Title: Former CIA Agent Explains Why We Need To Break Up With Israe
Show: The Young Turks
Date: 2026-07-10
URL: https://youtu.be/y1iSbvokFA0
Duration: 32.9:00

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[00:00] Do we even have a CIA? Um, so what I mean by that is the CIA uh seems to let Israel run wild inside this country. And so espionage to no end stole our nuclear secrets, our uranium, our nuclear triggers, all of our top secrets. And yet we're like, "Oh, they're our best allies." And we let them run. And and in fact, one more, you know, Epstein was part of uh Iran Contra. And so it's not like the CIA is not aware of what's happening here. And so does it exist or

[00:33] is it just simply the MSAD? >> You know, it's it's changed a lot over the years in that when I first joined the CIA, we did not like the Israelis at all. >> Joining us now is John Kuryaku. He's a former CIA officer and a whistleblower uh who uh uh uh blew the whistle on torture uh that we were doing inside the government and has won several awards including counterterrorism service medal meritorious honor award, CIA exceptional

[01:05] performance award, CIA sustained superior performance award and has a number of books out. John, welcome to the show. >> Thank you so much Shank. You know, you and I have never had a chance to actually meet, and you did me a solid many years ago by talking about my very first smuggled out letter from prison. You read it on the air, and I've always been very appreciative. That's interesting. Okay, so I saw Look, we're going to get into super important things about like who does the CIA actually work for. Uh but first, I saw a clip

[01:36] where you said that I had uh railed against you. Do you know where that came from? Because that never happened. Hold on, pause because I set this up. Okay, I came across the clip and I was like, "Oh, no." But I like John Kuryaku a lot. Like, what's the beef? So, this is the clip. >> What was it? >> Ed. Okay, this is the moment. Take a look. >> Hassan Piker's mother mother's maiden name is Weaguer. And I wondered if he was related to Chank Wager. Michael Gardner's telling us that he's Czech Waguer's nephew. It's funny. Chank Wager

[02:07] has never really been a friend of mine either. The second thing I ever did that got wide press coverage after blowing the whistle um it was my it was my open letter to uh to my supporters from prison that became my first letter from Lorettto. That's when Jake Tapper came to uh to the prison to interview me. Uh the the the response was universally positive and interested except for Chank Wiger. Chen Weaguer just for 30 minutes just

[02:38] ripped me and I never understood that because back then, you know, I I probably agreed on 95% of the issues with Chen Weaguer. Like, why is he attacking me like this? But it's just his >> I I've never been able to draw a bead on on Chen Weaguer. I mean, I wanted to I I kind of felt like I should have been friends with him. He's one of those guys. It's like an unrequited bromance where you're sort of like you reach out, you're like, "We should be buds. We agree about a lot of stuff and then you know they never call, they never write.

[03:11] >> Well, it could be quieted now. So, John, what in the world was that? >> I don't know. >> No, it was a mistaken identity thing because I became obsessed with figuring out what it was and I went through our archives and no such thing exists. So, it must have been a mistake ident. Yeah, I I I want to apologize for that because I think I must have been temporarily insane or something. That had to be that's what I'm going with. >> Yeah. Yeah. No, no, don't sweat it. The

[03:42] mistaken identity, no big deal. Okay, let's get to serious stuff. So, look, John, the main thing that I've been wanting to ask you for a long time is, do we even have a CIA? Um, so what I mean by that is the CIA uh seems to let Israel run wild inside this country. And so espionage to no end stole our nuclear secrets, our uranium, our nuclear triggers, all of our top secrets. And yet we're like, "Oh, they're our best allies and we let them run." And and in fact, one more, you know, Epstein was

[04:13] part of uh Iran Contra. And so it's not like the CIA is not aware of what's happening here. And so does it exist or is it just simply the MSAD? >> You know, it's it's changed a lot over the years in that when I first joined the CIA, we did not like the Israelis at all. They were spying on us. They made it clear. They openly spied on us. They

[04:44] would bring us gifts that had listening devices embedded in them to the point where they were not allowed in the building. We had to rent space to do our liaison meetings with them because they just simply were not permitted to come into the headquarters building. Well, that that was what 35 years ago. And now all of a sudden they're being like embedded with the CIA that there's a provision in the National Defense Authorization Act for 2027 that

