[00:00] Welcome everyone. Welcome back to the show. It's your host Danny Haiphong. Hit the like button as you come on. That helps boost the stream in YouTube's algorithm. As you can see, I am joined by two very special guests. We have John Kiriakou, first time on the show. He is a former CIA officer, head of the counterterrorism division in Pakistan and CIA whistleblower on the torture program. John, good to see you. Good to see you, Danny. Great. Great to have you on. And then we have Joe Lauria. He is the chief editor of Consortium News, which everyone
[00:31] should be reading and following. Joe, great to be with you. Thank you, Danny. Yes. Now, let's start with you, John. So, I wanted to actually ask you, you know, I pulled the audience. 90% of them said that Mossad, they believe Mossad controls US foreign policy. There's been a lot of anger about issues, for example, like Charlie Kirk's murder. Many people believe or have suspicions that Israel had a hand in it. The president's early intelligence had a hand in it. We have the Epstein
[01:01] situation, which has had a huge impact on both US domestic and foreign politics vis-a-vis Donald Trump and a possible Israeli involvement. And then we just have an overall situation where the US is consistently following the Israeli line in what it does around the world. Could you talk about your experience first with whistleblowing on the CIA and what that possibly could tell us about how the quote-unquote deep state which involves Mossad really
[01:32] exercises its influence on US foreign policy. Sure. I I blew the whistle on the CIA's torture program in December of 2007. I said that I said in an interview with ABC News that the CIA was torturing its prisoners, that torture was official US government policy, and that the policy had been personally approved by President Bush. And you know, at first the CIA asked the Justice Department to
[02:02] investigate me with an eye toward charging me with a with a serious crime. After 1 year though, the FBI determined that I had not committed a crime and there were no charges. Barack Obama became president a month later. He named John Brennan as the Deputy National Security Advisor for counterterrorism and Brennan asked the Justice Department to secretly reopen the case against me. I was investigated for another 3 years. And then in January of 2012, I was
[02:32] arrested by the FBI, charged with five felonies including three counts of espionage. And and I waited it out. I hadn't committed espionage. They knew I hadn't committed espionage and those charges ended up being dismissed or not dismissed, but dropped. Um but I ended up taking a plea to a lesser charge, to violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982. And served 23 months in a federal prison. Something that I would do again today if I needed to.
[03:06] I'm unrepentant. Somebody had to stop the torture program. Somebody had to reveal to the American people that it was happening. Um I wish somebody else had done it, but I did it. And so there it is and I would do it again. Now, to this even more important issue of Israeli involvement in or even Israeli control of American foreign policy, it has long been my position that the United States has never had an America first policy, foreign policy.
[03:38] It's always been a foreign policy that put Israel first, often times at the expense of American national interests. I saw this at the CIA every single day. Uh and I've seen it since I left the CIA. When I was on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff as the senior investigator. We were never permitted to do anything that might anger the Israelis. We always had to think about the Israelis first and about the United States second. Something that I I long resented. And then I'll tell you
[04:08] something even more recent. This happened a week ago. Um I I have a Google alert on myself. And uh my name came up in some obscure publication that I had never heard of before called the the Middle East Forum. It's clearly an Israeli publication. And there was an article there last week written by the political advisor to the Israeli foreign minister. And he said in this piece that I have repeatedly criticized Mossad.
[04:39] I have repeatedly criticized Israeli actions in Gaza. I have repeatedly called Israeli actions a genocide. And so he said I was um vehemently anti-Semitic, number one. Those were his words. John Kiriakou is vehemently anti-Semitic. Uh number two, he said that what I've written about Israel in publications like Consortium News, for example,
[05:10] shows the rot currently taking place among left-wing intellectuals in the United States and that it is up to Israel to stop us. To stop us before we damage Israel. The the comments on this obscure article were absolutely ferocious. Many of them had to have been from bots because the way the way the comments ended was yeah, it started with yes, he's he's
[05:41] anti-Semitic. Yes, he hates all Jews. He wants deaths to death to the Jews. He wants to he's pro-Hamas. And then they ended up with that I'm morbidly obese, ugly, and stupid on top of it all. But this to me I got a chuckle out of it, of course. But but it's dangerous for a couple of of reasons. Number one, it shows how closely the Israelis are watching all of us.
[06:12] They're not watching Fox and CNN and MSNBC to make sure everybody toes the line. They're coming all the way down to Consortium News and to John Kiriakou and God forbid any of us should criticize obvious clear Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. Another thing that I have criticized the Israelis for over the years is the the long arm of AIPAC on Capitol Hill.
[06:46] I would like to know, and this is a serious question, why AIPAC does not have to register as a foreign agent when everybody else does. If you are doing any work at all on behalf of a foreign government, you must register under FARA, the Foreign Agents Registration Act. You just go to fara.gov. It takes 5 minutes to fill up a form. So, why does everybody have to do it
[07:16] except the Israelis? Yeah. And before I get to you, Joe, first John, you said that you saw it in the CIA. Could you say something about what you saw exactly that made you believe that Mossad had influence? Yeah. Oh, yes. Forgive me if I'm repeating myself here. I've told this story many times, but the very first briefing that I ever gave as a brand new junior CIA analyst was to the Washington, D.C.
[07:47] representatives of Mossad and Shin Bet. And I had been on I had been on the job, I'm going to say, 6 weeks, 7 weeks. And I was told, "You're going to do your first foreign liaison briefing. You're an overt employee, so you use your real name." So, I went with a big group of colleagues. And the we don't meet with the Israelis in CIA headquarters. We meet with almost everybody else in CIA headquarters. But the Israelis would so frequently bring
[08:18] gifts with listening devices embedded in them to to bug our conference rooms and our offices. We told them, "Look, you can't do this anymore. So, you're not allowed on on the compound anymore." And so we have to meet with the Israelis at an offsite facility. Number one. Number two, I go to this briefing and because we're all overt, we're using our real names. And so the the lead Iraq analyst gives her briefing, then the political analyst, then the military analyst, then the economic analyst, then
[08:48] the oil analyst. Finally comes to me. And like I say, 6 weeks on the job, 25 years old. I guess I was 24, 25 years old. And I said, "My name is John Kiriakou and I'm going to brief you today on Saddam Hussein's state of mind." And the Shin Bet officer looks at me over his glasses and he says, "Spell your name?" So, I spelled it. And he says, "You are
[09:19] Jewish?" It enraged me, the question. And I said, "I am not recruitable. Don't even think that you can recruit me." And so he just took notes on everything I said. I went back to the office and my boss said, "How was the briefing?" I said, "That Shin Bet bastard tried to recruit me in front of everybody." And he laughed and he said, "They do that to all of us." Now, the at the CIA we're not permitted to spy on the Israelis. They are absolutely,
[09:50] positively forbidden, right? Hands off. But they spy on us all the time. In in my very first week at the CIA, uh we had a series of briefings. You know, all the new hires are sitting in the CIA auditorium and HR comes and the insurance lady comes and this guy comes and that guy comes. We had the head of security for the whole CIA and he was talking about um counterintelligence. For example, there's a restaurant down the street
[10:21] from Langley, don't ever go there. Why? Because the KGB thinks that we all go there. So, at any given time on any given day, the restaurant is jam-packed full of KGB officers. So, we just don't go there. But, another thing that he said was to take Israel as an example. He said, "At the Israeli Embassy in Washington, there's one Shin Bet officer and one Mossad officer. But, the FBI
[10:52] and this this is 35-year-old information. The FBI had been able to identify 187 undeclared Mossad agents at work in the United States, all trying to infiltrate our defense contractors and steal our defense secrets. So, if we know that and if the FBI has been able to identify 187 of them, why haven't we made 187 felony arrests on charges of espionage?
