[00:00] Hi everybody, John Kuryaku here. Thanks for joining us for another episode of the briefing room. I first I want to say hello from Cairo, Egypt. I am in the beautiful historic Zamalik neighborhood on an island in the center of the Nile River. Uh the hotel that I'm staying in is the the Marriott, which happens to have been the royal palace of King Farooq. This hotel is so wonderful and
[00:30] so historic. It even has its own museum in it where you can go see things left behind when King Farooq ran off to uh to Italy in the middle of the night. I'll get back to Egypt in a middle in a I'll get back to Egypt in a in a minute. I wanted to start off really by saying that that something happened last night that initially upset me very much. Um, I've had a day to calm down, but
[01:00] right-wing and pro-Zionist extremists on Twitter somehow discovered that I had dinner a year and a half ago with an American citizen of Bangladeshi origin who happens to be a US representative. of the Turkish AK party which is the party of uh President Reep of Erdogan.
[01:33] Okay, first I've talked about that meeting publicly many times most recently in a speech I gave in Cyprus in May. Number two, who cares? I can have dinner with anybody I want and I don't have to ask the Zionist lobby or Apac if it's okay with them. Number three, I am a Greek citizen. Now, the Apac uh people are accusing me of somehow secretly working for the Turkish
[02:05] government. I have said repeatedly that God forbid someday Greece and Turkey were to ever go to war, which is highly unlikely. Even at my age, I would volunteer to serve in the Greek armed forces. Again, I can have dinner with anybody I want, and I'm not asking Benjamin Netanyahu's permission to do it. One final point, I remember that dinner very
[02:35] well. It was short. It was in Arlington, Virginia. And the moment we sat down at the table and this Bangladeshi man whose name I don't even recall said, "I wanted to talk to you about some ideas on foreign policy and how the United States and Turkey can have a close relationship." I said, "Wait a minute. The very first thing Turkey has to do is you have to get out of Cyprus immediately and you have to stop your aggression and your threats against Greece and violation of Greek airspace."
[03:07] And I said three times in this very short dinner, you have to get out of Cypress. You have to get out of Cypress. And that's how we left it. I'm not ashamed of that meeting. I'm actually rather proud of that meeting. And I will not take my marching orders from the Israeli government or from their minions and their toadies in the United States. So tough luck, guys. Good try, but tough luck. I don't answer to
[03:38] you. One other point I want to make. I think that the timing of these attacks was uh not an accident. Now, they they're saying that they just found these documents from the Justice Department that said John Kuryaku had dinner 18 months ago with the Turks. But we criticized Israeli actions in the last episode of
[04:08] this show. Visav warning Donald Trump that he was in mortal danger of some some terrorist attack from Iran. And we quoted a Turkish newspaper saying this was all made up. Well, the day after we ran that that block in our show, the CIA came out and said, "We never believed the information from the beginning. We think the Israelis made it up." Of course, the Israelis made it up. They just don't want people like me to tell
[04:38] you that they've made it up. This is This is an act of desperation. I'm nobody. I'm just a guy sitting in front of a camera with a YouTube uh podcast. But they attack me. They attack Tucker Carlson. They attack uh Candace Owens. They attack Marjorie Taylor Green. They attack everybody who doesn't fall into line with Israeli policy. I'll never
[05:09] fall into line with Israeli policy because I support the United States. The foreign policy of the United States is what is important to me. The success of the United States is what is important to me. I don't care what happens to Israel. I'm not going to let any of that get in the way of the show. I'll keep doing what I always do, which is to share the news. And as always, there's a lot of news. Let's talk about the Navy. Our
[05:40] Navy is reaching a breaking point. And nowhere has it become any more clear, any more visible than on our most important and most advanced aircraft carrier, that is the USS Abraham Lincoln. Last week, reports emerged describing conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, which is an aircraft carrier that sound extraordinary. Sailors allegedly attempting to jump overboard because their mental health is cracking. shortages of fresh food,
[06:12] broken toilets, and not just toilets, but the whole plumbing system, and at sometimes 45 minute or 1-hour long waits just to use the bathroom. That sounds like prison. All of that is what I experienced in prison. And I'll get to that in a minute. Many people suspect all of this is happening because soldiers are stuffing socks into toilets. They're desperate to be sent home. They've had enough. This is the second longest deployment since the V the Vietnam War.
