As the U.S. seeks to label Iran as a mass sponsor of state terrorism, CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou looks inward, examining the decades of US-backed terror campaigns waged towards imperialist ends.
We shouldn’t forget that it was the Obama Administration that prosecuted and imprisoned John Kiriakou under the Espionage Act for blowing the whistle on U.S. torture policy. The Obama Administration prosecuted more whistleblowers under the Act than all other administrations combined. It also initiated mass surveillance of U.S. citizens’ phone records in violation of the Fourth Amendment. And of course Obama allowed Citibank to appoint his cabinet after taking more money from the financial industry than any presidential candidate before him. (Remember, it was Obama, and not John McCain who rejected public financing limitations in the 2008 election). The duopoly has led us to where we are today.
Abso-frigging-lutely a horrific condemnation of criminality when the only one prosecuted & jailed for CIA torture program was the lone whistleblower. It is also a dark stain on Donald Trump & Joe Biden & Trump again that POTUS pardons have never included John who also lost his pension with the conviction.
Pardon is still possible send requests, cards or letters of support to DoJ
Thank you for calling out the Obama record. Here in Blutopian (blind and blue to the core) northern New Mexico, when I mention (even among friends) the things you cite in your comment about Democrats, especially Obama, I get the eye-roll then am marginalized and cancelled. The Democratic Party and its supporters are hypocrites who do not accept any criticism - the party will NEVER change, and the majority of the elected legislators take AIPAC money - they support Israel and started the current genocide - ran a presidential candidate that would not acknowledge the reality of the genocide. I have no political representation as an Independent voter. We have Trump because the Democrats are spineless and in the pocket of money and Israeli influence - when the D's lose, WE all LOSE. Disgusted in the Land of Enchantment.
I encounter the same thing, John. Jeremy Scahill of Drop Site News (previously with The Intercept) refers to the vote blue no matter who crowd as the Blue MAGA Cult. I might have earned that description myself until I woke up during the Clinton Administration. But there was a lot more dissension in the Democratic Party in the 60’s and 70’s. That whole antiwar contingent that split the party, so it was easier to find cohorts within the party. What I encounter mostly is what John Kenneth Galbraith referred to as “the contented class,” which wields a lot of power within the party. They seem to think that all that needs to be done is to turn Congress blue in the midterms.
Personally, I need to be careful that I don’t spread myself too thin. I think that’s a chalIenge for many of us. I agree with the commenter who has elected to focus on the influence of Israel in the U.S. because it affects so much. I’m trying to prioritize the genocide, its impact on our civil liberties, and now the war. As I’ve said elsewhere, it took votes in Congress to end the Viet Nam War. Thus, Im trying to get candidates who oppose funding the genocide and the war elected.
I hope you find some like-minded people where you live. It can be lonely, but this is ultimately an international struggle.
Thanks for focusing on what's most important - candidates who oppose genocide funding - are there any out there? If so (and I hope, there are) they will not receive support from the DNC who fooly support all things Zionist.
Jeremy Scahill term "Blue MAGA cult" spot-on. My personally generated term has been "Blutopian."
The United States and Israel are the world's leading state sponsors of terrorism by far. Pretend, for example, that Iran had blown up NS2. The howls of outrage would be deafening. Pretend that Iran had blown up an elementary school in Israel- false flag incoming in 5..4..3..2..1...
Iran isn't even a leading Muslim state sponsor of terrorism.
Let me guess? 9/11? Nope, Sunni fanatics, sponsored and funded by Saudi Arabia and the Gulfie tyrannies.
Al Qaeda? Nope, Sunni fanatics, sponsored and funded by Saudi Arabia and the Gulfie tyrannies.
ISIS? Nope, Sunni fanatics, sponsored and funded by Saudi Arabia and the Gulfie tyrannies.
And then ask yourself, what nation has dropped more bombs on more nations than any other?
Since 9/11, the US has bombed 10 countries (not including unknown covert bombings). The US and its allies (mostly Israel) have dropped over 326,000 bombs and missiles (an average of about 45 daily). The U.S. has spent approximately $5.8 trillion (all of which was borrowed) funding its never ending war since 9/11 and its national debt now stands at $39 trillion. (Annual interest payments on the debt are now equal to the entire defense budget.)
