[00:00] hi everybody welcome back to the 15 hour long epic unity for J online vigil for Julian Assange I am so proud and privileged to have here with me today CIA torture whistleblower John Kiriakou this is a man who has literally changed the course of changed political discourse and I had a humongous impact on what we know about what our
[00:31] governments have been engaged in in our name and with our tax dollars John welcome to the stream thank you very much glad to be back Susie it's amazing to have you here thank you so much John John you have obviously really unique perspective and experience and I had someone ask me earlier today if there was one of our guests who could talk about US and UK involvement in rendition program specifically and how this relates to
[01:04] Julian's situation had he not sought asylum and Ecuadorian Embassy or if he is handed over in both cases what what are the kinds of threats that he faces it's a good question there are different kinds of renditions first there's just regular normal renditions and that is let's say I'm in Pakistan and I catch you and you're Canadian I send you back to Canada
[01:36] that's a rendition then there's extraordinary rendition so we're in Pakistan I catch you you're Canadian and I send you to Morocco and I don't tell anybody including the Canadian government and god knows what they're gonna do to you in Morocco and then the Moroccans write a report with all of your confession and they send it back to me that's extraordinary rendition of course that's an excuse me that's illegal under
[02:06] international law but it happens every day it happens all the time in Julian's case I'm gonna get a little bit Bureau bureaucratic here in Julian's case they wouldn't have dared to to initiate an extraordinary rendition because he's Australian and because he's Australian that protected him if he had been a citizen of virtually any other country in the world they would have and they
[02:36] they could have and would have done it because he's Australian that protected him at least a little bit with that said his only option was to was to go into the Ecuadorian Embassy and it's because the fix was in now everybody knows the fix was in everybody knows that this was not meant to be a fair process right he was set up from the very beginning and so the only alternative to to being arrested by British authorities and then
[03:07] immediately extradited to the United States was to go into the embassy the problem that we've all run into here is that the u.s. government has literally unlimited resources and they can wait until the end of time and that's what they've done while concurrently putting pressure on the Ecuadorian government the last time we did one of these livestream suzi we talked about this and the very next day on the front page of
[03:37] The Wall Street Journal was an article that was entitled Ecuador tells us it's open for business and the entire article was about how President Lennie Moreno the new president of Ecuador was seeking increased enhanced trade ties with the United States that they wanted to at least double the trade with the United States well there's going to be a quid pro quo and the quid pro quo is to throw Julian out of that embassy I have no
[04:09] proof of that but I'm confident that that's the case this is about money it's not about righteousness or truth or Liberty or anything like that it's about money that's what Lenin Moreno has come down to that's what Fredo's now f marina had gone the other way and here continue to protect Gillian what types of not just threats but actions do you think Ecuador would have faced taken against its state and the
[04:42] reason I'm asking this is because we know about cross border incursions from Colombia we know about the Ecuadorian journalists who were assassinated on on their border what do you think there's a how fold the u.s. be prepared to go to pressure a country like Ecuador who has essentially thumbed its nose at the u.s. over the course of the last six years and sheltering Julian Assange I think
[05:14] they're willing to go quite far actually we've seen what they've done with other countries you can begin with the downgrading of relations which is not uncommon you can you can reduce or freeze trade and the goodness knows that the US exports far more to Ecuador than Ecuador exports to the United States and then you can um you can begin a harassment campaign you can encourage for example Colombians to cross the
[05:44] border you can encourage a a border conflict with a neighboring country you can encourage people to to reduce the level of their diplomatic relations and so over the long term there's there's a cost to this I'm not saying that that Moreno has nothing to lose by leaving Julian in the embassy he does there's there's a price to pay I mean we all make decisions that have consequences we all make decisions where
[06:15] there's a price to pay um he's looked at that price and he appears to be deciding that it's too high so there are a lot of little things that the u.s. can do that might that might result in in a you know diplomatic difficulty for Ecuador but they can't do anything that's terribly serious and nor would they want to I think because if you look at if you look at
[06:46] the Julian situation and then you weigh the entirety of us Ecuadorian relations on the other hand the entirety of the relations outweighs the Julian problem and so I believe that I believe that Moreno is is acting because of fear fear of the unknown and that unknown is what the United States might do if he doesn't respond and if he lets Julian remain in the embassy and I think that that reaction really is an overreaction but