[06:44] When reports came out of soldiers and sailors, uh I should say sailors and marines trying to throw themselves overboard, the administration came out immediately and said these reports are false or these reports are exaggerated. When three senior officials immediately deny reporting, run in front of a camera to deny reporting, that's often a sign that the reporting is true. You had Pete Hegath, for example, say that it was false. Then Donald Trump said it was false. Then the
[07:15] Secretary of the Navy, Hunga, put out a statement saying it was false. All while immediately moving to replace the USS Abraham Lincoln with another aircraft carrier, the USS George Washington, and trying to tell people that this is all just part of a normal rotation. Well, if it was part of a normal rotation, why did we cancel joint maneuvers with South Korea to pull the George Washington out and send it to replace the Abraham Lincoln? So, let's take a look at conditions on the ship
[07:45] and you can judge for yourself. We've got some photos that are deeply disturbing. Images of food being served to sailors on the USS Abraham Lincoln and the USS Tripoli published by USA Today. I don't even know what that meat is in in other there's some meat, beans, and some canned carrots. I don't know what the meat is, but this is what we we were served in prison. Like literally, I could take this picture and show it to
[08:17] somebody I was in prison with and they'd say, "Yeah, that's from the Chow Hall. It's not from the Chow Hall. It's from the USS George Washington. Forgive me. The USS Abraham Lincoln." Or if you do get a little bit of real meat, that's all you get. There's nothing else. There's no vegetable, there's no fruit, there's no carbohydrate. You get a spoonful of shredded meat. It says there on that tweet, "Supplies are getting low." And guess what? They're not going
[08:47] to get any any better. Okay, what about fresh food? How about this for fresh food? Two hard-boiled eggs and it looks like I don't know, grits, something. I can't even tell what that is. SOS, chipped ham, creamed ham, I don't even know. Or you get a kebab. In western Pennsylvania, we used to call that city chicken, a pork kebab, and maybe a spoonful of kleslaw.
[09:19] You can't you can't fight a war on a diet like this. It's just not going to work. And again, I'm going to repeat, this is the slop that they served us in prison. This looks like our soldiers and sailors and marines are being fed prison food. Yeah, it's that bad. We also have a a a video. Actually, no, I want to show you a couple more pictures. Take a look at this picture. This really struck me. This is a wing of a US aircraft and it's
[09:52] covered in in dust and soot and smog. But look at some of the messages people are writing. Peace deal number 64 incoming. All this for the Holy Land. Operation Epstein Fury. Be a good boy and do what Israel tells you to. I love flock cameras. BB's cucks, short for cuckolds. Yeah. Listen, if the Israeli government is watching this podcast,
[10:23] let me explain something to them. You've lost the American public. You've lost the American military. You've got to stop. The United States is not going to fight your wars for you indefinitely. Donald Trump isn't going to be president forever and you're not going to be able to push around every American and you cannot intimidate the rest of us into silence. It's not going to work. We also have a video that the USS uh Abraham Lincoln put out yesterday which
[10:56] listen I think this was they were trying very hard to be optimistic but again this just makes me more frightened for the people who were on board. This video looks like a hostage video. JB, can we cut to the video? I think the hardest part for me would be like leaving my family like my parents and my husband. I don't have kids but it's actually leaving my close needed family and few of my close friends. That's the hardest part. I have learned
[11:27] that I could do anything I put my mind to and I'm stronger than I think I am. That's one thing that I have learned. Like there's nothing I put my mind to that [music] I cannot do. Nothing can break me. I don't think anything can break me again. I made my country, my family, and everybody around me proud. >> Okay. Well, nothing can break her. That's good. Um, are was that in response to the to the food? Was that in response to the toilets? Was that like
[11:59] does she not use the toilet? Uh, but to me, it just seemed like like a hostage video. It was a propaganda video. Um, there's another one too. I think that uh well, we can get to the other one in a few minutes, but I think that that may tell you more about morale, especially morale aboard this aircraft carrier than any Pentagon press release ever could. And listen to what the Navy