[05:14] colllocates them with the the Pentagon and then allows even closer like five eyes style liaison with um with the CIA. And then at the same time, just two weeks ago, NBC News reported that the director of DIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, had to send out an all hands email saying that the Israelis are being unusually aggressive right now in trying to recruit assets inside DIA

[05:45] that all DIA employees need to be extra careful. So, what are we doing here? Either either the Israelis are ranked as critical threat for counter intelligence, which is what they were when I was there along with the Russians, the Chinese, the Cubans, and the North Koreans, or we're joined at the hip. But it can't be both. >> So, here's my follow-up question for for you on everything that you just said. What changed? Is it blackmail? like how

[06:18] did our government and and not just the CIA, how did our government go from understanding the risks of being associated with the Israelis, understanding that they spy on us, understanding that while we may say that they're our allies, in reality they act like they're our adversaries. So, >> what changed? >> Do they have dirt on powerful people in our government? Or I mean, I'm asking you to speculate or maybe you know something we don't know. >> Yeah. No, they they probably do, but I think it's I think it's broader and more nefarious than that in that this is

[06:50] really a political change. You know, the the last any Arab leader will tell you and and many have told me or I've been in the room when they've told the American ambassador, the last American president to give the Arabs a fair shake was George HW Bush. The last one. They loved George HW Bush. They loved Kennedy. And they loved Eisenhower. and everybody else has been a Zionist in terms of policy. Well, we've had a string of Zionist presidents and they

[07:21] just keep the the Israelis keep chipping away little by little by little, not just in the White House, but on Capitol Hill through Apac and they've gotten us to the point where if you disagree not just with Israeli policy, if you disagree with Benjamin Netanyahu as a person, you are labeled as anti-Semitic. of course took decades to get to that point but they did it. >> Yeah. So John more follow-ups here. So first of all on your point about disagree with Netanyahu uh only a third

[07:51] of Jewish Americans agree with Netanyahu. Twothirds are against them. So apparently twothirds of Jews in America are anti-Semitic by this ludicrous definition. Ludicrous. And it's obvious. Can >> I add something to that? >> Yeah. because of the party system in uh in Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu has never won more than 27% of the vote in Israel. So, are we supposed to assume then that 73% of Israelis are anti-Semitic? >> Yeah, >> it's outrageous. >> Uh yes, and I could list other uh

[08:22] historic leaders that did not win a majority, but one around that number and then went on to do great damage. Uh so, okay. Now, our press uh I believe is mainly is Israeli propaganda. Why do I say that? Because they keep telling us that things are normal. So, I just want to do a quick checklist with you to see if these things are normal. So, [snorts] >> they keep saying, "Oh, your our allies doing espionage to the point where they are stealing our the most sensitive technology and intelligence and using it to build weapons of mass destruction and

[08:52] doing it over and over and over again is perfectly normal. Is that really normal?" No, of course not. And if it was any other country in the world, we would be on the brink of war with them right now. >> I mean, forget allies, we'd be on the brink of war with them. Okay. So then number two, they say, "Oh, to merge our militaries, as you're talking about section 219 and the technology and so that they could take one now soon to be $1.5 trillion of money we're spending on defense and they get the entire benefit

[09:24] of that for free." They say that's all perfectly normal. We constantly are merging our militaries with allies. Is that normal? >> We're merging our militaries with the closest allies that we have in the world. Very specifically the British, the Canadians, the Australians, and the New Zealanders. You know, we've got good relations with the rest of the the members of NATO, as one example. Israel is not in NATO. We have close relations with most European Union countries. Israel is not a member of the European

[09:56] Union. And then just a couple of weeks ago, the Israeli defense minister said publicly in a in an interview that Israel's next war would be against Turkey. Well, guess what? Turkeykey's a member of NATO. And if there were to be hostilities between Israel and Turkey, and Turkey invoked Article 5 of the of the NATO charter, an attack on one is an attack on all. the United States would have to go to war with Israel to defend Turkey. Is the United States going to go

