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Radio War Nerd EP #380 — Pancho Villa & The Punitive Expedition (Patreon)

Published:
2023-05-31 01:43:19
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

Recorded: May 26, 2023

Every GOP contender for president in 2024 has a plan to invade Mexico upon taking office, and the good news is it's been done before so we don't have to guess how stupidly badly it will go. This episode the Nerd & Ames look back at Pancho Villa's raid on a small New Mexico town — a marketing & recruiting event that went a li'l haywire — and what happened when Woodrow Wilson made another of his trademark disastrous decisions, sending the US military into Mexico to chase Villa down.

First — we chat about bad Italian-meets-Dada...

At 12:15 — we break down the cream of the GOPnik crop's big plans for invading Mexico in 2024...

At 36:24 — we tell the story of Pancho Villa, his rise & fall, his attempted comeback using a provocative raid on a US border town, which properly provoked Woodrow Wilson into ordering the US military to invade (but not really invade, but yeah to invade) Mexico in 1916, and you can guess how brilliantly that went.

Total time: 1:24:55

Direct link to this episode's mp3 here 

Subscribe to Radio War Nerd at patreon.com/radiowarnerd

Sound production by Telescope Audio Studios

Files

Comments

Ander Pierce

Absolutely loving the episode. My girlfriend comes home from work to me screaming at my computer, at the DOTA game and along with the commentary "Honey are you OK?" haha absolute pleasure

Leo Johnson

I’m kind of under the impression that the U.S. invading Mexico in 2023 would go pretty similar to the Iraqi invasion of Iran in the 80s. Would love to know what the community’s thoughts on it are!

David Winn

I had my face in my hands during Bashō/lascio mixup, because I did the same thing in Japan. Japanese has a lot of homophones, so it’s difficult to keep track as a foreigner, and I got a lot of puzzled looks when I thought I was calling a dog “kawaii” (cute) but pronounced it “kowai” (scary)

Gordon Schmidt

It's worth noting re: the Patriot and many other systems is that it has developed a lot since its combat debut. The system has missiles designed for intercepting ballistic missiles (apparently based on SDI tech, of all things) that were introduced in the late 90s. Apparently they're still upgrading the thing, too. It's also worth noting that, as I said, many other modern weapons systems have changed significantly since their introduction. It seems like these days, if a system truly is a lemon, if you have the resources you can make your lemonade. It may be that this can only go so far though- air defense systems are especially easy to upgrade, given that things like software and radar can have a big impact on the performance of the system, and most air defense systems use different missiles for different targets, so you can just pull something off the shelf from SDI and bolt it onto Patriot. Maybe for something like the F-35, all the money in the world couldn't save it. Only time will tell, I guess.

Ander Pierce

Brazilian, Venezuelan, Bolivian, Nicaraguan, Chinese, Mexican, Russian NATO would have its catalyst haha

J P 3

It is one of the stupidest ideas imaginable. In Trump's case, I see it playing out similarly to Putin's war in Ukraine, in the sense that the war would be a way for him to consolidate power domestically (while also causing massive harm inside Mexico and a military defeat for the U.S.). Invading one of our largest trading partners would weaken American power in every other way, which may also be part of the point for someone like Trump. In the case of the rest of the GOP field, I wonder how much of this is serious and how much is just humoring Trump's base (a form of political triangulation). I am hard pressed to see how this would be a political winner in Texas or Arizona. Stuff like this is also one of the reasons that I think Trump winning in 2024 is a lot less likely.

David Andrews

Good episode. It would have been even better with a bit more context on why Mexico was at war. Perhaps that's another episode altogether.

Jake Palmer

Would be very surprised if people without quite good background could follow this discussion on Villa. Is it more well known in USA? I think this was really missing a "setting the scene" pre-segment.

Jason Thompson

Unpublished followup to “Pleasant Hell”??! Hold the presses!!

