Diplomacy Along America’s Third Border: A Conversation with Luis Moreno

Retired U.S. Ambassador Luis Moreno shares a candid, wide-ranging conversation shaped by more than three decades of service in some of the world’s most demanding environments. From serving in Bogotá and helping implement Plan Colombia, to leading during political violence in Haiti, coordinating civil-military alignment in Iraq, and serving as U.S. Ambassador to Jamaica, Moreno reflects on lessons learned.

The conversation explores the Caribbean as “America’s third border,” the strategic importance of Haiti, the evolving balance between soft power and hard power, and the risks of diplomatic retreat in a competitive global landscape. Moreno also speaks personally about accountability in foreign assistance, bridging civilian and military cultures, the importance of alliances, and the need for the Foreign Service to better explain its value to everyday Americans.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

From the Caribbean to the Middle East, from counter-narcotic strategy in the Andes to conflict diplomacy in the heart of the Levant, American statecraft often unfolds far from public view. It is a profession measured not in headlines but in relationships built patiently over time. Not in rhetoric, but in disciplined judgment under pressure. In embassies where security risks are real, political stakes are high, and U.S. interests are constantly tested, diplomacy becomes both art and endurance. In such environments, representing the United States requires resilience, discretion, and an unwavering commitment to service. Welcome to Brungert Laws Lania, where we provide a little extra perspective through conversations with individuals from across the spectrum of society. I'm Maurice Brungart, your host. I enjoy engaging with experienced, knowledgeable, and passionate people for the opportunity it affords to enrich our understanding of the world through their eyes. The more we learn, the more likely we can become better versions of ourselves and guide others towards the same. Today's guest is retired U.S. Ambassador Luis Moreno. Ambassador Moreno spent more than three decades representing the United States in some of the most complex and demanding environments. His assignments included, among others, service as U.S. Ambassador to Jamaica, Deputy Chief of Mission in Tel Aviv and Port-au-Prince, Political Military Minister Counselor in Baghdad, and Narcotics Affairs Director in Bogota, where he played a key role in implementing Plan Colombia. Welcome to the program, sir. Thank you, Maris. Thank you. It's a pleasure and an honor to be here. Well, one happy Mardi Gramma. This is a day we celebrate my hometown, New Orleans. But we're going to get right into this. That's right. Yeah, that's right. But tell our audience a bit about yourself. You know, uh, you know, where your parents came from and how that led to your entry into the Foreign Service.

SPEAKER_01 1:57

Sure. My father was a political refugee from Colombia. He was caught up in, as I think you're familiar with, uh, La Violencia, who's actually caught up in uh that lot of violence in Bogotá called the Bogotaso, where there were assassinations and all sorts of things. He sort of was on the losing side of things. He was a doctor treating people. He was picked up and arrested and was most likely going to be executed. But because he came from a politically influential uh family in in Boyaca, he they gave him the option of leaving the country. He went to New York where he didn't speak a word of English. His medical degree was not recognized, and uh he had he knew virtually no one. He was not a guy who came to the States with five dollars in his pocket. I think he had a lot more than five bucks in his pocket because he came from a very well-off family. But he really put his nose to the grindstone. He told me he went to movies in Times Square every day uh to try to practice his English. He he got up to a certain level where he was accepted to New York University uh medical school. He met my mother who was uh had left Cuba uh for Panama and from Panama to the States, who was a nursing student. And uh he forged a life in the U.S. He had two sons, both of whom dedicated themselves to uh public service, uh, most of their lives. And uh by the time he he passed away, well he was on his way to an emergency, to a trauma. He was a really A1 traumatologist, an orthopedic surgeon. He was the chief of orthopaedic surgery at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, chief of surgery at Richmond Memorial Hospital on Staten Island. He was one of the guys who led the team for the development of the artificial hip replacement uh procedure. So he went from a guy who was going to movie theaters to try to learn English to a guy who was a very prominent surgeon by uh by the time of his untimely death. And both his sons joined the U.S. government and spent a career in service. And to me, being a first-generation American, and I guess to my brother, whom you know as well, uh service was always part of what I felt that one should do. I I uh I got into law school at Fordham after graduating, and I decided to to join uh Vista, which was the kind of domestic branch of uh of the of uh you know uh the Peace Corps. I did a couple of years teaching and then I passed the Foreign Service test. And uh I was thrilled to death because serving my country and paying back everything and all the opportunities that my country had given me was a very essential part of my my entire being. And when I joined, I was just completely bowled over being in Washington, D.C., being in training, meeting people. Uh one of the main motivations I had was the crisis, the hostage crisis situation in uh in Tehran. Uh I was determined to take the Foreign Service test after that. And uh my mentor was Bruce Langan, who had been the charge d'affairs uh in Tehran, uh who was hostage. He was a hostage, not in the embassy, they had him in the foreign ministry. And he was a great man and he taught me so much and uh just uh just thrilled to death to to serve my country for about 35 years.

SPEAKER_00 5:31

Out of curiosity, when your father and mother immigrated to the United States, what was the the time frame for that?

SPEAKER_01 5:41

Uh I'd say the uh the early 1950s.

SPEAKER_00 5:44

Okay. All right. So still sort of uh around the McCarthy era.

SPEAKER_01 5:51

Yes, I think towards the tail end of that, yes. And uh immigration rules were kind of different. I guess if you could look at it, I'm an anchor baby in the terminology that some people like to do. Uh maybe some people would like to take my uh my uh citizenship away uh and send me back. But yeah, it was uh more much more undefined back in those days as far as immigrating. And uh he was uh welcome with open arms, and uh he has certainly paid off in spades in in contributing back to society. And I think to a certain uh degree, so did his two sons, if I if I don't say so myself.

SPEAKER_00 6:28

And did your parents ever use their uh experience in the health professions to uh give y'all teachable moments? Oh, all the time.

SPEAKER_01 6:40

Uh uh one of the things that I remember most is my first day at kindergarten. I was the only kid not crying. Everyone was crying for their mommies and daddies. I was like, let's get this, let's get this show on the road. Because my mother had taught me how to read when I was very young. So by the time I got to kindergarten, I was already reading books. Uh by the time I was in the first grade, you know, I finished the the history textbook in like a day, and I asked to take the nun for more. Uh so education was very important. Also helping people. Uh my old man was uh was a traumatologist, uh, so uh treating people with all sorts of horrible injuries, responding to emergencies, my mother was an emergency room nurse. So all these things really service and and responding to people in need and education were all important parts of my upbringing.