[10:27] to war with Israel? Of course not. And so what happens? The Israelis then successfully destroy NATO. Is that really the the road we want to go down? >> Not normal. Last one. Last one. Go. Go ahead. Yeah. So, uh, dozens of Israeli spies were arrested after 9/11. I'm not asking about why they were arrested or what they did, but they were arrested and they were definitively Israeli spies. And then we just let them go free. Yes. Is that normal? >> Yes, >> that actually is normal. Um nor normal

[10:58] normally if let's say an American spy gets caught in a friendly country, you know, publicly we deny deny deny that this person is a spy. We deny and then secretly quietly we go to the the station chief will go to the head of the service and say, "Listen, he's my guy. You busted us. Do me a favor here and just let him go." and then quietly they'll let him go. They may make him cool his heels for a week or two, but eventually they're going to let him go. The reason why I I'm speculating here. I believe that the reason why there were

[11:30] so many Israeli spies arrested in New York in the days after 9/11 is that the Israelis had advanced warning of 9/11 and didn't tell us. And that was a policy decision. We asked every ally in the world. We begged them if they had any sources inside al-Qaeda, please help us because we knew this massive attack was coming, but we didn't know when and where. We knew it was going to be giant. We just didn't know when and where. I

[12:00] believe that the Israelis did know that they had infiltrated al-Qaeda, but they didn't tell us because they wanted us to attack al-Qaeda. They knew that if we were attacked that we would overreact like we did. We would launch a war that lasted 20 years. We would kill 2 million Muslims, which we did, and spend something like $6 something trillion dollar on national defense. You know,

[12:31] just like they knew chaos in Iraq was good for Israel, chaos in Libya was good for Israel, chaos in Syria was good for Israel, and now chaos in Iran is good for Israel. It hasn't changed since 9/11. >> Cancer on our globe. Honestly, I it's So, you just said something very provocative. Uh something that I alluded to in one post on X once, and I didn't even allude to it as aggressively as you just did. I just noted the, you know,

[13:01] five Israelis who got arrested because they were seen celebrating the World Trade Center getting attacked. Um, and I was like, whatever happened with this? Like, what is this? And there is evidence that the Israelis had fornowledge. So, can you can you get into that a little bit because I think it's important for members of our audience who might not know what that evidence is and why so many people um have believed that the Israelis had fornowledge. >> Yeah. Dozens of Israelis were were Israeli citizens were arrested uh by

[13:33] NYPD officers on September 11th and in the days after September 11th, mostly for photography, for taking pictures of sensitive sites, taking pictures of the uh World Trade Center, things like that, or making comments uh about the the attacks. And so they were picked up and they were held on suspicion of, you know, something national security related. And finally the Israelis came to us and said, "Listen, these are our guys. Just let them go." Right? They're

[14:03] they're worried about you. They were worried about the World Trade Center. They didn't mean any harm. I think they were there just to sort of document what was happening because they knew it was going to happen. Um, in in the months before 9/11 >> Mhm. >> I I was working in the CIA's counterterrorism center at the time and um in the months before 9/11, the leadership of the counterterrorism center was scrambling. Uh I happened to

[14:33] be entertaining a group of Middle Eastern intelligence officers one day. It was July the 6th, 2001, and Kofheer Black, the director of the counterterrorism center, came into my my meeting, shocked me. I jumped up at attention and I said, "Oh, gentlemen, this is Kofer Black. He's the director of the CIA's counterterrorism center." And Kov minced no words. He said, "Something terrible is going to happen. We don't know what. We don't know where. We don't know when, but we know it's

[15:04] going to be an attack on a massive scale. And he went into some detail with them. And [clears throat] he said at the end of his little talk, I'm begging you. He said, if you have any sources inside al-Qaeda, please help us. Well, the truth was we didn't have any sources inside al-Qaeda. And that's why we needed help from liaison. But they didn't. The other Arab countries didn't. The Gulf countries didn't. The Pakistanis either didn't or wouldn't tell us. And the Israelis just sat back

[15:35] and waited for it all to happen and then came and said, "We are one with you, America. We are with you." Well, they knew exactly what was going to happen. Yeah. >> And then 8 years later, uh, under Obama, we began arming al-Qaeda terrorists in Syria. [clears throat] >> That's exactly right. >> Yeah, >> that's exactly right. So, John, I just want to ask one more followup about that because uh so I call this oops, it got past the goalie, right? So, and and I like of course our press never talks about it. They all pretended everything