[12:30] itself is saying. Their press releases pushing back don't even deny the mental health crisis. The acting Navy secretary said, quote, "There is no question our young men and women have been pushed to their limits, but they have never broken. They are rightly tired, but have never been out of the fight." However, it is clear, knowing the whole story, our force and their families are not victims. They are the epitome of American strength and resilience," unquote. He went on to say that the USS
[13:01] Lincoln quote crushed its deployment and will head home as part of a planned rotation. Well, Pete Hagsth went further to say that these reports were completely misrepresented. Listen to what he had to say. Listen, we make sure that every ship, every crew, every captain has everything we can provide them at every single moment. Some deployments are longer than others and I have more uh respect and gratitude for those sailors
[13:33] than anybody. Uh what they do in those high seas and those austere conditions with less port calls. It's incredible. Americans don't understand what it's like to do that. So as as someone who's been not been on a ship like that but been on long deployments, I feel it. >> Well, he feels it. Um, but he's in denial because people are jumping overboard. When your mental health is so bad that you jump off the side of an aircraft
[14:03] carrier because drowning in the Mediterranean Sea is better for you than continuing to live your life on the USS Abraham Lincoln, you have a serious problem. But listen, don't take Pete Hegets's word for it. Listen to the wife of one of those sailors. Here's what she told CNN. >> What is your husband saying about conditions on the ship? >> Um, my husband is appalled uh at the conditions on this ship. Um, this is not
[14:35] his first appointment. This is not his first time um being out there and he is saying that it is the worst deployment that he's ever been on. Um, and he also says that uh his his shipmates say the same. Um, the food is appalling, but the food's been appalling the whole time. Um, I think that the food on these ships are always pretty bad, but it's more it's not just the quality, it's the quantity, it's the rationing, the portions uh are awful. Um, so it's it's
[15:09] really it's really not good. >> I don't know if any of you have ever been on an aircraft carrier, uh, but life is is rough. They hold between 5,000 and 5,500 sailors. This is the second longest deployment since the end of the Vietnam War, 1975. People are suffering. And when you don't have enough food, literally you don't have enough food and can't go into port, excuse me, and can't go into into port
[15:41] to resupply, then you're going to have problems. Now, note that the wife of the sailor said that this was the worst deployment her husband has ever been on and that it's too long. Here's what Donald Trump had to say about that. >> US service members are concerned about the conditions on board the US. >> Well, no, that ship is moving. No, they're not. That ship is moving right now or very shortly and it's being replaced with another very similar ship.
[16:13] >> Deployment has gone on too long. No, no, no. >> Not nearly long enough. Thank everybody. >> Yeah, the deployment's not nearly long enough. What if the way money works is about to change? Not someday, not hypothetically, but right now. China and the United States are both making moves that suggest we could be headed towards something the world hasn't seen in more than 50 years, a return to goldbacked money, or something very close to it. China is shutting down paper gold
[16:44] trading at four of its biggest banks, all on the same day, and they're building a new system that settles in physical gold instead. On our side, the government is sitting on more than 8,000 tons of gold, still valued at $42 an ounce on the books. Legislation to fix that is already pending in Congress. If both superpowers start anchoring their currencies to gold, what happens to the price? And more importantly, what happens to every dollar in your retirement that isn't backed by anything
[17:16] at all? That's the question that a free report from American Alternative Assets answers. It's called The Day Money Changes Forever. And if you have an IRA or a 401k, you need to read it right now. Get your free copy at johnlovesgold.com. That's johnlovesgold.com. or call 888G053. One of the things that I never understood about
[17:47] the Republican party and much of the Democratic party, frankly, is how they wrap themselves in the flag. They jump up and down on Capitol Hill to support our troops, support our troops. They vote into place a $1 and a half trillion dollar budget at the expense of our own national infrastructure as well as you know education and medical care.