SPEAKER_00 7:37

And when you were an observer, uh, you know, in the sense of watching the news and the hostage crisis uh when our diplomats uh were held in Iran, uh, where were you at the time? Were you at Fordham?

SPEAKER_01 7:51

No, I was teaching in at French Central High School, uh, one of the uh toughest uh high schools in uh in New Jersey, and I was following the events very closely. You know, when someone asked me, hey, how did you pass the written test of the Foreign Service? How'd you do that? What is your tip? And I tell everyone the same thing. I read the newspaper every day from when I was in the seventh grade. I read the newspaper every day. Sometimes the Times, sometimes it was the daily news, whatever I had time for. But that, and I watched the news every night. So I was passionate about uh things going on overseas, and I had hoped to become an Africa expert because all my outside reading, even as when I was studying a political science at Fordham University, was about Africa. I knew everything about, you know, Zimbabwe, about the war in Angola, about all these Algeria. I was fascinated by this stuff, but you know, I spoke Spanish. And so you weren't gonna send me to Africa or the Middle East. They were sending me to uh what unfortunately was very pejoratively known back in those days, you're going to hit the Cucaracha circuit. I don't know if that that expression was was was uh around when when you came in, but that's what they said. No, you're you're uh going to the Cucaracha circuit. So I was sent to Bogota, ironically, for my first uh tour.

SPEAKER_00 9:14

Huh. And well, tell us about that first tour and uh you know the lessons you learned there, uh, because I'm sure there were plenty, and I'm sure it must have also been um sort of emotionally impactful considering your father came from Colombia.

SPEAKER_01 9:31

Uh I you know, and I told the department, I said, hey, you know, I've got like uh like a third cousin removed who's like the minister of uh uh of the environment and stuff. Uh and they uh they said they didn't uh uh pose any objections, which surprised me quite frankly. I uh I was a good Spanish speaker, so I was kind of the star of the visa line. I started doing a hundred interviews a day. I got to know the country very, very well. When you speak to that many people all the time on a constant basis, you learn a lot. And then Pablo Escobar uh bombed the embassy uh with a car bomb uh right on the corner. And unfortunately, uh I had just interviewed a lady and I told her we were going to print her visa, and she should go across the street and wait at the coffee shop, and she was killed. Uh, she's one of the few casualties that day. But that changed everything. Uh all the people with families who were married, who wanted to leave, left. Those young single guys uh got redistributed. And I was redistributed uh to the narcotics affairs section of what was then called, I think not narcotics office or whatever it was. And I became a police advisor overnight. And I started traveling with the Colombian National Police Anti-Narcotics Unit that had just been formed. We had tried to work with the Fiscalia, you know, the Attorney General's office. We tried with the Army, but customs, but you run into all sorts of problems. So we decided to create this new uh unit inside the Colombian National Police, the Colombian Anti-Narcotics Police. And I was teamed up with Colonel Jaime Ramidez, who was the first uh first boss of that unit, and he became my hero. Uh I traveled all over Colombia with him, writing Pablo Escobar's uh uh you know, coca fields and laboratories and some of his stash houses, and I learned so much. I flew in helicopters, came under fire, and I I loved the whole thing. And then I'd come back to the embassy for a few days, write it up, uh, show the pictures I took, and then I'd go out again. And it was just an amazing experience. And uh he was, uh I said, my hero, and unfortunately, when I was in Nicaragua on my second tour, he was killed uh by Pablo Escobar. And uh I had always told him that I would go to his promotion ceremony uh to general when he was colonel. Uh years later, when I'm director of uh of the narcotics section, you know, during Plant Columbia, I had a meeting with the directors. I was walking back, waiting for my security detail, and they weren't there. So I called them, they were on their way, and I heard a ceremony going on in the in the auditorium on the first floor, and I said, Well, I'll just sit my head and see what it was. It was the post posthumous uh promotion ceremony for Konoheimer Ramides.

SPEAKER_00 12:34

Oh, that must have said chills up and down your spine.

SPEAKER_01 12:36

The coincidence, absolute chills. I had no idea. His wife and kids saw me and they broke down. They thought I was there that I had come, you know, all the way from the States, just for that. I told them no, it was just extremely fortuitous, and we renewed our. But that was a really pivotal moment for me to actually be able to uh complete, as we say in Spanish, with that promise I made him of being uh there for his uh promotion ceremony to general.

SPEAKER_00 13:07

If you can please convey to the audience what your impressions were working with uh Colombian authorities, government officials at that time, taking into consideration how um government officials of other countries are portrayed in movies um uh today and and over time, you know, generally as all corrupt or untrustworthy uh or they don't know what they're doing. Uh and actually, you know, they they tend to be a lot more educated and professional than uh we as a whole give them credit for.

SPEAKER_01 13:49

Oh, I can't say enough. I can't tell you how many funerals I went to in Colombia uh for uh prosecutors, judges, army, police, air force. Uh so many of them gave their lives for their country. And also, let's be quite honest, for our so-called war on drugs, they gave their lives. Uh, Colonel Jaime Ramidez being one of the primary examples of that. Um, you had a guy like President Pastrana, who uh myself, uh the ambassador, and Assistant Secretary Beers went in and we sold them the uh the idea of what Plan Colombia is, and he took quite a risk in doing that. And uh I had known him from when I was uh a junior officer in in 1983 at President Pastrana, we kind of uh socialized a bit. And uh he later he he he took on the head and then Uri We came on after him and took a lot of the credit for things that actually he, Pastrana, had done. But as far as sacrifice, professionalism, education, uh savvy, and dedication, you know, when I got to Colombia, Bogota was an isolated point in an ocean, surrounded by the fork. Uh, you couldn't leave by land to go anywhere because 20 miles outside of Bogota, you could be picked up in a fork, uh, you know, road roadblock. Uh, luckily, I had the job I had, so I could fly anywhere in the country with helicopters and did. But Plant Columbia, although it was uh the basic idea behind it was to reduce the amount of cocaine going to the states, reduce uh coca production through uh eradication, which was my passion at the time, uh, as controversial as it was. Uh maybe it didn't work altogether on that, lowering the uh the price of cocaine in the States, lowering the amount of cocaine, but you know what? It saved the oldest democracy in Latin America because it freed them from the grip that the FARC had on them by modernizing the army and the police, by giving them uh Black Hawk helicopters, by giving them uh training, by creating a special army uh counter-narcotics brigade. And by the way, with a lot of human rights training, because uh back in those days we were very, very strict about enforcing human rights. And that really brought Colombia back to the brink. And we brought, we uh broke the hold that they had on Colombia. We took down the Medellin cartel and Pablo Escobar, we took down the Cali cartel, and we really scattered all that stuff to the wind. Unfortunately, our success in Colombia is directly related to the rise of uh the cartels in in Mexico because the Colombians lost their grip on all the distribution routes and all the control of drugs going into the states, and that was taken over by the Mexican cartels, and that's why they grew to what they are now. So it's kind of ironic. Success in Colombia led to the rise of the cartels in Mexico. But remember, Plan Colombia wasn't just oppression, repression, excuse me. It's not a fraudian split. Um it involved development, uh, economic development, job creation, also the creation of Casas de Justicia or courthouses, hospital schools, because in many of these remote areas, the cocoa growing areas, the default uh de facto government was the FARC. They were the ones who administered justice, who decided things, who ran the economy, et cetera, et cetera. So a lot of Plan Columbia in helping the Colombians establish control again was all this, all these development programs where USAID played an absolutely crucial role as it had many places where I served. USAID was key in Haiti. USAID was key when I was in Israel, and I was an observer of the Oslo Accords roadmap. I was the deputy director of that, and what USAID did, and it's uh such a shame of what happened to USAID over the past couple of years.