[16:06] is a conspiracy theory. Uh I believe that the phrase conspiracy theory was actually concocted after the Kennedy shooting to just call everything that was that against the official government position a crazy lunatic thing to believe. uh etc. But okay, so but I could never square well you know if there was a conspiracy and there was did they really kill all the people on the planes and how did they get the Arabs to do the thing that they wanted blah blah blah and then uh many many many years

[16:38] later uh in fact after October 7th I realized oh you know this is actually potentially easier than I realized you just find plots and you probably in intelligence and that's why I'm asking you find plots all the time and if you want one of them to be successful for political reasons. You go, "Oh, I just got past the goalie. There's nothing I could do." So, is [clears throat] it possible that October 7th was another one of those? >> Oh, listen. Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I think that's exactly what happened. We know now in retrospect

[17:10] that for two weeks before October 7th, Israelis who were living in settlements along the the line the border with Gaza were reporting back to uh the Ministry of uh national security that something was happening in Gaza. And Idomar Bengavir said no nothing is happening in Gaza. The next attack is going to be in the West Bank. And it was Idomar Bengavir who ordered that government um

[17:41] uh what's the word I want to use that that assets were being used government assets were being used against you know possible cells in the West Bank. Well, there was nothing happening in the West Bank and >> and these settlers were saying look you know the the Gaza Palestinians are flying kites along the border. They're releasing balloons. They're checking wind speeds. their their chatter uh on the walkietalkies. No, you're wrong. It's going to be in the West Bank. So, I think boy, I really

[18:13] like that, you know, slip by the goalie. I think I might steal that because I think that is exactly what happened. >> Yeah. I mean, and the fact that it took six hours for the IDF to respond. And you know, just fast forwarding to the moment that we're in now, I just can't get over the incredibly weak and pathetic arguments that are being made by individuals who have been corrupted with money from the Israel lobby, essentially arguing that we must merge our militaries because the IDF, I mean,

[18:44] how could we give up this opportunity uh to take advantage of their expertise and their superior operations? They took six hours to respond to October 7th >> and then killed the Israelis >> and then killed their own. Exactly. >> that were in cars trying to evacuate the area. Yeah. You know, one one thing that that most mainstream outlets don't talk about is that the Israelis are already in the United States training local police departments. We know, for example, that the Israelis are training

[19:15] the Atlanta police. that this area now called Cop City is the site of Israeli police and Israeli IDF training our own police. I don't want the Israelis training American police departments. The Israelis have no respect for human rights or civil rights or civil liberties. And so, look, this is a country that has that has bombed seven of its neighbors in the past year. >> Is that really the country that we want to throw our lot in with? I would say

[19:47] no. >> So, John, uh, Pete Hexath wrote in his book that the IDF should be in American streets. So, there's so many Israeli assets inside our, uh, government that it's unbelievable. So, okay, which brings me back to section 219. So, you mentioned it earlier, used to be called section 224, now it's 219 going into the National Defense Authorization Act. They tried it with no vote before. Now, there's more of a, you know, uprising against it. Of course, as usual, Roana, Tom Massie leading the charge against it and as usual, uh, 94% of Congress

[20:19] saying, "No, no, no. We serve Israel loyally." So, tell tell us about the dangers of merging our technology with with Israel's and why this should be completely unacceptable to the American people. >> You know what, Chank? I'll start I'll start back from my very first week in the CIA, January of 1990. uh that first week you just sit in the auditorium and you get briefing after briefing after briefing from you know the director comes and congratulates you. Then you hear from the head of HR and the head of

[20:50] health insurance and the head of life insurance and the director of security and the director of security gave us a couple of you know kind of real life day-to-day pointers. don't ever eat in this steakhouse down the street from the CIA because the KGB thinks we all eat there and every table is taken by the KGB, for example. I've never been in there. But another thing he said, um, and this is dated, it's 1990, but I would venture to say that it's worse today than it was in 1990. He said that there were two official Israeli

[21:21] intelligence representatives in Washington. This was at the Israeli embassy in Washington. It was uh one person from Mossad and one person from Shinbet. Okay. And they carry out liaison. But the FBI was able to identify 187 Israeli spies spread out all across America, mostly infiltrating American defense contractors to steal our secrets. It didn't end with the arrest of Jonathan