George P

Started reading Zavala's book after hearing him on TrueAnon. One point he makes is the contradiction of constantly hearing that areas of northern Mexico are completely controlled by the so-called cartels and are essentially failed states, at the same time the actual state of Mexico is auctioning off rights to the massive shale reserves in those areas to foreign companies. He speculates the drug war is allowed to rage so out of control in those areas to displace peasants from the shale-rich lands and give the government the excuse to brand any poor peasants getting uppity as narcos and shoot them. The book is a few years old so it doesn't cover AMLO and the GOP's new insane invade Mexico agenda, but I wonder how much of that agenda is a reaction to AMLO potentially not giving away the country's natural resources on a platter.

Ben H

Does anyone have any good resources about the prevalence and availability of fentanyl? Everything I see from some casual googling just blames China and Mexico.

David Winn

This is something I’ve been trying to figure out for a while. I know that groups in Mexico figured out how to synthesize it a long time ago, but surely other countries (including the US) have too.

Tvvvv

“And Staring Pancho Villa as Himself” small made for HBO movie starring Antonio banderas. Not focused on the battles but on the silent screen pictures that he made at the time. I rented it from blockbuster 20ish years ago. The only thing I remember is that there is a tag at the end of the movie that said most of the film that was made of him has been lost to time. It was also cool how well they recreated old silent film filmmaking.

George P

it has legit uses which makes cracking down on illegal manufacturing harder. when my wife was giving birth i was surprised to read on a monitor she was being injected with a concoction containing fentanyl for her epidural.

Doug Cartel

"Invade Mexico" sounds like the GOPniks pussing out on war with China, but still needing to direct all that bloodlust somewhere else. It may also have to do with how they see the Ukraine war; they see Russia "protecting its border" and go "why aren't we doing that!!" and then remember the last 20 years they spent impotently whining about mexican drug trafficking.

Ben H

Haha - I just noticed the same thing when my wife got an epidural.

William Brennan

@john and mark, check out “Duck, You Sucker!” for the silver screen adaptation you seek!

j

Wonderful, would love to see Porfirio Diaz discussed someday!

Jaime Christley

fantastic film, low key one of Leone's best

(American spirit menthol

Fentanyl sucks you can't even do meth any more it's like when disco got so big every band had to make a dance album

George P

Also, the story about Sammy was really touching. Glad he's doing well.

Shad Narcher

Also called A Fistfull of Dynamite, but I like Duck, You Sucker! better. Greatest pissing scene in cinema right in the opener!

THEKILLERWHALE

If you have not seen "A Bullet for the General" go to your nearest cinema and inquire about a screening.

Shane

Like the song says, Twas better to die beneath an Irish sky, than at Suvla or Sud el Bar

John

You should give John Reed a chance. Ten Days is quite good.

Josh

Great episode, and love to hear that about Sammy 🥹 I agree with other comments though that a whole war nerd treatment of the Mexican revolution is needed. Another thing you guys would do an amazing job with (if you haven’t already) would be a history of the bin laden family. and now that we have some hindsight, an evaluation of bin laden’s strategy regarding provoking the US to get them bogged down. China owes him a lot, they were able to make money and build infrastructure for 20 years while the us was distracted blowing up civilians in west Asia.

Nicholas Levis

When Republicans talk smack about bringing Plan Colombia to Mexico, they leave out the actual Plan Mexico that started under Bush -- the declaration of a new war on drugs in 2006 by Calderon, with massive US armament of Mexican anti-drug and military forces, setting off years of drug war, massacres, and what look to be many death-squad killings disguised as "cartel" fighting. Something like 100,000 killed. That's the lower end of a figure that's hard to estimate. You see a lot of numbers because the high general murder rate cannot easily be separated from drug business killings. This is what AMLO is trying to wind down!

Dan Kolbert

For god’s sake john - VEE-yuh

Mark Ames

You're right. Will read.

Steve Mathews

Maybe you guys know this already, but it came as a surprise to me that fentanyl "contamination" of various drugs is actually a feature, and when someone ODs, other junkies come running to buy whatever brand proved to be fatal. The optimal strategy for a sales-maximizing dealer would be to kill a user every now and then. (From Dopesick by Beth Macy.)