Title: From CIA Whistleblower To Convicted Felon to Political Analyst: The Journey of J
Show: The Platform Talk Podcast
Date: 2021-03-24
URL: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/APO7722652056.mp3
Duration: 66:00

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[00:00] Coming up on the platform talk We started torturing up Zubeda on August 1st of 2002, but in order to justify the program the two torturers They were lying about it from the very beginning and being paid a hundred and eight million dollars for the contract The CIA actively seeks to hire people who have sociopathic tendencies You can try as hard as you possibly can to keep sociopaths out of the CIA The truth of the matter is that sociopaths end up running the CIA

[00:33] All of the corporate media has been compromised and I think because of that most Americans Really don't understand what's going on in the world. Those are the words of former CIA officer John Kiriaku Coming up next on the platform talk Welcome to this episode of the platform talk. I am your host and facilitator Greg Ford

[01:19] My guest today spent 14 years of his life in various roles as an analyst Case officer and chief of counter-terrorism in Pakistan for the Central Intelligence Agency He is responsible for the capture of then suspected al-Qaeda operative Abu Zubeda He is also the author of two books The first the reluctant spy and the second I will mention a bit later He's been a consultant on movies regarding realism and accuracy in the portrayal of the CIA

[01:49] But he is most famously or infamously depending on your perspective Known as the man who blew the whistle on enhanced interrogation i.e. waterboarding or torture under the George W. Bush administration The man I'm talking about is John Kiriaku John welcome to the platform talk podcast and thankful agreeing to take the time to speak to me How are you doing today? Thanks for having me Greg doing well. Thank you So according to the late senator John McCain your revelations to the press Were instrumental in the passage of the McCain-Feinstein amendment outlawing torture yet

[02:24] You're the only person to date that's been prosecuted for the CIA's interrogation practices and you weren't even convicted For participation, but simply for the revelation of those practices. That is Some severe irony. Yeah before we get into those circumstances Let's just give a brief kind of overview of your career in CIA talk about how you're recruited The episodes where you were more proud of working for your country and then lead into what we're talking about now

[02:56] You bet I came to Washington the week after I turned 18 to go to college at George Washington University I got a bachelor's degree there in Middle Eastern studies And I stayed for grad school and was just finishing a master's degree in legislative affairs when I was Approached by my grad school advisor who it turned out was under cover. He was a CIA officer under cover As a professor looking for people who might be

[03:26] Good fit his words in the CIA's culture. And so just before I graduated I was recruited into the CIA. I went through the security process and Then started working for the CIA full-time on January the 7th 1990 and My first the first half of my career for seven and a half years I was an analyst working on Iraq and the second half of my career I was a counterterrorism Operations officer working at first it's kind of quaint now, but at first against European communist

[04:04] terrorism Mostly in Athens and then against al Qaeda in the Middle East and Pakistan now you're Greek Yes, and I think in one of the Interviews that I saw you were one of the rare individuals if not the only person who spoke Greek and Arabic. Is that correct? Yeah, it's funny, you know in an organization as big as the CIA Yeah, I was the only person who spoke both Greek and Arabic and then that sort of sets you up for

[04:34] An assignment that they wanted to put you on that's right The one of the the chiefs in the counterterrorism center said that it was it was far easier and far cheaper for them to Take a linguist and teach him operations than it was to take an operations officer and teach him how to speak Arabic and Greek You know with that said, I know in doing some background research on you I've seen some very intriguing stories that you've talked about in terms of weapons training Talked about a story one time where you actually learned how to crash cars and break

[05:06] Barricades you want to talk about any of that stuff? Sure You know one of the many classes that they that they give you when you When you start doing operations training, it's called crash and bang. It's weapons training I took a long course called advanced counterterrorism operations training Bomb making and defusing We went out to the Nevada desert to do advanced counterterrorist driving

[05:36] All kinds of stuff. I mean, I remember when I first started my operational training We were going to jump out of the back of a seat of a c12 And I remember saying this was pre 9 11. So I said to a colleague of mine Now when in the world am I going to have to jump out of the back of the plane? I'm going to be making my recruitments diplomatic cocktail parties Right, right and then what four years later I'm in a plane over Afghanistan and I'm thinking I can't believe I have to jump out of the back of this plane

[06:09] As you went through this training, I know you talked about the issue of jumping out of the back of a plane Did you have an affinity? For any of this stuff that it surprised you how good you were At picking up a lot of a lot of the tradecraft that they teach you at the at the agency You know, it's funny. I've given thousands of interviews and you're the first person to ask me that and and that's a really Good question When I first joined the agency and I was you know sitting in my cubicle thinking the big thoughts and writing papers That nobody would read my boss said to me

[06:40] You know, you would be a really good operations officer and I was like what what are you talking about? and he said People like to be around you. You're you're fun and I said, well, thank you and I kind of just dismissed it And then years later when I did decide to switch over to operations One of my one of my instructors said the same thing. He said you are always going to be the good cop And I said, yeah, I don't really have it in me to be the bad cop It's just not my nature And he said but it's the good cops who make the recruitment

[07:14] And I found that to be very true, you know knock on wood I'm blessed that that I have broad interests. I can talk about sports or opera or Weapons or you know, whatever I can talk about it and people do like to be around me for the most part and so If if the goal is to Target someone for recruitment I can do that If if somebody just walks in off the street and volunteers to be recruited anybody can do that