[11:26] Why do we let them push us around like this? But, we do. It's a political decision that's been made at the White House and it was made many, many years ago. Yeah, well, uh Joe, I definitely want your comments uh on this in particular. I'll I'll put it up, you know, John was talking about AIPAC um and they have a new ad that's come out and I just want to pull it up and play it because there is a huge rebranding right now of AIPAC to make it
[11:58] seem like it is an American organization. Here is the ad. Let's talk about AIPAC. >> Today, AIPAC. On Capitol Hill, AIPAC. >> AIPAC. >> AIPAC. AIPAC. AIPAC. You may have heard our name, but how much do you really know about AIPAC? AIPAC is an American organization that works to strengthen the US-Israel relationship. This partnership advances America's interests and democratic values and helps keep Israel safe. Our 5 million members are US citizens, Democrats and Republicans from every
[12:30] part of the country who urge our elected leaders to enact pro-Israel policies. This includes expanding America's defense partnership with Israel, supporting life-saving security systems, confronting Iran and its terror proxies, and promoting peace and normalization. Being pro-Israel is good policy and AIPAC members make sure it's good politics, too. We raise money to help elect pro-Israel candidates for Congress from both parties and we take the political fight to our opponents, helping defeat anti-Israel candidates
[13:00] running for the House or Senate. AIPAC is leading the fight in Washington to secure the future of the US-Israel relationship. The actions of pro-Israel Americans today will help determine the future of this bond and the fate of both countries. So, maybe we can commend them for their honesty, Joe, but um perhaps you could talk about, you know, um a lot of audience members uh uh often reference the deep state. I even see in the comments already a lot of talk about all these examples of
[13:31] Israeli meddling in US affairs, even foreign policy like the USS Liberty. What has Consortium News found about this relationship that people should know about uh that might not be spoken about even in ads like this? Well, I I I have to uh warn everyone this is going to be a little more left-wing rot as John explained. In fact, John, I would love you to send me a link to that cuz I think we need to report about this in particular if they mention Consortium News, but that that's very chilling. It's up to Israel to stop
[14:02] the rot of the US left. Well, let them try today. So, Consortium they got one thing right in that very funny ad and thank you for giving me a little bit of a cheer in this uh gloomy morning here on the East Coast of the US. They got one thing right, the Republicans and the Democrats are both on board there. Consortium News, uh thank you for asking for inviting me on, uh Danny, is um one of the oldest, if not the oldest, independent online website in the United States. It's uh began in November of
[14:34] 1995. So, if you do the math, this is our 30th anniversary of on uninterrupted publication. We went online actually 5 days before salon.com and months before the New York Times, the LA Times, the Washington Post. It was around that time, 1995, that major newspapers were beginning their websites and we were early on the ground there. And then why did that happen? Because Robert Parry, who was the founder of Consortium News, was in a uh a real investigative
[15:04] reporter for Associated Press. When I mean by real is that a lot of people like to call themselves that, um but a investigative reporter in that the real sense is someone who spends months on a story. By the way, major news organizations don't invest that kind of money or time anymore in that kind of work, but they did back then 30 years ago and Bob worked on uh enormously consequential stories, the most important of which was on the Iran-Contra scandal. Of course, the Iran-Contra scandal began when Congress cut off funding to the
[15:35] Contras in Nicaragua, which were trying to it was a counterrevolution against the Sandinistas who had overthrown the Somoza family dictatorship, a family that owned like 90% of the land in Nicaragua. Uh and the US was dedicated, the Reagan administration, to overthrowing the Sandinistas and putting the uh Somoza family back in power, but they happened to kill these Contras some American nuns. And that didn't sit well in Middle America, so the Congress had to cut off the funding to them. And what did the Reagan White House do? Well, they
[16:06] decided through Israel uh to sell arms to Iran. And this is after the 1979 revolution in Iran. This is when Iran was calling the US the Great Satan, but the Reagan administration sold arms to Iran and got used the proceeds to secretly fund the Contras. Well, Bob Parry with his partner uh uh worked on this story for months and discovered a man named Oliver North was working in the basement of the White House running this entire illegal and unconstitutional
[16:36] operation, given of course that only Congress can uh appropriate money and they had shut it off. So, the White House has no business and no legal right to start sending money to a Contra uh force in Nicaragua. The story was solid. They had like 20 sources, documents and the editors at AP wouldn't run it. They kept saying, "Go back there, get some more. Uh can't do you get Oliver North to uh confess?" What happened was in the end the Spanish wire service of AP made a mistake. They
[17:09] actually translated this story and published it. So, once it got out to Latin America, you know, the American the English version had to be published. That's how we learned about Oliver North. So, Bob saw right up there a very important uh example of mainstream media editors trying to suppress a very important story that makes US look very bad and particularly the that particular administration at that time. But, he worked on other stories. He found out a
[17:39] lot about cocaine coming into the United States from the Contras uh with weapons going in that direction and cocaine going back on the plane. This was a story that eventually was picked up by uh Gary Webb years later. Gary worked talked with Bob about that. Of course, Gary Webb was ruined because he actually revealed that those what happened to these drugs when they got into the inner cities of the United States. Uh Bob did a story on a CIA manual that was found, I believe, after a plane crash one of these planes crashed
[18:10] in Nicaragua. He got his hands on the manual and it explained what the CIA was doing in Nicaragua at that time. So, these were important stories, but he got fed up um because they kept trying to stop him from publishing these stories. He went to Newsweek, same thing happened there. They told him, "You can't publish that story. It's not it's not good for the country." This is what his editors told was not good for the rulers of the country, which is of course what Newsweek editors and all the mainstream editors serve. They're serving the rulers of the country, not the reading public, but somehow they
[18:42] promulgate that point of view and make it seem like everyone's point of view. It's the American point of view, not just a small number of people at top whose interests are being served. So, Bob quit Newsweek. He went to PBS Frontline and did a a couple of documentaries. One of them on the October Surprise was another one of his big stories, which showed of course that the uh Reagan uh administration before while they were just uh candidates candidate the campaign of Reagan went and did a deal with Iran to withhold the release of the American hostages
[19:14] from uh from Iran, from the embassy that were taken in order to get Reagan to win the election saying they'd get a better deal. So, Bob did some really important stories and it was in 1995 that he quit Newsweek and his son introduced him to the internet and that's when it went online. And after that, many important stories were done particularly on the invasion of Iraq in 2003 showing that it wasn't WMD. That's when the Veterans Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, of which John is a member, uh Ray McGovern uh worked and publishes
[19:45] their exclusive memos with Consortium News. And also uh there were other of work that Bob did on Ukraine. From beginning, he explained it was a coup in in Kiev and explained that the neo-Nazis were a real significant problem in Ukraine even if they didn't get elected to parliament. They were an extra parliamentary force. And he also did a lot of work on the MH17 flight that was down and then on Russia gate. He really forged ahead and was the
[20:17] first to really expose Russia gate as the the fraud that it was and more importantly dangerous aspect of the intelligence services, even the foreign one, the CIA and the FBI meddling in US domestic politics. As bad as Donald Trump is and was, this is something very very serious and Bob exposed it as that and Aaron Maté who's gone on to be probably the best reporter on that story has acknowledged uh, and the debt that he gave to Bob Parry. It wasn't just Bob. There were I wrote articles on Russia gate at that time. I joined
[20:48] Consortium News in 20 12 because I had the same problems. So, this is why he started Consortium News because he found other journalists who created a consortium of other mainstream journalists whose editors were also suppressing the stories. And this is what happened to me. I was working at the Wall Street Journal in 2012 as their UN correspondent. I was 25 years at the UN. I I covered the UN for the Boston Globe, for the Montreal Gazette, for the Johannesburg Star and a bunch of other newspapers. And at the Journal, I was doing stories on Palestine becoming an observer state and I was saying 140
[21:19] something countries recognized Palestine as a state. This has become a big issue now. They kept cutting that out of the story. So, I sent my article to Bob Parry. He didn't know me from a hole in the wall and he published it. That's how I began my relationship with Bob and when he died prematurely in 2018, I was named the editor. Yeah, well, great. Thanks for telling your story, Joe. Now, I wanted to ask about you know, a lot of the most
[21:49] almost like terrifying secrets that Israeli intel, US intel keep now seem to be coming mainstreamed and what I mean by that is I don't know if you saw this, John. There's now a concerted campaign by the Israelis, by a contractor, a lobbying firm that has been hired by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs according to FARA documents that shows that there's a psychological app