[18:19] And then when our sailors are literally going hungry and losing their minds to the point that they're jumping off the side of the ship, they say, "Tough luck for you. Deployment's not long enough, I don't think that's supporting the troops. Well, listen to this reaction from the wife of a sailor who is actually living through this. >> Your reaction today, what was your
[18:49] reaction today to President Trump saying that in fact he didn't think the USS Lincoln's deployment has been quote long enough? >> Oh my god. I don't think the man thinks before he talks. And I'm just I I'm really hope I was really hoping that at some point there would be a redemption. Try to redeem yourself at least a little bit with everything that you do and everything that you say. And try to redeem yourself. Have some sympathy, some empathy. Take some accountability
[19:20] for what's going on with your military, your ships in your war. In your war. Um it's infuriating. I mean, I we heard what what Heg said yesterday, what what the president is saying today. It's infuriating. Saying essentially saying that families are lying and service members are lying, >> right? Everybody's lying. Everybody's lying except the top people at the White House and the Pentagon. And again, the White House knows it has a problem bad
[19:52] enough that it needs to relieve the USS Abraham Lincoln. But it gets worse. Conditions on the USS George Washington don't look any better. You've got to see some of these pictures. This is what they're eating on the USS George Washington. Does it look any better than what our sailors and marines are eating on the USS Abraham Lincoln? Not to me. It doesn't.
[20:23] Not at all better. Yeah, prison food. I'm telling you, this meat that you see here, forgive me if I digress into a story. The meat that you see here looks exactly like the meat that would be slopped onto our trays in prison. Forgive me, I'm going to use a bad word in a moment, and it's going to be offensive to some people, so you might mute the next 30 seconds. Tuesday night in prison was taco night
[20:54] and um it was so bad I've never eaten a taco again. And I'm talking I haven't eaten a taco in 13 years because prison tacos ruined me. The meat was so bad one night that I took one bite and then I just picked up the tray and I went to the little window where you you put your tray in for them to clear it and wash it. And the warden saw me throwing away my entire dinner. And he said, "Hey, Kuryaku, I could
[21:25] write you up for wasting all that food." And I turned him and I said, "I have eaten that tastes better than this dinner." And I just kind of dared him. Go ahead, lock me up. And I walked away. A couple of months later, the warden sent out an all hands email. There's an intranet in the in the Bureau of Prisons. So every uh every inmate except the child molesters get access to the computer internally only. And he sent us
[21:55] this email saying, "We're sorry. A couple of months ago on taco night, we accidentally fed you dog food. It wasn't our fault. The meat processor had mismarked the boxes as as taco meat and then the taco meat was mismarked as dog food. So, the dogs ate the the taco meat and you guys ate the dog food. Sorry. They were fined $15,000. All of which of course went to the Bureau of Prisons, not to us. You know what the shame of it
[22:26] was? It wasn't even that we ate dog food. It's that we didn't even know it was dog food. Well, that's what our sailors and marines are eating right now. The same food that we were eating in prison. small food portions are going to be a problem. You might recall the term MRE, meals ready to eat. Um, everybody during the Vietnam War, during the Gulf War, Iraq, Afghanistan, everybody had meals ready to eat. And it
[22:59] might sound odd to say it, but they were absolutely delicious. The thing is is they are crazy caloric. So, if you make, you know, meatballs and scrambled eggs, which was actually one of the choices, it might have 1,200 calories, but the military version in the meals ready to eat package is going to have 4,000 calories. Why? Because you need nutrition and calories to fight a war. You can't fight a war with one slice of salami and a hard-boiled egg.
