Title: The Bitter Truth (Abe Abdelhadi)
Show: The Bitter Truth with Abe Abdelhadi
Date: 2020-02-17
URL: https://youtu.be/6Dc3VQJIJRw
Duration: 28:00

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[00:04] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] greetings and salutations this is a Bab Dell hottie with the bitter truth where we may not have all the answers but we're gonna ask an awful lot of questions you can also become a bitter pill or fool spoonful of sugar if I could talk today and get some fabulous swag at patreon.com porch Lots the bitter truth and make your life better today I'm very excited we have a friend of the show returning with us to talk

[00:34] about some stuff and he is the host of the loud and clear podcast which runs Monday through Friday and he's also been a former CIA officer he's Pakistani station chief specifically we're gonna get into that a little bit as well I'm sure and he's also one of the first whistleblowers that President Obama put in jail and if you know that fabulous track record you know he was a busy busy boy compared to his predecessors the great John Kerry aku is with us how are you John hey doing well thanks thanks for having me hey thanks for thanks for

[01:04] coming on again man hey so um so you know busy busy time but I know specifically we wanted to kind of jump into what's been going on lately with with Julian Assange what's I know he was he just won a Press Freedom Award right yes he did he won a Press Freedom Award that was very well deserved in my opinion you know there's this debate about whether or not Julian is a journalist and I think that's the wrong question the question is is he a publisher and he's clearly a publisher and if you're going to prosecute a

[01:35] publisher it's a slippery slope to put to to prosecuting and punishing anybody else involved in in reporting the news but it but still even as a journalist though he's still afforded a press freedom regardless if he's a publisher journalist right yeah yeah that's right but you know people get up get tied up on these on these labels and they say well he's not a real journalist what newspaper does he work for what website does he work for that's not the issue at all the issue is is that he's working to

[02:06] bring us truth right it's simple is that mm-hmm well this is think to that it's actually pretense because when I remember when he was we need exposed bushier or war crimes when Bush was president not too long after that he got his own TED talk and I'd seen that TED talk a few times and you know the so-called liberal audience is breathlessly you know applauding and oh my god he's a hero I know then he turned his attention to the Obama administration specifically

[02:37] you know later with Hillary Clinton and those very same people are like oh he's a traitor he's not even journalist and I'm like well right you I was a comedian for a long time I played in a band I never got a license for those things I just got on stage and I was a comedian right you know or at least I was attempting to be and and I was a musician for a long time didn't get a license you know it's like this is they act you go to journalism school the hell does that mean you don't actually get a license it's like you stick your head out the window and whatever truth is happening that day you pretty much write that as best you can I mean it these

[03:07] labels really just work me yes oh I totally agree so I'm always hung up on labels you know it seems especially in Julian's case that it's it's become more more bipolar I guess with with very few people in the middle on this issue mm-hmm well because I mean it's all labels - it's all identity politics you know like like like you know not to get into these weeds but you see it all the time if Tim Allen says something the

[03:38] Conservatives are like oh my god he's in America and the Brad Pitt says exactly you know then they lose his [ __ ] because Brad Pitt's and something about the the hearings and I don't agree with either one of them but it's like it really just depends on the flavor you know it's like well why should Brad pitch you no bride should Brad Pitt shut up on his opinion but you breathlessly accept what Tim Allen has to say right and then that Lee right let me ask him before he got dragged out of the embassy and you may have mentioned this before and I apologize had you ever spoken with him before because I know you know I had Snowden Baudette did you ever spoken with him before the only time I ever

[04:10] spoke with Julian was about six weeks before he was pulled out of the embassy we've exchanged a few letters since he's been locked up in Belmarsh prison but when he was in the embassy we only spoke the one time Wow and then what what did you gather his state to be when you spoke to him last frightened yeah when when when we when we exchanged letters for the first

[04:40] time let me think it was about I'm gonna say ten months ago it was very clear that he was he was a man in command he he made a long list of things that he wanted me to do could I call this attorney could I ask these questions could I call this activist could I introduce him to such in such a journalist that kind of thing but it was a page and a half of that and it was very actual in and then by the

