Title: Allen Richie
Show: Allen Richie
Date: 2017-03-04
URL: https://youtu.be/zFxVeUe2CVo
Duration: 42:00

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[00:01] broadcasting the information the mainstream media won't touch this is the Ritchie Allen show in association with David Icke calm our next guest is a hero it's a big word and it's award I don't use very often in fact I very rarely use it he really is a hero he spent two years in prison as you will know by now from februari 2013 to februari last year for basically blowing the whistle on torture and on CIA torture CIA rendition

[00:31] and the water boarding techniques used to interrogate al Qaeda prisoners as I take some goats known what you know no Marty inevitable outcome of it is when you do blow the whistle and you do you know expose these things you know you're going to be targeted as he was he's known also as a writer for Huffington Post he writes for them he's been a terrorism analyst for ABC news as well as much more besides he's at his resume would keep us here all night long so let's just welcome to the program he's

[01:02] in Pennsylvania terrific to welcome for the first time to this show John Kiriakou John welcome to the show how are you thank you so much I'm very well thanks thank you very much for having me and you know I meant it when I said hero John because it's not easy to do what you did you know people say all the time I wish more people came out from law enforcement from the military to expose these things John the fact of the matter is people know when you do that you're gonna be in trouble you know sometimes I wake up and I think I was just an idiot but I don't think you're an idiot but I suppose when you're in prison for two

[01:34] years you must have had your moments John I I did you know when you when you first arrived in prison you're you're in shock and you just can't believe that this has happened just a few years earlier i was you know briefing the President and and meeting with with kings and prime ministers and then here i find myself you know sitting at the Aryan table for dinner imagine that John Dee Aryan table I mean throw so many pictures into my into into my mind straight away of all those TV shows

[02:05] Prison Break and stuff like us but they're mostly dark times I mean as yet quite rightly said you you've been a top CIA and Liston case officer you briefed the president you briefed top officials the Joint Chiefs you were you know you were writing amongst these people next thing you find yourself in prison for doing the right thing which is that your government and your organization was breaking the law they were breaking the line you know what was really clear to me was was that this was obviously an

[02:36] illegal act we have we we have had something in the United States called the the federal torture act since 1947 and it specifically defines torture and specifically outlaws it besides the federal torture Act we are not just the signatories or not just i should say signatories to the UN Convention Against Torture we were the authors of the UN Convention Against Torture and so I just couldn't understand how anybody could

[03:08] possibly believe that this torture program that we had conceived of was somehow legal tell me when you first I mean look first of all let's be honest a lot of our listeners will know this but we don't assume knowledge and their program is a crossover prog John between what you'd call mainstream commercial radio and more alternative independent radio so the right people listen to this they were no your course there were no your your name and who you are but not the details so when did you come to understand that people were being tortured by US military personnel well I

[03:41] had been the the chief of the CIA's counterterrorism operations in Pakistan after September 11th and in that position I led a series of raids in late march two thousand two that resulted in the capture of Abu Zubaydah whom we believed at the time was the number three in al-qaeda and so when I finished that tour in the early summer of two thousand two and I went back to CIA headquarters I happened to be in the cafeteria one day and a senior officer from the CIA's Counterterrorism Center called ctc approached me in the

[04:13] cafeteria and said oh I'm glad I ran into you I wanted to ask you if you were interested in being certified in the use of enhanced interrogation techniques well I had never heard of this term before and I said well that supposed to mean so very excitedly he said we're going to start getting rough with these guys and I said well what is rough mean so he outlined to me these ten different torture techniques that the CIA was was intending to implement in fact they did implement

[04:43] them about three months later and I said that that sounds like a torture program I don't think I want to be involved but you know what I said let me think about it for an hour and I went up to the CIA's executive floor the seventh floor and I I went to see a very senior CIA officer for whom I had worked in the Middle East about a decade earlier and I I told him about the conversation I had had in the cafeteria and I said what do you think about this and he said first let's call it what it is it's torture

[05:13] they can use whatever euphemism they want but it's still torture and tortures a slippery slope and you know how your coworkers are you know somebody's going to go overboard and they're gonna kill a prisoner and when that happens there's going to be a congressional investigation and then there's going to be a criminal investigation and somebody's gonna go to prison do you want to go to prison and I said no I don't want to go to prison as it as it turned out I was the only one who only one who went to prison yet but I said no no I don't want to go to prison and I went back downstairs to the

