Title: John Kiriakou CIA Story Meme Compilation 6
Show: Viral Plug
Date: 2026-02-25
URL: https://youtu.be/RtLO5yZ6EhU
Duration: 10:00

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[00:00] According to YouTube statistics, only a small percentage of people that watch my videos are actually subscribed. So if you end up liking this video, consider subscribing. It's free and you can always un I got a call from Sacha Baron Cohen one night. And he says, "Hey, I don't know if you know my characters." But I said, "Oh yeah, I said, 'Listen, Borat.'" I said, "I almost pissed myself laughing." It's still the funniest movie I've ever seen in my life. So he said, "Well, I've got this character Bruno." I said, "Yeah, yeah, the the gay Austrian fashion correspondent." >> [music] >> He said, "Yeah." So he made me sign a non-disclosure agreement. And um he said, "Literally nobody's in on the gag except um Pam Anderson.

[00:30] Literally no one else in the film was in on the gag. Well, except uh >> [music] >> that was in Borat, except Borat's assistant. So anyway, um he said, "We can't let anybody know that it's me and that I'm in character." And I said, "Okay, so what can I do for you?" And he said, "We're going to go to the Middle East. I want to get in front of bonafide terrorists," [music] he said. I'm thinking Hezbollah or Al-Qaeda. And I want to show them Polaroids of men having

[01:01] like hardcore And I want to ask them if [music] this is a form of torture and should these men be sent to Guantanamo? >> Oh [ __ ] god. [laughter] So I said, I go, "Oh." That's a that's a bad idea. Yeah, and I said, "You know, just as a general rule, you really shouldn't mess with the religious types." I go, "They'll kill you, they'll kill your crew, they'll go out onto the street and kill people who remind them of you." You know, I I generally never talk to

[01:32] people on airplanes. I I listen to music or I read a book or a magazine or something. I just don't say anything. I was flying from Milan to Eastern Europe one time and there was this Italian guy next to me [music] who just would not shut his mouth. And he kept asking me, "What do you do for a living? What do you do for a living?" And >> [music] >> you know, I said, "Well, I'm involved in the import-export business." Oh, what do you import? What do you export? I said, "Ah, whatever whatever, you know, turns things into money."

[02:04] He [music] just wouldn't stop. And finally, I said, "Look, I smuggle women and cigarettes from Eastern Europe, okay? Are you happy now?" And he goes, "I don't think I approve." [music] I said, "I didn't ask for your [ __ ] approval." And then he just kind of sat there with his head down the rest of the time. [music] And it's it's not like it is in the James Bond movies, where everybody's like, "Wow, right on top of their game." No, they're a lot of dopes. I I was just telling a friend of mine yesterday, um we were getting ready to go on a the honest-to-god truth, we're already

[02:34] getting ready to go on a raid in in Pakistan. We're going to raid an Al-Qaeda safe house. And I remember saying, "Where's Where's Chris?" Oh, uh Chris couldn't come. I said, "What do you mean he couldn't come? Well, that's why he's here." No, it turned out Chris beat his wife. So, uh we >> have this rule, if you get caught beating your wife, you can't carry a gun. So, he can't go on the raid without a gun. I said, "Okay, where's Jimmy?" Now, Jimmy got psycho backed. Psychologically evacuated. I said, "Why?" He went nuts this morning. I was like, "All right, all right, let's just let's just go with what we have." So, it's not like What are you doing there? He goes,

[03:04] "I've been killing people. What do you think I've been doing?" And it dawned on me that that's why they hadn't sent me. Because I kept saying, >> [music] >> "You need linguists to do the interrogations." You want to do interrogations? They're just shooting people. So, I finally went into the Deputy Director of the Counterterrorism Center's office. He was >> [music] >> an old friend of mine. And I said, "If If you don't send me to Afghanistan right now, I said, as God is my witness, I'm walking straight to Exxon with my Arabic, and I am not looking back." He's

[03:37] like, "Will you relax?" He goes, "All right, all right." And then he says to me like this, "You are Jewish?" And I said, "I am not recruitable. Don't even think about trying to recruit me." I said, "My name is John Kiryakou. I was overt, not undercover. So, I said, 'My name is John Kiryakou and I'm going to brief you on Saddam Hussein's psychology.'" And the Shin Bet guy, he has his glasses like this and he says, "Spell your name?"