[07:47] But to actually develop a relationship with someone who doesn't realize that he's being recruited Yeah, I I was good at that Look, let's let's get into more of the serious stuff. I know you said, you know post 9 11 You were doing counterterrorism stuff and Then of course talked about the fact that a colleague Approached you said hey, listen, would you like to be trained in enhanced interrogation? Lead us through that Right. So I was in pakistan as the as the chief of counterterrorism operations there

[08:22] And we had caught up as a beta on the night of march 22nd and not just mark, but not just I was a beta but I'm not allowed to say the number still but it's many dozens of al-qaeda fighters and three or four senior al-qaeda leaders camp commanders And so on I finished my tour in pakistan. I went back to headquarters and on the strength of that I got promoted. I got a medal. I got a promotion. I got an amazing onward job

[08:52] So I was in a cafeteria one day And one of my colleagues who was a senior counterterrorism officer came up to me in the cafeteria and he said Oh, hey, I'm glad I ran into you. I wanted to ask you and he said this very casually Would you be interested in being trained in the use of enhanced interrogation techniques? And I had never heard that term before This was may of 2002 So I asked him what he meant and he said we're going to start get rough with these guys

[09:24] And I said, well, what's that mean? And then he described these 10 techniques And I said, I don't know man. That sounds like a torture program to me And he said no, it's not torture. It's been approved by the white house and it's been approved by the justice department I said, uh, let me think about it for an hour So I went up to the seventh floor of the cia. That's the executive level. There was a very very senior cia officer For whom I had worked a decade earlier in the middle east and I knocked on his door and I said, hey, I need some advice

[09:57] And I told him what had happened And his advice was very clear He said first of all, let's call it what it is. It's a torture program They can use whatever euphemism they want, but this is a torture program Secondly, torture is a slippery slope and you know how these guys are somebody's going to go overboard And they're going to kill a prisoner and then there's going to be a congressional investigation And then there's going to be a justice department investigation and somebody's going to go to prison Do you want to go to prison? And I said, no, I don't want to go to prison

[10:28] As you mentioned in your intro, I was the only one who went to prison in the end But I said, no, I don't want to go to prison I went back downstairs to the counterterrorism center and I said, this is a torture program I have a moral and ethical problem with it and I don't want anything to do with it and As it turned out and this is one of the sources of great disappointment for me They had asked 14 people if they wanted to be trained and I was the only one who said no And the reason why they're so disappointing is because these guys were my friends

[10:59] You know our our kids played together our wives Were friends we would hang out with each other and barbecue and I just I didn't realize until that day that they had it in their hearts to You know to torture and in several cases to kill another human being in cold blood But they did So, uh, you know after that decision despite the fact that I had captured up as beta In the next in the next

[11:31] Round of promotions I was skipped over And I was skipped over because as the head of counterterrorism said to my promotion panel I had displayed a shocking lack of commitment to counterterrorism Only because I I wouldn't agree to the torture training Yeah, that's That leads into some stuff. I want to ask you in a moment, but You know, I wanted to challenge you a little bit one of the interviews that I saw with you Says that you were not interested in participating or being trained

[12:06] Yet you thought that it was necessary. Am I quoting you correctly? I yeah, but I do missing a nuance Okay. Yeah, so I was going to ask you to explain that on the surface explain the dichotomy of that statement. Yes So we started torturing up as a beta on august 1st of 2002 Um, I said that I had an ethical and moral problem with it Uh, but the the reporting we were getting back from the field was showing that it was That it was working

[12:37] So I told brian ross on abc news in 2007 And and this is what I think most people missed I thought that there were two sides to this number one. It was wrong But number two did it work And the reporting we were getting back from the field was saying that it worked That turned out to be a lie and we didn't know it was a lie Until the inspector general released his report in 2009 What happened was the cia and the fbi Had non-compatible

[13:09] computer systems so when the fbi was in charge of Interrogating up as a beta The interrogator ali sufan was sending back his reporting in fbi channels Now the fbi is really really good at interrogations and they've been good at interrogations Since the nuremberg trials in 1946 So ali is reporting back what abu zubeda is telling him and that information is not making it into cia channels

[13:39] So then the cia demands that they take over on august 1st They do take over they began torturing him and he goes completely silent But in order to justify the program the two torturers to contract Psychologists michael and jesson take ali sufan's information And type it into the cia system Saying we're doing the program and he's given us the kitchen sink. Here it is and I said to one of the guys

[14:10] You know, maybe i'm wrong about this. I mean, I still think that it's morally bankrupt But in terms of getting the information, maybe i'm just wrong Well, it turned out that no i wasn't wrong They were lying about it from the very beginning and not just lying You know to the policymakers, they were lying internally at the cia and being paid 108 million dollars for the contract by the way So that was one of the nuances that that I just did not successfully convey in that news interview in 2007

[14:45] Understood understood So let's let's go to your conviction You were prosecuted under the The intelligence identities protection act And right and so that's which is a very specific one. So at from initially there were there were a few different counts But the government settled on that particular one. Why did they do that? Oh, yeah So, uh, when I was arrested on the day of my arrest, this was the first week of january 2012