[07:18] then on the other side of the coin what does Moreno stand to lose by cooperating with the US and by potentially kicking Charlie now the embassy by whatever means nothing he stands to lose nothing in fact if you look at it just in terms of raw numbers he probably has a lot to gain his relations will improve with the UK they'll improve with the u.s. its major trading partner I think he sees this as as something that's not difficult to decide what about the loss to the status
[07:52] of Ecuador all right it's the thing that to me and to you that's important I wrote an op-ed yesterday for reader supported news about ed Snowden and I said that I would rather be I would rather face another terrorist attack than to give up my civil liberties well if I were Lenin Moreno I would rather keep Julian Indy in the embassy and maintain maintain the world's opinion of me as a freedom fighter and
[08:22] someone who stands up for justice and liberty than to just you know raise my exports to the United States to me that's an easy decision is there a chance do you think that Moreno was always intended to do what he's done and that it was an act of infiltration that he came into and became you know Korea's number two and then I mean even Julian and WikiLeaks were saying you know the best option is if Moreno is it becomes
[08:53] new president etc etc dude am i like a conspiracy theorist to think of that or do you think that he just had some change of heart once he was in power that's a great question I don't think you're a conspiracy theorist you know I think a lot of us were fooled by by his first name Lenin right I think that we all thought that here was a true left is progressive this was a guy who's going to maintain Ecuador's current policy and any fooled
[09:26] us and you know I I think that infiltration is a is a possibility I doubt that he just changed his mind overnight I think he had fought this out and and decided that once he was in office he was going to implement this policy because it wouldn't be the first example in human history of having a second in charge play nicely until the
[09:56] day comes at the end power and into a 180 that's right it happens all the time I think we've we've seen that in u.s. politics as well yes actually definitely yes okay so moving on to Julian's physical situation now in the embassy yeah you talked a lot about the isolation that whistleblowers face when I last spoke with you what is your take now because there's this really terrible catch-22 where Julian's health is degrading fast yes
[10:27] and his doctors have acknowledged that there is a mortal risks to him in his current circumstances and yet there may be an even bigger mortal risk to him leaving the embassy I personally don't believe that the UK is going to treat him with kid gloves and wait yesterday to the US I think they've waited eight years to get their hands on him and I think the CIA will be on the first plane to London if Julian is in custody that's my personal belief I don't think they'll even wait till extradition they'll be
[11:00] they will be interrogating him within minutes as my personal belief is the way out here I mean if he's a visa motor risk in the embassy and if that motor risk outside the embassy where is the where's the open window that that's difficult first first let's look at Julien's time inside the embassy this is solitary confinement you can describe it any way you want maybe he used to have some internet
[11:30] access maybe the food's a little better but this is solitary confinement it's not only solitary confinement but it's solitary without the benefit of the one hour a day of exercise outside so of course his health is going to degrade that's in part what the US and UK government's have wanted to happen because they knew that they could weaken him over time and there's really nothing he can do about it I mean the guy the guy never has direct sunlight he's he's
[12:01] in danger of vitamin deficiencies and and rickets and liver problems and kidney problems and everything else that comes with not being able to to have sunlight to break down the vitamins for your body also look at look at the mental and emotional situation that people in solitary confinement suffer from it's not unusual it's actually quite common for people in solitary to simply lose their minds and we know this because we have very very long-term solitary confinement here in the United
[12:33] States in fact the United Nations has declared the u.s. practice of solitary confinement in US prisons as a form of torture and as a human rights violation you know we've we've had people we've had people in solitary confinement here in the United States for as long as 44 years that's 44 years without human contact 44 years without seeing the Sun that is certainly cruel and unusual punishment the United Nations guidelines
[13:04] are that no one should remain in solitary confinement in one stretch for longer than two weeks Julian's been in solitary for six years so of course that's going to take a toll on his physical and mental health there's there's almost thing that he can do to avert that let's couple that with his treatment by the British government before we even turned to the US government the British government has been absolutely steadfast
[13:35] in their promise to harass and humiliate him the moment he walks outside that embassy they have spent millions of pounds of the British taxpayers money just to keep him inside that embassy ringing it 24 hours a day why the only crime that he's wanted on is failure to appear which is something like a 50 pound fine well we all know that that's nonsense we all know why the British
