your red lightsaber.

Ed 1:12:46

I mean, they are kind of cool looking.

Kara 1:12:50

They are cool looking.

Ed 1:12:51

You're right. Anyways, so therefore, the president will need to make some insane promises to win over the people, and he probably knows full and well while he's making those claims while running for president that a lot of those aren't going to be possible. And I think a lot of this ties to the fact that the presidential candidates don't have the security clearance and all that kind of fun stuff. Um, once they get into office and they and they get the security update, yeah, uh, they take on a very different tone. And I've seen that a couple of times. So, um, or a couple of times, quite a few times in in my time where the president comes out and they're like, What? Like they probably find out if aliens are real and and who shot JFK and and and all that kind of stuff. They probably get a whole bunch of crap. Ronald Reagan was getting pretty good at this process by 1980. He had already run for I didn't realize this, but he had already run for president like twice before and lost.

Kara 1:13:49

Mm-hmm. Uh same thing happened to Nixon. He won once before, I think, and lost uh before he was elected.

Ed 1:13:56

Yeah. Yeah, I I I for some odd reason I'm just so used to a candidate. Like, hey, if you lose twice, like you're done. Just go retire. Like, don't. But then there's uh what there was that one guy, there was a general, a union general in the Civil War. He ran what is it? It was like five or six times and lost every single time. I can't remember his name, but it was really funny because he was like 88 years old and he could like barely stand, and like, you're done, dude. Like, just you're done. It's okay to be done. I I'll have to try have to look it up. I can't remember his name, but it's pretty funny. Yeah, in 1980, he won the primary and he did so by sticking to his guns um on a few key ideas and overpromised a lot. He probably figured that he would say what was necessary to get into the White House and then steer the population in the direction he wants later on, right? Uh, I think Reagan knew that the American attention span is really short and um the American attention span is very fickle. It it kind of flip-flops a lot in 19 in the 1980 campaign. Uh Reagan planted his flag on two main political stances that he saw plaguing the previous administrations. Uh, emphasize administrations almost like uh what's his face? Uh Carl Sagan saying billions and billions. Uh especially like Jimmy Carter's Democratic administration, right? You gotta you gotta talk trash to the other side. That's just how you get elected these days. Ronald Reagan was from the World War II era, and as a result, his generation really hated communists or the commies after World War II, and Reagan was no different, right? He was old school. Uh, he was around for the inception and escalation of the Cold War, and he personally felt that the Soviet Union was the greatest threat on earth at that time and must be stopped at all costs. Okay, you're a typical old guy in the 80s, like yep, even my grandfather, he's like, I don't need he's like, I don't even understand what communism is about, but I hate the bastards. Okay. I can't wait to get that old where I can make statements like ah, down with these people. Do you know what they're about? I have no idea, but bah humbug.

Kara 1:16:16

Okay, grandpa, that's enough for you.

Ed 1:16:19

Oh, whippersnappers. Get off my rocks. We don't have grass in Arizona. So that's that's that's everything's rocks in cacti. Um, so yeah, during his campaign, he spent a lot of time and energy on propaganda to stop the spread of communism, primarily to lock in his generation's vote because there's still a lot of people alive from World War II. And when word got out that communism had spread to Nicaragua in 1979 and in 1980, that was a little too close for comfort uh for the uh better dead than red candidate, right? Now it's not like you're not like Cuba, which is its own country, like Caribbean. Now you're in Central America. Communism isn't in the United States, but it's in an America, and it's in the Americas, and that's too close for comfort. A small third world nation that poses absolutely zero military threat to the United States, may go down the path of communism. Boy, we can't have that. Love it, love the logic there. Love it. Yep. Uh Reagan was also adamant that communism needed to be stopped at all costs. Congress began worrying that the Reagan, um, that Reagan was going to get America embroiled in another Vietnam war, a war that was still fresh on the minds of both political parties. Totally valid. If I was even even if uh let's say you just teleported like you and I back into 1980, knowing what we know, I I don't think we would care about political parties. We'd be like, no, no, no, we don't need another Vietnam. Yeah. Yeah, it it's like, and we weren't even from the Vietnam era, so it's like we know enough to be like, that sucked.

unknown 1:18:07

Yeah.