SPEAKER_00 18:16

Um what lessons were learned from that in terms of what worked, what was misunderstood at that time and its relevance to today?

SPEAKER_01 18:29

Well, I think one of the things that that most was concerning was uh excuse me, the uh things like uh popular culture in the US, like a clear and present danger where like all the Colombians were bad guys, even the guys in the cops, et cetera, et cetera. And yes, corruption is a problem in Colombia, it's a problem in Mexico, and and by the way, it's a big problem in the United States as well. Yes. Uh as as we've been seeing. So I I think that people don't realize the effort that we went into Colombia, and I think it's undersold. In some circles, it's oversold as the greatest foreign policy victory in the past 50 years. But in a lot of places, it's it's it's undersold. And that initiative that we took with the Colombians resulted in having the third largest foreign assistance program after Israel and Egypt. And ironically, a few years later, I was in charge of administering a lot of the programs in Israel. But the third after after Israel, and we did it kind of ad-lib to a great extent. I mean, I was given one point uh, what was it, uh, three billion dollars or something that first year, and I had the same staff I had when our budget was 50 million. So we had to create an infrastructure very quickly, and we had to use contractors, we had to stretch, you know, the the interpretation of of what uh of of I I put a really very high premium on ethics that we talked about previously, and uh I won uh in 2000 or 2000, I won the award for uh uh dissension because what I did, I called in the inspector general on my own program because I said that some people in the police were um misusing U.S. government funds uh to and pocketing them. And I said I wanted a full uh accounting of my own program to see where that money was disappearing to. And boy, did I get pushback on that. And that's why I ended up having the uh second largest security detail after the ambassador in Columbia. And actually had to leave for a while because there were very uh verified threats against my my life. Uh but uh that's another thing. You create uh uh you throw all this money in the problem and you don't expand, uh it's a bad word, but you don't adjust the bureaucracy to handling all these things. They're gonna be places where things are gonna slide off and and and and and and and get away from you, and whereas unethical people will take advantage. Uh you're talking about leadership. One of the things that's important in something like that is to sell your team on what your vision is. And I always said, we will account for this money. We don't want to see money going out the back door. And I had to get my my core team involved in that and to buy into that and listen to what they had to say about it. And, you know, we all felt the same about it in the end, and that that really helped us get to the bottom of a lot of stuff that shouldn't have been going on.

SPEAKER_00 21:54

Now, all this kind of uh did it help prepare you for your next set of a Assignments which dealt with refugee operations and sort of the humanitarian side of diplomacy?

SPEAKER_01 22:06

Absolutely, absolutely. Especially working with USAID, which was eye-opening to me. You know, they said that the Minister of Defense at the time was also a guy named Luis Moreno. And we would go out and do uh public relations uh on a massive scale uh to sell Plant Colombian to the Colombian people and to the U.S. government. I must have talked to every single congressman or senator at one point during the stretch where we're trying to sell it, and he would talk about the development part, excuse me, and I would talk about the helicopters and the training of the military. So he was Luis Moreno el Bueno, and I was Luis Moreno El Malo, and that's how it is. What it taught me uh at my next tour was Haiti during a very, very, very violent time, uh, extremely violent time, where I had to make decisions about drawdowns, where I had to make decisions about life affecting decisions on who was one of the worst things that you have to do is decide when you have a big drawdown, who stays and who goes, who's considered essential. And you may hurt people's feelings, but you know what? When you're in a situation like that, you really have to like not let that bother you. And just get the people that you think will most be effective in dealing in a life, you know, we were doing stuff that was really very risky. We're observing uh opposition rallies that would be attacked by the government, uh gunfights, and and you know, we had people on the ground. And when you have when you're putting people at risk like that, you have to really trust their judgment. So a guy who's not really a political officer, say, who's not really all that has good intentions, good smart drafter, excellent analyst, et cetera, et cetera. But maybe he's not that street smart. And you don't want to put him in a situation where he has to decide, I should walk this one more block, I should go up to uh the third floor with binoculars and look, I, you know, if you don't trust him to do that, not because of any deficiency, but because of experience or whatever, you know, that's gonna hurt hurt that guy's feelings, but you can't worry about that. You gotta put in the best best people.

SPEAKER_00 24:29

For context, what was your position in Haiti and what was the time period?

SPEAKER_01 24:34

I was DCM from uh 2001 to 2004.

SPEAKER_00 24:40

Deputy chief of mission.