[14:06] have that embassy ringed it's to snatch him and to turn him over to the United States I have to agree that if that happens the CIA and the FBI are both going to be on that plane and they're both going to be excuse me they're both going to be at least attempting to interrogate him all the way back home they will bring him back to the United States in Chains because that's what they do I said last time I did one of these live streams that the rumor here
[14:36] in Washington is that Julian has been secretly indicted in the Eastern District of Virginia that's here where I live in it's based in Alexandria Virginia and they call the Eastern District of Virginia the espionage court because almost all national security cases are tried here and the reason they're tried here is because this is the home of the CIA of the Pentagon and of almost every intelligence related private contractor in the Washington
[15:09] area so look who's going to be on the jury it's gonna be CIA employees FBI employees military employees or their spouses intelligence contractors or their spouses Julian couldn't possibly get a fair trial in a place like this so they do it on purpose now besides that no one no national security defendant has ever won a case in the Eastern District of Virginia it's called venue shopping even though no
[15:41] crime was actually physically committed in the Eastern District of Virginia they know that the judges here are the toughest in America on national security cases and so they would charge him here you wouldn't charge him in New Mexico or California because he would probably be acquitted so they charge him here in the Eastern District of Virginia so my hope is something that's actually not even
[16:11] legal my hope is something called jury nullification jury nullification is when a jury hears a case the person violated the law and the jury finds that the law is unfair the law shouldn't be the law but this is a miscarriage of justice and so even though the government has been able to prove its case the defendant is found not guilty it's not guilty because the law is wrong and it's unfair and
[16:42] that's really my hope for Julian in the event that the worst case scenario actually comes to comes to pass and he's extradited to the United States I hope that there are 12 people or even one person because in the United States juries have to decide unanimously in federal cases just one person to say wait a minute this is wrong it's wrong for this man to be prosecuted and so I'm going to stand up and I'm gonna say no
[17:14] now that'll that will result in a hung jury and that's fine he'll probably then be retried but you can retry him over and over and over again and if one courageous person says no then eventually it's going to come to an end and he'll win so daniel ellsberg when I spoke to him firmly believed that Julian would be used to create case law to create a legal precedent whereby a journalist had
[17:45] finally been successfully prosecuted and that that would then be used either as the stick or the threat or to actually continue to prosecute other journalists Chris Hedges and I talked about hinges being party to the action against the in DAA which was the Obama and definite detention Act which applied to American citizens and he just talked about how
[18:15] when they tested their in court the government was able to be to it essentially what it came down to is that they were who just believes that there are already American citizens who are being indifferently attacked who are not being given due process who are not am able able to even be they're not even given charges and tried in court they just literally indefinitely detained the same as has been done to so-called foreign combatants prior to that and
[18:47] certainly when we we also talked touched on like the Chicago Police and black site and these other black sites in the United States where these arbitrary arrests and detentions have been occurring which is along the same lines in the a so what I'm thinking is there's two options one is that they do prosecute Julian because they want to create the prints that the precedent or two is that they then there is a danger that they might not prosecute them at all that they might not even charge them but that they'll indefinitely detain him
[19:19] do do you think that it's possible I think it's possible but not likely first of all I think Chris Hedges is right and I think Dan Ellsberg is right as well Chris Hedges in that we know from the ACLU that there is at least one American citizen being held indefinitely right now without being charged we don't even know if he's being held in the United States and we aren't entirely sure if he is American citizen or has dual nationality there are rumors that he's a dual Saudi
[19:51] US national and that he was scooped up on the battlefield in Syria but you're right the India the NDAA the National Defense Authorization Act which Obama pushed that allows for the indefinite uncharged detention of American citizens is enforced as law Americans no longer have to be charged with a crime you can be held for the rest of your life incommunicado die in prison and no one knows that you were ever there that's not the American Way but that's what
[20:21] we're doing so Chris Hedges is right before I get to Dan house Berg let me finish this thought Julian is so high-profile and has so many supporters and is Australian that I think that that's just not possible if the Australian government likes him or not it's irrelevant they have to protect the rights of their citizens overseas and so whether the Australian government likes Julian's politics or