[15:18] They charged me with five felonies three counts of espionage One count of violating the intelligence identities protection act of 1982 and one count of making a false statement um I hadn't committed espionage They knew I hadn't committed espionage But on the day of my arrest they came to my lawyers and they said take a plea 45 years And he might live to meet his grandchildren And we just dismissed it outright. I'm not going to take a plea and serve 45 years

[15:51] They came back a couple of weeks later on a monday and they offered me 10 years Take the plea to espionage and do 10 years and I said Talking to abc news is not espionage having lunch with the new york times is not espionage It is on the other hand illegal to classify a crime You know, if if the cia is doing something illegal It's actually illegal to classify it in order to keep the information from the public So I said i'm not doing 10 minutes

[16:23] So that was a monday on wednesday. They came back with eight years and on Friday, they came back with five years and my lead attorney I had 11 attorneys and this was an a-list dream team of white power defense attorneys Most of whom were volunteers pro bono so My lead attorney played okay chair said to me I have been an attorney in washington for 52 years and I have never seen them come down in time like this

[16:54] And I said, what do you mean? He said usually they'll come and say The offer is 10 years you turn it down and the next offer is 12 or 15 and the next offer is 18 But they're coming down 45 to 10 to 8 to 5 And I said, why are they doing that and he said because they have a shit case and they know it's shit We're going to trial so We didn't hear from them again for wow eight months, I suppose and then finally they said

[17:28] um That they would drop all the charges except the intelligence identities protection act And I would do three years and I turned that down And then they came back and said best in final offer two and a half years. I do 23 months and They gave me 24 hours to think about it. My wife and I stayed up literally all night Discussing what to do. I was only the second person ever charged under the intelligence identities protection act

[18:01] And the author of that act a guy named Morton Halperin Was part of my defense team. He was he wrote the law and he said that I should never have been charged with a crime in the first place and um And I had an op-ed Written by joe biden saying that the law was unconstitutional on its face and should never have been passed So We decided that I was going to turn it down So I emailed the attorneys around six six a.m. And I said my wife and I were up all night

[18:34] We've been talking all night and there was no case law because only one of the person had ever been charged and she was an actual spy so um I said i'm turning it down. I'm going to trial And uh, one of the lawyers emailed me and said put on a pot of coffee. We're on our way over So they got to my house around seven o'clock And I explained to them why we decided to turn it down. I didn't do anything wrong I didn't break the law that this was a public service And that I had an affirmative defense

[19:07] One of them said If you were my brother, I would beg you to take this deal He said you don't understand This is not and I'll never forget his words. He said this is not about justice This is about mitigating damage Take the deal and then the other one said This could be a blip in your life or it could be the defining event in your life. Make it the blip And it was it was those two who convinced me. Geez. That's that's chilling. It was awful

[19:40] Well, can I interrupt you for one second? One of the please go ahead one of the things that they taught me and this is very important It's something that I that I say in speeches all the time um pro-publica The uh, the investigative website did a study in november of 2012 in which they found that the federal government wins 98.2 percent of its cases And they they do that using two strategies. One is called venue shopping and the other is called charge stacking So venue shopping is where they seek to charge you in the federal district where you are most likely to be convicted

[20:15] And the most likely to get the severest sentence The second one charge stacking is when they do what they did to me They'll charge you with a whole bunch of felonies Knowing that you haven't committed those felonies They wait until you go bankrupt and then they come back and they say we'll drop all the charges But one if you take a plea Well, look, I I had a 1.8 percent chance of winning I was facing 45 years in prison and my attorneys told me that realistically if I were to lose the case I was going to get 12 to 18 years

[20:48] So I had five kids at home. Do you at that point it's a math Yeah, do you do you roll the dice knowing that you have a 1.8 percent chance of winning? Of course not and that's why they win all their cases You know, one of the things that I've gotten out of my notes here is that uh, there was a term. I think it was on your democracy now interview from a few years back Right before you went in And I think your attorney said that it was a quote selective

[21:21] And vindictive prosecution Right, right So and then you know and then also I think the first thing I did when I was researching you I read your article or the or sorry the article about you in the new yorker And I highlighted one of the quotes here. It says which matters more kiriaku's motives and his reliability Or the fact that however inelegantly he helped to reveal that a sitting president ordered international crimes

[21:51] And I just find that to be very very interesting and it fits right into what you just described Your attorney saying that look they they're the federal government is here to mitigate and to make a point with you They they got me for confirming the last name Of a former colleague to a journalist that name was never made public at the same time That my case was going on there was a disgruntled former cia officer

[22:23] In Bethesda, mariland who had a blog Yelling and screaming about the cia and how they had screwed him And he revealed the names of seven covert operatives and he was never Charged and they he just put him out there on the internet He was never charged with a crime before I went to prison General Petraeus who was the director of the cia at the time Had given to his adulterous girlfriend

[22:53] the names of More than a dozen undercover cia operatives. He was bragging to show her I remember that I remember that story. He was not charged with a crime So that's why my attorney said this was selective and vindictive prosecution. That's exactly what it was The reason those other people weren't charged is because they didn't blow the whistle on the torture program You know you you hear about these things and you watch movies about them and you watch documentaries But every time you hear stories like this all I can do to shake my head. It's exhausting truly

[23:29] It really is it really is Speaking of exhausting, let's take a quick break and then we'll come back And I want to talk to you about domestic and foreign policy and then also independent media So we'll be right back hold tight to the other side

[24:59] And we are back with john kiriyaku We were speaking with john about his background how he became famous slash infamous certain circles Earlier in the introduction I had mentioned that john had written two books His second book actually came about After serving his 23 month sentence the book is called doing time like a spy How the cia taught me to survive in prison Can you give us just a little bit about how you ended up writing this book?