[22:20] operation afoot against the American evangelical community where churches will be geo-fenced and people targeted, subjected to pro-Israel and anti-Palestinian advertisements. And they plan to use high-profile Christians like Stephen Curry and it will take place in Western states, California, Arizona, Colorado, Texas where they will table at college campuses. But look at all the churches that they are going to be targeting. I mean, it's just a massive list where they are going to be going. I mean, this
[22:50] these lists go on and on and on and on and on and on. Uh, so, John, your reaction to how what role does intelligence play in some of these larger even more public examples of public operations campaigns. I mean, I know you've also talked about kind of the shadowy world of contracting, too. So, please anything you want to impart on this. Oh, sorry, you're muted. Here you go. Oh, thanks. Yeah, contracting is is one
[23:21] thing. That's kind of easy to to point out and say, you know, look what the likes of Blackwater are doing for example on behalf of Israel. But but this other stuff, this advertising and geo-fencing churches, this is very very dangerous and it's new and it's very sophisticated. Um, just in the past week, Brad Parscale, the the the former Trump campaign manager took $6 million from from the Israeli government to
[23:52] begin bombarding young people. And when I say young people, I mean like from the ages of 15 to 25 with pro-Israel messages on social media, for example. So, if you're on Instagram, you're between the ages of 15 and 25, all of a sudden you're going to be hit with these pro-Israel messages. Uh, this geo-fencing churches, this is very important for the Israelis because some of their most vociferous
[24:23] support comes from evangelical Christians in the United States. In my view, deeply misguided Christians. Um, misguided Christians who don't give a whit about what's happening to Palestinian Christians, for example. And so, the Israelis aren't stupid. They see that their support is splitting I'm sorry is sinking in the United States. They saw the same polls that we saw last week showing that um, in October of
[24:55] 2023, Americans supported Israel by 46 percentage points over Palestinians and today, they support Palestinians by one percentage point over Israelis. They see that it's slipping away from them. And so, what they're doing now is twofold. It's to shore up their support among evangelical Christians in the United States and it is to win new supporters among young people active on social media. Now,
[25:26] the Palestinians don't have the money for that kind of thing. The Palestinians don't even have money for a a lobbyist in Washington, let alone the the tens of millions of dollars or more that AIPAC has and is willing to spend on things like this or on American elections. Yeah, and Joe, I wanted to to ask you about, you know, the when it comes to this new lobbying firm that's going to be I mean, there's going
[25:57] to be mobile trailers outside of these churches which many suspect are going to actually be tapping into people's cell phones in order to gather and collect data and information on evangelical church goers. And of course, we had Charlie Kirk who is killed and many suspect now that there could be Israeli involvement if it wasn't for Netanyahu whose constant rejecting of all of the claims that this is going on. Um, so maybe you could quickly comment
[26:29] on this and and and related to, you know, you have the highest officials in the US government like um, uh, the Vice President of the United States who he has a deep relationship to Palantir which is deeply connected to the Israeli Defense Forces. I mean, the connections go on and on. Any comments and analysis you want to make on on this? Look, it's very clear. I I thought when this ceasefire came out, I wrote a piece last Monday saying
[26:59] that there would be a hostage or prisoner exchange uh, but that it would not go on to the ceasefire after that. It would the war would resume because we've got in power in Israel right now absolutely extremists who used to be on the fringes of Israeli society. They used to be a mainstream in Israel that looked at these people, the colonists, as being a complete lunatics. Well, the lunatics are in power right now. And what they've taken up is the mantle of Ben-Gurion and the other founding fathers of Israel, the dream of a greater Israel going all the way back to the beginning of the
[27:30] Zionist movement. And this is you could read it in Ben-Gurion's diaries. It's not something being made up here. The idea was to take all of historic Palestine for Israel. And what we've seen since 1948 when 750,000 people were ethnically cleansed has been a piecemeal uh, implementation of this greater Israel plan. '67, '73, some more land of obviously was taken, occupied territories which they still occupy right now, increasing the settlements. It's been bit by bit taking
[28:02] over all of greater Israel. Now, they've got this opportunity. And you've got the lunatics in charge who I don't think want to give up this chance to finish the job as Donald Trump calls it of ethnically cleansing and committing genocide to exterminate or basically expel all of the Palestinians from Gaza and take it over completely. So, I think that this plan is only being interrupted right now for the short term. Why did they go along with it? I think Israel's clearly losing the PR war which
[28:34] is to get to your question and to that AIPAC ad which is hilarious that you began the show with. And now the geo-fencing idea. I mean, they are so desperate to they are losing the American youth to Israel because of what they're doing on the battlefield, what they're doing in Palestine. It can no longer be denied. It took two years for the majority of the world to recognize what's happening. Many of us, including our Consortium News, throughout in November of 2023, we started calling it a genocide. I waited a month before I
[29:05] used that word and I don't care anymore um, because that's what it was and now the majority of the world sees that Israel is in big trouble with the PR. You've seen what's happening with Ellison buying TikTok. About Netanyahu when he was at the UN in New York, he gave a meeting at the consulate on Second Avenue, the Israeli consulate in which he said TikTok is the most important weapon right now. So, it has to be taken over and that was just before the deal went through. This is essential. Now, I I still think
[29:36] this ceasefire will collapse because I don't see Hamas surrendering and that's what Israel's going to demand, is demanding. I don't see the pressure of of Arab nations being involved in this deal being other than them trying to get in a piece of the action of Donald Trump's Gaza Riviera. And I I don't trust the Arabs for a second to help the Palestinians nor should Hamas. So I I don't see Hamas giving up uh their weapons, surrendering. Uh I don't see any kind of arrangement of an Arab technocratic government, particularly
[30:07] with Tony Blair and Donald Trump in charge of it. I mean, it's just extraordinary even that they proposed that. I think this war will resume at some point, but if it does go on a bit, it's because Israel realized they're losing the PR war and they need to regroup. They're exhausted and maybe to prepare for a new assault on Gaza or perhaps another major attack on Iran. So this could last weeks uh as it did in January, but it will collapse ultimately. But the public relations war is key
[30:38] to this and this this this story this this is complete fantasy to me, the idea of uh once you enter a church they know where you are. This is geofencing as John was explaining it. Um it's just unbelievable uh technology being employed rather than just stopping the genocide and behaving like a proper nation. They want to continue to kill, but they want to try to fool the young people. I don't think it's going to work. I really don't because we've got left-wing rot magazines like Consortium News out there that will continue to publish what we
[31:09] say, what we say about this genocide. And that has got uh resonance throughout the nation. People who are finally have woken up to what Israel is doing. I don't think any kind of geofencing is going to keep the truth out. You know, John, as a as a former uh intelligence officer um and and one that has whistleblown in particular, I'm curious on your thoughts about you know, Joe brought up Oracle. You know, he brought up Larry Ellison buying TikTok. You have Palantir which
[31:41] is JD Vance as I said before that's uh who funded him to a tune of $15 million for his campaign. >> And and you know who's who co-founded Palantir? P- The CIA with a $50 the very first uh uh investment. It came from In-Q-Tel, the CIA's venture capital arm. Well, yeah, talk about the you know, talk about the role then of Intel, both Israeli and CIA in all of this. How does it shape uh what's going on? You know, you have corporations like Palantir,
[32:12] huge monopolies. They have major contracts and they are employing their technology in Gaza and you know, with whatever else Israel is doing in the United States. So talk about its role. What is actually going on and and it's very shadowy. Not many people really understand it. What how do you see it? Yeah, it is it is shadowy. You know, the development of technology happens so quickly and so secretly that it's generally years before we realize
[32:45] what you know, 5 years ago's uh technology was. We're we're using technology today that it's it's already uh outdated and overtaken by events. So the the technology that the CIA's developing, the technology that Mossad is developing in partnership with companies like Palantir or Oracle um is meant to well, I'm just going to say strip us of whatever civil liberties we we have
[33:17] left. And then when you when you add into that I'll use Larry Ellison as the most obvious example um his foray into the media his son is the president of what is it? CBS or Paramount? I think it's Paramount. Whatever it is his his son is um is a media mogul uh in his own right. You have to ask do we do we have any mainstream media in
[33:48] this in this country that really is independent and that can give us an an unbiased view? I think the answer is no. Uh Joe talked about the founding of Consortium News. I'm proud to be associated with Consortium News because I can write what I know to be the truth and I'm never censored. You can't say that about ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox, MSNBC about any of them. The New York Times,