SPEAKER_01 24:42

Yeah, and in fact, I was acting ambassador for a for a large part of that time. And it was the time when uh there was an open revolt uh against Aristide, the rebels came in from across the border. It's just a lot of massacres and killings, and the embassy was in the middle of it. We had to have a drawdown, we had to have the fast marines come in. And it's the same thing that happened 10 years before when I was in Haiti, when I was the refugee court coordinator slash political military officer, where we had a drawdown and we had to bring in the fast marines, etc. So it's just a repeat. And I was lucky enough to have my good friend James Faulty as the ambassador, and I could advise him from a position of experience because I had lived through all this 10 years before. So, yeah, there were a lot of lessons learned. There were a lot of tension, so a lot of bad stuff going on, and Haiti has been a big part of my life uh ever since. Uh, I was accused of kidnapping the president. I don't know if you're familiar with that story. Um, I think I saved his life, but according to some people, I kidnapped him. Uh I uh talk about and write about Haiti a lot. I speak to people in Haiti on a regular basis, sometimes on a daily basis, definitely on a weekly basis. I attend mass uh electronically from uh City Soleil every Sunday. Uh so Haiti, like many of us who serve in Haiti, it gets in your blood and you really care about the Haitian people who are as noble and hardworking and deserving people as I've ever seen. And so when I saw all the uh the stuff about eating cats and dogs and and all that stuff about or or uh trying to reject their or annul their temporary protective status, and when I happen to know how bad Haiti is right now, all those things really, really kind of get to me.

SPEAKER_00 26:38

Well, let's touch on that uh more broadly, you know, and that is you know, what would you like to say to audiences about the importance of maintaining a diplomatic mission in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, uh, a country that is just overcome uh with poverty, crime, violence, instability? Uh, and this has been going on for decades. It's kind of like, you know, the juice ain't worth the squeeze, so to say. And then on the opposite side of that, you know, why should we allow uh migrants from Haiti? What are they going to bring to the table here in the United States?

SPEAKER_01 27:23

Well, you see that that Asian immigrants who came here under the temporary protective status program, they virtually saved Springfield, Ohio. You know who's a big fan of Haitian immigration, although he doesn't say it very much, is Governor DeWine DeWine. I had the privilege of escorting Governor DeWine when he was Senator DeWine, uh, and he is really involved, uh, very involved in a group called Hands Together, uh, run by uh Father Tom Hagen. He's got a big school named after uh Governor DeWine's daughter, Becky. Um they're hardworking, they are uh extremely noble, as I said, very vibrant. Uh they are not, for the most part, criminals. You know, the criminals are back in Haiti, and the Haitians who we did deport, uh that we back, you know, uh previous administrations, we did deport hardcore Haitian criminals back to Haiti, which those of us in the embassy, you know, were kind of like Ify because they we knew they would go and use their expertise with the Haitian gangs who were readily uh accepted them. Uh, but uh the if we fully we're on a skeletal staff, we have a Charge, Henry Wooster now in Port-au-Prince, who is one of the most talented, uh experienced diplomats who has done previous tours in Haiti. Uh great background. We need to have someone on the ground to tell us what's going on because we cannot rely, because the media is the same way. The only time Haiti ever gets any press coverage is when CNN goes there or the New York Times, when they but the otherwise, under normal times, they're just depending on stringers. And the Haitian transitional government is having all sorts of problems. The U.S. Embassy, believe it or not, even though a lot of people say it's meddlesome, they're part of the problem. And in the past, that's kind of true. But the U.S. Embassy also is uh uh a stabilizing force in many respects. Many people are going to ask the Americans and the embassy, well, what can we do? How can we and once many times, and I saw it personally and participated in it personally, we try to mediate. You know, we we we spoke the the the rebels from coming out of Port au Prince, coming uh into Port-au-Prince and fighting that last night where I took President Aristide uh to the airport at his own request. Uh uh so we we're a force of a certain amount of good and a certain amount of bad in the past, but I think we need to have people on the ground. We can't have too many because it's so dangerous. So going with a skeletal staff is is is really worth it. As far as, you know, why should we protect people? If someone, you know, I guess it's like my father, right? He he he left because he he was gonna be killed, you know, and we have patients who are got to the United States because they have relatives there, because if not, their life was in extreme danger. And they got temporary protective status, which I think should be respected. So uh, you know, say that temporary protective status is not valid anymore because Haiti's safe, Haiti is as dangerous and as unsafe as it's ever been right now.

SPEAKER_00 30:43

If you had to say, um what would be the strategic importance of Haiti for the United States?

SPEAKER_01 30:53

Well, you know, Haiti is uh is is is uh a big uh transit point for uh illicit narcotics. And I I know we got rid of uh President Maduro in in Venezuela because supposedly for uh for the narcotics trade, right? The old uh it's a major transshipment point used by Colombian cartels to move stuff either towards uh the Dominican Republic uh and uh Puerto Rico and up from there, or actually going directly up to the so it's uh it's a massive uh uh transit point for that. It's also a uh a stability point. Uh we had the Haitians taking a massive amount of uh oil from Maduro uh during their uh their Petrocaribe program that they wielded like a very uh heavy foreign policy tool that they used. Uh the instability could spread or has spread into Jamaica and the guns for Ganja business and all sorts of things. And also, quite frankly, on a humanitarian uh uh uh basis, what what's going on in Haiti? You know, I always comment to people when I spoke about Haiti, Haiti is you know, a 15-minute plane ride from Miami, Florida. How can we, in all good uh sense not not help uh people who are just in such miserable conditions, dying literally from starvation in many times in many uh cases? How can we not help them? Um I just you know when I was uh acting ambassador, or even when I was DCM, I made junior officers, I made it a requirement uh when the Marines uh and peacekeeping force held CP Soleil, which happens to be one of the worst neighborhoods in the world that you can possibly uh believe. It's built on a garbage dump. It used the garbage dump as landfill on uh Port au Prince Harbor and it's the home of just incredible poverty. It's mind-boggling uh filth, you know, gangs. It's just unbelievable. And I I made it a mandatory visit because some kids who were on the first tour had never seen anything like that. Uh when the Marines left, we had to discard that program. But I I think you really have to see, I don't see how any human being, any sentient human being, could not be adversely affected by by looking at what's going on in Haiti.

SPEAKER_00 33:31

Well, discussing that briefly, uh, wouldn't that be more appropriate for, say, nonprofits as opposed to the U.S. government?

SPEAKER_01 33:42

Yes, well, nonprofits are a vital part of that, yeah. But we can you we can we can support that and we can platform that and we can work with the NGOs. It's part of what USAID did, right? Uh because they have the expertise and they can supplement or guide the NGOs and what their duties are. Uh believe me, I'm a big fan of the NGOs in Haiti. I helped evacuate uh 40 handicapped Haitian orphans, and it was a Herculean task, believe me. And I uh helped evacuate them to uh to an orphanage in in Jamaica, you know, where they weren't being persecuted by gangs and had enough medicine and food to eat, which they didn't have in Haiti. Uh so yeah, uh uh sure NGOs, but but NGOs can be supported by the U.S. government. I don't see anything uh inappropriate of that.