[20:52] not makes no difference they're going to have to weigh in with the US government on a consular level to make sure that his rights are being protected so I don't see any scenario where Julian disappears into the system Australian is likely to do that because I mean really they have not seemed to get was a new zone they don't seem to have given a toss about Julian for the last however many years it's only very recently that they've actually you know had any consular assistance provided to Julian
[21:23] than the Ecuadorian Embassy and certainly New Zealand and Australian citizens both very much feel that our governments a vassal state they are the servants of US Empire so is really realistically being an Australian citizen going to make that much difference I think it will in that it will keep his profile high like I say if he had been a citizen of Somalia or Yemen or Algeria he would disappear and no one would ever think about him again
[21:54] but because he's so high-profile and he's Australian the Australian government is compelled to least pretend that it yes to pretend exactly dan Ellsberg makes a very very important point here he's exactly right that this is a test case and I think that we got an indication of that in the very beginning when then CIA director Mike Pompeo who's currently Secretary of State said that WikiLeaks was a hostile
[22:28] foreign intelligence service can you imagine that I think of those words are hostile for an intelligence service like Iran or North Korea they said none says it I said non-state hostile non-state intelligence service non-state well al Qaeda is a non-state actor Isis is a non-state actor they collect intelligence this is what he's comparing WikiLeaks to well we all know WikiLeaks
[22:59] is a journalistic organization everybody knows that they're just pretending that that's not the case and so they're going to treat WikiLeaks as though it's a hostile non-state actor now in the event that a US jury again in the Eastern District of Virginia most likely decides that that's the case then it's going to be open season on every journalist think back to toward to the days of the Obama administration those were dark days for liberty personal
[23:32] liberties and civil rights in that it was the Obama administration that that went through James Rosen's notes this is a Fox News journalist and accused him of being party to the leak of classified information and then identified him as an unindicted co-conspirator this is a journalist doing his job is described as an unindicted co-conspirator you don't
[24:04] forget that it was the Obama administration that ordered authorities to raid the home of a Washington Times journalist to steal her notes from a locked cabinet because they thought that she might have uncovered some kind of wrongdoing in the military so little by little the Obama administration pushed that notion that the press was hostile that the press was too well protected by a legal precedent and that they were going to start
[24:35] dismantling that but they lost but they lost each time the teesta in court ultimately they had to back down they lost so when you say Julian is a test case what you mean is that this is their chance to maybe not lose yes because look they have nothing to lose by charging Julian I mean if they lose the case okay well they're back where they started that doesn't mean that they've that they've been pushed back in terms
[25:05] of policy if they win they set a new precedent and everybody's in danger so when will the priests wake up to that fact do you think it's starting to happen there has been some rumors from some journalists that seem to be thinking Ryan grim DC bureau chief or the inserts comments last week's last week some of them seem to be having a self-reflective moment and thinking maybe this doesn't make such a great
[25:36] idea for us to cheerlead this on however I talked to Peter LaBelle earlier who said he does not believe that we will see the day that the New York Times and Washington Post crowd championing Julian's cause you know in order to protect press freedom as a whole do you think that will reach that worship moment or or not well let's look at what the US press did with Ed Snowden how they treated ed Snowden the New York Times eventually after a period of about four years called for ed Snowden to be
[26:08] pardoned on its editorial page The Washington Post another newspaper of record here in the United States called for Snowden to be prosecuted for treason that's a death penalty charge the Los Angeles Times editorial board wrote wrote editorial taking both positions he should be pardoned he should be charged and tried and convicted so when the owners of these newspapers the publishers and
[26:38] editors of these newspapers either can't come down on one side or the other or come down on the wrong side I think that we oughtta fear for Julian safety and very much we saw that extended to what you're describing extended to the UK press as well as I remember this is even worse to tell you the truth yeah I think the UK press is worse because so much of it is so conservative and then even the Guardian I have to say I'm disappointed in the Guardian
[27:09] visa vie at Snowden because the Guardian was was a recipient of Snowden's largest as was the Washington Post and they both turned on him I don't understand that at all Joanne once by Skype at a Ron Paul event a year or so ago really I must have seen that I've seen Julia on Ron Paul but I didn't recall you guys being
[27:40] there together it wasn't available in wrongful sorry yeah it was an event at the Davos Expo Center in Virginia I just happened to be sitting in the front row and there happened to be a camera pointed at me and Julian said oh there's John Kiriakou and I said hi Julian are you well because I know he's a huge fan of your work and I know I'm WikiLeaks as a whole as a huge fan of your work and every sacrifice there's I am if there's look we would be without WikiLeaks we