[34:18] the Washington Post, the Journal, the LA Times they're all compromised. And it's only getting worse as we further incorporate these new technologies into our daily lives. Geocaching churches no less. I mean, what what's next? How bad does this get before Americans finally say enough? Cuz they're not saying it yet. Yeah, and and Joe, uh your your you know, your impressions on this on the
[34:49] kind of technologies that are being employed, the uh how these uh big contractors are influencing uh not just US foreign policy, but also how Israel is able to influence US foreign policy. Well, this is the key question and John um at the beginning when he talked about this article that he read where they said Israel will stop stop us on the left from saying these things about Israel. This is an open admission of what is clear. Uh it's in a sense Israel has activated
[35:20] their cells. They have cells around the world that will stop free speech. And the biggest example was of course on the college campuses in the United States very early on, the demonstrations against what Israel was doing. When it became clear to a lot of young people that a genocide was being perpetrated in Israel. I'm talking about again around November, December 2023. Almost 2 years ago. And what happened? The police were activated to stop those. And this is the Biden administration by the way. And then all the the university
[35:52] presidents dragged in to Congress to embarrass themselves and to be shut up. And who's behind all of this stuff? You you got to see Israel's hand in this. For example, at Columbia University the uh the at New York Police Department there was a woman in charge of running the suppression of those demonstrations. She was a former IDF officer. The Grayzone reported on that. We look at Richard Medhurst in Britain too, it's not just the United States. We look at this terrorism act of 2000 in the in in the
[36:24] UK. Um people like Richard Medhurst like uh Craig Murray who's on our board like John Kiriakou is at Consortium News they are arrested and George Galloway it just happened to to George and his wife. They are stopped at the borders when entering the UK and questioned because of articles or statements they've made on social media or on TV about uh what Israel is doing. And they are being uh threatened with being charged under the terrorism act which is just simply
[36:55] giving support to what they call support to a terrorist organization which means if you criticize Israel they see that as being support for Hamas which of course is a a non sequitur. That's not absolutely uh connected at all. You can criticize Israel and Hamas if you want. It doesn't mean if you you cannot say anything against Israel without worrying about now being arrested for speech or being stopped from protesting or stopped from publishing. The executive order that Trump put out about uh calling on T
[37:25] for example a terrorist organization. Anybody who's getting very much like the British uh terrorism act. So that Palestine Action for example was prescribed a couple of months ago by Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, as being a terrorist organization. Why? Because they went inside uh an RAF base and splashed some red paint on an on a RAF plane that was working to fly surveillance missions over Gaza to help the Israelis with their genocide. This is a form of protest. We saw the Plowshares did that in the US years ago.
[37:56] It's vandalism at the worst. It is certainly not terrorism. To call Palestine Action terrorist organization was outrageous. And therefore anybody who says they support Palestine Action is being arrested and it's become a ritual now every Sunday in all over Britain we have people in wheelchairs and blind people and and elderly people and all kinds of people who carry a poster saying I support Palestine Action. The police come and they arrest them. It's absurd. But who's behind this? Now Richie Medhurst, I mentioned him. I wanted to say that he found emails where the Israeli
[38:28] uh the Israeli uh sorry, uh embassy in London was in communication with the home office about his case. And the same thing with Palestine Action. It came out in the in in a court hearing about Palestine Action uh that the Israeli embassy was involved again in pressuring the British government to designate them as a terrorist organization. That's why I say they're like cells. They're like terrorist cells. This is Israel have their cells which they activate around the world to put a stop to criticism of
[38:58] Israel. This is the main battlefront. More they don't want to defeat Hamas by the way right away because if they defeat Hamas then the war ends. That's what they say it's all about. The war is not about Hamas. It's about the genocide and the ethnic cleansing and the takeover completely of Gaza. So the biggest fight for Israel is this PR battle and they're losing and they're trying to stop it by working with police forces and governments around the world to suppress speech in countries that like ours that in the United States that has a first amendment. This is
[39:30] beyond outrageous and it shows going back to the very beginning of this conversation, what is the loyalty that US government feels towards Israel? Now, I don't think it's as clear cut as Israel controlling the United States. Certainly, not all of its foreign policy, the Middle East foreign policy perhaps, but I think there's overlapping interests in that region. Overlapping empires, if you will. The United States with a global empire and Israel with a regional one, and they're working hand in hand, so their interests are the same. And when they when they are no longer the same, I think you'll see the US pushing back a
[40:02] little bit. Um, but they usually all are the same when it comes to that region, and that's the reason why they work so well together. And of course, we can't just lastly saying that AIPAC and the kind of money that they give or how they could fund your opponent, they have such a lockhold over the uh political uh electoral process in the United States that they they get everybody in Congress to go on board, although even Donald Trump has admitted that Congress isn't so much in favor anymore. And in that ad, you saw how they put AOC's picture up there and they talked
[40:32] about enemies of Israel. So, more and more people in Congress are speaking up against Israel, and this is what terrifies, scares out of them in Tel Aviv. Yeah. Yeah. And uh and John, you know, uh speaking of of this, I wanted to um play play this for you. You know, Netanyahu has been making the podcast rounds, especially in the wake of all of the heat that Israel has received for Jeffrey Epstein, with Donald Trump's administration not releasing the files
[41:03] as they said they would, and a lot of and I know you've had comments on Jeffrey Epstein's relationship to Mossad, Charlie Kirk saga, which really slammed Israel to the point where Netanyahu had to comment over and over again about how Israel had no role in Charlie Kirk's death. But then you have also uh a lot of comments made about intelligence, and I want your opinion on what he says here about the deep relationship between US and Israeli intelligence. We also produce these incredible weapons that we share with the United States. We produce >> This might be the wrong This might be
[41:35] the wrong one. Um Let me see. Sorry about that. No, let's let's play this. I think it's the correct one. Here we go. intel that is invaluable for the United States. You're familiar with the Five Eyes, Patrick? You know what that is? You know which countries that are part of the American intelligence system? Well, there's a sixth eye, Israel. It's a very powerful eye, and we share our intel with the American intelligence services, and that's why the bond is so strong. It's not only not only a bond of values of our common Judeo-Christian civilization. Uh and it
[42:07] is really a war of civilization against the barbarians that we're fighting. But it's also uh it's also a bond of uh utility, of great success. That partnership is very, very strong. I know it's challenged all the time, but it's very, very strong, and you should talk to some of the people uh in the higher places, in the Pentagon. I wish you could talk to the people who share our intelligence or the weapon systems that we share. I think that you'll uh discover that they appreciate uh as we appreciate enormously what America gives to us. So, uh John, maybe you can comment on on
[42:39] this relationship that he is speaking about and how deep it goes. Sure. Israel is not the sixth eye of the Five Eyes. They wish they were, but they're not. Certainly, the relationship between the CIA and the Mossad is is close, but it's not so close that they that they can just walk freely around the CIA headquarters building like the Brits, the Australians, the New Zealanders, and the Canadians can. When the Five Eyes were created after the 9/11 attacks,
[43:10] uh we were instructed to literally open the books. And so, that's what we did at the CIA. We literally opened the books. And now when you go to CIA headquarters, you'll see a CIA officer literally sitting next to an MI6 officer or uh an ASIO officer or, you know, a Canadian or whomever. There's not an Israeli sitting there. Like I say, certainly the relationship is close. It's not as close as Netanyahu wishes it was. And and the the problem
[43:43] is that the Israelis spy on us, and the Israelis actively attempt to recruit American citizens to to give them classified information. Like I said, they're they're all over American defense contractors. Let me tell you a a story. When when the US uh Defense Department developed the F-35 fighter jet, supposed to be the greatest fighter jet that's ever been created, they cost almost a billion dollars a piece, uh the Israelis said, "Yeah, yeah, we want
[44:13] the first one." And we said, "Okay, we'll give you the first one. We're going to call it the F-35I, I for Israel. And what we're going to do is we're going to just slightly degrade the avionics just in case, God forbid, you're shot down by the Iranians, the Syrians, the Russians, whomever, and then they can't take the the avionics and reverse engineer them." And they said, "No, we want the F-35. We don't want the degraded avionics." In the meantime, the Emiratis came to us