SPEAKER_00 34:35

Do you see there's a potential vacuum for others to occupy if we were to abandon a country like Haiti? I.e. uh would you see a country like uh China or Russia or whomever uh opting to exploit a place like Haiti, or do they overlook it?

SPEAKER_01 34:59

No, they don't overlook it. As a matter of fact, uh the Russians have been uh upping their game in Haiti. And it's not just Haiti. If you look about the withdrawal of USAID when it was disintegrated in the past year, excuse me, uh not only are we leaving people to humanitarian disasters, and and that's been really well documented in in the over the last few months, but we're creating a vacuum, as you say, and an opportunity. Let me give you a solid example. Miramar. They had a terrific uh earthquake right after uh they started destroying USAID, uh just articulating it, however you want to put it. We had a Dart team, a disaster assistance response team, uh, ready to go, but they didn't have the funding to go. So they didn't go. But you know who sent a quick reaction force and whatever? The Chinese. And the Chinese completely took over the assistance uh to Myanmar, uh a uh potentially uh explosive area of the world where our influence stabilizes, uh, gives us influence. In South Sudan, the Russians have moved in after we moved out all our humanitarian efforts in West Africa, in East Africa, we withdrew our disease prevention uh programs. And who moved in? The Chinese and Russians, and in some places, the Iranians. So we are conceding. Look what happened with the whole problem with the with Iran when after we had destroyed again the voice of America and our Farsi language programs, right? Uh they had to call up, they had to try to find Farsi speakers to be able to do that. So we we've been we've been kind of uh you know cutting off our nose to spite our face type of thing. And especially in humanitarian things, it's not just it's not just being good, which I happen to think is a good thing, but it's also in our national interest. Uh we call it soft power, but in many regards it's it's just smart power.

SPEAKER_00 37:09

Shifting gears, uh tell us about your time as political military uh minister counselor in Baghdad.

SPEAKER_01 37:18

Right. Uh after I left Israel, uh they recruited me uh to go to Baghdad as to be the head of all our uh you know political advisors with all the uh all the different uh commands throughout Iraq. And also kind of serving as the main liaison between the commanding officer and the embassy. Uh first uh kind of military boss I had was General Odirno, and then later General Austin, who both of whom I I enjoyed uh tremendously. And we had a lot of moving parts because it was when we were drawing down our military presence uh and give and shifting all the things that the U.S. military did to the Iraqi government, the embassy, uh NGOs, private sector, everything from collecting garbage in West Baghdad to keeping the lights on and in uh another part of the country, uh paying the sons of Iraq who were crucial in keeping ISIS in its place and all those other things. I forget the exact number. It was like 1,793 things that the U.S. military was doing that we had to shift because the military was going on. So I got to travel all over the uh the country, got to travel with the commanding general and the entire staff, the ambassador. Uh, I was kind of the uh the interpreter what the State Department was trying to say to the military and to what the military was trying to say to the State Department. So I'd be, you know, in my career, I had uh a lot of experience working with the U.S. military, and I used that to my uh had a gigantic staff. We also did all the analysis on Al-Qaeda and ISIS, and we had those uh those responsibilities as well.

SPEAKER_00 39:11

Tell us about civil military alignment in the sense of where it succeeds and where it strains. I mean, these were sort of, in one sense, unique times, but you know, if you look across history, not necessarily, because we we did similar activities during World War II uh and in other conflict areas, but for uh your time there and your direct experience, what did you find uh was successful as a civil military uh team? And also what was not? What just didn't work?

SPEAKER_01 39:46

Sometimes the cultural differences were very difficult to overcome. Uh even things like acronyms and even things like perception and the way things are done, you know, the uh the civilian side, uh especially State Department, USAD, et cetera, are comfortable with gray, right? The gray area of coming to decisions and policies. Whereas in the military, things are more black and white. And to construct that bridge and explain to big policymakers and the deciders how to move people a little bit more to the gray side and how to move people a little bit more to the black and white side, uh, that's really crucial. And where the rubber meets the road are things like provincial uh reconstruction teams, where we had uh State Department offices working hand in hand on the street with with military guys on reconstructing everything from local police uh uh infrastructure to electricity, you know, et cetera, education, et cetera, et cetera. So it it uh in the old days when I first started, even being a political military officer was you kept seeing the same 12 people all over the place, kind of like considered nutcases by a State Department. But over the years, the people it became much more important, uh, the political military world. And to this day, now being in political military affairs is kind of a big deal and very necessary. And the whole Paul Mill Bureau is now like mainstream. And in the past, I'm going way past, I'm an old guy, but going way past, it was it was not a kind of a mainstream. It was kind of centered out the out of the mainstream. But now people realize that with such big bureaucracies, such differences, cultural differences, linguistic differences, uh uh, everything. And to try to bridge that and have political military officers and the military's version of civil military officers, affairs officers, I think it's it's absolutely crucial. We saw it, I saw it in Haiti when we were doing the repatriations, right? And Ghetto. I spent a lot of time in Ghetto when we had to bring a lot of the Haitian uh migrants to Ghetto for processing and the military civilian lot of lays on work, and some worked, and sometimes it didn't.

SPEAKER_00 42:17

Uh working with the U.S. military in Iraq, if you can recall, what what was one takeaway that you developed observing how the military operated? And likewise, what do you think they took away from their experience, their engagement with you?

SPEAKER_01 42:39

I think that what they took away from it is that we have specialized knowledge, we had foreign area expertise, you know. You know, one of the uh specialties you can have in a military is foreign affairs officers. They have to realize that sometimes in a country, there's going to be experience that the State Department offices have, resources, uh, whether it be uh intelligence, uh political information, the liaison ability to reach out to the Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, uh handling uh crisis situations, like when there's collateral damage, when the U.S. military went into raid to get a high-value target and ended up killing 10 civilians, say. Well, it's not going to be the military spokesperson who's gonna try to fix that. It's gotta be the embassy guys who have Arab speakers, Arabic speakers have people who who know contacts with the Iraqi media, et cetera, et cetera, those type of things. Corruption things. Military would look on Iraqi corruption in a different way than kind of the State Department, USAID guys did. So bridging all those things. I think they learned a lot from us. And I know we learned a lot of things about accountability. Responsibility, discipline staying in one's lane, and uh and protection, uh force protection being absolutely vital for the US military. And I think that's a lesson that uh that we all could afford to learn.

SPEAKER_00 44:14

Um tangentially what would you say about Claude Schwitz's comment uh that war is simply diplomacy by other means?

