022: How Al-Qaeda Invaded Georgia

On August 5, 2025August 7, 2025 By Trevor CulleyIn America: Secret Wars, Podcast Episodes5 Comments

Akhmeta Municipality, home of the Pankisi Gorge, highlighted in Green via Wikimedia

The years immediately after 9/11 were a weird time. Every adult in the world went a little insane. The US and Putin’s Russia were intelligence allies. Al-Qaeda really was inside Georgia – just not that one. Trevor is joined by Roberto of altogether too many projects to discuss the Pankisi Gorge Crisis, and how US training and advisors helped combat both fundamentalist insurgents and anti-corruption protestors. Roberto is the host of The History of Saqartvelo Georgia (@History_Georgia) and co-host of Tsar Power (@TsarPowerPod) and Quest for Power.
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The History of Saqartvelo Georgia https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/historysaqartvelogeorgia
Tsar Power https://tsarpowerpod.weebly.com/
Quest for Power https://quest-for-power.captivate.fm/
Intelligent Speech 2026 https://intelligentspeechonline.com/

Leupp – Georgia and the War on Terrorism

Manning – Folklore and Terror in Georgia’s ‘Notorious’ Pankisi Gorge

The AP – Green Berets Land in Georgia For 2-Year Training Program

Bush – Presidential Letter, September 19, 2003

Bush – Presidential Letter, March 20, 2004

Cecire – How extreme are the Extremists? Pankisi Gorge as a Case Study

Civil.ge – Timeline-2005

Filkins – U.S. Entangled in Mystery of Georgia’s Islamic Fighters

GlobalSecurity.org – Georgia Train and Equip Program (GTEP)

Grennan – Georgia’s Pankisi Gorge and the Global War Against Terrorism

McGregor – Ricin Fever: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in the Pankisi Gorge

Menabde – Pankisi Gorge: A Resurgent Flashpoint in Georgia?

Myers – World Briefing\Europe: Georgia: Region Under Control

Quinn-Judge – The Surprise In the Gorge

Traynor – Georgia: US opens new front in war on terror

USDoS – Country Reports on Terrorism 2021: Georgia

Welt – Shaking up the System: Georgia and the War on Terror

021: The Pig War (Canadian Almost War 5)

On June 8, 2025 By Trevor CulleyIn America: Secret Wars, Podcast EpisodesLeave a comment

George Vancouver’s Map of the San Juan Islands, 1798

Charles Wilkes’ Map of the Oregon Country, 1845

America: Secret Wars is back with a five part series about the skirmishes between the US and Canada that almost led to a third war with the British Empire in the 1830s. In Part 5, Trevor is joined Bailey and Nic from Totalus Jeffianus (@jeffianus.bsky.social) to discuss the Pig War and the boundary disputes that gave us Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia.
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Totalus Jeffianus – https://pod.link/1689272611

Unfortunately, production on this series has been a nightmare and the full bibliography was lost in a technical error (not realizing my laptop had disconnected from wifi and stopped auto-saving). Here is an abbreviated version:

Coleman – The Pig War: The Most Perfect War in History
Shewmaker – Daniel Webster and the Oregon Question Available to Purchase
Polk – Inaugural Address
Polk – First Annual Message to Congress
Vancouver – A chart shewing part of the coast of N.W. America
Wilkes – Map of the Oregon Territory
Oregon Treaty, 1846
Treaty of Washington, 1871

019: The Patriot War (Canadian Almost War 3)

On March 29, 2025 By Trevor CulleyIn America: Secret Wars, Podcast EpisodesLeave a comment

The Battle of Saint-Eustache by Lord Charles Beauclerk, 1840

America: Secret Wars is back with a five part series about the skirmishes between the US and Canada that almost led to a third war with the British Empire in the 1830s. In Part 3, Trevor is joined Bailey and Nic from Totalus Jeffianus (@jeffianus.bsky.social) to discuss the Patriot War, a failed Canadian Revolution where the US somehow managed to fight and lose on both sides.
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Totalus Jeffianus – https://pod.link/1689272611

Guillet – The lives and times of the patriots; an account of the Rebellion in Upper Canada

The Webster-Ashburton Treaty

Bonthius – The Patriot War of 1837-1838: Locofocoism with a Gun?

Dictionary of Canadian Biography

Ducharme – Closing the Last Chapter of the Atlantic Revolution

Forcese – Destroying the Caroline: The Frontier Raid that Reshaped the Right to War

Kilbourn – The Firebrand: William Lyon Mackenzie and the Rebellion in Upper Canada

Kinchen – The Rise and Fall of the Patriot Hunters

Read – The Rising in Western Upper Canada 1837-8: The Duncombe Revolt and After

Sewell: Mackenzie: A Political Biography

Waxman – The Caroline Affair in the Evolving International Law of Self-Defense

018: The Aroostook War (Canadian Almost War 2)

On March 15, 2025 By Trevor CulleyIn America: Secret Wars, Podcast EpisodesLeave a comment

Map of the Aroostook Border dispute (and Indian Stream) via Wikimedia

America: Secret Wars is back with a five part series about the skirmishes between the US and Canada that almost led to a third war with the British Empire in the 1830s. In Part 2, Trevor is joined Bailey and Nic from Totalus Jeffianus (@jeffianus.bsky.social) to discuss the Aroostook War, a conflict between the United States, British New Brunswick, and the forces of nature.
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Totalus Jeffianus – https://pod.link/1689272611

Aroostook War Songs:
Greenwood & Burns – Aroostook War Fighting Song

Wallace House – The Soldier Song (Aroostook War)

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Campbell and Campbell – The Aroostook War of 1839

Carroll – The Passionate Canadians: The Historical Debate about the Eastern Canadian-American Boundary

Maine Council – Aroostook War: HIstorical Sketch and Roster of Commissioned Officers and Enlisted Men

Meander Maine – The Pork and Beans War

Paradis – John Baker and the Republic of Madawaska

Perry – “Maine and Her Soil or Blood!” Political Rhetoric and Spatial Identity During the Aroostook War in Maine