[25:30] How you were able to do it in prison? Yeah, it actually started The day that I got to prison at my sentencing my Attorneys asked the judge to send me to a minimum security work camp a minimum security camp Has no Bars on the windows. There's no lock on the door You're free to come and go as you please You're just on your honor not to abscond and most of those guys work in town at the local university So the prosecution had no objection So she ordered that I be sent to a minimum security camp now camps normally are

[26:04] Uh across the street from real honest to god prisons because if there's a riot or a lockdown It's the guys in the camp who then go to the prison to do the cooking and the laundry and the you know Mopping and stuff like that So, um, I was I was told to turn myself in on february When was it february 28th 2013 at the federal correctional institution at loretto pennsylvania

[26:35] So, you know, it's funny. You just drive up there and you knock on the door and you say i'm here to turn myself in So, uh, I did I went to the camp and they said go across the street to the prison First they'll process you and then they'll walk you over here. I said, okay so I go over to the prison I turn myself in And um, they put me through the x-ray and then they you know pat me down And then the the guard starts to lead me outside and around To the back of the prison and I said no no

[27:08] I'm supposed to be at the camp across the street And he he chuckles and says not according to my paperwork. You're not And I was like, oh my god And then I thought take it easy. There's nothing you can do I figured if I made a ruckus, I'll just end up in solitary. So I didn't say a word. I just went with it So it took me it took me about 40 minutes to process me and Then they took me to a cell and uh and just

[27:42] Walked away And I thought to myself you've been trained for this. You've lived in far worse places than this You know how to handle it So I decided that very first day that I would just use The skills that the CIA gave me in training To keep myself safe and to keep myself at the very top of the social heap And that that became the book wow you give us one or two examples of

[28:12] Training that you were able to use in order to survive and and mitigate your circumstances in prison What I do is is I have these 20 what I call life lessons that the CIA taught me And I I list them in the very beginning of the book one of them for example is Admit nothing deny everything make counter accusations One of the things that I learned early on very early on when I first arrived there Was that my my biggest enemies my biggest threats were going to be the guards Not other prisoners and so you know repeatedly they tried to bait me into

[28:48] Harming another prisoner they tried to bait me into Getting into a fight so they could put me in solitary and I would never I'd never bite So one one day I was called down into the lieutenant's office because there had been a fight in the uh In the housing unit. It was quite a quite a serious fight like nearly a riot and um And so everybody went into lockdown well the fight broke out in the tv room And I just happened to be sitting right there six feet away from the two guys who started duking it out

[29:19] And it ended up, you know involving a dozen guys and blood on the floor and stuff like that But when there's a fight What you do to protect yourself is just get up and get out as quickly as you can So they called me down said, uh, what about this fight? And I thought to myself admit nothing deny everything make counter organizations. I said what fight Oh, very funny. You didn't know there was a fight. I said, I don't know anything about any fight Yeah, well, we have witnesses that say you were right there when it started and I said, yeah

[29:51] I think maybe you were there when it started. Maybe you're the one who started it What the do I know about any fight? I think you're the only ones who pick fights around here And you know, we went back and forth like this for several minutes and finally they became so frustrated. They told me get out of here So in the end they got nothing from me And uh, I came out ahead. They were trying to implicate me in the fight and then you know, there are other ones like And then folks know that you're not a snitch and people know i'm not a snitch Exactly, which is why I was adopted by the italians because I hate the fbi as much as they do

[30:27] And I was not a rat and you know, there are other things like let others do your dirty work Another one is you're stronger than you realize you are Stuff like that. So when these situations present themselves and you need to worry about yourself and your own safety and your own protection It just kicks in and it's actually it was actually comforting, you know, much to my surprise too Let me back up. I had to write this book in in long hand because You don't have access to typewriters or computers or anything like that and the cops just to be told to me

[31:03] Whenever they would shake me down and they would go through my locker They would find the draft of the book and they would destroy it They would tear it up and throw it at me And so what I ended up doing was every time I would finish a chapter Uh, I would have it smuggled out By another prisoner and sent to my attorney And my attorney held the draft for me. So I ended up having to write the book twice in long hand and um When I got out, uh, I I put it all in the computer

[31:33] I did several rounds of editing and I ended up winning one of the country's big four Uh literary awards. I won the pen first amendment award Which along with the pen Faulkner The Pulitzer and the Edgar Allen Poe are the the four big literary awards And then it was named memoir of the year by forward reviews So it ended up doing pretty well Congratulations. I didn't know. Thank you. Yeah Let's transition into, um, some domestic and formal policy But before we go there because I want to play something for you