[05:14] third or fourth letter that we exchanged he was frightened and worried he knew that you know he knew Miranda was part of pillars he knew marina was gonna pull his [ __ ] right he's that kind of the idea yeah yeah it was like it was like the fact that the fix is in was finally he's thinking in mm-hm and you know I think that the fix is not in I think that there's a possibility certainly

[05:45] that cooler heads can prevail and and once word gets out as to the illegal actions that the CIA and NSA and others took against him in order to spy on him for example when he was in the embassy out of that that may be helpful okay well let me so let me ask you something I got kind of a laundry list of a [ __ ] ton of really good international laws that I think are broken but let me let me ask honestly so before before all

[06:18] this before the pulling out of the embassy but you know before Lenin Moreno even won the election did he think he'd have a shot at actually being free again or was he kind of relegated to being in the embassy uh I think deep down he believed that there was a chance that he would go free eventually you know he thought he could outreach Barack Obama and Donald Trump said a lot of nice things about WikiLeaks and then it became apparent that Donald Trump wasn't gonna help him in any way and he thought

[06:50] well he's gonna have to outweigh Donald Trump and then at the same time he was thinking you know I didn't do these sexual assaults the the cops put these women up to to filing the complaints in the first place once that sort of worked its way to to the wayside that maybe there was a chance through the British courts that he could get out maybe he could get to Iceland maybe he could get to Russia or something like that and it just didn't happen well those anymore you know I mean I

[07:22] think we were all shocked at Lennie marinas response to this whole problem well yeah because he wasn't he wasn't Lenna marina wasn't some guy they just fell out of the sky he was in the the previous administration he was the VPD and that are whatever well yeah well we were named Lenin to be in the pocket of the CIA right and that's exactly what he was yeah and and that's and that's the thing where when when when Korea left I was just like all right well this guy's

[07:52] gonna take over and you see that's mine and that's my that's one of the questions I wanted to start off with is this trial that's happening I believe it's the spring for Julian Assange aren't they the trial is to see if the British government is going to extradite him to the United States right correct correct and keep in mind that he he had been held on charges of bail-jumping right right and he was sentenced to more than the maximum when he was sentenced to 10 months which is

[08:24] longer than the maximum sentence for bail-jumping and then when he finished that sentence they just said oh we're not letting you out because we think you're gonna run away so you just have to remain here indefinitely in this maximum-security penitentiary by the way right he's not in he's not in the majority can yeah and then I'm talking about they put him in solitary confinement will see me a note with solitary confinement is it's a form of torture we'll put in the bail-jumping for a case that's been dropped three times exactly it's not it's not new

[08:57] charges it's it's bail-jumping for something that the Swedish government had dropped three times already that's right that's right and I'll tell you what worries me the most well let me preface it by saying that there is precedent there are precedents plural for British courts refusing to extradite subjects to the United States because of the way the US uses solitary confinement it is an internationally recognized form of torture and so

[09:27] British courts in the past have refused to extradite people to the United States it is conceivable that a British judge could refuse to extradite Julian but what would happen then since there are no charges pending against him in the UK right he would have to be released from Belmarsh and then he would be expelled because he is an Australian national and the Australian government went to pains about a year ago to renew his passport he would be expelled to Australia and

[09:59] then the US would ask Australia to extradite him so you know there's no easy fix to this not at all well and then I'm just gonna ask him I got a couple of other guys I wanted to talk about really quick um most recently Glenn Greenwald just got his charges dropped on that Cyprus talking crap they draw to accuse him of but with with Julian Assange what I mean and this is this is me being ignorant I'm asking just to ask was was was the Ecuadorian government revoking his citizenship

[10:30] without cause is that illegal because that's just seem pokey when they did it you know it's funny well I don't know specifically what Ecuadorian lawyers but I just asked the same question of another country that happens to be an EU country and I just got a response a formal response from the embassy today and they said that it is not legally possible to revoke citizenship that the citizenship has to be renounced it can't be revoked although I adore is not a European Union country of course but I

[11:02] would have to assume that there was similarity from country to country sure sure and then going into the embassy I know I know you know Mareno gave the Brit Police the permission to go into the embassy yeah is that is that the only way is that illegal anyway I mean it where is it I'm sorry technically that would be that would be legal a foreign power including a local power like the police can only go into an