[44:44] and said, "Hey, we heard about this F-35. We want we want the F-35." We said, "Great. We're going to give you an F-35E for Emirates, and we're going to slightly degrade the avionics." And they said, "Fine, we'll take it." The Israelis, though, attempted to steal the avionics by infiltrating Lockheed Martin and subcontractors that were involved in the in the development of the avionics. That's why Israel is not a part of the Five Eyes or the Six Eyes, because we
[45:16] just can't trust them. Yeah. Yeah. Uh maybe Joe, you can elaborate on uh some of the distrust that uh the US may be secretly harboring with Israel. I know Robert Perry, while he wasn't invest the investigator of the actual incident, uh he did reference quite a bit uh the USS Liberty incident, for example. Uh so, maybe you can talk about uh some of these tensions behind the scenes that kind of came up uh honestly with the
[45:47] whole Charlie Kirk saga, uh now with Jeffrey Epstein saga. Uh while these seem unrelated to US foreign policy, they they they have deep connections. Yeah, I just uh wanted to just point out that a someone I met who worked at Los Alamos for many, many years said Israelis would walk around there freely, but maybe that's not the case at the CIA. Um Bob Perry, I'm sorry, could you repeat what you said about Bob Perry? Um >> Oh, that I know that he uh you know, would would reference the USS Liberty incident, which a lot of my
[46:19] audience a lot of my audience always reference whenever I talk about the relationship between the US and Israel. >> Yeah, thanks. If you read some of these memoirs of presidents um or Netanyahu's memoirs, in fact, um we were we ran a review uh two-part review of his memoir by Abdul by Assad Abu Khalil, our one of our columnists, and he he openly talked about how he he had these problems in the White House, especially with Joe Biden, Vice President Joe Biden, was screaming at Netanyahu. And Obama hated him. And Clinton, they all the American
[46:50] presidents, they can't stand Netanyahu. And this is what you get from these kinds of anecdotal stories that leak out. Uh and yet, they wind up doing whatever the hell Netanyahu wants. Why? It usually serves US interests, too, as I said before. Or their own political domestic interests for these politicians. Uh or they have blackmailable material about that. You know, uh Ari Ben-Menashe, uh a former Israeli defense intelligence person, has been on our webcast twice, and he explained how uh he knew
[47:21] personally, because he worked closely with Maxwell, that Jeffrey Epstein was indeed had a relationship with uh the Israeli defense intelligence. And what was he doing with all those all those cameras that he had in his uh mansion in Manhattan? So, there's a lot of reasons why even when they may not be completely in US interests or certainly not in the interest of an American president except for his re-election, that he's that they can hate Netanyahu and do what the Israelis want anyway. The USS Liberty
[47:52] was a good example of Johnson buried with Lyndon Johnson, the president at the time. Israel fired on an American ship, and uh it became known that it was Israel fired and and killed a good number of American sailors, and it was swept under the carpet by by Johnson. He just didn't want to make an issue out of it. This is an extraordinary incident that a lot of Americans still don't know about, but it there's no there's no doubt at all anymore that Israel was uh attacked at the Liberty uh in the Mediterranean. And
[48:22] Okay, so they killed American sailors, so what? So, they walk around Los Alamos stealing secrets. So, maybe which is how, by the way, forget about Los Alamos earlier. I don't remember John might remember where they stole some of the secrets, I believe was in Pennsylvania, I think, well, to uh to build their own nuclear weapon. Mhm. Which apparently John Kennedy didn't didn't want them to do, but they did anyway, right? Of course, with the French help, and then South Africa, etc. Um There's There's There's so many stories of American uh leaders being upset with
[48:54] Israel or Israel not doing things to help US interests, and America going along anyway. And this example, look, uh take the last American election. Uh the Democrats knew that their support for Israel's genocide was destroying them amongst their own party, their own base. And yet, they continued to support Israeli genocide. So, if the number one rule for any politician is get re-elected, do don't do anything. You could sell your mother rather than lose an election. And yet, they sold out to Israel, and they lost
[49:26] that election. I maintain that if Harris had come and said, "We're we're going to stop as arming Israel, cut off the money when I'm elected," uh she could have gotten elected and maybe given national health insurance, for example. She would have been elected, I think, because they saw the Democratic Party base was against what Israel was doing. And now it's grown even more now, as we've seen, especially not only young people. Uh in in Republicans as well are turning against Israel. This is the population, not the rulers, not the leaders. So, they they hurt the Democrats hurt their own
[49:57] re-election chances in the last presidential election, rather than stop the support for a genocide. Why? Why? This question cannot easily be answered. This is the underlying question in this entire interview, Danny, that you're HAVING WITH US. WHY is the US always going along with Israel? I think it's money, the the the blackmailable material, and the overlapping interests. But there are other things that maybe we don't understand. Yeah, well, John John, I know you were on the inside for a bit and had to
[50:28] interact uh with uh the Mossad, and of course, um you know, the entire you know, you were based in Pakistan, and I know you spent a lot of time in the Middle East, West Asia. Um I did want to ask you about this as we um close, you know, about the technology. You know, we we've we've seen the US and Israel both use decapitation so openly, so publicly now. Uh just assassination attempt after
[50:58] assassination attempt on the Hamas negotiators, and Iran, Lebanon, etc. with the Patriot attack. And uh now there has been an example of diplomats being killed in a very strange car crash leading into what's going to be a celebration of Trump's this Trump summit of the so-called ceasefire. Um you know, uh supposedly the steering that uh of the car that these diplomats were in, Qatari uh diplomats, suddenly uh uh
[51:30] stopped working properly, and and they ended up crashing and and dying, and I'm curious, John, about the technology that uh you know, Mossad, CIA, what they use to conduct these operations, and you know, we don't have any proof that it exactly was this, but but we know there's a litany of evidence that this has been tried, attempted, very publicly. So, uh uh your thoughts and assessment on this and the technology of of how this all works. Uh well, thanks for that question, because it's it's
[52:00] actually very important. We know, thanks to a whistleblower by the name of Joshua Schulte, former CIA uh technical officer, that the CIA, um presumably the Mossad, probably the Chinese, maybe others, can remotely take over control of a car by hacking into the car's computer system. They've been able to do it for years now. With the idea being that they can take over control of the car so that they can send you over a bridge,
[52:32] or into a tree, or an abutment, or kill you, or do whatever it is they need to do to you. Uh I don't have any inside information as to whether or not the Israelis killed these three Qatari diplomats. I wouldn't be surprised if they did, if that were the case. Um and I will say, just, you know, to be on the safe side, I don't mean to sound paranoid, but we live in a very strange world now. One of the things that they taught us in CIA training, if this were to happen to you, is to you're you're losing control of
[53:02] the car, immediately put the car in neutral, and pull the emergency brake. It's the only thing that's going to allow you to survive. So, like I say, I don't have inside information as to whether or not Mossad did this, but I can tell you Mossad certainly has the capability to do something like this. Hm. Yeah, and your reaction, John, to this this overall um situation, you know, and maybe we can close on this uh with you too. There's uh more show to come, everyone, but um just the overall
[53:33] situation, how you see it uh as we move into a new phase of this uh global situation vis-à-vis West Asia, Gaza, etc. Beyond depressing and alarming. Um we haven't even we didn't even begin to talk about uh Ukraine. And the idea the US is considering sending Tomahawk missiles to uh to Ukraine to be fired into Russia, uh despite Russia's clear red line that this could lead to a nuclear exchange. The Biden administration played with that with the ATACMS, and now the Trump
[54:04] administration might send them. I mean, Trump is completely irrational figure. Unfortunately, we cannot really analyze what he does. I I see people everywhere trying to do a rational analysis of an irrational man. So, we have no idea what he's going to do on that situation, or anything else. Um he's going to fly over there and sign this agreement to this weekend, if he hasn't already arrived there. I've no idea why they would kill why they killed three Qatari uh diplomats in the desert driving out to Sharm el-Sheikh. I I that I don't understand, since they um you know, the
[54:36] deal was signed, and and those guys can't be that important. This is going to be a big fanfare. It's all about him. Uh and he's the most dangerous man you could probably have in charge. But not that Biden was any less dangerous, as I said. So, I think the overall situation of the world could not be more fragile, could not be more um dangerous uh and perilous as we uh try to move forward here, watching this genocide proceed, watching the Ukraine war keep going. You know, it was about 2 years ago last summer at uh 2 years ago
[55:06] that the uh German and French leaders, Macron and then Scholz, had a dinner with with Zelensky at in Paris, and they said, "Look, you got to give up, you're losing. Uh Germany and France fought so many wars, and look, they're friends now. Eventually, you're going to have to become friends with Russia." What happened to that? What happened to that? The European leaders are doubling, tripling, quadrupling down on rearming Germany. Uh where, by the way, free speech is under threat if you criticize Israel. Again, I didn't mention Germany before.
