with cannibal warlords.

MALE SPEAKER 1: I lift it up on the temple.

I'm gonna eat it.

[GUNFIRE]

MALE SPEAKER 1: It's a Liberian general's heart.

SHANE SMITH: I was afraid probably the whole time I was

in Liberia.

There's always this underlying hum of violence.

And the poverty there is so crippling that you're kind of

like, why wouldn't they steal our camera?

Why wouldn't they steal our clothes?

I mean, people are starving.

And all they know is war.

So is that why your nickname was General Butt Naked?

SHANE SMITH: A lot of people would drink or do

drugs before fighting?

SHANE SMITH: So you killed a child?

JOSHUA BLAHYI: Yes.

SHANE SMITH: And then drank the blood.

JOSHUA BLAHYI: Yeah.

[GUNFIRE]

[GUNFIRE]

MALE SPEAKER 2: So what kind of war is this?

Guerrilla?

MALE SPEAKER 3: It's World War III.

MALE SPEAKERS: It's World War III.

[GUNFIRE]

[HORN HONKING]

SHANE SMITH: We here at Vice have been fascinated by

Liberia for a long time.

It's America's first and only foray into

quasi-colonialism in Africa.

It started as a back-to-Africa movement for freed slaves, and

in fact, the Constitution was written in Washington, and

Monrovia, the capital city of Liberia, is actually named

after President Monroe.

And it became a state in the 1840s.

So the freed slaves go back to Africa and promptly enslave

the native Africans based on the plantation method they had

learned in the US, which lasts for about 140 years, until

Samuel K. Doe, the first native, African-born Liberian,

was elected.

But this doesn't last very long.

Why?

Because an American-educated, and some would say

American-backed, rebel leader named Charles Taylor and his

buddy Prince Johnson came from America and overthrew him.

NEWS REPORTER: Despite reports that the government wants

talks with the rebels, the violence goes on.

[GUNFIRE]

NEWS REPORTER: Rebel forces stormed into the center of the

capital today.

They're now less than a mile from the executive mansion,

where President Samuel Doe has barricaded himself with about

500 soldiers.

SHANE SMITH: In fact, Prince Johnson, who got to Doe before

his buddy Charles, ended up torturing him, cutting him up,

and is rumored to have eaten him while

filming the whole thing.

SHANE SMITH: So Charles Taylor finally gets elected with a

campaign slogan that reads, He killed my ma, he killed my pa,

but I'll still vote for him.

And it works.

He gets elected.

But he's so corrupt that soon after, there's a bunch of

warlords fighting for control over Liberia.

The country falls into civil war, and things go from bad to

severely fucked up.

[GUNFIRE]

[GUNFIRE]

SHANE SMITH: But this is like a civil war on steroids.

It's a post-apocalyptic Armageddon, with child

soldiers smoking heroin, cross-dressing cannibals,

systematic rape--

it's total hell on Earth.

[GUNFIRE]

MALE SPEAKER 4: We love the music.

This is our music.

NEWS REPORTER: They call it the sound of death.

MALE SPEAKER 4: Yeah, but it's the sound of music to us.

SHANE SMITH: Liberia's been in the news a lot lately because

Charles Taylor is on trial at The Hague for war crimes.

But we wanted to know what happened to

all the other warlords.

So we contacted a Canadian journalist who lives in

Liberia named Myles Estey, who's kind of a Kurtz-like

character--

tall, skinny, skeleton guy who's had malaria more times

than he's had hot dinners--

and he said he could get us access to all these

ex-warlords.

So we said, great.

We got on a plane and we flew to Liberia.

[MUSIC - THE ALMIGHTY DEFENDERS, "ALL MY LOVING"]

[HORN HONKS]

[HORN HONKS]

SHANE SMITH: When you first get to Monrovia, the first

thing you think is, it's really hot.

It's really hot.

It's really poor.

And it's totally chaotic.

In fact, when we went to pick up Myles, he had just gotten

out of the hospital with malaria.

He gets in the car and he says, are you ready to go?

We're going to Baboon Town in the Red Light district to meet

our first general, General Bin Laden.

So as we drove to Baboon Town, we asked Myles, what's up with

the name General Bin Laden?

And he said, well, a lot of the generals took different

names because they didn't want to be identified after the

various wars.

And these pseudonyms were meant to strike terror into

the hearts of their enemies.

So there's a General Rambo, because he's scary.

There was a General Mosquito, because mosquitoes are

terrifying because they bring malaria.

The general that fought General Mosquito was named

General Mosquito Spray.

[HORN HONKS]

SHANE SMITH: And of course, there's General Bin Laden.

In fact, there's two General Bin Ladens.

Our General Bin Laden, we found out en route, had just

been put in jail.

Now he didn't know why, but he suspected because the

authorities found out that we were coming with

cameras to shoot him.