[11:33] embassy with the express permission of that country's leadership it's the only way that it can be done okay okay well then and then late and then and last year when he was first put in a Belmarsh and then they kept dragging him nine dragging him that like you know well they did they would drag him out for like and let him talk for ten seconds give his name and date of birth or something but they're basically trying them without even letting well I don't know if they're doing it now but last year they'd even let him look at his prepared defense they didn't let him talk to his attorneys they gave his

[12:04] attorneys evidence that they'd asked for it like 10 minutes before the hearings I mean it was like total kangaroo court it is isn't it is there is there a recourse they can go to I mean this isn't the this isn't the British Supreme Court or their version of it is it it's like a it's like a circuit court judge that's doing this and isn't she's married to somebody this is a magistrate yes you're right so there are several levels above this current judge that they can go and now I've spoken with most of his attorneys over the past year he has the

[12:35] best attorneys that money can buy both in the UK and in the United States so we can all be assured that he's got some of the best legal minds supporting him with that said they have one hand tied behind their backs because they're not receiving discovery in a timely fashion that's one of the reasons why these hearings keep being postponed now there's a hearing later this month I'm gonna go to London in a couple weeks to attend it's going to be short it's

[13:06] going to be well short relatively it's going to take about four days and then there is a hearing in May that's scheduled for two weeks and that's supposed to be the whole hearing with testimony exhibits and everything with the result being either extradition or no extradition mm-hmm okay um I'll shoot I mean seize it but then there's this thing that frustrates me is the magistrate

[13:39] who's married her husband you know has has not benefited but her husband has been a quote on the recipient end receiving end of some of Julian Assange's exposures should she should shouldn't she be recusing herself wife I would say yes right I would say absolutely yet I don't know what Brit la mean you know as far as that goes but here in America if that was to go down if you were being guide in your case for

[14:10] example yeah if the judge if the judge turned out to have been married to someone who worked on the Obama campaign right they would have to recuse themselves absolutely you know absolutely and that's that's exactly what I would be calling for it's a recusal and is britain have that kind of a law do you know i don't know i don't know you know what i don't know i don't know okay but certainly i mean you know this is a country that that's been purportedly governed by the rule of law for what eight hundred years now

[14:40] magneton almost stuff like that listen from the magna carta right and so he hid the rest the world ought to be looking to them for these kinds of issues rather than a thing you know what's up with this conflict of interest this isn't cool well what is what is the legal what is the legal us right to extradite i mean it's not like he killed somebody on US soil and then fled to britain the $64,000 question does the u.s. have a legal right to ask for his extradition he's not an American citizen and here's another thing a precedent was said in my

[15:12] case a dangerous one but it was a great expansion in the definition of espionage so you know the definition of espionage in the u.s. code goes on for pages my judge made it is this and I quote her exactly espionage is the provision of any National Defense Information to any person not entitled to receive it okay so she didn't say anything about about

[15:45] she didn't say anything about the First Amendment it's just the provision of National Defense information to any person not entitled to receive it which means under that definition that any journalist let's say from The Washington Post the New York Times The Wall Street Journal can be charged with espionage for publishing information that someone I gave him or her that's still classified and they used it in a news

[16:16] story anybody so until my case it was you know you had to have a criminal intent to expose this information the information had to be currently and properly classified etc etc well Julian was not was not subject to US law demanding that he protect US defence information classified information he was under no obligation to protect

[16:47] classified information so so why why prosecute him in the first place even the prosecution itself doesn't make any sense to me well no and then and then to speak to your point he didn't give that information to an enemy unquote he simply published it yes but they argue that he gave it to an enemy by publishing it and they argue that that he exposed it to the likes of the Russians and the Chinese and the North Koreans etc okay well and part of

[17:18] their and they still couldn't prove any harm well that's another thing they couldn't prove any harm in my case in Tom Drake's case even in Chelsea Manning's case Chelsea Manning turned over hundreds of thousands of pages of classified documents and they were never able to prove that there was any harm to the national security you know it'd be so much easier if we quit [ __ ] around with people I think right it's like it would be nice if we spent you know fifty billion a year to give people water and then no one would want to kill us