And then ask yourself, how have we benefited from this "investment" in chaos?
And who killed more people just for the "fun" of it, occupied more land and dd ethnic cleanse without nothing more than a "bad boy" while receiving weapons to continue the crimes against humanity. The axis of evil are very well defined
Yes, the US and Israel are the most dangerous countries in the world. All the power and only used for evil. I have seen people saying that we are not "so bad" but when asking for examples of what the "really bad" countries did, I heard silence. Meanwhile, I had a not too short list of Israeli and UN terrorist acts, without having to think too much
Once you start down that road, you have to start making choices. If the society and system that we live under does so much evil, how much will I compromise with it?
These choices can have very real personal and professional consequences. Try not paying taxes and see what happens. "Bartelby the Scrivener" it ain't.
Even if you do compromise, you are left with a guilty conscience.
By contrast, if you go along with the crowd, you can avoid those tough choices and face no consequences, and your conscience stays relatively untroubled, for the time being at least. Even in the worst case, you can say to yourself that you did what every other Good German did under the circumstances.
We believe that the only way to overcome the power and wealth of the Israel lobby is to found a one issue campaign that denies the vote to any candidate who takes support from the Israeli lobby, or Israeli billionaires.
Demand Justice and A New Policy list primary candidates who reject Israel lobby money and financial support for Israel. They also raise money to support their campaigns. The list is growing.
I listen intently. Frankly, John strikes you as an 'OK guy'. Besides intelligence, he must have many and varied human qualities. But there lies the danger. I am a similar age to you Chris and John, yet this whole business is a dark zone to me, and I cannot detect John's dark side, which, let's face it, must exist. Why don't I appretiate the way governments of most nations have ''two faces''? The face that looks inward and addresses local governance, the one face we probably cast our votes for in our own versions of our mostly sham democracies. (I live in the UK) And the ''second face'', the one that uses subtifuge, deceipt, bribery, mercenaries, clandestine activities, all to a level that their voters and taxpayers would not recognise, acknowledge, condone or sanction, let alone realise was their country's value? I feel so naive. By enlightening me, and others who recognise the point I am making here, I thank you sincerely. What a s**ty world we really live in. So shameful! Especially vast state infrastucture used routinely for torture and assasination.
It is classic ''Nothing to see here", populations must remain entertained and otherwise distracted.
I have read and watched John on numerous occasions since he first came to prominence. He certainly seems to be an "OK guy"; he seems to me to be considerably better than OK. For some years now I have wondered how and why such an apparently decent and even good man joined the CIA and stayed there for 14 years.
People with his training and experience must be good at putting on a mask. I confess I am not a good judge of people's character. But still -- something puzzles me. What am I missing?
i wonder, too, when i listen to him, or to ray mcgovern, scott ritter, who now expose so many of the CIA's wrongdoings: "how could sensible people like them join in the first place?" well, they made their decisions early on in their lives, i assume. and in time, they realized that switching sides might be an even more sensible thing to do. we benefit much from the fact that they have.
Accusing others of one’s own crimes isn’t a shyster trick invented by Roy Cohn. It’s called Accusation In A Mirror (AiM) and it’s a battle-tested tactic to incite hate speech, turn neighbors against each other, and pave the way for genocide.
“ One of the most astonishing discoveries in the history of genocide studies was…a mimeographed document which… is a manual of the rhetorical methods that could be used to inflame ordinary people to attack their countrymen.”
chris hedges surmises that “iran does not appear as a very oppressive regime - does not appear to carry out the spate of targeted assassinations“ other regimes do. are targeted assassinations a yardstick to measure a regime’s oppressiveness by? i don't think so. [i wonder, too, whether chris hedges really does.] iran has executed - i.e. targeted ‘in secret’ as opposed to ’in public’ - 1,000 people in 2025 alone. some of their charges being: ‘collaboration with hostile governments’, ‘armed rebellion against the state,‘ or ‘corruption on earth’, leveled primarily against political dissidents, members of oppressed ethnic groups and participants in protest movements.