Kara 1:18:08

Sucked for everybody involved. We all want to be able to do that. Yeah, like it didn't.

Ed 1:18:11

It wasn't like World War II, which really helped America get back on its feet. All Vietnam did was just cost us a bunch of money and lives. And um, yeah, yeah, it was a bad deal. Yeah, uh, but but then I also I did hear the argument that well, Vietnam also kind of brought out a lot of the racial issues that needed to be addressed and stuff like that. I'm like, those were already coming up, but yeah, yeah, that that's my argument. It's like they were already out there, and guess what? You can still address racial issues in your country without a war. They don't have to be connected, guys. Just be real here.

Kara 1:18:44

Nope. I mean, there was there was you could make the argument that it um made it go faster, however. Um, yeah, well, because a catalyst starts something, it's not really a catalyst, it's more like a catalyst speeds it up. Okay, sure. We'll go with that.

Ed 1:19:02

Yeah, a catalyst speeds it up. You're talking about a reagent. A reagent is a thing that starts the reaction, and then a catalyst is used to speed it up. Got it.

Kara 1:19:11

Um, but in terms of that regard, I'm sorry, I'm on another soapbox. Martin Luther King waited until 1968 to say anything about the Vietnam War because he did not want those two issues to be um fighting with each other, um, to take one over the other, and he thought it would be better for them to be parallel issues and not in your mind. So there's that, and that is just coming from one man, but I think it is well that's a hell of a man you're talking about, like yes, the great man.

Ed 1:19:45

So it's one man, but but yeah, what he covered, holy crap.

Kara 1:19:50

Correct. Anyway, that's my soapbox. I'll get off of it.

Ed 1:19:54

Uh when Ronald or when Ronald, I was I almost said Ronald Weasley, uh I think Weasley, I think Ron Weasley would be a better president than what we have now. But, anyways, uh when Reagan won the election, so did the Democrats in the House of Representatives. The Democrats were bent on styming the Reagan administration from starting another Vietnam War in Nicaragua. A bill was passed called the Boland Amendment that forbade the president from giving any support to the Contras who were trying to fight off the communists in Nicaragua under the guise of democracy. Um there was actually two parts to it. Uh there were, well, it's two versions of it. Um like there was the first one that said, okay, president, you can't give any aid. And then the second one that came out a little time later really zoomed in on what the president can't do. Like, really, really got specific with it, probably because they were discovering that Reagan was working his way around the first one. So then they're like, nope, we're cutting you off here. So the reason why I bring this up is because it coincides with Reagan's other promise to the American people, and it involved the Middle East and the collection of the hostages that seemed to be growing in number. During the campaign, Reagan was very critical of Carter's handling of the original hostages taken in 1979 and stated that Carter didn't take a strong enough stance against the matter. Like, and maybe he did, maybe didn't, I don't know. Uh, all I know is that Reagan was very critical of Carter's handling of the hostage situation. However, when the new batch was kidnapped in 1984, the public, including the families of those of the hostages, were getting very vocal about Reagan not doing much to get their loved ones back. So he was running, and then he was like, Oh yeah, Carter didn't do this, Carter could have done that, Carter screwed this of Carter, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. And then when he gets in the office and he finds out that things are way more complicated than he originally thought, and he did, he kind of put like the whole hostage thing in the back burner for that first term, but then people started to speak up and start to be a little more critical of Reagan, and suddenly then Reagan found himself in a position where he has to do something. Reagan was always been known as the great communicator, it and it's true, like you can Google him or you can YouTube him. Like, even as a president, he would go on like celebrity roasts, and he like his stand-ups were amazing. He just he just had a way of just really resonating with people, and he was a master storyteller, and you know, it I said it before, like anybody you can say what you want about his politics, about his beliefs, about any of that stuff. You can't deny that he was a fascinating guy to listen to. He he just had a way of really articulating things. Um, so when the family members started to um oh yeah, back up here. Uh Reagan has always been known as a great communicator, and regardless of what side you're on, uh Reagan had a way of diffusing tense situations, and if he couldn't, then he appealed to people's emotions and tried to rectify things that way. So he he really would appeal to the motions, and um he used that to his advantage a lot, as we will see here when we get into uh subsequent parts here. Um so when the family members started speaking to get uh were starting to get a lot of traction with the public, and the re-election was around the corner. Reagan vowed that he would get those hostages out of there and back to America at all costs. Not exactly sure how, but we're gonna get everybody out. There was a problem though. Uh Reagan told the American people that uh and the world that America will not negotiate with terrorists under any circumstances. We've heard this before, right? America won't negotiate for this, this, this, or this, or whatever. And it's true. Reagan held on to his guns that we will not be going to terrorist organizations and strike a deal where we get hostages back. And he was firm on that, and the American public uh understood his stance on that. In other words, America couldn't talk to Hezbollah and work out a solution, and Hezbollah was going to use Reagan's stance to their advantage. Reagan was willing to die on that hill, man. We are not going to negotiate with terrorists, and the terrorists like Hezbollah, they knew exactly cool. That's exactly where we want the president to be. By the time 1984 rolled around, 1984, like look like it's a book. Yeah. By the time 1984 rolled around, Reagan and his administration was stuck between a rock and well, another rock, and then a hard place.