[05:44] Counterterrorism Center and I said this is a torture program and I don't want to have anything to do with it and that was in that was in the middle of may 2002 and then we know now from the CIA's torture report that the agency began torturing Abu Zubaydah on august first of that year and he was waterboarded a lot of times John wasn't he he was waterboarded 83 times which you know I tell I tell college groups to whom I speak on a regular basis I tell them all the same story in 1968 in January the

[06:19] Washington Post ran a front-page photograph of an American soldier waterboarding and North Vietnamese prisoner and the day that photograph appeared the secretary of defense robert mcnamara ordered an investigation the soldier was arrested he was charged with torture and he was convicted and imprisoned well the law didn't change since nineteen sixty eight so why was waterboarding torture and illegal in 1968 but not in 2002 or in 2015 why did

[06:53] it take yet another law the McCain fine Stein amendment to formally officially finally ban torture torture torture has always been illegal you I mean I imagine I've spoken to X servicemen on this program before ex military servicemen from the US I'm from Britain now typically the ones who come on they're very disillusioned the soldiers they talk about you know realizing when they were in Iraq that they weren't really

[07:23] there for the reasons they were told they were want to be here and the horrors of realizing that they were basically an occupying force in a country where they were you know going through villages of you know extremely poor people and all these horror stories you get into the CIA John obviously cuz you're bright you know there's no doubt about that and you want to be you know you want to do right by your country and you want to protect your country from from from foreign enemies domestic enemies as well and here you are learning that this country that you

[07:55] thought was so virtuous and understood for the right thing and was so good was capable of stealing this and I suppose around about this time as well we learn about well no it was a couple years later we learned about Abu Ghraib and all the things that went on there and Basra in order what does that do John what does that do to a guy like you I go who's well-intentioned in terms of why you got into the agency yeah I have to agree with you and with your guess I I became terribly disillusioned my my family emigrated to the United States from Greece in 1931 all four of my

[08:27] grandparents left the island of Rhodes in 1931 and landed on Ellis Island and to hear my paternal grandfather tell it Franklin Roosevelt was personally waiting for him in New York Harbor to offer him a job and freedom and citizenship in the American dream and so my grandparents and parents always instilled in us a sense that that we needed to repay the country for the kindness that it showed us and allowing us to emigrate and so public

[09:00] service was always very important in my family so I i went into the CIA thinking that not only am i going to serve my country i'm gonna get to see the world too and i had a facility for foreign languages i thought well this is great though they'll pay for a PhD program i can use my foreign languages I'll see the world I'll meet important people this is really going to be a great career and in the beginning it was and it was because two presidents George HW Bush and Bill Clinton actually had

[09:32] respect for international human rights the CIA famously went through what they called a cull where they were they fired about a third of their recruited sources because those sources had some sort of Human Rights problem in their background and I remember by the mid-1990s saying well this is great this is this is what an honorable intelligence service should be like we should be collecting intelligence and recruiting spies to steal secrets but at the same time we need to be respecting human rights and that was something really to be proud of

[10:03] but boy everything changed on September 11th and I remember the first inkling that things were really going wrong was when I was in Pakistan and we had it was the night that we had captured up as a beta but we had caught many dozens of other al Qaeda fighters and can I just interject there weren't a lot of these fighters that were being picked up weren't they being handed over boy people for bounties and a lot of them

[10:34] ended up in Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere and they really weren't guilty of anything oh I would say probably eighty percent of them were just completely innocent of any crime and listen here's what was happening how could not you know but I'm not speaking about you specifically but how could military officers aren't platoon leaders and commanders how could it be so stupid John when to be taking people into custody based on fossil says this guy over here is you know and you know that

[11:04] well the voiceless got nothing he can't even afford to boy and you know the crop to plant for this for you know for next season's corn or whatever so course voiceless want to say he's grandmother's in al-qaeda sure how did those army guys those Marines how did they fall for that this was going on this was my first sustained exposure to the US military wrong you know I i would i would brief you know high-ranking officers every once in a while but this is the first time that I actually had to live and work with them and I found frankly that