supposed ‘homosexuality’ or ’drug addiction’ being other offenses that can cost political critics their lives in iran. amnesty international, in january 2023: “In 2023, the authorities have [...] executed at least 173 people who were sentenced to death following systematically unfair trials for drug offences. That is almost three times as many as in the same period last year. Those affected are primarily people from marginalised and economically disadvantaged backgrounds.“
regarding the number of critics killed by iranian gov’t forces in recent weeks alone: have the figures, which some estimate at several [tens of] thousand, really been ascertained?
during an entire five months in 1988, there were mass executions, mostly of members of the mujaheddin-e khalq. reports re the number of victims then range from 5000 to 30 000, according to the UN general assembly.
in the 1990s, there were the chain killings of intellectual dissidents. for those not to be recognizable as gov’t-initiated, incidents were staged as car accidents, robberies, stabbings, kalium injections to induce heart attacks, or strangling undesired critics with chains. not just since the 1979 revolution, political opponents in iran have had the threats of incarceration, torture, death hanging over them.
as to FENTANYL and china producing it for the US: “we want them to be addicted!“ remember the opium wars? around 1840 and 1860 - when britain colonised and addicted china? while the so-called "war on drugs" the US have been waging for what seems ages is of mind-boggling succe$$, as we all witness.
while john kiriakou described iranian intelligence as rather weak *), col. wilkerson, whose interview follows the one chris hedges did w john kiriakou, holds a different opinion on that issue. "what iran can do [...] in SW asia [...] if it executes its 2nd tier of targets - the 1st tier was so devastatingly done and so indicative of fine intelligence that it was unbelievable to many of the regional powers ..."
a bit further into the interview he states that iran's intelligence has become so good that it now surpasses mossad's, and he adds that he never thought he would say this one day.
_____________________
*) was kiriakou referring to a different realm of intelligence, not primordially military?
We shouldn’t forget that it was the Obama Administration that prosecuted and imprisoned John Kiriakou under the Espionage Act for blowing the whistle on U.S. torture policy. The Obama Administration prosecuted more whistleblowers under the Act than all other administrations combined. It also initiated mass surveillance of U.S. citizens’ phone records in violation of the Fourth Amendment. And of course Obama allowed Citibank to appoint his cabinet after taking more money from the financial industry than any presidential candidate before him. (Remember, it was Obama, and not John McCain who rejected public financing limitations in the 2008 election). The duopoly has led us to where we are today.
Abso-frigging-lutely a horrific condemnation of criminality when the only one prosecuted & jailed for CIA torture program was the lone whistleblower. It is also a dark stain on Donald Trump & Joe Biden & Trump again that POTUS pardons have never included John who also lost his pension with the conviction.
Pardon is still possible send requests, cards or letters of support to DoJ
US Pardon Attorney Ed Martin
145 N Street N.E. #5
Washington, D.C. 20530
Yup. Let us not kid ourselves that all we gotta do is vote Team D and the problem is licked.
It's Team R Tweedledee vs. Team D Tweedledum. Murderous sociopaths, all the way down.
Thank you for calling out the Obama record. Here in Blutopian (blind and blue to the core) northern New Mexico, when I mention (even among friends) the things you cite in your comment about Democrats, especially Obama, I get the eye-roll then am marginalized and cancelled. The Democratic Party and its supporters are hypocrites who do not accept any criticism - the party will NEVER change, and the majority of the elected legislators take AIPAC money - they support Israel and started the current genocide - ran a presidential candidate that would not acknowledge the reality of the genocide. I have no political representation as an Independent voter. We have Trump because the Democrats are spineless and in the pocket of money and Israeli influence - when the D's lose, WE all LOSE. Disgusted in the Land of Enchantment.
I encounter the same thing, John. Jeremy Scahill of Drop Site News (previously with The Intercept) refers to the vote blue no matter who crowd as the Blue MAGA Cult. I might have earned that description myself until I woke up during the Clinton Administration. But there was a lot more dissension in the Democratic Party in the 60’s and 70’s. That whole antiwar contingent that split the party, so it was easier to find cohorts within the party. What I encounter mostly is what John Kenneth Galbraith referred to as “the contented class,” which wields a lot of power within the party. They seem to think that all that needs to be done is to turn Congress blue in the midterms.