[17:48] because they'd be like oh hey there the water guys are cool and you know what just as an aside that's how people view the Chinese in the third world if you go to yen or Somalia Djibouti I've been all these countries in the Eastern Horn of Africa and they love to Chinese why because the Chinese come and build roads and they don't try to politicize them they don't jump up it's down about about taxes or human rights or military bases or any of

[18:18] that stuff no they just build roads in fact the Chinese the Chinese only have two bases outside of China right - that's right and they just up there spend their military budget spend to 225 billion dollars yeah our military budget spend is more than the next eight largest countries combined oh yeah and and and forget what the Congress just passed it yeah I read Forbes of pub as publishes a few times where it's closer to 1.2 trillion 1.1 trillion dollars a year when you throw in covert VA and the name right

[18:50] right right and we keep going and going and going and then you know but I wanted to kind of while we still have time with you because kind of on this along the same lines you know max Blumenthal just had his charges dropped about a month ago and it's just yesterday Glen Glen I can't gosh I can't speak today Glen Greenwald just had his cyber spying charges or whatever dropped in Brazil which kind of shocked me because bolsa now is not exactly a friend of the journalists but um yeah and can you speak to those two situations

[19:21] sure sure I I'm happy to they're both friends of mine max Blumenthal Wow poor max max was accused of assaulting a woman yeah in front of the Venezuelan embassy in fact video showed that that it was max who was assaulted he never raised his hand to anybody a woman or otherwise he was clearly assaulted the police did nothing about it and then weeks later they they carried out a SWAT like raid on his house at six

[19:54] o'clock in the morning you know with the black helmets and flak jackets and and the ar-15s or whatever I think it's an ar-15 that the DC police used they raided his house because someone had written on the arrest warrant that he was to be considered and dangerous it's a miracle that they didn't just open fire when they broke down the door and went into the man's home sure those charges were dropped because he simply hadn't done what they said he did the same day Medea Benjamin

[20:28] was arrested and she was arrested for allegedly assaulting congresswoman debbie Wasserman Schultz that was outrageous when I would've liked Hart I would have more dropped I would have liked to have seen that yeah I'm with you I'm with you and then there was Glenn Greenwald you know Glenn's Glenn's made a lot of people angry over the years a lot of very very important people including giant bolts in our house right um you know the reason why I'm less sanguine

[20:59] about Glenn safety is that the Minister of Justice did not want to drop this case the Minister of Justice was ordered to drop it by one of the judges on the Brazilian Supreme Court oh and even even when they dropped the charge they still sort of threatened him in their in their reasoning for dropping the charge and and so if I were clan I would I would be very careful in in Brazil Brazil is trending fascist and and the journalists

[21:31] are going to be the first ones to go well I mean my mother's from Brazilian I mean mean like my brothers are first generation here my dad's Palestinian mothers Brazilians so we're a hot mess but they the the the Lula da Silva days were short and fairly recent you know I mean up until up until DaSilva Brazil had had a lot of these kinds of problems before you know pretty much from 64 on and so yeah yeah you know and and so when de Silva came is sort of like a like a like a Bulevar Ian you know you

[22:05] know reform but it wasn't long before you know they they they they jailed him and pull it all the you know all the John Perkins type crap that you read about and we saw it in real time and with Glenn Greenwald the thing that makes me a little nervous about I'm and you know his husband's a congressperson in Brazil yes so it's not like they can just up and leave and and then where's no the other question too is where is he gonna go you know I mean it'd have to be somewhere like Portugal or somewhere where where is it while it's an EU country they

[22:36] don't bend over to the will of the Brits in the in the United States I mean it I mean what do you think of that I was having a conversation about the school last night with a friend of mine and I said what about Iceland I mean ISIL has always been so friendly with with people in this in this you know these circles let's say right and and Iceland was willing to take at Snowden so just couldn't get there right and so she said no no that Iceland has

[23:06] changed Iceland has been refusing request for asylum by by activists there they're not interested in taking Glenn Greenwald or ed Snowden or anybody else that might cause them a political problem was a country about half a million people - it's not like that you know that right you know I mean it's not like it's not like they've got this you know incredible military and and that kind of thing either it's like you know if we you know we'll look what we've look what we've been doing with international law of the last 20 years we kind of don't give a [ __ ] and I yeah

