Is this true because there is evidence to suggest it or is it true because it's a really compelling narrative?
Because: the USG, particularly under the previous administration, being so incompetent that it could "lose" (or: lose track of) a percentage of an enormous allocation of money is also a pretty compelling narrative.
>Is this true because there is evidence to suggest it or is it true because it's a really compelling narrative?
It's in all likelihood true because of a long history of exposed similar BS going on, in Latin America, Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Europe in the past 5-8 decades.
If you have 20 similar cases, you don't really need particular case-specific evidence for the 21st you encounter. You can take a (not so) wild guess.
The same way that people who witnessed the western support for Pinochet or the Contras in the 70/80s would not really be surprised to find out another regime was also supported with similar means where it was strategically favorable.
It's not like there are not millions of people who live on the other side, location wise, of those deals, and get to know these stories better than what the official US mainstream media would ever cover them.
Someone that just reads the mainstream news and the occasional history book from his comfortable sofa in California or NY or Utah is not really more informed compared to someone who had relatives gone missing by some dictatorship or himself beaten up in their own country and followed such stories as live history over several decades.
Because: the USG, particularly under the previous administration, being so incompetent that it could "lose" (or: lose track of) a percentage of an enormous allocation of money is also a pretty compelling narrative.