Kara 1:25:02

Okay.

Ed 1:25:05

On one hand, Reagan had to stop the spread of communism in Nicaragua without offering any support to the Contras. Okay. So he had to somehow support the Contras without supporting the Contras. He had to negotiate the release, uh, and on the other hand, he had to renegotiate the release of hostages from Hetzbola without actually negotiating with them. How in the world is Reagan going to get himself out of this pickle? Well, this is where the genius part of it comes into play. Uh, pretty simply, he's just gonna play dumb. Alright. And that is actually where we're gonna hold it off. We're running a little long in the tooth here. We're gonna hold it off here. I've got three more parts left. Uh stick around for part two, guys, because this is where this is where the dumpster fire is really gonna take off, because Reagan is gonna put certain people in place, and he's gonna have them start acting outside of their job descriptions. And the people that he put in place to handle the situation in the Middle East as well as in Nicaragua, they had all one similar character trait, and that was support the president at all costs. If that means take the blame yourself to protect the president, that's what you got to do. And these guys were really, there was a lot being asked of them. And Reagan was like, hey, man, guys, you do what you gotta do, do whatever you gotta do, man. It's okay, because he knew that if they screwed up anywhere, they would take the blame for it. And so, like, it's that that's like the foundation for what's gonna happen here because these guys are gonna start wheeling dealing, they're gonna start negotiating with terrorists, and then they're gonna start supporting Nicaragua and or the Contras, and they're gonna start selling weapons to an enemy, and then it's all gonna like the media is gonna discover it eventually, and then it's like, now what do we do? So that's the way we're gonna hold it off. I'm gonna try to do the same thing I did the last time we had a two-parter. Um, we're gonna try to get part two out, uh, you know, sooner than later, so you don't have to wait two weeks for it. Um, but yeah, go check out the uh daystomstifire.com. That is our beautiful revamped website. Um, I mentioned it in the last episode while Kara was on vacation. Um again, something about like taking time off to spend with her husband and and all that. I don't I don't know what that's like. I all I do is I just work 24-7. Um, but Kara is like, oh, I gotta be in a healthy relationship with work life balance and all that stuff. But while she was out like enjoying her life, I was stuck on a computer and I really made some upgrades to the website. Um now, if you go to the website and you go to any of our episodes, you will see that I have a player on there. I have a player on each episode. Well, I'm up to like episode 40 well 40. So I'm working back from 75 down. And uh yeah, if you uh yeah, if you look on anything from this episode back to like episode 40, and by the time this airs, I'll probably have like another 20 done. You go to the website, you go to our episodes, and you open up that page, and you will see that there is a player on there, and you can listen to the podcast right then and there. Uh, not a lot of people have are like super hardcore podcast listeners. Uh, a lot of people don't necessarily use Spotify or YouTube or Apple, right? If they like the show and they want to listen to the show, but they're not too interested in like having to go through a separate app and whatnot, our website is the key. Like our website, you can go there, listen to it. We'll have our transcripts on there, we'll have our show notes on there. Uh both Kara and I have been going on there, updating uh like pictures and uh descriptions and all that stuff. So uh yeah, the website has gotten pretty, pretty good. Kara, I'm gonna you showed this to me yesterday, and I thought this was like the bee's knees. Do you wanna go on about what you updated the website in terms of blah blah blah blah?