[23:38] I could see us actually invade Iceland to go get somebody yeah I mean oh yeah and the buy-in would be pretty easy I mean you know the other night I just gave one wydo a standing ovation and you know he's the recognized president of Venezuela like no [ __ ] even win election in his own little deal and you only had 40 there's how many countries in the world 200 and only 40 our puppets recognize this guy yeah yeah and and and it's such a white person

[24:09] thing too because I mean when the when the Bolivia thing happened last fall I'm here in Austin you know supposedly super blue Austin and I'm at a party with a couple buddies and that came up and my one friend he's like well you know I'm not saying it was right but he was there for a long time is it for 15 years ago Angela Merkel's been running things for 15 years how come we don't pull the coup in Germany Yeah right well cuz she's white it's true you know we don't like I agree we don't like the brought black you don't want to go ahead and like for anything to you that I noticed when John Bolton was still

[24:39] Vanessa Security Advisor a reporter asked him about the Venezuelan Constitution because because Bolton had said that quite del according to the Venezuelan Constitution for ideal had every right to be president and the reporter says that the Venezuelan Constitution says that you have 30 days in which to take the oath of office and to begin governing from the date of your election he wasn't elected but it's been more than 30 days since the coup so he's no longer constitutionally eligible to be

[25:11] President and Bolton just stood there and stared at the guy like nobody had ever bothered to read the Venezuelan Constitution to see if even the illegality of their coup could somehow be massaged to make it look like it was okay for one white doe to be President this is American exceptionalism I swear to God Bolton didn't know that that was a gotcha question you're going to lead a coup in a country and you don't even know what the [ __ ] law is that's what these people exactly that's what these people directly write you know and it's a 70 like I said my dad's Palestinian

[25:42] right now I don't have an emotional dog in this fight at this point my life but on a justice level I do I mean this it's it's the same goddamn thing as Bolivia or Nicaragua or anywhere else and when people with a straight face timing rules Lionism is great I'm like really really that blows my mind that you would say those words in that way I mean if I said Nazis are awesome what kind of response would I get I mean shooting six-year-olds in the back from 100 feet 100 yards away with a sniper rifle yeah you don't I mean and when they go on about well they they launched rockets

[26:13] what volleyballs full of gunpowder I mean you know what kind of rockets they got in Gaza yeah right you know in helmet and so far the Israelis have killed 2.1 million Palestinians in the last seven to seventy years okay right not all of them PLO not all of them were Hamas or Hezbollah and I'm sorry if it wasn't for goddamn Hezbollah Lebanon would have been annexed by now right so just that kind of thing just drives you and so-called liberals do it too like we're talking about earlier with Tim Allen versus Brad Pitt you know it's right they'll built they do that too I

[26:44] mean even Bernie Sanders can't even bring himself say that that it was a [ __ ] coup you know he's like you don't I mean he he could even he couldn't even say well they need they need an election reform no they don't need a lecture reform dude he won no he was one of the yes members of Congress that stood up and gave a standing ovation to one Guido the state of the union yeah yeah all of them did I didn't see anybody sit down yeah they did you know and you know and you give me this they need election reform and then I got people with a straight face that this is the one thing that pisses

[27:16] me off when I hear people [ __ ] about Trump supporters and they'll say well you know most of them aren't educated and they don't have a degree I got a degree for all the jack-shit it means and let me tell you something I know a lot of people with degrees who are [ __ ] stupid yep to sit there and MIT use that as a measure of any intelligence blows my mind especially when you buy the news hook line and sink like these guys do if Rachel Maddow says it then it must be true right exactly mm um let me let me let me let you do your thing really quick you know I appreciate the time we're getting close

[27:47] to the end here but so um where can we find your podcast and did I say I said Monday through Friday I've heard it before but um I listen on YouTube so I don't I don't always catch it live like um so yeah so it's called loud and clear with Brian Becker we do it Monday through Friday it's it's on terrestrial radio here in the Washington area and also in Kansas City but it's available as a podcast at iTunes I Heart Radio Spreaker Spotify all the various platforms allow seems clear with Brian Becca okie dokie and I'll put that and I'll