[32:05] And then I want to read some commentary. So let me play this for you really quickly This is something I'd heard about a while ago and then finally pulled it up This is a statement made by former CIA director and former secretary of state Mike Pompeo I was the CIA director. We lied. We cheated. We steal stole It's like we we had we had entire we had entire training courses It uh It reminds you of the uh, uh the glory of the American experiment

[32:38] So that's a statement. I'm sure you've heard about that statement. And then I also I was watching a TED talk you did at Foggy Bottom And you know, I'm just leaping through some of the comments and one comment caught my eye And it said The CIA is filled with psychopaths And I bring these I bring these two examples up because how do you foresee or how concerned are you About this current ideological polarization

[33:10] That is affecting the country at large and how you perceive that impacting people in the intelligence community and their ability to Yeah, objectively evaluate information in the national interest without having without having to be colored By their own particular biases That's a great question. Um, I'm very worried about the direction of the country I mean, you know, we read these articles about Q and on and

[33:42] And and the notion that the democrats stole the election. I think I think all of that is silliness. It's all nonsense. What's dangerous though is that when people believe Rumors when they're Exorded by a president to to For example, take back their government and and storm the capital Um that people believe him literally And the reason why I'm so worried about it is not even necessarily that people are angry and willing to take to the streets

[34:17] We took to the streets in, you know, 1917. We took to the streets in 1968 These things happen sometimes. That's cyclical. What's scary though is What the proposed response is My former boss in both pakistan and headquarters robert grenier Wrote an article for wrote an op-ed for the new york times several weeks ago in which he advocated using cia counter insurgency techniques

[34:49] against Right-wing protesters Okay, I consider myself to be solidly left-wing But what he advocated was essentially murdering people Whose politics you disagree with Well, if we're supposed to be a nation of laws, we're supposed to be A beacon of human rights and hope and democracy You can't just advocate the wholesale slaughter of people when you don't like their politics

[35:22] And you don't like that they took to the streets to exercise their constitutional rights So that's what I think is is the most dangerous Point where Politics and the cia come together and I want to add one other thing that I think is important and I'd like your listeners to know I was very friendly with a cia psychiatrist Even after I left the cia and he retired. We've remained friends We did a couple of operations together. Well while I was inside

[35:55] You know in the cia So he told me one time very casually That the cia actively seeks to hire people who have sociopathic tendencies He was specific to say that they don't like to hire sociopaths Because sociopaths have no conscience. They're unable to feel remorse or regret And they blow right through a polygraph exam because they they can't feel guilt But if they can't feel guilt they can't be controlled

[36:26] People who have sociopathic tendencies Do feel guilt they do have a conscience But they're happy to break the law or to work in moral or legal gray areas I was happy to break the law because I believed in my heart that we were the good guys Right, so if my country is attacked like it was on september 11th I want to go over there and fight and Capture people and you know make sure it never happens again The problem is that just by their very nature sociopaths slip through the process and like in corporate america

[37:02] They rise to the top to leadership positions at the cia and so You can try as hard as you as you Possibly can to keep sociopaths out of the cia the truth of the matter is that sociopaths end up running the cia and that's why you have you have things like secret prisons assassination programs Torture programs Domestic spying It's because they can't help themselves

[37:33] And that's why we need robust oversight which we haven't had since the 1980s I'm glad you you you provided that insight and I want to you know get your analysis on you know We've got a new administration Coming after of course the trump administration In many of my private conversations with my friends Some of my personal posts on facebook. I get into I get dragged quote unquote as they say because I say I like you i'm solidly left. I don't consider myself a democrat. I consider myself a progressive

[38:05] But the thing is is that I consistently say that the democrats are not the good guys I just call them a less openly rapacious version of political governance and so In the biden administration coming, I'm not expecting much But in terms of what you have outlined in terms of the uh the goals and initiatives of the cia You've got the situation with venezuela. You have a biden administration that is still working to

[38:36] install wanguaido somebody who is not a democratically elected leader you have situations now where Where biden's administration is still seeking to extract concessions from iran For doing nothing more than abiding by the treaty that the united states broke That happened and you've got the syrian airstrike Where we're continuing us imperialism all the while Still looking

[39:06] You know shining the light on trump like hey trump is this bad guy But here we are enacting some of the same policies. I remember when trump Had his missile attack. No, he did not seek congressional approval And msnbc and cnn and most neoliberals had a field day with that yet not nary a peep Now that biden has done it and so what are your thoughts on Especially having the the vast experience that you do behind the scenes and also being able to comment on

[39:37] You know the fact that you are actually in media now What is your thought process on us foreign policy? What should people expect? What can people Maybe hope to affect through through public and political activism. What are your thoughts on that? And you just said it There is practically no difference between the biden foreign policy and the trump foreign policy Just like there was practically no difference between the obama foreign policy and the george w bush foreign policy

[40:07] Look, there's only there are only three ways in which you can do anything militarily in another country Three ways number one if you are invited by that country to go in number two if that country attacks you And number three with the express Voted approval of the united nations security council So if you bomb another country like we bombed syria last week or like Donald trump bombed syria four years earlier. That is a war crime

[40:38] period It's not open to negotiation. It's a war crime. There was no congressional authority to do it and like you say nary a peep The only democrat who said anything Was was tim kane a democrat from virginia And he didn't say anything four years ago when it was donald trump bombing syria So I I agreed right And representative rocona has spoken of the sets of things as well