[11:37] most of them were ill-equipped ill-informed in many cases not very bright and they just made this decision early on that they're going to send everybody literally everybody to Guantanamo and sort it out later and Guantanamo was supposed to be this temporary holding site where we were going to hold people long enough to figure out in what district in the United States they should be tried but what was happening was like you say if Mohammed Oh is faisals some money and

[12:07] facial doesn't want to repay the money he just goes to the local us you know sergeant that village and says oh this guy Mohammed is al Qaeda and then Mohammed goes to Guantanamo and fiesel doesn't have to pay the loan back yeah and we we saw this all the time or if maybe you wanted to marry my sister and I didn't like you i went to the Americans and said you're al-qaeda and then you end up in Guantanamo for the next 14 years so that happened a lot but either the either the US military was

[12:39] was unwilling or too stupid frankly to do anything about it and then when you have a president and vice president like George W Bush and Dick Cheney setting the tone for this kind of policy the situation was almost hopeless for anybody finding themselves in Guantanamo 24 minutes past the year terrific to have John Kiriakou on the line twist it really is takes courage to do what east on top CIA analyst briefed the well he briefed to top man he briefed the

[13:10] President and others like him couple of people disagree with John agreeing with him on everything except to Bill Clinton saying and we don't like Clinton some of her listener saying he certainly he certainly was no champion of human rights and asked asked the Rwandans about his failure to deal with genocide air I could have said that but I don't want to be interrupting you every couple of minutes John I'm an arrogant I'm an argumentative Irishman I'd like to have argument so I'm not gonna be argument over every single comment you made I'm not going to do that for them yeah I wouldn't be any found or obvious Wi-Fi user listen I'm

[13:41] going to get this one out of the way you're a very smart man again I'm not patronizing you've done your homework so you know the sort of show this is is and I've got serious problems with the official version of september's 11th I want to get this one out of the way what do you think um yeah I think there are some problems with the official version of september's Evans I'm not what you might call a 911 truther I don't believe that there was a controlled explosion or that Jews did it or the trilateral commission but you know there are 28

[14:12] redacted pages redacted from the 911 Commission report that uh that the American public simply are not allowed to see I don't know what's in those 28 pages but I can speculate yeah and I think I believe that those 28 pages contain documentary evidence of the official involvement in the 911 attacks of the Saudi government I don't trust the Saudis I don't like the Saudis the Saudis are not reliable allies the

[14:43] Saudis are monsters when it comes to human rights horrible aren't I deserve let's be honest yeah and ironically they chair the UN Human Rights Commission right now which is just insane to me Oh David Cameron should be ridden out of town on a rail for his part of that I wife the hell is going on this isn't space but John Kerry's know better you know I I wrote a piece of that ran in oh it's a syndication service here in the United States called other words org it runs in 220 small-town newspapers around

[15:16] the country and I wrote about how the Saudis were assuming control of this UN Human Rights Committee and I said it was absolutely disgraceful for the following reasons and I listed four or five or six different reasons and a reporter picked up the story and wrote a story about it and asked John Kerry my former boss for a comment and carry all carry would say was that he had supreme confidence in the ability of the Saudis to run the Human Rights Committee imagine though like what kind of what kind of hypocrisy

[15:46] is that it what kind of hypocrisy is it when an American State Department officer has to go to a host government and beat them about the face and head because of their human rights record while in the very next room an American CIA officer is asking that same government to house a secret prison where we're going to render somebody and torture him mercilessly for the next 18 months it's the apocrypha and it's unacceptable absolutely right 27 minutes past year I am going to leave 911 I just

[16:18] want to mention this ah he came up in commercial radio John I didn't study journalism in school I laterally went to uni and studied am university and studied history in English then went on to do a postgraduate degree in television and radio and I broadcast live on sep tember eleven's I took over me and my presenter took over the afternoon schedule of wor feminine and very very successful commercial radio station we took all the afternoon jocks

[16:49] off the air because what was going on at nine a.m. in new york city and we of course them we did what we were told we took the Associated Press wires we took Reuters and we within days we were saying that bin Laden did it in and these these hijackers didn't all of that it was a couple years later that I began to have reservations about it I didn't have any background in conspiracy theories had no interest in conspiracy theories but reading psalmist keynes book two books are read one written by david icke and one written by thomas kean who was a commission chairman where