[55:37] So, what is going on that the Europeans are playing with fire by trying to make um it more and more dangerous uh by rearming Germany and Europe to try a war, making it sound like Russia wants to invade every minute. Now, on the one hand, Angela Sorry, uh Ursula von der Leyen says, "The Russians have to put washing machine parts in their in their airplanes, in their tanks." And Biden made fun of they can't even take over Kharkiv province. Look at these And then they're going to be in
[56:07] Paris by December, by Christmas. So, which one is it? Is Russia really a threat, or are they a bunch of bumbling incompetent military that can't even take over a part of Ukraine after 2 years? Well, clearly it's uh not they're not bumbling, and they don't have any There's no real threat. Even in the first Cold War, there was an exaggerated threat of the Soviet Union invading Western Europe. We're seeing that again, and it's about the political careers they put so much at stake, these leaders, that they cannot be seen to lose to Russia. This is why it's so damn dangerous, cuz
[56:37] Russia will not lose in Ukraine. They see it as an existential threat. Whereas, the Europeans see it as a political career threat. So, we are in in a big mess. Let alone, I believe the genocide will resume, without doubt, in Gaza. We could have another major war in Iran. Okay, what else? What else can we do to dream up to make this the most dangerous time that I could ever remember being alive, and I lived through the Cold War. Hm. Yeah, and your your final words, uh John, before uh we move on to the next segment.
[57:08] Really, all we can do is is to keep up the fight. That that's really it. You know, educate yourself, seek out truly independent sources of of news, and keep up the fight. Hm. Well, great. I have both Consortium News and John's Kiriakou John Kiriakou's show, Deep Focus, in the video description. I really appreciate both of you come on coming on. We have plenty of show to come. Uh so, please stay tuned. Thanks so much, gentlemen. Thank you. Thank you, Danny. Uh I hope to see you again soon. Good bye-bye.
[57:39] All right. All right. So, yes, I want to bring on my next guest right away. Um we started a bit late today, so everyone keep hitting that like button, but we have Ajamu Baraka. He is the national organizer for Black Alliance for Peace. He is also a contributing editor to Black Agenda Report. Ajamu, it's good to see you. Uh good good to be here. Thank you for inviting me. Of course, of course. Everyone hit that like button, so uh this conversation can still reach far and wide. So, Ajamu, you
[58:11] know, there it's a very um uh I think a lot of people are holding their breath on the state of the world situation overall. Uh there's a fragile so-called ceasefire in Gaza. One of the hopeful things is that uh the resistance uh with withstood the onslaught of the US-Israeli genocidal campaign there. Uh but there's a lot of talk about now renewed trade war with China. Um of course, there are wars raging led by the United States all over the world. Uh
[58:44] maybe if you want to talk about your reaction to the overall uh world situation and and what you feel is actually going on that people need to know about. Let me let me begin by by sort of this um uh attempt to contextualize my commentary. Um and start with the situation in uh in Gaza. You know, I wrote a piece, Danny, that came out about a week and a half ago. Uh really, it came out on the day, right
[59:16] before the announcement uh that the Trump administration had engineered this so-called peace uh plan. And in that piece that came out in the Black Agenda Report, I made the argument that uh this so-called peace uh plan, um and what with Trump announced that it was going to be accepted. He'd already uh released it. I said that basically the peace plan was no more than an attempt, a cynical attempt uh to provide a a political
[59:46] justification for the continuation of the genocide in in Gaza. Uh for many of the reasons that I'm sure that your guests have been exposed to uh including the very fact that uh beyond the exchange of the captives, there's no guarantees for uh for Palestinian rights. There's no uh road map to a a Palestinian state. Uh in fact, even Gaza has been was was
[1:00:17] uh disconnected uh from uh from the West Bank. Uh that there is the demand that uh the resistance has to disarm and and and give its uh survival and survival of the Palestinian people uh to the good faith of two rogue states. Um and that this entire um um performance was basically
[1:00:48] uh a performance that was basically put in place to set us up uh to in fact once the Israelis receive their uh the the hostages or the captives uh and then find a way to to renege on the on the agreement uh that it would be uh the response would be well, it's the fault of the Palestinian resistance. Uh in the last few days, uh Danny, I see no reason to reverse that position.
[1:01:20] I see this as again a cynical attempt to provide that justification. Uh this notion that this is going to lead toward peace uh is ridiculous. In fact, it's bizarre. And it's not based on the the whims of of Donald Trump uh or anyone else. It's based on what I see uh and the the organizations that we work with as the objective logic in place here. That uh the Israeli colonial project is not being driven by the
[1:01:50] by the desires of individuals who just have a desire to dominate. Uh it is a project that has a material basis. And that material basis is basically to expand the project uh into the into Gaza and the West Bank. To expel the Palestinians, uh to continue to expand and build what they refer to as a greater Israel. And that desire is not based just on the desire for domination, but the material uh realities that they see uh would be
[1:02:21] beneficial to the colonial project including the uh billions of dollars worth of oil and gas off the coast of Gaza. There's a reason why they say that the uh Palestinian Authority uh cannot be allowed to uh to take over in Gaza, if you will. Because that authority as corrupt and backward as it is, would have the legal status to make a claim on those resources off the coast of Gaza, especially in light of the fact
[1:02:52] that you have a number of states now, well, you you had uh always had a number of states that recognize the Palestinian state. But even the Europeans in pretending that they were opposing uh the genocide, uh few of them came on board. So, the Israeli fascists understand that they they will be providing a headache for themselves uh to allow a Palestinian entity with any kind of credibility to enter into into Gaza. So, there's no basis for the kind of enthusiasm that we've seen uh
[1:03:23] throughout uh primarily throughout the West that this is some kind of breakthrough. Uh this is a continuation of the imperial project. I wish it was otherwise, uh but the objective logic of this colonial project uh suggests to me that this is just a first step uh and the continuation of their longer-term project to basically expand and to build a greater Israel. Now, how's that relate to the other
[1:03:54] questions you raised? Well, uh Danny, this is all connected to again the desperate attempts on the part of of Western Western imperial powers the what we refer to as the axis of domination the US EU NATO uh uh axis of domination uh to uh attempt to try to consolidate and expand their declining hegemony. Um and in particular under the leadership of of the of the United States of America uh and the decision
[1:04:25] made by elements of the US bourgeoisie uh to give its support uh to a Donald Trump uh to advance a more aggressive policy to try to consolidate uh that that that expansion uh of US hegemony uh and to try to reverse the inevitable declines that we've seen uh with US global power. So, this fascist program, this fascist project is not just the has not just emanated from the the diseased minds of