Kara 1:29:18

I think they should just go onto the website, look at it. So I don't I don't think I even have to really describe it, just go look at it. Let the product let the product speak for itself.

Ed 1:29:28

But yes, go to the website. Kara did she did some organization stuff on the front page where like because if you haven't noticed, um I tend to do the science-y things, I tend to do the engineering thingies. Kara's a lot more like into the social things, um, artistic things, a lot of um, a lot of the quirkier things uh and and dumpster fire history.

Kara 1:29:51

I'm a cultural historian, I'm a cultural historian, I like culture.

Ed 1:29:55

Yeah, culture and then the sociology of it, all that kind of stuff. Um, almost like anthropology.

Kara 1:30:00

Kinda.

Ed 1:30:01

So we have our different takes on it. So, like if you go to our our main page, uh the daysdumpsterfire.com, you will see that hey, if you like the sciencey stuff, you can easily go straight into that. If you like the cultural stuff, you can go straight into that. Uh, we have webs, we have episodes that are kind of curated based off of those those interests. Um, would that be a brief description of what you updated, but more importantly, go there?

Kara 1:30:28

More importantly, just go there and look at it.

Ed 1:30:30

Yeah, yeah, it's pretty cool.

Kara 1:30:31

Yeah, that's the important part.

Ed 1:30:32

Yeah, go there, check it out because the website is that's like our we are really, really going gangbusters on that. Also, too, the other thing that I wanted to mention, if you by the time you hear this, I will have a uh listener support page. Uh, it'll be a link on every episode, it'll be on the actual website. Basically put, we don't want to do ads. I I don't know, I'm not a big ad person. I I swear to god, like if you ever look at my uh um all the podcasts that I listen to, the fast forward button, like on my car on my steering wheel, I had the fast forward button. That thing is like worn out because I'm usually skipping 30 seconds to get through the ads, right? I don't listen to them. You as listeners probably don't listen to them, which is fair. But we could use your help in actually uh making the show kind of like monetarily-wise, like support itself without having to bombard you guys with ads. So we'll have a listener support uh feature on there where if you wanted to just donate a few dollars or contribute or sponsor a few dollars, I'm not too sure what the legal term is for it nowadays with the uh FTC, but you can do like a one-time thing where you just donate some money to us. Um, we'll be grateful if anybody out there donates a billion dollars.

Kara 1:31:49

It's a tip jar.

Ed 1:31:51

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, if you give us a billion dollars, guaranteed no more ads, or no not even the possibility of ads, and we may do a shout-out for you if you want it.

Kara 1:32:02

Yeah, you might have to ask first.

Ed 1:32:05

Yes, so yeah, uh, we will have that on there. Uh we'll we'll have like two options if you wanted to do like a monthly thing and just give us uh a few dollars a month, cool. Um, we currently don't have like any sort of special episodes or content coming out for that, but we are working on the possibility of like an after hours dumpster fire thing that would be paid for, but the show in general, as you know and love now, is gonna remain the same. But now you guys can support us if you so wish. And uh really it's just like a value for value thing. And uh, you know, if we provide any sort of value, if we entertain you, make you laugh, make you cry, I guess. If you learn something, yeah. Um, kind of pay it forward a little bit would be uh greatly appreciative. So go check it out daysumspire.com. Tell your friends to go there as well. Yeah, that's gonna be like the hub. That's gonna be the the main thing for our show. Uh, but we're still gonna be like on iTunes and Spotify and Amazon and all that stuff. So that's not gonna change. This is really for the people that want more information, want to support us, or they don't want to have to download an app or use an app, they can just go straight to the website and get access to the show.

Kara 1:33:23

Cool. Well, with that, please go check it out. We will see you next time.

Ed 1:33:28

Bye.

Kara 1:33:28

Bye.

Ed 1:33:31

And then they started their movement to push out the Sandinistas. So I literally confused myself with my own notes that were designed not to confuse me. It happens. Yeah, it happens to the best of us. So yeah. The Iranian Republic had the policy of neither America nor the Soviet Union. Um, had the policy uh, wow, not not a great sentence there. At all costs.

Kara 1:34:01

I know. I I think my husband's back from the store.

Ed 1:34:04

Uh Where's the stop button? Where did the stop button go? Oh, there it is.