[17:21] he basically said they gave us five million dollars to investigate the worst terrorist atrocity in America we spent much more morning investigating whether bill clinton received oral sex from an intern right he said it was set up to fail keen I've come to the conclusion i admire i believe you're honest I believe you are given your calling as you see it I have no idea how those towers came down I really don't and I get really pissed off with some truthers killing one another over whether it was demolitions or whether it was the planes or whatever what I've come to believe is and this kills me it

[17:54] kills me to live in a world where I believe this I've come to believe that agents of the US government may be working with agents to the British government may be working with the Saudis maybe um to further an agenda Oh either brought the building say in one way or another or equally as badly John they allowed somebody else to another was [ __ ] blind oi twist and and that's what I believe the first week a matter what I believe because my listeners know it kills me to live in a world like that then people are capable

[18:25] of doing that what hey think what disagree with you especially with the last thing that you said frankly I I don't know what the truth is I can tell you what Abu Zubaydah told me um he told me that he didn't want to attack the United States on 911 that he wanted to attack Israel he said all he wanted to do was to kill Jews he didn't want to attack the United States but that he had been overruled and he was the one who told us that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was was the mastermind we knew that that the mastermind was somebody named more

[18:56] thought but we didn't know who this MOOC thought was until Abu Zubaydah told Alice oof on an FBI agent who was debriefing him at the time so that was the only indication that we had now with that said I think a strong argument for conspiracy can be made because what has happened in the post 9-11 era is that we have transitioned to a full-time wartime economy and after all these years mind you September 11th is nearly 15 years

[19:26] ago we have been in a wartime footing without that massive federal spending on on armaments and on a very large military much larger than we need to defend ourselves certainly the economy would go into depression we just couldn't maintain this level of spending so you know what I I'm not going to disagree with you I think there could be something to it and I think that probably we're never going to know the truth you know I get them I always get

[19:57] tweets from listeners where we go out on several platforms and our audience is very big I don't say that to brag but it is big and I get I'll get these emails in these tweets oh he won't tell the truth and he's he's working for the system and what some people don't understand is they're just not prepared to understand that you know there are so many different points of view on this and we're talking to John Kiriakou who's worked for the CIA he worked for them for the right reasons he got into his job as he quickly explained haven't been

[20:28] he's family hasn't being immigrants second third generation and a greek-american who wanted to invest something back into as a country that are taking care of his family looking after looking after taking care of the country protecting it against enemies foreign and domestic and all of that I think John's been incredibly honest to say that he's not sure or you know he wouldn't rule it out or it's not beyond the bounds of possibility because he means that I meet people all the time listen we have families who think it's crazy it's our 911 was a self-inflicted

[21:00] wound we have to get over this calling people shields and protectors just because they're not sure about it raises Christ I'm delighted that he's saying he's not sure about it that's a start for me you know like I had a really great friend a former very senior CIA officer by the name of Ray McGovern yeah we love raise a regular on this program ray Oh ray is just a grilling on ya like a brother to me and you know ray ray is his thinking on this issue is far closer to yours than it bet it is to mine ray

[21:31] is convinced that that it was a conspiracy and that if bin Laden was was involved that that bin Laden was used as a as a stooge yeah he does to be honest now as long as I've I mean I've known ray about two years which isn't long and the grand scheme of things but when he's been on he's been commenting on on Syria and Crimea Ukraine and Russia obviously as you well know and that's lovely but I've never kind of dog I'm very polite about it John I don't want to scare guys like you off I'll tell you why and this

[22:02] might sound very patronizing what I'm trying to do here and other producers who believe some things that are considered extreme I don't want to use go I'm not trying to use you all I want our listeners to hear a guy like you had the courage to talk about torture and because you saw what you saw you're now looking at other things you're you're considering the possibilities because ultimately all I want people to do right exactly it's considered sex exactly and I love it you know come it can we talk about am Syria is it fair to say and you know your

[22:34] great friend and an air friend Ray McGovern certainly agrees with this that tomorrow or wednesday is notes tomorrow is the meteor hilarious jhanda calling it the fifth anniversary of the uprising now I'm not going to say for a minute is that Bashar al-assad and his government didn't have opposition who wanted Syria to be more democratic I have no doubt people like that lived there it was an autocracy we know that an authoritarian am country we could say regime I don't