[28:11] wouldn't have any idea that the that the US government was spying on American citizens we wouldn't have any idea thanks to Ed Snowden and WikiLeaks we now know what NSA does and it's now after five years that that the Congress is finally starting to focus on these different provisions in the Patriot Act and in the face act as as being anti-democratic and and as as
[28:46] being anti Civil Liberties and it's only because of Ed Snowden and WikiLeaks go back farther and let's talk about Chelsea Manning the complaint in the press was that Chelsea Manning had released so many State Department cables and it it showed people's identities etc etc it's irrelevant we know now that there was no negative fallout from the release of those cables what's important is that Chelsea Manning released video evidence of a war crime and we would
[29:17] have no idea what for which there has been no straight right like to this day the people are involved in that are at large they are they're free but elite at least we know about it and that's because of WikiLeaks and so what we need is we need more people passing information to WikiLeaks look you know let's let's say the definition of whistleblowing again because I think this is so important
[29:48] this is actually a legal definition here in the United States whistleblowing is bringing to light any evidence of waste fraud abuse illegality or threats to the public health or public safety okay there's no downside to that there's no downside to whistle blowing whistle blowing is only a positive event for the public and so we need more people cooperating with WikiLeaks not fewer
[30:18] do you think that WikiLeaks releases have made anybody in inside the military all the intelligence services I think twice about their actions oh I do I do when you when you shine light into the darkness everybody reacts let's look at this Chicago black site the Chicago Police black site you know when this when this reporting first appeared in the US press most people didn't believe it they thought it was some kind of a hit job a hit piece on the Chicago police because if there had
[30:51] been a black site here inside the United States people would have known about it well nobody knew about it and we only learned about it because of an intrepid reporter who told us and so changes were made people were prosecuted I can't help but to think that because of WikiLeaks people say to themselves maybe I ought not to abuse this prisoner because what
[31:21] happens if it leaks maybe I ought not to participate in this whatever this illegality is because it might be released to the press it might find its way to WikiLeaks so that's only a good thing and I'll say one other thing about WikiLeaks and I say this all the time in in press interviews people ask me if they have information sensitive information classified information government information and they want it to get out but they want to do it anonymously who
[31:52] should they send it to and interviewers always say well you know the New York Times has a an encryption key on their website and so does the post and so does the intercept no no no you can't trust those journalistic outlets to protect your identity we already have seen what the intercept has done with people's identities over the years at least three times the only place to go is WikiLeaks WikiLeaks is the only organization literally the only organization that has
[32:24] consistently protected the identities of its forces only WikiLeaks um John I know that UK caged the organisation UK cage and also big friends of WikiLeaks and they they said it was on their Twitter account they say they're working to empower communities affected by the war on terror and to promote jus process they a number amongst them Guantanamo X grant animo prisoners and and people victims of
[32:55] rendition I'm interested to know can you cite any examples within WikiLeaks files that have included revelations specifically about rendition yeah there have been a couple actually I've taken calls from British journalists several times asking me about renditions through Diego Garcia and before WikiLeaks nobody knew that there were renditions through Diego Garcia and nobody knew and this is even more important nobody knew that the British were involved so that was a
[33:28] great service I think that WikiLeaks provided to the British people today today has there been any come up come up ins as a result of they rendition I mean hesita been held accountable is there saying any as I inhibited the programs at all I mean I did some study into rendition think a year or two back and I discovered that there was something like 40 countries that had been involved in
[33:58] it including like ends here and Kazakhstan and like Brazil was one of them actually yeah it's terrible isn't it [Music] I've been out of the CIA for a long time I left fourteen years ago now but it's my understanding that yes this has had an impact on the on the program extraordinary rendition now is something that's very very unusual and it's because light has been shined on it it's
[34:30] because the information has gotten out and these countries don't want to be held accountable so it's better for them just to not participate in extraordinary renditions anymore then to do it and keep their fingers crossed and hope that remain secret again anytime light is shined on this darkness it's a good thing because changes are made even if those changes are incremental changes are made you know we always say Susy that governments always take the