[41:08] And and a handful of other progressives, but for the most part people are silent But look at libya. We have wrecked that country and for what the libyans didn't do anything to us Because we didn't like their politics You can't just bomb countries every time you decide you don't like their politics And then it also opens up this this You know two-faced policy that we have where where you've got for example, saudi arabia Where where they actually carry out crucifixions

[41:40] Uh over the course of the year right they crucified a 16 year old last year I was not aware of that. So we've we've got this two-faced foreign policy. Right. That's just indefensible I i'm exactly like you are I consider myself to be from the political left I am absolutely not a democrat because I don't think the democrats are trustworthy right Let me ask you one more section of this before we take a second break In regards to the the attack on syria, you know

[42:12] I don't want to I don't want to go tinfoil hat here but I have heard speculation for many years now that the cia Has infiltrated corporate media And I I bring that up only to get your analysis on the fact that What is problematic to me and this leads into our next section on independent media is that No one I have seen Certainly not cnn certainly not the new york time not that not the post not msnbc has talked about the fact that

[42:43] framed response That the syrian airstrike is about neglects to provide the context That the individuals who who we quote unquote retaliated against Are simply individuals who have attacked us installations in a country That we have been expressly asked to leave Yes, that's that's really the the bottom line here We attacked last week iraqi nationals Right because they attacked us troops who occupy their country

[43:19] I mean it's it's it really would be laughable if it wasn't so serious But yeah, that's that's really the bottom line. That's really the bottom line It's it's awful. What has happened to our foreign policy and When I say awful, I mean it's awful because nobody questions it Let me answer your question about the cia infiltration of the corporate media It's not as uh late as it was under operation mockingbird

[43:49] Before 1975 before the church committee put an end to it The cia actively recruited members of the media including the american media That doesn't happen anymore not just because it's illegal But more importantly because it doesn't need to happen. They don't need to recruit people. What they do Is they take these national security correspondence And I'll use ken dilanian of nbc and msnbc as an example. So what they do is They'll they'll call him and say hey, we've got a little scoop for you and they'll leak some classified information

[44:22] and he'll print a A very interesting story. He used to be with the la times and then he was with the new york times and now msnbc and nbc So he'll say oh exclusive report Intelligence sources say what wasn't intelligent sources that said it It was the cia's office of public affairs the press officer leaked the story to you to make you happy There there's a fantastic Journalist at buzzfeed by the name of jason leopold uh the pentagon

[44:52] during the obama administration Referred to jason leopold in a memo as a foyer terrorist a freedom of information act terrorist Because he's filed more freedom of information act request than any other journalist He's the one who broke the hillary clinton email story, for example, and he got all that from foyer So he's out there actually doing his job. He'll file a foyer request and when When the agency or department doesn't respond within the requisite 90 days

[45:23] He files a lawsuit and he invariably wins and that's how he gets the stories well In the course of his foyer request with the cia he asked for all communications Between the cia's office of public affairs and journalists And they had to send him thousands and thousands of pages of stuff. Well, these included An email from kandelinian To the cia where he had written an article and he had sent it to the cia

[45:56] Before he sent it to his own editor For cia approval Now, why would he do something like that? Because he's in the cia's pocket like every other national security journalist in washington And the cia has told him look you write nice things about us and we'll leak Important and interesting information to you But if you don't write nice things about us you are cut off And you will never interview a cia person ever again

[46:27] So they don't have to recruit journalists. They just threaten them Absolutely incredible Well, john, look, let's take our final break and we'll come back and we'll discuss the need for and the perception of independent media And try to squeeze a little bit of domestic policy in there Once again, this is john kiriyaku And this is the platform talk. We'll be right back after this final break When the president talks to god, I wonder which one plays the better cop

[46:58] We should find some jobs to get us broke. No, they're lazy, george. I say we don't just give them more liquor stores and dirty coke That's what god recommends When the president talks to god, do they drink near beer and go play golf? While they pick which countries to invade which muslim souls still can be saved I guess god just calls a spade a spade when the president talks to god

[47:36] When the president talks to god, does he ever think that maybe he's not that that voice is just inside his head When he kneels next to the presidential bed, does he ever smell his own bullshit when the president talks to god?

[48:11] If you're enjoying the platform talk podcast, you should visit the platform website The platform website is a place where news issues and current events are aggregated into categories such as social justice politics international affairs history race and culture Just to name a few so just visit www.theplatform.fyi and Why not just go one step further and lend your support through patreon Patreon is basically an online tip jar for a job well done

[48:43] And if a job well done is what you think is happening Please consider becoming a patron and you can support this project weekly monthly or make a one-time donation for whatever amount You think is appropriate and or sustainable. You can do that by visiting patreon. That's pat reon dot com forward slash platform productions and click on the become a patron button Look forward to your support and thanks again for listening

[49:15] And we are back for our final segment with john kiriyaku Last segment we talked about foreign policy john has made some very very stunning revelations I'm sure he's used to that. So right now we're going to go ahead and talk about independent media And this actually is the main reason I ended up wanting to speak to to you john I Or you came across my radar probably the spring of last year I listened to A number of different independent media sources. I start my day with democracy now in the morning