SPEAKER_01 44:26

I just read an article about this, I think it was yesterday, that old Prussian, the the Prussian philosophy and that. Yeah, it's it's it's absolutely true. And you know, when you saw a list come out yesterday uh or or the weekend of of universities that uh DOD or Department of War or whatever you want to call it, uh cannot, you can't get a scholarship or st or study at these places. You know, all the Ivy League schools were there, and uh I saw my alum, uh Bordham University on there, which uh surprised me, and and Georgetown. And I think that not letting military officers study uh at civilian universities is a very big mistake. It's not trying to politicize or make make it partisan, no, but politics is war. War is politics. I I I believe what uh that uh you know a soldier is is a is a is a political instrument with a rifle in his hand. I think it's very hard to separate. I mean, what's the whole thing about about intervention in Iraq or the entire Afghan experience or or even taking Maludo out as all an extension of policy?

SPEAKER_00 45:45

Hmm. Um now you've had these varieties of experiences, and as you then transition to your role as U.S. ambassador to Jamaica, going into it, how prepared did you find yourself to now be, you know, the president's representative in a foreign country?

SPEAKER_01 46:11

It was kind of easy for me to be honest. Easy and hard. It was easy in the sense that I had been acting ambassador in Israel for over a year and a half. I mean, and that is unbelievable in and of itself. You know, at any given time you've got 50% of Congress. I remember one summer we had like 90% of the U.S. Congress, either on an APAC trip, a CODEL, or a private trip. I think it was almost closer to 100%. So you talk about being scrutinized. And in a place like Israel, where I was acting ambassador, it's one of the few embassies where you don't run it in the embassy, right? Policy and everything else is dictated from Washington. So you're kind of the transmitter of U.S. policy, whereas in other places I was acting ambassador in Haiti during some very difficult times, but I had large input. I had uh I was acting ambassador in Spain during the Edwin Snowden uh mess, and I actually got called on the carpet for it on his foreman. So I had a lot of experiences being as the head of a mission, but it was difficult, and actually I'd be at meetings and say, Well, the ambassador said, and I didn't realize they were talking about me. You know, they say, Well, what does the ambassador think? He said, Yeah, well, what does he think? I'll have to ask him. Oh no, they're talking about me. Uh, literally, that that happened to me uh a lot. So uh the then is empowerment, you know, when you you're the top guy, you gotta empower your number two, especially. Got to listen to feedback. Uh, but in the end, you know, you got to sell your vision, your philosophy, what's in a presidential directive you get that every ambassador gets when he takes his position. He said, And I remember some lessons, I remember uh, you know, pushing that ethical thing when uh there was an effort for a cell phone company to be licensed by the by the Jamaican government. And to us, we had information that that cell phone company was dirty as hell. And I went ballistic, I went full bore. I was uh confrontational in meetings with uh host government officials. I was very aggressive and forward-leaning with the media. And uh a guy came up to me, one of my political officers, and because I always try to have this open at doors, but he said, sir, this may be a case where we need to use uh honey more than vinegar. Maybe you should soften the approach. And he he he told me in such a way that made absolute sense to me. And I I gradually, you know, threw things down, and when I left, you know, it worked out you know in our favor. So yeah, you you there's always something to learn.

SPEAKER_00 49:01

For the benefit of the audience, uh what do you think they should know in terms of the importance of the Caribbean uh that you learned through your experiences being in Colombia, Haiti, and now U.S. ambassador to Jamaica? I mean, can we consider the Caribbean as a whole as sort of America's third border?

SPEAKER_01 49:25

Yes, we often use that expression, and if you uh to remind you that uh when I was uh Ambassador to Jamaica, uh, President Obama came and did an official visit, which uh real highlight of mine. I had spent some time with him in Israel when he was a candidate, and then he came as president before the summit of the Americas. And it is a major transshipment point. It's a major economic development point. One of the big things I did in Jamaica was we got uh Fortress Energy to sponsor a$1 billion project for liquid natural gas that the United States uh economy benefited from, United States consumers benefited from, and the entire Caribbean had an uh innate natural source of liquid natural gas in Caribbean. Also, in countering uh the Cubans and the Venezuelans, the drug traffickers, it it is a third part of our uh our border, and we always talk about that. Also, the international organization aspect of it, you know, we need countries like Jamaica to vote with us in the UN and counter the Cubas and Venezuelas and the Russians and the Chinese. We're also involved in tremendous competition with the Chinese for economic and political, you know. I would always tell my economic officers, for instance, look, we can't compete uh in uh with the Chinese, we can't take a suitcase full of money into the meeting with the the Minister of Transportation. I'm not I'm just using a hypothetical example.

SPEAKER_00 51:02

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 51:02

Um uh we have uh ethics and we have rules, and that's part of what we're selling. We're selling our way of doing things. We're selling our military programs, we're selling our military training, we're selling our uh our military uh hardware, and we're also selling our our way of life, our democracy, our integrity, and uh our ethical practices. Uh it's and it's all what's made us get ahead in the world.

SPEAKER_00 51:34

Where do you see our influence today uh in the Caribbean?

SPEAKER_01 51:40

I see this diminished. You know, I think that you can't call countries, you know, crap, crap hole countries. Uh, I think that diminishes our relationship. I think that uh the way things were done in Venezuela uh could have been handled better. I think the attacks on on fishing boats uh are uh really either you want to call it extrajudicial killings or you want to call it just plain piracy or murder or whatever you want to call it. I haven't seen any evidence, uh credible evidence that those were actually uh drug uh stuff headed to the U.S. In fact, uh all of them were headed out towards the east or to other areas. None of them had the capability or range to reach the United States. And in fact, some of the boats that have been uh been uh washed up in the Guajida Peninsula in Colombia, uh there were traces of marijuana. No traces. There's certainly no uh phenytol in any of these uh cases that's that's coming from through Mexico from from China and through illegal ports of entries. So that's it. And and we also want a lot of face in in the uh the Orlando Orlando Hernandez pardon. Uh he was charged with the same exact things that Maduro was was charged with, uh, and yet he was pardoned. Exact same charges, exact same. And now the pressures on Cuba. Uh we're trying to force the Mexicans to cut back humanitarian assistance to the Cubans. Cubans are so bad now that they can't refuel jet airliners in Havana anymore because we have a stranglehold. Uh so what are we gonna do about that? Are are we gonna like write it out softly or are we gonna go in and do something precipitate? I mean, no one knows. So there's a sense of and of course the Haiti situation, which no one seems to be addressing. We allocated some money for a gang repression force, but uh that hasn't that hasn't materialized. So it there's a lot of uncertainty, and uh, you know, the old alliances are are somewhat frame. Uh so there's tension and and uh a sense of not knowing what's coming next.