[04:09] So, I spell it, which made me angry. And then he says to me like this, "You are Jewish?" And I said, "I am not recruitable. Don't even think about trying to recruit me." I was enraged. Mhm. So, afterwards, everybody was laughing and they said, "They've done that to all of us. Every one of us. They tried to tell Right to your face, right in front of everybody, they try to recruit you. I

[04:40] got back to the office. He said, my boss said, "How did it go?" And I said, "I'm so mad right now." And he said, "Mossad tried to recruit you, didn't they?" And I said, "Yes." He said, "They do that to everybody. They're just crude about it. Just like a punch in the face." Yeah, this this is one of these incidents that leads to PTSD. Um when I my family and I first arrived in Athens, uh the embassy put us up in a in an apartment uh because they hadn't yet gotten a house. I I went sort of out of

[05:12] cycle. Most people go summer to summer and I arrived a couple of months in. So, uh they needed to go out and find a house. So, we're in this apartment and then they finally find us a house and um and we're moving all our stuff up to the house. Uh the the embassy has a truck for most of our boxes and then my wife was in a car and I was in my armored car.

[05:42] And I had just bought a TV at the PX. It It was a big one. It took up the whole backseat. Not big like we have today, but you know, it was 25 years ago. So, it was pretty big. It took up the whole seat. So, I'm driving up the same Kifissias Avenue. And there's a there's a motorcyclist and he's trying really hard to stay in my blind spot. And I thought, that's kind of odd. So, I speed up and he speeds up. I slow down,

[06:12] he slows down. I move over a lane, he moves over lane. My wife calls me. She's in the car ahead of me and she says, "Do you see this guy?" And I said, "Yeah, I'm starting to get nervous." And she said, "You don't think it's 17 November?" And I said, "They can't possibly be on me yet." I said, "I don't know I don't know what this guy is doing." And she said, "Are you nervous?" I said, "Yeah, nervous enough that I think I'm going to hit him. I'm going to I'm going to try to hit

[06:42] him." And she said, "Okay." So, I hung up and I sped up and he sped up and then I slammed my brakes as hard as I could and I swerved right to hit him. And I barely missed him. So, we did this a couple of times. And then there's this enormous intersection. How do you control people who don't actually [music] work for you? You can't. And you risk them going rogue, which of course they do because it's their nature.

[07:13] If you're being If you're being contracted to run an assassination [music] program, you're going to go out there and assassinate people. Well, everybody's [music] human and you make mistakes. And you convince yourself that, you know, Ahmed Schmamed is [music] a really bad guy. And actually, Nah, it's a cousin with a similar name, but you just put a bullet in this guy's head. Nah, okay. Yeah, you're right. Just write [music] a check for 100 grand to his widow and just move on. And that's not cool. It's a It's a crime. You can't just go around [music] murdering people because you think they might be a bad guy. And so Panetta, I never really liked

[07:44] Panetta. Just cuz he's not a nice guy. But um [music] but Panetta was right to shut that down. Okay, so um [music] What are the What are the legalities then of a Blackwater team going out to hit [music] somebody as if a ground branch team would. It's Is it like I think title 10 title 50? Right. One's military, one's CIA. I can't remember. I good-looking go-getter. And he's [music] like I was targeting this woman and she has

[08:15] access to the [music] prime minister to Syria, but she's no longer a target. You're going to have to find somebody else. He ended up [music] marrying her. Wow. >> Yeah. He What do you think of the new Chinese mega embassy opening in London? Do you think it's a threat to the UK? Yes, I do. I've been following this issue. The Chinese tried the same thing in Washington and we said nothing doing. So they're kind of split up. They have They have a large-ish embassy on a street of embassies. They're directly across the street from the

[08:46] Israelis. They're down the street from like the Vietnamese and the Qataris and you know, people like that. But um their housing is in a different place just off Embassy Row in the Kalorama neighborhood of uh of Washington. They're sort of split up. The trade mission's in a different building. In London, they are planning this ginormous embassy. It would be the biggest embassy in the world. And it takes the entire city block in London. There've been protests in the streets about this embassy.

[09:18] And for whatever reason Keir Starmer said, "Now what I I don't really care what the British people want. Sure, you can have your embassy." Well, this is going to be you know, talk about the United States used to be accused a lot of of having a spy den in their embassy. This is going to be the mother of all spy dens. Yeah, without a doubt. And mark my words, this is not a one-and-done. The Chinese are going to seek to build embassies like this all over the world. God knows they have the money for it.

[09:49] >> [music] [music]