[49:50] And wpf w in dc And then I later on the afternoon when I can I listened to by any means necessary And then I used to listen to your show that you did with brian becker called loud and clear Two shows that I've really really Thoroughly enjoyed and I was uh very very sad and um, I just turned it on one day and you guys were gone And then I found you again quote unquote listening to That same time slot

[50:20] You have now partnered with lee stranny hand formally of breitbart That's an interesting pairing For me But um, you know, nonetheless, so I want to talk to you quickly about how you got involved with radio sputnik Your partnership with brian becker and then how you Ended up with uh, sure any hand and then I'll get some other stuff go ahead prison for about a year And um, I was sort of you know, like any convicted felon with a degree or without a degree or multiple degrees in my case

[50:54] um, I couldn't find a job and the only job I had was uh, Was uh working for a progressive think tank called the institute for policy studies the oldest left-wing think tank in washington But I was making minimum wage and I had to raise my own salary Doing go fund me campaigns, which believe me is is hard so, uh Sputnik approached me and they said hey, would you be interested in your own radio show and all my life? I've wanted to do radio, but I turned them down

[51:26] I thought no, I just can't work for the russians Right people are going to accuse me of being a spy and a sellout and all this stuff So I turned them down and I continued looking for a job couldn't find one finally I went back to them And I said you still have an opening for a radio show and they said yeah, we have this show with brian becker Um, we're gonna spend some money on advertising. Uh, if you'd like to pair up with him we can do that And so I didn't know brian other than

[51:56] I had been on a show one time and so I paired up with brian. It was a natural fit I have such deep respect and admiration for brian becker I learned so much from the guy. He's Far to the left of me. I mean, I consider myself sort of a A mainstream Progressive, um, but he's he's a marxist and he's very Clear about his his ideology which was fun for me because he taught me a lot and he opened up He opened up a world that I would never have had access to

[52:30] Um in in that he's friendly with all of these vietnam era Uh progressives and not just progressives, but black panthers and weather underground and you know people that I've read about in the history books That he's introduced me to so we really hit it off in that show and it was a very newsy show But what I did when they first offered me the job was I said I said I I I do have a demand Um, I said I want to be able to talk about any issue that I want

[53:05] And about any person that I want And I want to be able to criticize Even if it's latin mere putin and they said done And I said put it in writing in the contract Done and they did they put it in writing and I can tell you that never one single time Has anybody at sputnik ever asked me to say something or to not say something about any issue? And so I've had like utter freedom to talk about anything. I want to talk about at sputnik

[53:37] So I ended up getting offered In the summer of 2020 a corporate job and this was going to be my big comeback They offered me more money than I have ever fantasized about making So I I I gave sputnik three weeks notice. I said I have this job. I just can't possibly turn it down and um And so I left effective september the first

[54:07] As it so happened Our contracts all ran out on september the first or on august the 31st and um It was coincidental that as I was leaving Brian and our two producers walters molarec and nicole roussell Kind of had a something of a contract dispute with Sputnik and then they just decided to go their own way and to produce their own podcast so the show just ended

[54:39] Well, I I take this corporate job. I'm really excited And I'm starting to see things and I'm thinking This is money laundering So I called a friend of mine who spent 30 years with the fbi and I said I'm not an expert on these issues But here's what I'm seeing and I'm thinking it's money laundering And she said, oh, yeah, this is money laundering That explains why that's more money than I've ever dreamed of

[55:09] So I ported it to the fbi And I called sputnik and I said, hey, I've had a change in plans if you'll have me back I'd love to come back and they said perfect. We're going to pair you with lea strannahan And that's how it happened Okay, what that's that's certainly wasn't what I was expecting to hear that's Let me make a quick point. I'm sure you heard of or heard about Joe by this press secretary Jen sake She made a sort of a snarky statement about rt

[55:42] Which is russian television and and sputnik right as being Instruments of propaganda I want to quickly what you know, what were your what was your initial response to that? I knew her when she was working for john carry just after I left carry staff and she goes to my church So she's a big she's a big star now in the greek-american community. Um Yeah, Jen Jen sake is just plain wrong She's just wrong. Yes rt and sputnik are are owned by the russian government

[56:13] But my own experience is one where I have an unfettered ability to Say anything that I want to say It's it's on it's on us corporate media and mainstream media that I'm censored You know, that's the only place I have I have trouble conveying my Positions on issues not with sputnik It's interesting that you say that because the other sputnik show that I listen to regularly is The critical hour with dr. Wilma leon

[56:46] And yes, he is and and he's also added garland nixon who used to be on with lee strannahan in the morning show But you know, it's very interesting. Uh at one point dr. Leon was making a statement about He was either invited to speak on cnn or msnbc And they were trying to sort of vet his position On whatever topic they were inviting him on to speak about and I've never forgotten this I thought it was so amusing but so profound at the same time He said i'm a political scientist not a political operative

[57:20] And I thought that was so very Telling and and amusing and also chilling at the same time that you would even need to say something like that Fox a lot as crazy as that sounds I I was on the tecker carlson show nine times last year Uh, but I didn't make a single appearance on msnbc. I was on cnn once Tucker carlson calls me like renowned cia whistleblower john kiriyaku cnn calls me cia torture whistleblower john kiriyaku msnbc