SPEAKER_00 54:07

So do you think taking such a hard-line stance uh with um Venezuela uh could prove to backfire?

SPEAKER_01 54:21

Well, I I just um I'm I'm challenged to see what the positive side of this. You have Delcy Rodriguez, uh who was also considered a conspirator in many ways of what Maduro was doing and hardliner is in. You still have uh the Minister of Defense, and you still have, of course, uh uh uh uh what's his name, the Minister of Interior. And they are as repressive and as bad as ever, and yet they say uh, you know, we've been saying that they've been doing a good job. And uh the oil is flowing to a certain degree, flowing to offshore uh accounts and uh counts in Qatar. Uh and yet Venezuela remains unchanged. The drug flow uh is the same of drugs coming into the US. So I don't know what the what the what the end game is, and that's what concerns me about Cuba. Uh how are we gonna play that? Uh what is the plan? And that really hasn't been articulated other than you know, let's strangle them. Which is, you know, uh no one wants to see the communist regime stay in Cuba. Uh but what what what's the plan? How are we gonna do that? What you know, how are we gonna do this without inflicting massive uh humanitarian uh stress uh uh on the people of the island? So it's uh like I said, there's a lot of unknowns and a lot of concern and basically a bit of fear on what's coming next because of what happened in Venezuela, because of what's going on in Cuba, because of Haiti.

SPEAKER_00 56:02

Hmm. If you had to comment in any way, what would be the upside of the current administration's actions in the Caribbean? What would you say it is?

SPEAKER_01 56:17

You're you're really putting me against the wall here, uh Maurice. Uh getting the funding for the Haitian uh gang suppression for us, but we're not stuck just like Biden did and and Obama, we're not stepping up to the plate on leading that force. Uh putting pressure on Cuba is is good in a way, but again, uh there's nothing that's being articulated. But yes, uh, you know, regime change in Cuba would certainly be a good thing. Regime change in Venezuela would be a positive thing. Uh but what we're doing is we're alienating the very people that we need. Uh when we had this thing going on with Gustavo Petro, you know, accusing him of being a trafficker and being a nutcase and blah, blah, blah. Yeah, I know they kissed the mate up, but but you needed uh Petro to be able to put pressure on Venezuela. You know, the the whole pressure on conducting unilateral military action in Mexico, which I think would be absolutely, totally disastrous, when you need the Mexicans to be able, they're the ones providing all of the humanitarian uh assistance to the Cubans. Why alienate them instead of talking with them and trying to work something out? Uh threatening Panama. The whole thing with Greenland, which is which just boggles the mind. And of course, I just are deserting NATO, are deserting Ukraine. Uh, we uh to me it seems like we're doing a lot of things that uh are the equivalent of shooting ourselves in foot.

SPEAKER_00 57:48

Do you do you see any parallels to the interventions the US and government engaged in the past in Latin America that ended up leading to some of the uh adversarial regimes uh that propped up over time, you know, whether it was in Nicaragua, Cuba, that we could actually be, you know, repeating history and we're setting up uh you know the future to just repeat what happened over the last 50, 60 years.

SPEAKER_01 58:24

I find it unbelievable that I was uh I was PG'd from Cuba. I was uh from Nicaragua. I was kicked out at my second tour. I was accused of being a CIA, uh the boss of the CIA, uh, which is quite a compliment for the second tour officer. And the head of Nicaragua was the dictator, uh, Daniel Ortega. Now I'm an old man, and and who's in Nicaragua is Daniel Ortega. I just find that mind-boggling. And that has to be, you know, consistent U.S. failure, uh, uh not being able to exploit uh, you know, the victory of Yolata Chamarro and other things that happened. Uh, yes, we're committing many of the same mistakes. And we're, you know, by leaving the entire Delcy Rodriguez uh uh regime in place and and telling people that she's doing a superb job and everything's fine, et cetera, et cetera. And we it looks like we just went in there to get oil. And that the democracy, you know, the shunning uh uh of of uh Maria Corina, which is is is kind of shocking to me. Uh she even gave her uh her Nobel Peace Prize, uh, and now she's being kind of shunted aside. I, you know, what about democracy? I mean, that's what we always stood for, you know, democracy. And now that seems to be uh a secondary effect in Nicaragua, in in Venezuela, and in Cuba. What's what's the game plan there?

SPEAKER_00 59:56

Well, I think one could also sort of make uh an argument that, you know, we've been for democracy, but the United States has been sort of its own um walking oxymoron. I mean, uh, you know, we brought in former Nazis to develop a rocket program for Nassau. We had segregation. Um, you know, you keep going farther back, you know, we deprived the Native American Indians in Oklahoma and elsewhere of their mineral rights that, you know, we agreed to in treaty. Uh, then go further back and you know, took lands from them and then the the founding of the country, uh, you know, well, we we accounted for the institution of slavery within the constitutional framework. Uh something I would always convey to folks uh when I had the privilege of doing so that were entering the Foreign Service was that, you know, we have a lot of flaws, right? Uh in our government institution. Uh, but it is in comparison to others, uh still one of the better deals to have in the world. Uh and that's where we need to focus. We've made a lot of mistakes over the years, but again, uh I think we have a tendency, and uh I'll turn it over to you to comment on that, to sort of overlook our own deep-seated contradictions and own uh hypocrisies over time. I mean, have we really been about democracy and individual rights? Uh, or has it been, you know, over time, well, you know, you know, he who has the goal makes the rule, so to say, you know, we'll twist it around if we can.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:44

There's no doubt. And if you look at things like the Mexican-American War, for instance, which Robert F. Kennedy says was one of the most um uh embarrassing and and and and and terrible things of paraphrasing that that we've ever done. The whole, you know, uh when we created uh uh the constitution, we counted slaves as as one-third of a person and all those things, yes, but we have addressed those issues already. Uh after World War II, we became the predominant uh power in the world, struggled with the Soviet Union and came on time. I think we've done a lot to address those deficiencies. I think we did promote democracy and promote our values, uh, human rights, uh uh equality, but now a lot of that stuff has become dirty words. And uh the efforts that we made in overcoming our past mistakes now, I see, my very personal opinion, been rolled back to where we were before. And I think that's a very dangerous and that's a very bad thing. Uh, I think that uh we really need to examine. I think the United States of America has to basically really become very introspective. And I think most citizens, I hope, would take the time to reflect on on where we are now and how we got here. And acknowledging our our past is certainly part of that. And that's why I don't understand why, for instance, the uh national parks, all references to slavery have been removed, things that have been removed in Smithsonian uh and other things that uh it seems to be we're trying to deny our past or perhaps rewrite rewrite them in a way. Uh I I do find all that somewhat disturbing.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:37