[21:52] Pard. and he said Israel is critical threat for counter intelligence along with Russia, China, Cuba and North Korea. And I think Iran may have been on the list at the time too. Um, and Israel. And I'll give you another example. When we came up with this ill-advised F-35, the Israelis came to us first and said, "We want the F-35." And we said, "Great. We're going to give you the F35. We're going to slightly degrade the avionics

[22:23] because, god forbid one gets shot down and the Russians or the Chinese, you know, get it in Syria or Iran or whatever. So, we're going to call the F-35I. I I for Israel. The Israelis said, "No, we want your F-35. We don't want any I with degraded avionics." At the same time, the Emiratis came to us and they said, "We want this new F-35." And we said, "Great. will give you the F-35 with slightly degraded avionics because god forbid one should be shot down and the Russians and the Chinese, the Iranians get it. We're going to call

[22:53] it the F-35E for Emirates. The Emirates gladly took the F-35E. The Israelis sent their spies all over the defense sector to steal the avionics so that when they finally got the F-35i, they could upgrade them on their own. And that's the country that we want side by side with our people in the Pentagon and the CIA and god forbid NSA or DIA when the director of DIA is warning

[23:23] every single employee that they are unusually aggressive against us right now, the Israeli Mossad. >> Yeah. >> And that people have to be extra careful. So that brings me back to the what we started with, John, which is I I is the CIA still American. Uh because they don't act like it. And and so all this espionage is going on. It's super obvious that it's the Israelis. And it doesn't seem like we're doing a damn thing about it. We're just letting them run wild in this country. And I want to go back to to Epstein because [snorts]

[23:55] we know that Epstein was part of Iran Contra. He helped clean out the planes that the CIA was using and he did that with Lex Wexner and seemingly with Mossad and let let's let you know I'll let you talk about what you know how much you know about that right but but also okay so the CIA at that moment knows Epstein seems to be with Israeli intelligence because we just did a deal with him. We just did a deal with him. Then they let Epstein rape girls in this country for decades afterwards. So, is

[24:27] the CIA working for America or for Israel? >> You know, I hate to say this, but I the only conclusion that I can draw is that it's working for Israel. You know, when you've got the likes of Mike Pompeo at the CIA, who was one of the the foremost Zionists on Capitol Hill. Um, and he and he's guiding policy. Remember, the CIA is a policy support organization. It's not a policy organization. It's supposed to do what the president tells it to do.

[24:58] But historically, it had pushed back against Israel. And then you get Mike Pompeo in there, who might as well be the head of Mossad for for his uh support of Israel, everything begins to change. And when and when you have this constant pressure from Capitol Hill where practically everybody is taking money from Apac and um and and are they're primared if they don't take money from Apac or if they don't tow the line that Apac sets

[25:30] then you know you lose that independence and the next thing you know you are working for the Israelis. Oh >> god. So how do you see this ending? because we don't live in a sovereign country. Under what you just described, we don't live in a sovereign country and um it fills me with rage and I imagine it fills a lot of Americans with rage. So, how does this come to an end? Because eventually American citizens are going to have enough of this. >> Yeah. >> Um so, how do you see this playing out?

[26:01] >> In one of two ways really. On the one hand, I I've long been accused of being irrationally optimistic about life, and the the optimist in me says, "Well, certainly our elected leaders will come to their senses eventually." >> But I've got to be realistic. And I I just don't think that's going to happen. >> I don't think that they'll come to their senses because well, for a couple of reasons. Number one, because if you look at the incremental change over the LA or changes over the last 35 years, every

[26:34] one of those changes has been in support of Israel. Yep. >> Number one. Number two, even though public opinion polls are showing that now a clear majority of Americans uh believe that our relationship with Israel is too close, believe that Israel is committing a genocide in in Gaza, believe that Israel is the aggressor uh in in all of these recent conflicts, our elected officials still line right up in support of Israel. And you've got people like

[27:05] Thomas Massie and Ro Kana and a small handful of others, Marjorie Taylor Green who's now gone, but a small number willing to stand up, that number doesn't really grow. So even if let's say 77% of Democrats pled say they support the Palestinian side in this conflict, 90% of elected Democrats support the Israelis. And where does that leave us? That leaves us in a place where we don't have a democracy.