[1:04:58] a Donald Trump. Not even dependent on Donald Trump the personality. But the fact that this is reflective of a particular kind of approach, a particular strategy, a strategy that's bound to fail but one other otherwise is something that has as a logic uh and a trajectory of its own. And we see that with the um aggression uh the potential strike against uh Venezuela the uh probability of a strike against
[1:05:31] uh Iran. And again, there is a a logic here. And you know what the underlying logic of all of this too, uh Danny, is it is the containment policy on China. Ukraine is about China. Venezuela is about China. The greater uh uh project the greater Israel project, which is not just an Israeli project, but a US project is about China. And I
[1:06:02] can elaborate on that as we go as we go forward. Hm. Yeah. Do you buy, Ajamu, what uh is being sold in the Western mainstream media now regarding the ceasefire, the breaking point being the strikes on Qatar that Israel conducted in September of 2025 uh trying to kill Hamas negotiators? Because we've heard throughout this whole period uh Trump yelling at Netanyahu, Trump is angry about Israel, but yet things just kept going on and on and on and on and actually the US was
[1:06:33] ramping up support throughout this whole process to the point of almost going to full war with Iran. So, do you buy do you buy what is being sold here? And uh maybe you can expound upon also the resistance side of this and and what it all means because we see, you know, uh the Palestinian resistance in the streets now during the ceasefire, people and Palestinians uh very much enthusiastic about this. Um how how has the resistance fared through all of
[1:07:04] this? What is your assessment of that as well? Well, I don't buy it for one moment that there was some type of division between Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu. Um I think that what what what put them in a precarious strategic position was uh after Donald Trump basically leaked the idea that something absolutely terrible was going to happen to the Hamas leadership. Um
[1:07:34] that all hell would break or be or imposed on Hamas. Uh that they were very much aware of this plan. What sparked the strategic uh precariousness of the uh of the US was when that plan failed. They understood that the Qatar Qataris would be very upset uh if Hamas would would be wiped out primarily because it would be uh in their territory. But they felt that they would
[1:08:05] get over it, okay? This was going to be the elimination of a of a of a irritant that many people had. And that would allow them to continue with the project of uh eventually normalizing Israel and normali- normalizing the relationships uh that would consolidate uh Israeli US dominance of that region, which is strange also too uh that these these Arab Muslim states don't understand what's really in place. So, no, I don't buy that uh for for one
[1:08:36] moment uh Danny, that uh even though we see that um uh many Palestinians are are relieved that they have a few days where they're not going to be bombed uh where they won't be murdered in line trying to secure uh some food for themselves. Uh but we we also understand that there are many many Palestinians and many people uh throughout the global South who are very very uh cautious of what is unfolding. As I
[1:09:08] said earlier those of us who've been on the receiving end of a colonialism of the logic of of white supremacy um we have we we can't afford any illusions. And so, we welcome the fact that there will be some uh some respite for the Palestinian people. Uh but we also understand that the ideal of uh Palestinian people surrendering uh their right to resist, surrendering their right to
[1:09:39] self-determination, uh and independence uh to a a colonial project uh and becoming in essence a a colonial trusteeship in Gaza. Um is a decision that of course they will have to make. But based on the sacrifices of decades of resistance and the tremendous sacrifices of the Palestinian people over the last 2 years, this would be a monumental
[1:10:09] betrayal that I just don't see uh the resistance taking. Yeah. Yeah, and there's uh reports already that uh all of the Palestinian resistance factions, Hamas, PIJ, and PFLP, that they refused the big uh uh demand that uh the brokers on the Israeli side and the US side have, which is to disarm the resistance. They have rejected that. So, uh it'll be interesting to see what happens in the days to come. And And Ajumu, there has
[1:10:40] been a report, I don't know if you saw this that I think relates to what you were saying here. We have leaked US files actually that expose a secret Israeli-Arab military pact targeting Iran during what is happening in Gaza. Uh it was revealed by The Washington Post that these documents that were written in 2022 to 2025, showing that officials from six Arab countries joined Israeli and US counterparts for a series of meetings. Sorry, it's not pulled up. Here it is. Um here's the overall
[1:11:11] article here in the in The Cradle. Um So, Israeli and US counterparts uh joined six Arab countries for a series of meeting in Bah- meetings in Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, and Qatar over the past 3 years, creating a regional security construct including perhaps Kuwait and Oman as potential partners of this project. And what's interesting about this, Ajumu, is what they were preparing for in the training exercises. Uh so,
[1:11:41] they talk about how the training exercises uh have um uh uh exercises that have to do with uh partners from the six countries participating in training to destroy underground tunnels, but did not name the countries. But we know, Ajumu, that uh one of the primary forms of resistance that uh Palestinians have is a massive tunnel network underneath uh Gaza. So, your reaction to this, where does this all uh fit in? It's uh it's a
[1:12:13] massive report. It's a massive revelation. And it kind of confirms, I think, a lot of things that people have been thinking who watch this show. It definitely does. And I I I I'm haven't had a chance to go through it in detail yet. But it's not surprising. The premises that are in that report uh and the kind of strategic diversion that they thought uh would allow them to carry out this uh this this this plan against uh Iran. Uh I guess that plan was somewhat um undermined by the ability of the
[1:12:44] Iranians to respond in the way that they that they did. Um So, this is just another example of the kind of of arrogance that we see unfolding uh with uh US uh led policy uh and the the uh treachery of these uh Arab Muslim states that continue to uh to collaborate with the US uh and the West to their own demise. Uh you know,
[1:13:15] I guess they don't understand that you know, in the end, the Abraham Accords are uh is a framework uh that will allow for the US um utilizing the the boots on the ground and in the air of Israel uh for Israel uh to ba- basically be able to consolidate control of that region uh and the resources of that region politically. Uh and that is what I referred to
[1:13:47] earlier in terms of the the underlying element here being the attempt to try to contain and control China. You know, we we know about the pivot to Asia under the Obama administration, which was mainly basically sort of a military pivot, if you will, uh with the redeployment of significant uh military uh uh assets to that to that region. The question was always, what is what what are what are the other political dynamics?