Personally, I need to be careful that I don’t spread myself too thin. I think that’s a chalIenge for many of us. I agree with the commenter who has elected to focus on the influence of Israel in the U.S. because it affects so much. I’m trying to prioritize the genocide, its impact on our civil liberties, and now the war. As I’ve said elsewhere, it took votes in Congress to end the Viet Nam War. Thus, Im trying to get candidates who oppose funding the genocide and the war elected.
I hope you find some like-minded people where you live. It can be lonely, but this is ultimately an international struggle.
Thanks for focusing on what's most important - candidates who oppose genocide funding - are there any out there? If so (and I hope, there are) they will not receive support from the DNC who fooly support all things Zionist.
Jeremy Scahill term "Blue MAGA cult" spot-on. My personally generated term has been "Blutopian."
The United States and Israel are the world's leading state sponsors of terrorism by far. Pretend, for example, that Iran had blown up NS2. The howls of outrage would be deafening. Pretend that Iran had blown up an elementary school in Israel- false flag incoming in 5..4..3..2..1...
Iran isn't even a leading Muslim state sponsor of terrorism.
Let me guess? 9/11? Nope, Sunni fanatics, sponsored and funded by Saudi Arabia and the Gulfie tyrannies.
Al Qaeda? Nope, Sunni fanatics, sponsored and funded by Saudi Arabia and the Gulfie tyrannies.
ISIS? Nope, Sunni fanatics, sponsored and funded by Saudi Arabia and the Gulfie tyrannies.
But go on, tell how bad Iran is.
And then ask yourself, what nation has dropped more bombs on more nations than any other?
Since 9/11, the US has bombed 10 countries (not including unknown covert bombings). The US and its allies (mostly Israel) have dropped over 326,000 bombs and missiles (an average of about 45 daily). The U.S. has spent approximately $5.8 trillion (all of which was borrowed) funding its never ending war since 9/11 and its national debt now stands at $39 trillion. (Annual interest payments on the debt are now equal to the entire defense budget.)
And then ask yourself, how have we benefited from this "investment" in chaos?
And who killed more people just for the "fun" of it, occupied more land and dd ethnic cleanse without nothing more than a "bad boy" while receiving weapons to continue the crimes against humanity. The axis of evil are very well defined
Yes, the US and Israel are the most dangerous countries in the world. All the power and only used for evil. I have seen people saying that we are not "so bad" but when asking for examples of what the "really bad" countries did, I heard silence. Meanwhile, I had a not too short list of Israeli and UN terrorist acts, without having to think too much
Once you start down that road, you have to start making choices. If the society and system that we live under does so much evil, how much will I compromise with it?
These choices can have very real personal and professional consequences. Try not paying taxes and see what happens. "Bartelby the Scrivener" it ain't.
Even if you do compromise, you are left with a guilty conscience.
By contrast, if you go along with the crowd, you can avoid those tough choices and face no consequences, and your conscience stays relatively untroubled, for the time being at least. Even in the worst case, you can say to yourself that you did what every other Good German did under the circumstances.
We believe that the only way to overcome the power and wealth of the Israel lobby is to found a one issue campaign that denies the vote to any candidate who takes support from the Israeli lobby, or Israeli billionaires.
Demand Justice and A New Policy list primary candidates who reject Israel lobby money and financial support for Israel. They also raise money to support their campaigns. The list is growing.
When it comes to state sponsored terrorism, no country in the world can hold a candle to the U.S. - not even the Israelis.
remember: noam chomsky called the GOP the biggest terror organisation on earth.
I listen intently. Frankly, John strikes you as an 'OK guy'. Besides intelligence, he must have many and varied human qualities. But there lies the danger. I am a similar age to you Chris and John, yet this whole business is a dark zone to me, and I cannot detect John's dark side, which, let's face it, must exist. Why don't I appretiate the way governments of most nations have ''two faces''? The face that looks inward and addresses local governance, the one face we probably cast our votes for in our own versions of our mostly sham democracies. (I live in the UK) And the ''second face'', the one that uses subtifuge, deceipt, bribery, mercenaries, clandestine activities, all to a level that their voters and taxpayers would not recognise, acknowledge, condone or sanction, let alone realise was their country's value? I feel so naive. By enlightening me, and others who recognise the point I am making here, I thank you sincerely. What a s**ty world we really live in. So shameful! Especially vast state infrastucture used routinely for torture and assasination.