[35:01] long-term view they know that they're going to be there forever they know that they can outweigh most of their opponents well you know what so can we we can fight this thing forever we can fight it year after year after year because we know we're right and so if we look at the long term like governments do we're gonna win this thing in the end a Nuremberg and you know even what we've been pursuing noonah sorry Nazi regime still works for into the 90s it would be
[35:33] very nice to think that one day some of these guys even in their 90's might actually be held to account we've had a long discussion on the stream with other guests about how WikiLeaks is revealing their crimes but these crimes appear to be perpetrated with impunity from the street level and like police every day police violence to the nation's state level and you know the subversions of democracy we have voter fraud or you
[36:04] know other revelations that have been made about political fraud to the international war arena where the UN has twice ruled in Julian Assange's favor the inter-american Court of Human Rights has ruled and Julian's Julian Assange is favored and the yet the US and the UK just basically thumbing their nose at international law and at those findings how do we get from transparency to accountability another good question
[36:36] accountability I think is going to have to come from individual judges you remember when a woodstove Pinochet was indicted in I think it was Spain a decade or so ago it was because of one courageous Spanish judge and one courageous Spanish prosecutor we know that the u.s. is going to thumb its nose at international law like it always has and so will the UK they know they can get away with it there's never any consequence there's never any price to pay so what we need is to encourage
[37:08] individual prosecutors and judges now we know that they're out there we know that there for example there's a prosecutor in Berlin who's considering charges against Jena Haspel the the new CIA director for crimes against humanity for her role in the in the so-called war on terror we need more people like that it's it's no accident that George Tenet the former CIA director has never made an overseas trip since he left that
[37:38] position he knows what he's doing he knows there's a risk of being arrested and charged with with horrible terrible crimes if he leaves the country well what we need to do is to make them fearful we need to ensure that they're fearful by encouraging these prosecutors and judges to file charges final heavy charges crimes against humanity war crimes human rights offenses we need to hold them accountable and the UN can't
[38:11] so the individuals must interestingly there's a Snowden cable that talks about how in the war in Bosnia they military chain of command made generals sign off on bombing orders because they were concerned about war crimes accusations and so they they created the system where at the topmost levels they had to
[38:42] authorize everything because they knew that there there were that would indemnify those generals whereas if the mid or lower rank people were the ones signing off on it there was a very real chance that they actually would be held accountable and just backed the renditions topic there was of course the Italian affair which you could probably tell us about where there was actually a prosecution boy was there yeah before I get to that let me give you one little factoid when I
[39:13] reached a certain level at the CIA in terms of seniority I was offered several different kinds of insurance so for two dollars a year I bought it was called dread disease insurance you know you you work in these horrible places around the world you're gonna catch something and I did several times well that dread disease insurance for two dollars a year covered everything that my regular health insurance didn't I was also given legal insurance so for
[39:45] another six dollars a year if I were ever to be implicated in a war crime or a crime against humanity the CIA would pay all of my legal expenses now that that was a relatively new development that that's a post-911 development and it's because they knew they were involved in war crimes and crimes against humanity and so at the very least what they can do for their employees is pay for their legal expenses now the the milan affair this
[40:18] this ought to be taught as a class at the CIA on how not to conduct a rendition operation there was a an egyptian national in milan abu omar abu omar was a firebrand muslim cleric who would give the very tough anti-american sermons after Friday prayers in the mosque in milan well the CIA decided that he was a threat and he was probably al-qaeda he was probably a terrorist we
[40:50] needed to shut him down and so they sent a team of oh I think it was like a dozen people to Milan and they surveilled him for several weeks and they realized that that he kept a schedule and he left his apartment every single day at the same time and he walked to the mosque so they set up in a van on the route from his apartment to the mosque and one day as he was walking past the van they opened
[41:20] the side door very quickly they snatched him and kidnapped him they bundled him onto a plane and they flew him to Egypt in Egypt he was tortured mercilessly right and we know that because he was totally innocent of anything and the Egyptians finally came back to the US and said listen this is either the wrong guy or he's just innocent and they had to let him go and now he gives interviews and
[41:51] he'll show you the marks from his torture well the Italians were outraged by this because here's the US government carrying out a criminal action on Italian soil without anybody's permission like we own the place and so the Italians were compelled to prosecute these dozen or so CIA officers well almost all of them were operating under pseudonym right not operating