[23:04] like saying regime but isn't it fair to say that all the evidence now points to our intelligence agencies here in in London mi6 the CIA the NSA and other dark actors basically handed all the money in all the weapons that he could find to so-called moderate opposition groups in Syria as far back as 2008 2009 to unleash the absolute mayhem that we've seen there now and I'm not for a minute saying that Assad is an angel I'm not what I'm saying that again we've

[23:37] been caught out again red-handed and I say we Britain the United States and others in destabilizing the country's out might have been a glowing beacon of democracy in the region at all what was was was a much better place before we decided to stick our all in what are your thoughts yeah I agree with that and and this is really yet another example of this misguided and in many cases illegal neoconservative foreign policy that we have and it spans administration's it's not just George W

[24:07] Bush Barack Obama is just as as complicit in this as George W Bush was um yeah I think you're right I think the idea was that that we would arm as many people in Syria as we possibly could because they they were ostensibly opposed to Bashar al-assad and may work with us against Isis wants Isis was created of course we're the reason Isis was created in the first place and then of course all hell broke loose the thing is is let me let me give

[24:40] you an example when we were planning the Iraq war there were very clearly drawn battle lines within the US government and of course this was all behind closed doors but the office of the vice president the office of the secretary of defense and the National Security Council were gung-ho to invade Iraq the CIA the State Department and the Joint Chiefs of Staff were saying this is a mistake we need to focus on al-qaeda we need to find bin Laden we shouldn't invade Iraq um and I remember an NSC a

[25:12] national security council senior director said hanging at a secure video teleconference that as soon as we cross the border into Iraq the Iraqi people are going to throw flowers at us that's what he said and you get that same neocon attitude when you talk to these people about Syria that well what the Syrians need is a democracy along with a moderate you know sunni-led body politic well wait a minute there's no history of

[25:45] democracy anywhere in the Levant especially a us-style democracy and who are we to impose our form of government on anybody else in the meantime we're art we're arming practically all sides which keep our or munitions factories running at full blast when why is it really happening John well we I'm going to be talking tomorrow about the Des Moines current crisis and the fact that we know that angle a miracle in Germany

[26:17] got a right kick in the backside boy the electorate over the weekend I the midterm I suppose we could call in the midterm elections but the local elections and the regional elections lot of right-wing candidates have done well because she basically opened the floodgates to as the migrants what about those like David Icke say for example and and others who say that that the crisis the mass movement of people across Europe is an intended consequence of the madness of destroying Libya and

[26:50] Syria and that ultimately what that is about is it's ultimately about dividing and conquering it's about controlling us I think that's exactly what it is I think that's exactly what it is because we went when we have this kind of aggressive foreign policy we want everybody else to be weak because that's how we control them we want Libya in chaos Assyria in chaos and Afghanistan and chaos now our allies are going to disagree with us behind closed doors

[27:21] which is exactly why you don't see the Israelis in any way supporting what's happening in in Syria because as far as the Israelis are concerned the devil they know is better than the devil they don't and they know that Bashar al-assad is no threat to them well to the United States and to the UK and to others we like to stir the pot we like to keep everybody off balance now that tends to fail pretty spectacularly look what happened in Iraq Saddam Hussein was the

[27:53] only bulwark against Iran he was the only thing that kept Iran from meddling in the in the small Gulf states for example or posing a greater threat to to Lebanon now when you say meddling now using you know doing basically what we do sending arms because yeah because the Iranians historically they don't really attack anybody so they don't know no actually the Iranians don't the Iranians never have attacked anybody I mean even in the Iranian rock war as bad as Saddam Hussein was the Iranians didn't attack

[28:24] it was Saddam who attacked them that's right with weapons delivered by among states why the United States yeah yeah so of course we knew all along what Saddam didn't didn't have because what he had we gave it to it was pretty clear to uh to well most all of us in the CIA that there were no weapon mass destruction and we told the White House that repeatedly that there were no weapons of mass destruction we knew that that the nuclear program had had been dismantled in the late 1980s we knew that the well biological weapons you can

[28:57] make in your kitchen in your home so there's just no way to know besides they had no delivery system but chemical weapons which is where everybody was wrapped around the axle there was just simply no evidence that the Iraqis had chemical weapons they had had them in in earlier years but they had destroyed them thanks to the UN weapons inspections all throughout the 1990s yeah Oh John I want to do a quick time check I'm so glad you're on the program 20 minutes to the top of the air I i I'm very self-critical and I didn't want to

