Update and THANK YOU

Hey everyone, sorry it’s been a while! Thought I’d drop in and give you a quick update on what to expect and thank you all for your ongoing support.

First of all, your support here on Patreon has allowed me to pick up a few books that I’ve been eying for a while as well as the biggest addition to the channel: a huge upgrade to my previous mic. Thank you for your generosity and believing in my work. The new mic will help bring up the production quality of my videos and the books will of course feed into the next parts of the series.

As for the next parts, I’m planning on releasing a two part documentary to kick off the French Connection. Part 1 will be looking at Operation Paper, which was a secret operation undertaken by the CIA to arm a breakaway army of the KMT in Burma. This operation was likely (as you’ll see in the video) funded by opium profits. This would be the blueprint for many future CIA operations. There’s obviously much more nuance to it but I’ll get into all that in the episode.

The second part will be focused on the First Indochina War and the French influence on narco-counterinsurgency. We will be looking at Laos and how the Americans picked up the pieces of the network after the fall of French Indochina. This episode will be called “prelude to the Vietnam War”.

Together, both parts will form an hour and a half documentary about Indochina and the beginning of the global opium trade during the Cold War. When part 1 is complete, you will all get it one week before it goes live on YouTube. This process has taken a while because I wanted to have them both done around the same time. That way, once part one drops on YouTube, you will all immediately have access to part 2, also one week before YouTube.

Thank you for your patience during my absence. I have been doing a ton of research and I think the final product will be compelling and in depth. Learning about these events has helped me better understand the Vietnam War and modern counterinsurgency theory. I hope it will help you all too.

Talk to you all soon 👁️