[42:22] under their real names except for Robert lady who was the chief of base in Milan Robert lady was charged with several serious crimes he ended up fleeing and he retired in Panama the Italians asked the Panamanians to extradite him and they briefly arrested him but then under heavy pressure from the US they let him go and then he moved to the US just for his own safety now these other these other CIA officers made mistakes every one of them for example if you are
[42:55] operating overseas under pseudonym don't use your credit card that's in your real name to buy souvenirs what's wrong with you are you stupid another one if you're operating under pseudonym don't call your wife at night to see how she's doing what you need to do is buy a phone card find an anonymous random telephone booth and then call don't call from your hotel and so the Italians very easily
[43:27] were able to identify every single one of these CIA officers and they indicted them all well one of them is actually a dual u.s. Portuguese citizen and she was visiting her mother in Portugal and the the Italian authorities asked the Portuguese to arrest her which they did and they held her for extradition her case went up to the to the Supreme Court of Portugal and the Supreme Court ruled
[43:58] in favor of the government and so she was extradited to Italy for trial now these these are charges of kidnapping we're talking 10 20 years in prison for this well of course as soon as this happened Barack Obama put ridiculous pressure on the on the Italians and the Italians pardoned her and released her she was the only one that even came close to facing justice everybody else got away with it scot-free but probably
[44:29] would be thinking twice next time it would heart you have to you have to think twice you know there are so many examples Susie of the CIA grabbing the wrong person look at look at Maher Arar talk about somebody who was wronged this is a professor at the University of Toronto who was snatched from a plane at John F Kennedy Airport in New York and sent to Syria for torture he was tortured for a year and a half and finally the Syrians came back and said
[45:00] this is the wrong guy and it was the wrong guy that was suing the Canadian government he got a six million dollar settlement but the US as policy never apologizes we settle and we don't apologize I felt compelled to apologize to the guy on behalf of my own government because of the way he was robbed and there are half a dozen examples like that there is um a article and opinion piece written I think last week from my longtime
[45:33] Guantanamo detainee I think he's been there 14 15 16 years he was a taxi driver in Karachi and they snatched him and shipped him up to Afghanistan and then on to Guantanamo Bay and and tortured him hold him without trial as the most gut-wrenching testimony actually when you read through it he talks about the types of torture that we used on him and the total bleakness of living in a situation where you can't
[46:04] even receive a sentence there is no light at the end of the tunnel you can't defend yourself but you also can't even have you know even if they gave him twenty years at least you'd know in 20 years is getting out they don't even get that no it's actually coined a term for it at the CIA it's called learned helplessness that that's the goal the goal is to make you conclude that you're utterly helpless and you just break that's what they want to happen they
[46:35] want to make you crazy so you're right they snatch so many people a vast majority of the people who've passed through Guantanamo have been completely innocent of any crime they were just snatched right off the streets for example if you and I are from the same village in Afghanistan and I owe you money and I don't want to pay you your money back I go to the nearest American and I say hey see that guy over there he's al Qaeda they snatch you up they
[47:08] give me a hundred and fifty dollars reward they send you to Guantanamo nobody ever sees you again and I don't have to pay back that loan that happened all the time sickening and I'm just amazed I don't actually know how humanity got to go to a place where not only is this happening but we know it's happening and it's continuing to happen I mean how long has gone have been opened now we can't claim mag neurons right we don't
[47:40] know you know I remember the first time I ever heard about Guantanamo I was serving in Pakistan and we had captured Oh dozens of al-qaeda fighters as they were coming across the border from Afghanistan after the bombing of Tora Bora and I remember loading him onto the plane and I said to one of the Air Force guys where are you taking them and he said Guantanamo and I said the basic want anima in Cuba and he said yeah he said they came up with this really great idea we set them we send
[48:12] them to Guantanamo and we hold them there for a couple of weeks until we can get them processed in US courts around the country and then we fly them to the US to go on trial and I said oh that is a great idea well then along the line somebody decided now we're not going to give them any rights we're not going to put them on trial we're gonna make them sit here for the rest of their lives until they either commit suicide or just give up and a lot of them commit suicide
[48:43] and yet thirty US troops in Iraq and elsewhere and there ought to be a lesson for all what amazing what an amazing outcomes that you have those four prisoners and in some cases the guards committing suicide how much our governments have to answer for is absolutely remarkable and getting back to WikiLeaks then it's only because of WikiLeaks that there is even a hint that