[57:52] Every time they refer to me. They call me cia leaker john kiriyaku Yeah, the washington post and I've written for the washington post But apparently the left hand doesn't know what the right hand's doing over there But the washington post did an article last year where they listened to Butnic radio shows for a week and then they wrote about sputnik So they they happened to listen to our show On a thursday and thursday is the day that we had this regular weekly segment called criminal injustice

[58:24] Where we had uh kevin gestala who's a journalist with shadowproof right and paul right who's the publisher of prison legal news And criminal legal news magazines and the head of a think tank called the human rights defense center So, uh, you know every week we would spend a half an hour and talk about The latest cases the latest legislation relative to criminal justice and and prison reform and things like that So the washington post listened to this 30 minute segment and they said that we

[58:57] weakened democracy Those were the words that they used we weakened democracy By criticizing the justice system So that's clearly russian propaganda, right? Because because we shouldn't be saying that it's inhumane for example for uh For angola prison in louisiana to hold a man in solitary confinement for 44 years That's not what weakens the country what weakens the country is john kiriyaku talking about it

[59:29] ridiculous correct It it's it's amazing and you know, it's you know, that leads me to my next point slash question for you Would you say the us electorate is compromised by corporate media? And the other question is and you can tackle these in whatever order you want On a scale of one to ten. How uninformed is the us electorate? uninformed first of all the the answer to your first question is yes people are compromised and don't forget that that What the conservatives say notwithstanding

[1:00:01] Fox is also part of the corporate media structure. So it's all of them. It's fox. It's msnbc. It's cnn It's it's all of them and even democracy now as much as I love democracy now They've taken a decided turn to the to the right on foreign policy And I find them to be very neoliberal on most of these foreign policy issues. So, um Yeah, I think that all of the the media All of the corporate media has been uh compromised and I think because of that

[1:00:32] Most americans really don't understand what's going on in the world Also, you know, we're very parochial in our views. We always have been parochial. That's why we had for example The know-nothing party. That's why we fought kicking and screaming going into the the first world war Uh, it was it was because people Are uninformed about foreign policy. They don't uh, they don't want to get involved in overseas entanglements Which believe me is not a bad thing

[1:01:03] But that translates into being uninformed, you know, how many of your friends read Al Jazeera? Let's say or I'll monitor or even bbc, which in and of itself is government run propaganda When I wake up in the morning, I read the post the times the journal the la times cnn msmbc fox and then I go to the alternative media every day consortium news reader supported news

[1:01:33] zero hedge spotnik Al Jazeera, I'll monitor I look at some of the smaller middle east papers because I live there I read the greek press every morning because they give you an example or an idea rather of what's going on The eastern Mediterranean you've got to read everything And then make up your own mind And you really need to have all sides of a story in order to make your own informed A position. It's the only way to do it Right, right. So john, you know, I know I've kept you far longer than I promised your wealth of information

[1:02:08] Let's say you and I were sitting with somebody who is content To trust cnn and msmbc And most of what we call mainstream news. What would you say to them to try to coax them Into opening their minds To go outside of what they consider to be the norm and the reason why I ask this question is that I have a regular weekly call with A very good friend We do a bible study with his father in the afternoons and I had mentioned the intercept to him

[1:02:40] And his first response to me was well greg, you know Now first of all, he'd never heard of the intercept and then his first response to me was well, greg You know, we just have to be careful about fake news Now that wasn't the time or the place to really challenge him on that But my thought process was, you know, it's very interesting is that this gentleman has known me for a while and I think he has a fairly high opinion of me, but yet and still the first thing That he thought to respond with

[1:03:10] For a a news source that he had never heard of Was to presume that it might be fake news simply because it wasn't in nrms nbc What would you say to someone like that to at least sort of soften Softened them up for wow stepping outside of what they consider to be mainstream. I would have to reiterate what I what I just said that We need as much information as we can possibly take in so that we can draw our own conclusions

[1:03:43] We can't rely on any one or two outlets to decide for us What issues we should be informed on and so there's nothing wrong with doing your own research If you think something might be fake By all means research it but take in as much information as you possibly can Well, John, I think we can leave it there. I want to thank you so much for your time man This has been so enlightening for me. Let us know how we can keep up with show a backstory

[1:04:15] And then if anybody wants to follow you on twitter or instagram or any social media I'm at www.johnkiriaku.com And you can hear the backstory every day monday through friday on sputnik radio I think it's after 7 p.m. They turn it into a podcast and it's on all the usual platforms Okay Again, my guest has been jar kiriako. This is Greg for the platform talk. Thank you for listening beautiful and we will talk to you next time

[1:04:49] You've just listened to another episode of the platform talk podcast Our guest today was former cia analyst case officer and counterterrorism operative John kiriaku The musical selection in our first break was bodies By drowning pool A song often used in enhanced interrogation by the cia

[1:05:20] The musical selection in our second break was when the president talks to god by bright The opening theme for the platform talk podcast is social insecurity by odyssey And the closing theme for the platform talk podcast is no rules for kings Also by odyssey I want to thank you again for taking the time to listen and as usual stay enlightened and stay informed
