Podbit · Empire: World History
In June 1845, French soldiers chased around 1,000 Algerian civilians — women, children, animals — into a cave system in the Daraa Mountains, then lit fires at the entrances for 24 hours. Between 500 and 1,500 people suffocated or burned. France expressed outrage, then promoted the colonel who ordered it.
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At 33:25 · chapter starts 31:00
General Thomas Robert Bugeaud arrives as the man who changed everything. Anita Anand explains that Bugeaud — who had signed the Treaty of Tafna he would later violate — was appointed Governor General in 1840 with a clear strategic diagnosis: France had been fighting like a conventional European army in terrain and against an enemy where those rules did not apply. Drawing on lessons from the Napoleonic invasion of Russia, Bugeaud deployed the razzio, a scorched earth strategy of fast-moving raids that burned crops, destroyed granaries, slaughtered livestock, demolished wells, and made the land uninhabitable. William Dalrymple draws a direct parallel to contemporary conflicts, noting the similarity to Israeli operations in southern Lebanon.
General Bugeaud, appointed Governor General in 1840, abandoned conventional European tactics and launched a scorched earth campaign — burning crops, destroying granaries, slaughtering livestock, demolishing wells. Fast-moving columns turned one of the Mediterranean's most beautiful countrysides into wasteland.
In June 1845, French soldiers lit fires at the mouths of caves sheltering around 1,000 Algerians, killing between 500 and 1,500 men, women, and children by asphyxiation.
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Lebanese terrorists backed by Iran were holding American hostages throughout the Reagan presidency. Reagan had loudly campaigned against negotiating with terrorists — putting him in an impossible position that his team quietly decided to ignore.
During the Iran-Iraq War, the US openly supplied Iraq with weapons, training, and intelligence. At the same time, Oliver North was secretly funneling missiles to Iran. The US was playing both sides of a shooting war.
Oliver North traveled to Iran under the alias 'William P. Goode' with a fake passport. CIA Director William Casey allegedly gave him cyanide pills so he could kill himself rather than be tortured if captured. He returned safely and the deal moved forward.
The Pentagon sold missiles to the CIA for $3,700 each. The CIA sold them to Richard Secord at cost. Secord sold them to Iranian middleman Ghorbanifar for $10,000 each. Ghorbanifar charged Iran even more. The profit — including $3 million in interest in one Swiss account — was diverted directly to fund the Nicaraguan Contras.
America secretly transferred 2,000 missiles and missile parts to Iran in 8 shipments over more than a year. Only 3 of 7 hostages were released. Three more were taken. The net result was zero freed hostages and a full-blown constitutional scandal.
On October 5, 1986, a CIA Contra supply plane flew a weapons drop at 2,500 feet in broad daylight. A Sandinista soldier shot it down. The only survivor, Eugene Hasenfuss, had borrowed a parachute from his skydiving brother. He was captured, paraded in front of cameras, and told the Sandinistas everything he knew.
The CIA supply operation used a front company called Southern Air Transport, widely known to be a CIA cover. Crew members of the downed plane carried their Southern Air Transport employee IDs in their wallets. One also had a business card directly linking him to Oliver North's office in Washington.
When the scandal broke, Oliver North and his secretary Fawn Hall conducted what became known as a 'shredding party,' destroying a day's worth of documents. The full truth of Iran-Contra may never be known because of what was fed through that shredder.
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