[29:28] sound patronizing when I was explaining you know why it's so important to bring ray mcgovern on you another Jean and because John there are three types of people there are people who believe in a very very very sinister conspiracy which is ultimately about you know reducing the population and doing other very terrible things I'll be honest I'm in that group then there's a group of people then who understands that and most of our political leaders elected leaders officials and military men and

[29:59] women whom we see on TV are telling noise and they those people then disagree about the reasons that they're doing it it's lighter about oil or it's about money but then there is the majority of people and the majority of people who go blissfully living their lives watching the sports and watching the the the reality television shows I don't understand that something is very very very wrong and I want to bridge the gap between us and and then I look where one program but that's kind of exactly what we and what we were set up for and

[30:32] yeah and you know and whatever guys like you we wouldn't have a chance whatever people like you were on the other side of the fence working for governments but saw something was terribly wrong at the courage to do something Adele didn't boy the way anybody who wants to see what other people are tweeting it's all one word Richie Allen show intuitive press enter you see what other people are tweeting Alex was on to say Richie he was a CIA he dealt with actionable intelligence which is much less discriminating then circumstantial says says alex alex is

[31:04] not a fan I don't think that's okay yeah we are we have a democracy kids I I know how unpopular I am among some circles and that's fine I accept it I have a thick skin yeah fair enough you've got em you got youngster in the background as well haven't you I can a youngster backward no it's good it's lovely 17 minutes to Z the the top of the arrow John kyriacou is our guest it's great to have him on thanks for the tweets out Richie Island show on Twitter Richie Richie an encoded UK we've got John for

[31:35] another fiver or six minutes so so Putin said today that Russia is going to draw down just a smallish force that it has in Syria we understand it's 30 planes and it's been a you know a force a battalion of sorts minding or looking after those planes and obviously then the advisors that would be there at voice and the Syrian government what's that all about is that to show that Russia really wants to you know push

[32:06] forward with the peace process or is it more gamesmanship it's Putin saying because at the moment Interpol are saying well there are thousands of al-qaeda in Europe already there just waiting for the opportunity to kill us all it's potent you're saying we'll hang on a second we've been we've been seriously upset in these guys over the last few months we've killed thousands of them there's not many left and so that's kind of one-upmanship or gamesmanship or is Putin do you think really determined to get behind a peace process John you know I honestly believe

[32:39] and maybe this is maybe this sounds naive but I I think we ought to take Putin at face value here I think that he saw Russian involvement in Syria as as as a limited prospect in the very beginning I think the Russians had a far better defined mission and goal in Syria certainly than the United States has where we just you know send people and forget to bring them home um but I think that I think that he's got a plan this is part

[33:11] of the plan and he's ready to at least in part go home so I think that what what we see here is what we get we ought to take him at his word he's got problems with Ukraine of course and that's another you look at Victoria Nuland the wife of Bob keg and you look at what they've done in Ukraine there oh yes I mean this is it's shocking isn't it I mean they took out I'm Yanukovych we have poroshenko there I I would use it I you know I shouldn't probably should be more professional but ever use

[33:42] the word like pulpit we have natalie's Aresco there a Chicago born woman yes she is of Ukrainian descent but she's running the she's managing the purse strings now for Ukraine it's a good boy any other name so Russia's surrounded or I could be argued it surrounded with what's happening in Turkey and Turkey is very unstable at the moment John he's guarded bees rush has got to be worried as a network and this did this brings us tend to the ideas out there are those pushing us towards a global conflict

[34:15] that involves rocha possibly China and against Britain the United States Israel the Saudis and others now I want to believe that that it won't happen that's what I want to believe but I can't help but believe that there are those driving us towards what do you think yeah again I gonna have to agree with you one of the things that that American success of American governments and certainly American people fail to understand is

[34:45] that Putin and really most Russians I think feel and circled by the United States and its allies they see every time a NATO adds a new member country they see that as a threat to their security as well they should and so I think that we just fail to understand their concerns and so when they do something that's clearly in their own military interests we see that as a

[35:16] provocation and we see that as a threat um I don't think it's a threat I think it's survived oh I don't see a global conflict not because of anything that the United States does certainly but I think the Chinese are so cautious and so averse really to the use of force and I worked with the Chinese in the United Nations for many years they really don't like the use of force I just don't see a conflagration put it that way I I hope