It is classic ''Nothing to see here", populations must remain entertained and otherwise distracted.
Thank you. Great interview.
I have read and watched John on numerous occasions since he first came to prominence. He certainly seems to be an "OK guy"; he seems to me to be considerably better than OK. For some years now I have wondered how and why such an apparently decent and even good man joined the CIA and stayed there for 14 years.
People with his training and experience must be good at putting on a mask. I confess I am not a good judge of people's character. But still -- something puzzles me. What am I missing?
i wonder, too, when i listen to him, or to ray mcgovern, scott ritter, who now expose so many of the CIA's wrongdoings: "how could sensible people like them join in the first place?" well, they made their decisions early on in their lives, i assume. and in time, they realized that switching sides might be an even more sensible thing to do. we benefit much from the fact that they have.
It's not the world that is shitty. The only things shitty in the world are the shit humans leave behind and a fairly large number of humans.
Accusing others of one’s own crimes isn’t a shyster trick invented by Roy Cohn. It’s called Accusation In A Mirror (AiM) and it’s a battle-tested tactic to incite hate speech, turn neighbors against each other, and pave the way for genocide.
“ One of the most astonishing discoveries in the history of genocide studies was…a mimeographed document which… is a manual of the rhetorical methods that could be used to inflame ordinary people to attack their countrymen.”
https://www.splcenter.org/resources/hatewatch/accusations-mirror-how-radical-right-blames-rising-political-violence-left/.
https://brandeiscenter.com/law-review-article-on-accusation-in-a-mirror-2012/. https://brandeiscenter.com/the-thin-line-between-condemnation-and-incitement-to-genocide-times-of-israel/.
chris hedges surmises that “iran does not appear as a very oppressive regime - does not appear to carry out the spate of targeted assassinations“ other regimes do. are targeted assassinations a yardstick to measure a regime’s oppressiveness by? i don't think so. [i wonder, too, whether chris hedges really does.] iran has executed - i.e. targeted ‘in secret’ as opposed to ’in public’ - 1,000 people in 2025 alone. some of their charges being: ‘collaboration with hostile governments’, ‘armed rebellion against the state,‘ or ‘corruption on earth’, leveled primarily against political dissidents, members of oppressed ethnic groups and participants in protest movements.
supposed ‘homosexuality’ or ’drug addiction’ being other offenses that can cost political critics their lives in iran. amnesty international, in january 2023: “In 2023, the authorities have [...] executed at least 173 people who were sentenced to death following systematically unfair trials for drug offences. That is almost three times as many as in the same period last year. Those affected are primarily people from marginalised and economically disadvantaged backgrounds.“
regarding the number of critics killed by iranian gov’t forces in recent weeks alone: have the figures, which some estimate at several [tens of] thousand, really been ascertained?
during an entire five months in 1988, there were mass executions, mostly of members of the mujaheddin-e khalq. reports re the number of victims then range from 5000 to 30 000, according to the UN general assembly.
in the 1990s, there were the chain killings of intellectual dissidents. for those not to be recognizable as gov’t-initiated, incidents were staged as car accidents, robberies, stabbings, kalium injections to induce heart attacks, or strangling undesired critics with chains. not just since the 1979 revolution, political opponents in iran have had the threats of incarceration, torture, death hanging over them.
as to FENTANYL and china producing it for the US: “we want them to be addicted!“ remember the opium wars? around 1840 and 1860 - when britain colonised and addicted china? while the so-called "war on drugs" the US have been waging for what seems ages is of mind-boggling succe$$, as we all witness.
while john kiriakou described iranian intelligence as rather weak *), col. wilkerson, whose interview follows the one chris hedges did w john kiriakou, holds a different opinion on that issue. "what iran can do [...] in SW asia [...] if it executes its 2nd tier of targets - the 1st tier was so devastatingly done and so indicative of fine intelligence that it was unbelievable to many of the regional powers ..."
a bit further into the interview he states that iran's intelligence has become so good that it now surpasses mossad's, and he adds that he never thought he would say this one day.
_____________________
*) was kiriakou referring to a different realm of intelligence, not primordially military?
The pot wants to call the kettle black.