[23:30] You can't. And so our fighting men and women are being wronged. And it's doubly insulting that the Ministry of the Ministry of Defense, the the Department of War uh is uh is denying that any of this is a problem at all. I want to show you a couple of other uh pictures from the USS George Washington. There's a problem on the George
[24:01] Washington that has been very well reported this past week. The entire place is full of mold. This is an ostensibly clean bathroom. That's mold on the ground and it's growing like a shrub as you can see in the bottom right hand of the of the photo. Look at this pipes completely covered in mold. And Seth Harp, who's a fantastic investigative journalist, notes, "More
[24:32] pictures from aboard the moldy old USS George Washington, which recently underwent an incredibly expensive complex overhaul that took six years to finish. Our Navy is like this because we only have one shipyard capable of refueling and repairing a nuclear aircraft carrier." I wouldn't want to sit on that. I can't imagine any of the 5,500 sailors that are that are on want to sit on that as well.
[25:03] The video the US Navy put out yesterday showing conditions aboard the USS George Washington honestly made things even worse. Check out this video. >> Welcome to USS George Washington. I'm Colon Specialist Second Class Mark. Today I want to share what goes on providing for 5,000 sailors on board a US Navy aircraft carrier. Throughout the day and into the night, our sailors have all sorts of food and drink options and available to them. Beginning of course on the Mesex, but also grab these quick
[25:33] snacks or essentials at the ship store. George Washington sailors can also grab a cup of coffee at George's Java Cafe or drinks and food at vending machines all over George Washington. Sailors have the opportunity to eat three meals a day plus midnight rations. As se my team have to sustain 5,000 sailors for extended period of times and we plan for this. Our 150 cooks work 24 hours to prepare and serve 15,000 meals a day to ensure George Washington sailors are well fed. At times you may not have everything every sailor wants,
[26:03] but sailors have access to protein, starch, and veggies. The essentials are definitely covered. From the mezzex tour cafe, there's always something available to keep the crew fueled and ready for the fight. That's all for me. See you on the Mesix. We are team war fighter. Literally everything in that video was from the commissary or the auxiliary cafes, meaning you have to pay for all that out of your pocket while you're on the ship. They didn't show you the slop
[26:36] that's being fed to the sailors and marines. They showed you what's available for purchase out of your own pocket. Want a pack of ramen? Go to the machine. You want a Starbucks and there was a Starbucks cup there. Go to the machine. You want some beef jerky? Go to the machine. If you want a moldy piece of salami, sure. Stand in line with the other 5,000 people and wait and get your moldy piece of salami. So, listen. If anybody [laughter]
[27:06] who saw that video has ever served in the Navy, they would know that it was all a big lie. Just a lie. Again, with the amount of effort you can tell was put into that the hostage videos, that's what I'm going to call them. I really would not feel good if I was a sailor watching watching it myself, you know, being deployed for for months on end. We're we're coming up on
[27:36] like 330 days for the Abraham Lincoln. Now, in all of this discussion, you're hearing people say that the conditions on board aren't that bad. This is war. Sailors have food. They're aboard one of the most heavily defended ships on Earth. People who served in Iraq or Afghanistan endured far worse. That's not good enough. Number one, I find it incredibly offensive to suggest from a cable news studio, for example, that soldiers just need to toughen up and enjoy the warfront and that people
[28:07] in the last generation had it worse. But sure, you can find people who have worse war stories. There's always going to be somebody who had it worse. But it's not just the conditions. It's the fact that they're suffering for no reason which is driving people insane. It's the fact that Israel tricked Donald Trump into this war and he's too embarrassed to acknowledge it and they are suffering for his decision that is making people insane. You can ask people to endure
[28:37] extraordinary things when they believe in the mission. I used to believe in the mission when they understand the objective. I thought I understood the objective. War against terror. Osama bin Laden. I got it. when they know that what victory looks like and when they believe their leaders have a plan to bring them home. But what happens when there is no plan to bring them home? You get messages like what you saw in that plane wing. Peace deal number 64 incoming.