[35:48] you're right do you agree with me so we're back to the neo-cons again oh that there are those who would who would push us if not to bring people given the chance for example given the opportunity there are those who would em unleash that yeah I think I think Victoria Nuland is a dangerous force in the region and certainly Robert Kaiba Kagan is even more dangerous uh you know they there there are organizations think tanks and places in Washington that won't even allow them to darken the hallways and how in the world their

[36:19] commanding leadership positions in American foreign policy is just something that we should all be ashamed of if not sauna wage on Saudi haven't these people they've just not gone away to Alexa bolton and and Wolfowitz and we mentioned keg and the authors of the project for a new American Century d0 these people who believe that to maintain America's hegemony it's got to be involved in multiple series of wars I mean when you think about and what was it Wesley Clark ooh and eavesdropped and heard things he shouldn't have heard

[36:49] about the plans for countries like Syria and Libya and stuff like that psychopaths they might be but their plans of coming to come to fruition haven't do well you they have and it's been very incremental and in it when it's incremental like that it's easy to miss and I think that's exactly what has happened I mean it seems to me like the neoconservatives have had their eyes on Ukraine for years many years maybe decades and and they finally got the kind of as you I think appropriately put it a puppet regime in power right now

[37:21] you know what listening to you I know you will have friends some who might still be in service and summer warrants what did he may give you John I think and I don't mean in terms of you going to prison for doing the right thing I think most of them would grudgingly admire you for doing the right thing torture is wrong and it's a marvelous thing you did I'll never forget that as long as the majority's Indian programs like this you know the easy thing to do is to turn a blind eye to it you are the courage not that makes you a great guy in my opinion no it really does John it

[37:52] can't be said enough times so you look at him you look at them people who served with you people who are still there what do you think they make of you talkin now in terms like you have been about Ukraine and stuff like that what would they make if what was your opinion see actually still have a lot of friends at the CIA um still active duty CIA in fact um 50 one of them have signed a letter to the president asking him to pardon me um so I do hear from them and they they say that I have overreacted

[38:26] because of what has happened to me over the last four years and that I find fault in too much as it relates to American policy but I tell them and listen I'm a lifelong Liberal Democrat we use the word progressive now but a lifelong Democrat and they hate it when I tell them look you know Ronald Reagan was right government is the problem it's not the solution to the problem and when we have a government that wants to have its hands in everything whether its

[38:58] expansionist military policy or expansionist foreign policy or taking away our civil liberties and carrying out warrantless wiretaps or cracking into our iphones that is a problem and I had a problem yeah he government has become the problem not the solution John we had a story today just before we go it might sound like something small but it's big you know in Liverpool obviously a great city of great historical cities marvelous City he gave us the Beatles and a couple of terrible soccer teams we

[39:29] won't get into that I mean I'm in Manchester's when I'm boys bought em a couple of women today were fined and given community service in a quarter niverville because they refused refused to obey a zoning order which made it illegal to give food to the homeless people John we're in serious trouble here oh you see we have the same we have the same new kinds of laws it's now illegal in Seattle to provide food to homeless people and so I hope I this is a very

[40:03] very new law I hope that people you know walk into McDonald's or wendy's or Kentucky Fried Chicken and buy food just for the homeless yeah they can they can flout this law and challenge it on the streets it was disobedience john howard zinn was right I keep we keep bringing him up you know you cannot obey tyrannical laws like that you didn't obey a tyrannical law it's absolutely outrageous is that you wouldn't be pardoned and I'm sick in that some former and current CIA people said that

[40:33] you overreacted how could you overreact to being sentenced to two years in jail for doing the right thing and telling people that your government is you know is committing heinous crimes I think you're absolutely brilliant a John and listen there I'd love to have you back on again in the future to talk about and you know not so much about your own story but when when you've got things to say I know you're right for aura as well and I probably should have mentioned that and/or in our TV you find them John on there but anything that's happening geopolitically that you're very

[41:03] interested in yeah you can always come back on here and I'm a child it's a really enjoyed having you on thank you so much pleasures all mine thanks for inviting me look after yourself John thanks boyfriend John Kiriakou on the line to estare from his home in Pennsylvania [Music]