[27:36] >> Yeah, we are an occupied country. So, okay, I now have a random question for you that I've been meaning to ask for a long time. So, I want to make sure I get it in here. So, uh Barack Obama did something unacceptable uh when he bombed Anoir Alvaki. Uh he he went outside of the judiciary and he said due process does not have to be judicial process. the executive branch can just decide to execute an American citizen. Uh, and they did, but that was already egregious enough, but they say coincidentally in a

[28:09] second and completely different bombing, they also killed Alby's 16-year-old son. And then [clears throat] coincidentally, in a third bombing, they killed his 8-year-old daughter. So, were those coincidences or I have a theory on this one and I'm curious what you think that maybe Anoir Albakuyu was working with the CIA but then he flipped on him and so he knew things that the CIA didn't want out and so they were wanted to cover all their bases on anyone who

[28:40] might have known. >> I think that's entirely plausible. I'll tell you, I was one of a very small handful of CIA officers who had actually met Anoir Alaki. I met him when he was the imam of the of the mosque in false church, Virginia. My Arabic teacher, uh CIA employee, Arabic teacher took us there uh so we could learn some of the uh the vocabulary words associated with

[29:11] Islam. and um he gave us a tour of the mosque. He took us to the uh Arabic language bookstore and then we went to lunch with him. In 2011, I went to Yemen to do a study. I was the senior investigator on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at the time working for John Kerry. And I went to Yemen and my first meeting on that trip was with the uh the legal attaches, the FBI representative in the American embassy. And I made a joke about, you know, what

[29:41] are you doing? I'm sitting here in your office. You should be out looking for Anoir Alaki. And he said, "We know where Anoir Alaki is within 3 ft 24 hours a day." And I stupidly said, "So why don't you arrest him?" >> Mhm. >> Well, because there was never any intention of of arresting him. >> The intent was to to kill him, to track him, and to kill him. That was a policy decision that was made. But why did we

[30:13] let him go as far as he did? I think you're on to something here. I think he was probably a CIA asset at one time. Remember, he was an American citizen. He was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico. His father was the Yemen Ambassador to the United States at the time and and then went on to become the Yemen Minister of Agriculture. And um and I think that he self-radicalized after a while and they

[30:44] just decided to take him out at a time and place of their choosing. May I add one other thing, Jack? You raised something that's very important. It's something I've been yelling about for years. We murdered him without ever charging him with a crime. He had a constitutional right to face his accusers in a court of law and to be judged by a jury of his peers. And we murdered him in cold blood. He had never been charged with a crime. But then a week later, we murdered his 16-year-old son and 16-year-old nephew as they sat at a cafe drinking tea. They were

[31:16] children and they had never been charged with any crime. And then we murdered his daughter just for good measure, an 8-year-old, which made Obama a child killer. Of course, he already was a child killer, but made him a child killer again. And nobody really seems to care. What about his rights? Because remember what Eric Holder told Ran Paul. If the president wants to kill you, he's perfectly within his legal rights to kill you. And it doesn't matter if you have never been charged with a crime. If

[31:47] the president of the United States doesn't like your politics, he can make you vapor with a missile. >> Yeah. >> We're in super dark times here. Uh I'm going to So we got to go. But John, uh, am I right that your background is Greek originally? >> Yes, sir. >> Okay. But I want to end, you know, you say you're an optimist. I'm an optimist. Uh, the one beautiful thing about this country is here's a Turk, a Greek, and an Armenian. All fighting, [laughter]

[32:17] >> right? >> And by the way, this is really important. All >> John, I got your back. [laughter] all all Americans and all fighting not for Turkey, Greece or Armenia, but for America as it's supposed to be. And and so, >> you know, we we love this country and we want its sovereignty and its freedom back. So, thank you for joining us, John. Really appreciate it. >> Thank you so much for the invitation. It was a pleasure. >> Come back soon. >> I look forward to it. >> Every time you ring the bell below, an angel gets his wings. Totally not true,

[32:49] but it does keep you updated on our live shows.