[29:08] Just like in Vietnam, our soldiers would be out on the warfront listening to President Lyndon Johnson claim in speeches that he was pursuing peace while simultaneously getting the orders to drop more napal on Vietnamese villages. These soldiers know better than anyone, I should say sailors. These sailors know better than anyone that peace is nowhere in sight. There are no peace talks going on. This is a war without any objective. And it will
[29:40] be a long time before we get a way out. And they're seeing their friends die, by the way, or their friends go insane and jump off the side of the ship. And for what? As I mentioned at the start of the show, I am in beautiful, wonderful Cairo, Egypt. This is my fourth trip to Egypt over the years, but it's my first trip here since the year 2000. And the country has changed in momentous ways. First of all, by way of
[30:12] background, Egypt is one of the closest friends that the United States has anywhere in the world. Our governments are joined at the hip on many issues, maybe even most issues. I also want to say that Egyptians, the average Egyptian on the street genuinely loves the American people. I can't even tell you how many times I've been here 4 days now. How many times people have just lit up when I
[30:45] said I was from the United States. I happened to be here with my son. It's his first trip to Egypt. But people just light up. Welcome. Welcome to Egypt. I've been taking Ubers everywhere. I've taken maybe a dozen so far and everybody wants to talk about the United States. They have relatives in the United States, how much they love the United States, how much they respect our culture and our movies and our music.
[31:17] And then they say, "But what in the world is Trump doing in Palestine? Why has Trump turned his back on the Arabs? I was asked that twice today. Why has Trump turned his back on the Arabs? This war has put Egypt in a very difficult position visav Israel. Of course, Egypt was the first Arab country to normalize diplomatic relations with Israel. that came out of what was called
[31:49] the Camp David Peace Accords, the Camp David Peace Treaty negotiated by President Jimmy Carter and signed by uh by Israeli Prime Minister Manakim Bean and Egyptian President Anoir Sadat. Well, that's all great because it was supposed to eventually lead to a free and independent Palestine and then the Saudis would recognize
[32:19] Israel and all the other countries would recognize Israel and everybody would live happily ever after. And that never happened. Then about uh eight years ago, the Trump administration negotiated something called the Abraham Peace Accords. I thought from the first time I heard the details of the Abraham Accords that this was a terrible idea. Terrible. What it resulted in was Israel opening diplomatic relations with Bahrain, with
[32:52] the United Arab Emirates, with Sudan, with Morocco, and um and opening talks with Tunisia. But what did it do for the Palestinians? Nothing. So what the Israelis got was international recognition. What these Arab states got was a new market uh in which to trade and invest and receive investment. And the Palestinians got nothing.
[33:23] Nothing. And the Egyptians don't understand why we let that happen. Not just let it happen. why we came up with the idea and encouraged it. The Palestinians now are dying by the tens of thousands. We've got at least 70,000 dead and and that number has been accepted by the Israeli government. It's probably more because we don't know how many bodies are underneath the rubble that is now Gaza. That's a whole different conversation we can have.