Um speaking specifically to leadership, institutional integrity, um what would you identify from your experiences? Uh areas of improvement to borrow uh a caption from the employee valuation uh phase, what would be areas of improvement for the U.S. Department of State as an institution? And and and let me let me uh contextualize that a little more. And this is independent of you know the the current administration. Things that you you observed over your time that the Department of State could actually do better, but they still had not.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:20

Right. I think I think one of the, and this is gonna sound uh kind of like a heresy, but I think the over-reliance on things like the uh foreign affairs manual, the FAM, that uh over over dependence on that, you need rules and regulations, but you also need common sense. And I think in a lot of practical matters, the Department of State was too over-formalized, too over-bureaucratized, uh, and and ignored sometimes uh common sense, also in recruitment. Uh, just because a guy scores well on a test or can write uh two sentences in proper form doesn't mean that he's gonna be a good leader and lead a mission or or manage a crisis. Uh so I think some of the recruitment and and uh and and needed effort. And um training, uh, I think lack of expertise. I think there's a good thing in being available for worldwide uh uh duty, but there's also something to be said for for specializing in in one region of the world or or or or one. Uh you know, separating the political aspects of it. Uh, I think how we did uh this whole evaluation, yearly evaluation reform uh uh forms needs to be looked at again. Uh they're looking at it in some strange ways now. But but yeah, there's a there's a and the other thing I think is vital that we have been slower missing over the decades that I've observed in this uh State Department, we don't we don't sell ourselves to the American people. You know, we don't, you know. People watch that uh that show on Netflix, you know, the diplomat about the ambassador. And you get a pretty cool, accurate representation of some of the dynamic, but uh other other of it is is kind of silly. But we don't sell ourselves. We don't we try, we do the hometown diplomat program, or guys, when they come back on leave, but there's no there's no really effort to explain how what we do is important to everyday Americans. I don't have a uh quick and snappy answer uh on how we improve that, but but I think when things uh get back to normal, we start looking on how to better things, that's something we have to do, is how we we sell our image to our own people.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:46

Well, on that note, do you have a quick and snappy statement that you would want to convey to folks out there? You know, what is the U.S. Foreign Service uh and why is it important? And lest uh people forget it was the first executive cabinet uh established uh when the United States was formed.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:09

Uh I go back to something that uh, and I'm not being partisan by saying this, that President Obama said once, he the world cannot do important things without the U.S. And the U.S. cannot do important things without the rest of the world. We need contact. America first should not be America alone. And I think that we have to concentrate on our alliances, our getting along with people, our uh sound economic policy, sound uh alliance policy. You know, we have NATO, which is uh the most successful free organization in in humankind, history, just about. And and and we should stick to things like that. And you know, getting along with your neighbors is good for your economy, it's good for uh everyday Americans, pockets, it's good for everything. We we cannot be isolationist and you know would let happen in the 1930s when we we tried that experiment, didn't work out very well. And so being isolationist and being America alone is is not a good idea.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:18

Okay, and again, why why is the foreign service important? What would you want someone out in Montana to know, you know, who's you know focused on saving his family farm because his or her children, they're not interested in farming. Uh how would the foreign service, how would you relate the foreign service to that individual out there?

SPEAKER_01 1:08:41

Because the Foreign Service also, when we're in embassies, we are promoting American business, we are promoting American exports, we're uh supporting uh an even playing field so that our products, our businesses, uh, our interests are treated as well or better than anyone else's. That, you know, the Foreign Service has always been America first. That's been our uh what we're supposed to do. And uh making sure that farmer who has uh our embassy in China uh lobbying and negotiating and pressing the Chinese government to purchase more American soybeans or or wheat or whatever it is that that farmer is selling and to keep his farm going. Uh that's part of our job, and that's how it affects everyone. I mean, you know, the say NAFTA or what would we call the USMCA now or whatever it is. You know how many jobs that provides in Texas? Uh keeping the border open, keeping it uh uh for for commerce, for the economy. Hundreds of thousands of jobs in the United States, tens of thousands alone in Mexico are directly tied to trade with with between the Mexico, between Mexico and the U.S. So, yes, we do affect everyday Americans' life in many ways, and we had to do better uh of uh explaining that.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:08

As we come to a close, what's a lesson that you learned from a subordinate that uh impacted you productively as a leader?

SPEAKER_01 1:10:19

Uh to try to be uh a little bit to use a little bit uh of humility uh to be open to suggestions, to keep an open door whenever possible, and to to listen to people. I I think that's all treating everyone, you can't treat everyone exactly the same in the sense that this guy is uh is better when you're alone with him and you you are enthusiastic about him. Another guy may need a little bit more of a push, but the rules should apply for everyone.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:51

Any advice to professionals serving in complex environments today, whether they're in government or in business or the nonprofit sector?

SPEAKER_01 1:11:00

I think you've got to uh you stick to your values, stick to your principles, and stick to your mission as much as possible, and try to avoid the noise and the chaff uh that's that's all around you. It's a very complex period that we're in right now, and we have to kind of just hold fast and and stick with it.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:23

Well, sir, deeply appreciate you thinking uh sharing your experiences and observations with us. Uh, do you have any parting thoughts?

SPEAKER_01 1:11:33

No, I just think that what you're doing is great. I I you've got a fan now. I certainly will be uh be tuning in. And uh if I can ever be of any help to you, uh our uh our lives have many interesting intersections uh in them, and I I truly appreciate and enjoyed speaking with you.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:51

Well, it's been a privilege speaking uh to you as well. Uh you know, uh to our listeners again. You know, this is a conversation we've had with retired U.S. Ambassador Luis Moreno. Uh and to our listeners, thank you for joining us on Brungart Laws Lanyat, where we provide a little extra perspective because the devil's always in the details. Please invite others to listen and let me know what you think via the link. Sir, again, gratitude. Oh, gratitude to you. Thank you very much, and good luck.