[49:17] there could be justice because without WikiLeaks we wouldn't even know most of these stories absolutely and if information is power then if there is able to be any accountability in the information that is the first tip to that the awareness is the first tip to that I didn't I haven't really had a chance to speak with you about it I did tell you a little bit on the phone but one ray of light in my life at the moment and hopefully in Julien's is
[49:48] there over the course the last two weeks this movement has become more than just a series of vigil online vigil events has become a daily coordinated action group on a platform that we developed there amazingly attracted 2600 volunteer sign ups I'm in the first four days it's been around for about ten days now and is producing incredible content and now moving towards on-the-ground actions do
[50:20] you have hope there initiatives like that where people can put aside their politics turn away from the dividing conquer agenda and collaborates a free jewel in that maybe this you know if the international law isn't going to work and if diplomacy is non-existent can we together make a difference absolutely yes absolutely yes I'm very fortunate to work with a guy named Brian Becker Brian is one of the founders of an
[50:51] organization that that does large scale actions demonstrations sit-ins protests it's called the answer coalition and his work in the anti-war movement is its positively inspirational Brian and I talked about Julian all the time along with dyani barreto and Randy critic oh and other supporters of Julian
[51:21] and Brian is confident that once we move this into the streets we can have an impact he's able to and I've actually seen this with my own eyes he's able to say I think I'm gonna file a petition to close X Y Z Street in Washington in two weeks for a March and then somehow 50,000 people turn up how he's able to organize that I have no idea but I've seen it with my own eyes
[51:52] and I know that if he can do it we can do it and certainly he would help us do it but yeah I think we could have an honest-to-god impact if we take to the streets and you're right our government isn't going to help us do anything and I don't trust the media to help us do anything we have to do it ourselves sadly nor the NGOs during much about ADA and they seem to react belatedly to where there is existing large-scale public pressure rather than helping to create that large-scale public pressure
[52:22] yeah where's the ACLU in all this and why isn't the ACLU filing charges on behalf of WikiLeaks and Julian or cases rather I'm disappointed I have no answer for that but I have noticed that the statements from HRW and others seem to turn up when there is ramping up in the public discourse in support of Julian and WikiLeaks which is really disappointing because I would expect
[52:53] those NGOs to lead the charge on these issues and not just to be reactionary well when I was arrested they ran screaming from the room I got literally no help from Amnesty International Human Rights Watch or the ACLU nothing so if I were Julian I wouldn't if I eventually come to the party though what he wants you had a high enough profile that it becomes official to them to associate themselves with the a eventually Human Rights Watch did and then it was only thanks to aiwei way that the that
[53:24] Amnesty International finally came around and it was because Weiwei identified me as a political prisoner and then did my portrait out of Legos for the Smithsonian Institution and then finally amnesty said well okay I guess he was a political prisoner after all mm-hmm yeah it was disgusting well very much think that it's time for us to move past any expectation or dependency on the institutional powers and to
[53:56] become the force to be reckoned with ourselves and it's very much what we're trying to do and we've only been able to do it because very principled brave people like yourself stood up immediately when Julian was a cow on his effectively put in solitary when he's cut off from communication with everyone you were among the first 15 people that within hours of that happening came and jumped on the script on the stream and were publicly advocating for him so thank you for being one of the real
[54:26] people that doesn't you don't wait for a paycheck or public credit or anything you are there out of solidarity and full props to you for that John it's not worthy of thanks it's the least I could do well I certainly am very grateful to you for that because we could not have built anything that we have without all those amazing people behind the scenes and yourself and the other guests in front of the scenes who've been pulling together for Julian and I have been told
[54:58] that this the existence of this movement and the groundswell of support that's coming his way is giving him some strength and the horrific circumstances that he finds himself in snow Christie do you have any last message for the viewers or for Julian keep up the fight you know it's easy to to feel powerless when you consider yourself to be just one individual but you're not just one individual this is a movement and there are people all around the world that are
[55:29] with us and so we have to keep this fight up and not relent it's only just begun this is going to take a long time well we are doing our best and we're certainly starting to see some results in a short timeframe which I'm very impressed at because I do understand that someone's fun okay thank you so much mr. John Kiriakou absolutely gin dairy whistle I you honor us Angeline
[56:00] with your presence so much for being here very very best of luck thank you