[33:54] But even food is not being let in. Some food is being led into into Gaza, but not enough to nourish the entire population. And the Egyptians want to know why we're allowing that to happen. There's a border crossing called Rafa, right on the border between uh Gaza and Egypt. And the Egyptians have closed it. They've sealed it not because they don't want to help the Palestinians, but because they can't risk the the idea of
[34:25] an influx of, you know, as many as 2 million Gaza Palestinians. Egypt is a poor country. They can barely provide for their own people. They can't feed and clothe and provide water and medical care and and shelter to any Palestinians, let alone, you know, as many as 2 million that are living in Gaza. It's just not possible. Egypt also has um has had a difficult
[34:57] relationship with with Israel in the 1967 war, the the six- day war the Israelis call it. Um, Israel preemptively struck the the Arab countries. The Arabs were planning to attack Israel and the Israelis got wind of it through intelligence intercepts and they attacked the Arab countries the day before the Arabs were going to attack Israel and they destroyed all of the surrounding Arab countries air forces on the ground. Not a single Arab
[35:28] jet made it into the sky. And not only that, that war moved so lightly lightning quick that the Israelis took the Golden Heights from Syria. They took the West Bank from Jordan and East Jerusalem from Jordan. They took the Gaza Strip and all of the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt. After the 1973 war, in which the Israelis actually were taken by surprise
[35:59] and lost some territory, four years of stalemate then led to the Camp David Peace Accords. And in Camp David, the Israelis got the Sinai I'm sorry, the Egyptians got the Sinai Peninsula back. Now, there were Jewish settlements in Sinai that the Israelis destroyed. I I was a kid at the time, and I remember watching the news and seeing video of Israeli bulldozers bulldozing the houses of Israeli settlers and saying, "You're going to
[36:29] have to come back to Israel. You can't live in Sinai anymore. It's going back to the Egyptians." So, the Egyptians had Sinai for several decades, and then al-Qaeda popped up. Now, I've been to Si many times. I've climbed to the top of Mount Si where Noah purportedly received the Ten Commandments. I visited St. Katherine's monastery there three times, the oldest continuously operating Christian monastery on the planet.
[37:01] But after Israel turned it back over to the Egyptians, the Egyptians couldn't quite maintain control of it. and al-Qaeda terrorists began attacking Egyptian military units. Uh Husn Mubarak was the the leader at the time. I met Husn Mubarak a number of times. I should I should back up. In 1981, President Sadat was assassinated. Uh I I actually went to the scene of his assassination today and uh and took a
[37:31] couple of pictures. Actually, we'll pop one up onto the uh onto the screen there. This is a photo of the uh parade review uh grounds. Uh President Mubarak and his top generals, including then Vice President Hosni Mubarak, were sitting right there in the front row in the center and they were watching a military parade um as it uh as it drove by sort of at a very slow speed. There was an armored personnel carrier or you know what, it was not an armored personnel carrier. There was a troop
[38:02] transport truck that pulled up right in front and people began jumping out of the back of the troop transport. President Sadat thought they were jumping out to salute him and so he stood up, he saluted like this and they opened fire on him and they killed him. One of the shooters was a young soldier named Iman Aawahi. Ian Aawahi was arrested along with all of the other shooters. Most of them were sentenced to death. So what he was
[38:33] originally sentenced to death, it was commuted to life and then it was commuted to something like 15 or 20 years. He was finally um released. Well, this group of soldiers that killed Sadat came to call themselves Egyptian Islamic jihad. In prison, they further radicalized themselves and each other. And when Zahedi was released from prison, he took up the leadership of Egyptian Islamic jihad and he was expelled from Egypt. Where did he go? He went to Sudan where
[39:05] he met a guy named Osama bin Laden. And he merged Egyptian Islamic jihad into al-Qaeda with bin Laden as its chief and Zawahi as its deputy. The US, the CIA just killed Zawahi a couple of years ago in an ingenious way. They located him to an apartment building in Kabell, Afghanistan, and they watched him with a drone for weeks. And they noticed that every day he would go out onto the balcony to smoke a cigarette. And so they sent a drone armed with a uh with a
[39:37] predator missile without a warhead. And they fired the missile at Zoidi. It went completely through his body, but because it didn't have a warhead, it didn't explode and it didn't kill anybody inside the apartment, of course, it blew a hole in him that you could probably put, you know, two arms through. So, he died instantly. And that was the end of Islamic Egyptian Islamic jihad. Anyway, I wanted to u show you that uh that place. Sadat is now buried