[1:14:18] Uh was the pivot just supposed to be relying on a a military force in some eventual war with the Chinese? Well, you know, the possibility of war was always uh gamed out uh for US uh decision-makers. But the real strategy, from what I could see, is was that the real uh attempt to contain China wasn't just military, but in terms of resources. You know, we raised the question over
[1:14:48] the last few years uh in particular under the the with the ascendancy of Donald Trump back into the presidency, if Donald Trump's real objective was the Chinese, uh why would he pursue policies that objectively were alienating uh his European partners? Wouldn't a a real pivot uh targeting uh China be one in which there would be unity between the US uh and their Western allies? Why is it
[1:15:21] that it seems that he is pursuing a go it alone, if you will, uh when it comes to uh the China? Well, I would argue that they had made a decision before he even took power that the road to Beijing uh started in West Asia. And that if you can consolidate your control uh over the resources of West Asia, if you can destroy Iran politically uh
[1:15:54] neu- uh neu- neutralize, if you will, uh uh Saudi Arabia, uh then basically uh you had the ability to put enormous pressure on the Chinese. So, um it all it all starts and ends with the Chinese, this sort of pathological um a desire on the part of the decision-makers in the US uh uh to uh not be able to come to terms with
[1:16:25] the the new realities of the world. Uh and to believe that they can, through uh hard and soft power, actually uh reverse the inevitable decline that we're seeing unfold every day uh here uh in in in on on this planet as it relates to the continuation of the predominant power of the US uh and its Western allies vis-à-vis China. Yeah. Yeah, great points, Ajumu, and
[1:16:58] uh I I you know, I was told, and I think we've all been told uh by the Trump administration though, that isn't the focus now on the homeland? I mean, we see US troops being supposedly deployed to uh the, you know, to US cities, Chicago, etc., many US cities. Uh now we see Venezuela be targeted. Uh maybe bring it together for us, Ajumu, because it is being parsed out. There is this so-called shift that Trump is and his
[1:17:29] administration is communicating now uh to the public uh both domestically and globally that the US is now focusing on the homeland. And look at how how how much ICE can be militarized. Look at how many police forces uh our National Guard forces can be deployed to US cities. Um but yet, you know, we still have these wars raging everywhere, including in focusing on China. What's What's your assessment? How do you bring it together? Uh I I think when we connect the dots, we see that basically the successful
[1:18:02] um the the successful uh playing out of US policy um internationally uh really depends on uh the authorities' ability to be able to contain resistance domestically. The expansion of federal power into uh cities that are uh politically administered by black people and Latino people, where there are sizeable uh numbers of black and Latino um
[1:18:32] populations or they make up a majority, uh is part of a strategy to basically uh uh terrorize um uh all potential opposition uh into non-opposition. It's part of the commitment to using military force to advance uh US global um interests. And so, if this is a war, uh right now is a one-sided war. When the Trump administration says to uh
[1:19:04] the people of Chicago, "You will understand in a few days why we have called the Department of Defense now the Department of War." What is that then then a declaration of war? And the unleashing of this national police force called ICE in these uh uh environments is part of that declaration of war. And many people are beginning to understand the terms of this war. And that's why we see that the resistance is
[1:19:36] intensifying across the country. And some of the divisions that we've had among left forces in this country are now being looked at looked at differently. We're now attempting to try to transcend those differences. Many of us who've been in this movement for quite some time remember the kind of progress we were making, for example, in the early 2000s, building effective coalitions between African people, black people, and Latino folks in the United States
[1:20:09] that culminated in and the the great marches that took place on in 2006. And then we saw the response from the state in terms of the intensification of of the raids. And with the election of Barack Obama, the attempt to to undermine and distort this issue and reframe it as an issue of immigration and to intensify the targeting of of Latino communities. And
[1:20:40] then the efforts to try to divide the Latino people, the Latino colonized people from the African colonized people in this country. Culminating in some of the backward policies we see that then emanated during the the Obama administration where the the black politics began to be redefined as the politics that was only focused on black people. And issues of class and colonialism was basically marginalized
[1:21:11] if it if it was dealt with at all. And so we now have a objective situation where we can begin to to re- re- address those issues and to to uh to reverse some of the mistakes, some of the errors that were made a few years ago. Because if people don't understand the terms of the struggle, if they don't understand that this war being waged in the US is being waged within within a framework of growing and consolidating
[1:21:42] fascism. And that we are the targets. Then they're never going to understand that and we will be in big trouble. So you know, these are the connections that need to be made. And that's why it's so it's so um um it's so disappointing that even after being exposed to the reality of of the true nature of the Western project and how Westerners gave support to this vicious genocide in
[1:22:16] Gaza. A genocide that at its core was informed by and justified by a racialization of the Palestinian people. Their non-human status. The degradation and dehumanization of Palestinian people was a result of the fact that they're not seen as equal human beings. So this became a master class in white supremacy. And the nature of the Western
[1:22:49] colonial project. That after these lessons you have so-called leftists who would even make arguments that there is something some redeeming quality or possibility that US may not be on the wrong side as they line up their forces to strike Venezuela. We're being chastised into believing that there is a benevolent empire. And that just because the US is supposed to um to Venezuela or it doesn't mean that
[1:23:21] there are not issues that leftists should be embracing as it as it relates to the Venezuelan project. I mean that is such a naive, dangerous, and backward position. But it it is a continuing element of this of of the left in the US and in Western Europe. We say basically that whatever the internal contradictions, whatever the challenges may be of the Venezuelan project, it's their project. And that the international balance of
[1:23:52] forces would be skewed in in the favor of Western imperialism if that project was allowed to be destroyed. Who's going to take power in Venezuela? This pig that was given the Yeah, that was going to say Maduro, yeah. Yeah, what what kind of ridiculous This is the kind of analysis we see coming from some elements. This is outrageous. Venezuela is key to the liberation process in all of our Americas. Okay?
[1:24:23] Look at the kind of disproportionate influence and power that these little backward monarchies have in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE with with the the base of that being their petroleum resources. Venezuela has the largest known resources of petroleum of oil on the planet, 303 billion barrels of oil. But they've been contained. They've been undermined because
[1:24:53] imperialism understands what could be done if they were allowed to participate in a normal way in the international economy. And they understand that Venezuela is key to what is unfolding in Haiti, in Cuba, in Nicaragua, in all of the the political projects that we have and we see across the Americas. And so the strategy of the containment and the destruction of Venezuela is front and center. And for
[1:25:25] any so-called leftists that don't understand that I really I think it's reflective of the kind of bizarre nature of leftism or really the kind of rightist leftist tendencies, but the kind of rightist character of left politics in the United States of America. So we have a responsibility to defend the Venezuelan project and to not to purge ourselves of all sentimentality when it comes to the to the the policies of this state.
[1:25:57] There's no such thing as a benevolent settler colonial project called the United States of America. At the center of this project is violence. Just like the naivety we see that people are expressing when it comes to Palestine. You can have peace as long as you have the continuation of that colonial project. The the project colonization at its core is a violent encounter. The conquest is violent. The perpetuation of the relationships
[1:26:29] is a reflection of structural violence. There will be no peace as long as you have the existence of of colonialism. And that is just an objective fact. As long as we are alive, we will resist colonization. We will resist the colonial capitalist system. That's just an objective fact. And people need to understand that there's no reform of this process, folks. Okay? Either we fight and win or we we we don't. Okay?
[1:27:00] And many of us who've been fighting for years say we're not going to give this thing up. But basically we are clear about who we are and who our friends are and who our enemies are. And we are absolutely clear that there's never been any historical case where the US has lined up on the right side of history, has lined up with the objective interests of the masses of the people. Yeah, N Jumu, you know, in the last few minutes that we have here, I wanted just you to
[1:27:31] comment on on this reality that we see that that goes into what you were just saying. You know, you have the Trump administration literally posing as a mediator. The only way that the Trump administration could have posed as a mediator if that there was kind of base understanding or at least a widespread message especially to people in the United States that the US can actually in fact be a mediator when it comes to these wars, whether it's Ukraine, genocide in Gaza, on and on and
[1:28:02] on. This is how the Trump administration has positioned itself or attempted to this whole time. What's your comments on this final word on on the overall state of things? It is an is an impossibility that the US could be a mediator in anything. It is a an active participant. It has objective interests. And those those interests are counter to the interests of the struggling peoples of this planet. And so therefore is a
[1:28:33] is myth. It is a method to to confuse people. And we can't allow ourselves to be confused. So we don't buy this, we don't accept it, we don't give legitimacy to a state that has been operating outside of the confines of international law for quite some time. Folks, the US is a is a rogue state. It is undermining all aspects of international law and the United Nations
[1:29:03] Charter. It has its objective interests and its interests and interests of its ruling class are counter to the interests of the rest of us. Let's not give any legitimacy to these processes. We can't to play games any longer. We have to have clear politics and clear analysis. If you're not prepared to struggle against the empire, then please just step out the way and and don't say much of awesome because you're just helping to confuse people.
[1:29:34] This is a war, a war we don't really want, but a war that's been imposed on us. We would love to live in peace. We are committed to the idea of peace. But for us, you only have peace when you're able to contain and and defeat those elements that are committed to war and conflict. And we name those elements. Those elements are colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, white supremacy, patriarchy. We If we don't defeat this pan-European
[1:30:07] process, this 500 years of European domination is coming to an end. Uh that basically is quite clear that they are committed to either maintaining white supremacy globally or blowing up the entire planet. We have to understand the terms of struggle and make a decision. Where do you stand? Ajamu, it was great to be with you today. Uh we can end on I think that's a great note to end the show on. Please everyone go to the video description where you can find Black Alliance for
[1:30:38] Peace. Uh the link is there. You can support them and all the work they do um on the ground to uh fight the Imperial Albatross. Uh everyone go to the video description too to find all the places to support this work. Patreon, Substack, and much more. Um thank you to everyone who gave a super chat. Thanks to all the moderators today. I'll be back in a few days and I'll make an announcement, but until then everybody, take care see you again soon. Bye-bye.