MYLES ESTEY: And they say they're not going to let him

out, but we can interview him in the jail and we can

interview the commanders.

SHANE SMITH: Let's do that.

Let's go there.

MYLES ESTEY: Yeah.

SHANE SMITH: So the minute we arrive in Baboon Town, our car

was surrounded by a bunch of sketchy dudes.

So when Myles came back and said we could interview Bin

Laden in the police station, I was like, yeah.

Let's get out of here and get in there really quick.

[MONKEY SCREECHES]

SHANE SMITH: So we get into the police

station, and it's chaos.

Some guards are saying, you can go see him.

Other guards are saying, you can't go see him.

And we just have to sit there and wait.

I like being in the police station.

It's nice.

[MONKEY SCREECHES]

SHANE SMITH: Monkey.

Little monkey.

He's got herpes, I think, or something.

[MONKEY CHATTERING]

SHANE SMITH: Hi.

What's wrong with the monkey?

Why is the monkey here?

SHANE SMITH: Why is the monkey here?

We're in a police station in the middle of the red light

district to meet General Bin Laden, and I'm wondering why

the monkey's here.

[MONKEY CHATTERS]

SHANE SMITH: And eventually after sitting there for a

while, we realized, oh, we've got to grease some palms.

So we gave them some money, and bang.

We were back into the jail and we could talk to Bin Laden.

Hey, Bin Laden.

GENERAL BIN LADEN: Yeah.

SHANE SMITH: How are you?

MYLES ESTEY: This is my friend Shane.

SHANE SMITH: Shane.

GENERAL BIN LADEN: [INAUDIBLE].

SHANE SMITH: Nice to meet you.

We're going to try to get you out of here now, and then we

can go back.

SHANE SMITH: All right.

We're going to do it right now.

MYLES ESTEY: Yeah.

I know what he did.

Just--we're talking about to get him out.

What do we have to do?

MYLES ESTEY: To who?

SHANE SMITH: OK, we'll stop.

We'll stop.

It's off.

MYLES ESTEY: The video's off.

He's carrying it, he's just holding it right now.

SHANE SMITH: Look, we're good people.

We're good--

nobody.

Nobody's recording.

SHANE SMITH: Sure.

I can give him cash.

Can we-- can we pay him and pay you a fine

and then take him?

POLICEMAN: Fine.

SHANE SMITH: OK, great.

POLICEMAN: That's good.

SHANE SMITH: OK.

OK, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go.

OK, let's go, let's go.

MALE SPEAKER 5: Hey, hey, you.

SHANE SMITH: We went in there.

And we're being followed by the police right now.

SHANE SMITH: Yeah, we might have to change tapes or do

something, because--

what we do is we shoot cards, and if they come, we can give

them the tape.

There's nothing on the tape.

SHANE SMITH: Yeah, we do right now.

SHANE SMITH: Our trip is getting progressively heavier.

SHANE SMITH: Yeah, that'd be good.

OK.

I'm kind of a little bit worried that the police are

going to come get us right now.

I gave them a fake name and fake number.

SHANE SMITH: OK.

Nice to meet you.

SHANE SMITH: Nice to meet you.

SHANE SMITH: Thank you.

Thank you.

SHANE SMITH: So after we got Bin Laden out of jail, he was

very excited to get us up to his rooftop

and tell us his story.

And according to him, the ex-generals, who are now the

community leaders, are the only ones doing anything to

help the people.

So maybe you could explain a little bit about-- so first of

all, you became known as Bin Laden during the war.

GENERAL BIN LADEN: During the war.

SHANE SMITH: And then after the war, now you're sort of

trying to help people by carpentry and by karate.

GENERAL BIN LADEN: And karate.

SHANE SMITH: Do get any money here?

SHANE SMITH: Yeah, but the UN, or the government doesn't give

you any money?

SHANE SMITH: And is this-- is this area--

this is Red Light, here?

GENERAL BIN LADEN: It's Red Light [INAUDIBLE].

This is Red Light.

SHANE SMITH: And is it--

is there a lot of crime in Red Light.

GENERAL BIN LADEN: Yeah.

It's [INAUDIBLE].

This is Red Light.

SHANE SMITH: Red Light.

SHANE SMITH: So Myles comes over, stops the interview, and

says, we have to get the fuck out of here now.

And Bin Laden looks down, and he goes, yeah, yeah.

Those aren't my guys.

You guys should really go.

So Bin Laden gave us an escort and a couple of his guys got

us through the crowd to the car, and we got the fuck out.

CAMERAMAN: Let's go.

Let's go.

Let's go.

Let's go.

Let's go.

Let's go.

Holy fucking shit.

That was out of hand.

We gotta get out of here.

There was some heavy-duty vibes there.

SHANE SMITH: So after meeting and being freaked out by

General Bin Laden, we wanted to see what the UN and