[40:10] across the street next to the tomb of the unknown soldier. I have a picture of that. It's a beautiful tomb of the unknown soldier with Sedat next to it. And Sedat's grave simply says, "A hero of war, a hero of peace." We used to joke in the United States that if Anoir Sadat were to run for president of the United States, he would win. That's how popular he was in the US. He was that popular in Egypt too but not
[40:41] among the uh the religious elements and they did him in. I wanted to also give you some thoughts about domestic politics here in Egypt. The president of Egypt now is a general as was president Mubarak as was president Sadat. um general alsi he's generally well-liked even if he's a strong man but Egypt has a large
[41:13] minority who are members of the Muslim Brotherhood now the Muslim Brotherhood was founded around 1920 and it is a fundamentalist Sunni Muslim organization its charter includes nonviolence And indeed, the Muslim Brotherhood has never been on the State Department's list of international terrorist groups
[41:43] until two years ago. Donald Trump put them on. Why? Who knows? He never explained. He just did it. They've never committed any act, any anti-American act of terrorism ever in history. and they were perplexed as to why we would declare them uh terrorists. Now, they participated in the presidential election when Mubarak was finally overthrown in what was it 2009,
[42:13] I guess. And lo and behold, they won. And the president of Egypt, I think, didn't the new president didn't really expect to have won. He was weak. He did not have the support of uh this was 2011. He did not have the support of the military which you know was the death nail right there and he was quickly overthrown and replaced by General Al-Sisi. Uh
[42:44] the Muslim Brotherhood president went to prison. He was young. He was in his 40s but he had a heart condition. and he was finally released on humanitarian grounds and uh and died soon after his release of of heart failure. So sure, Egypt's president is a strong man, but the economy is growing. People are okay with that. The MB is not okay with that. But this is the situation that Egyptians find themselves in. Egypt has been utterly masterful
[43:16] at playing multiple sides of many international issues. The US, Israel, their own Middle Eastern allies, the Russians, the Chinese. I can't tell you how many Chinese I've seen here. It's it blows my mind. So, the Egyptians are just very good diplomats, and they are because they have to be. In addition to that, honestly, they're just really good people. I went to the to the souk, the
[43:46] market, the bazaar last night. This is the Kanekali bazaar. It was it was first opened in the year 1386 and it is the place to go if you want anything. Check this out. >> [music] >> Man, I just love Egypt. I just love it.
[44:19] I love it so much that I talk too much about it. And uh and we're kind of out of time. I wanted to talk a little bit about politics, but we're going to save that for our next episode. And besides, there are a couple of primaries that uh that we're going to be able to talk about. So, I wanted to tell you finally, if you have the chance to travel to the Middle East, I'm imploring you to do it. It's wonderful. It's active. People love Americans.
[44:51] And uh and I think you'll have a really great time. I'd like to close by saying how deeply grateful I am to every one of you. About an hour after sorry, an hour before we started recording this episode, we hit 250,000 subscribers in four weeks in the summer. That is unheard of. But we can only succeed because of you. And it's because of you that our success
[45:21] has been remarkable so far. when I logged on 250,06. So, thank you, thank you, thank you. Please continue to to like, to subscribe, to share, to comment, and send us those emailed questions. We have more Q&A episodes coming up. I apologize. I've been traveling, so I haven't really had a chance to do it, but I promise you that we will. Thanks for everything, and we'll see you again next time.
[45:53] I'm John Kuryaku. In season 1 of Deadrop, what makes a spy tick? I told you what makes this spy tick, me and why I blew the whistle on the CIA's covert torture program. In season [music] two, doing time like a spy, I told you how my training as a spy served [music] me extremely well while I served 23 months at Lorettto Federal Prison among drug dealers, mobsters, murderers, [music] and child molesters. In season 3, well, it's back to spying. I had to reclaim my
[46:24] life and get it into some kind of working order, which included finding work. Since spying was what I knew best, I decided that spying, in one way or another, was going to be my way back. Meanwhile, the thing that put me in prison after I blew the whistle on it, torture, was finally getting its day in court and more importantly in the court of public opinion. And the public did not like what it was hearing about what the CIA had done. If there's anything worse than torture, it's covering up torture and lying about the fact [music] that you tortured and then covered it
[46:55] up. There's a lot more story left to tell, lots more whistleblowing, and [music] a lot more spying. That's season 3 of Deadrop. What makes a spy tick? Find it wherever you find your favorite podcasts or at costardouchdown.com.