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Chapter 1: What is discussed at the start of this section?
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He's a speaker. He's a former CIA officer who's also known for being a whistleblower in the CIA's use of torture. He has a new book coming out called The Ultimate Guide to CIA Skills, Tactics, and Techniques.
Today's guest is Mr. John Kiriakou. Shine on me And I will follow
Yeah, I applied for a presidential pardon.
You applied for a presidential pardon? Yeah.
Yeah. In fact, I brought a couple of letters. I hope you don't... As long as you don't meet me. If I sign them, it's not going to help anything. I'm just telling you that. Oh, okay. I was going to ask if you thought it would be helpful. I got... Did you really? Oh, yeah. Oh, okay. Dang, I was joking. Oh, no, no, no. I'm talking Tulsi Gabbard on Friday. Did I tell you that?
Oh, nice. Her husband just went into surgery today, I saw.
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Chapter 2: What are the key themes of John Kiriakou's experiences in the CIA?
No, they let him become the nominee. And then as soon as he lost the race, they instituted this thing called superdelegates. So if you are a member of the House, a member of the Senate, a governor, a lieutenant governor, a state party director, a state committee chairman, you're automatically made a delegate to the convention. Well, there are like 1,500 of them.
And so you end up with situations like West Virginia and Wyoming where Bernie Sanders beats Hillary Clinton in both states and Hillary Clinton wins literally every delegate.
From those states? Mm-hmm.
Wow. Like, how's that fair?
So wait, explain that to me a little bit better, because I want to get on this. George McGovern was a major reason Democrats later created superdelegates.
After McGovern's 1972 nomination and landslide general election loss, party leaders wanted a way to give more influence to experienced officials and reduce the chance that a highly activist primary electorate would produce another nominee they saw as too extreme. So you're saying the people believed in this guy.
Oh, yeah.
Even though he lost, the people believed in him, but the party... And whoever that is didn't want it to be like just like a populist vote. They didn't want just the people to have the choice.
They wanted to go back to the days with the smoke filled back rooms with the party bosses choosing who's going to be the nominee.
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Chapter 3: What insights does John provide about the CIA's interrogation techniques?
I was so proud to be there. Felt like you were part of something. I really did. I can imagine how you feel like you're part of something. Like, what did you feel like you were part of?
Well, you know, I came from this very liberal household. And I remember my mom and dad getting into an argument one time. It was the Pennsylvania primary of 1976. And my dad voted for Frank Church, who had created the church committee that completely reorganized the CIA and stripped it of its power to carry out assassinations and things like that.
And my mom voted for Birch Bayh, who was a senator from Indiana. And my dad said, Birch Bayh? Why'd you vote for him? And she said, he's so good looking. And my dad's like, what? Church is the guy doing all the work. And I remember being fascinated by this argument that they were having.
So when Dr. Post approached me, I called a friend of mine that I was in class with who was married to a guy at the CIA. And I said, listen, I'm not a naif. I... I know the CIA's history. It's pretty ugly. Do I want to be involved in an organization like this? I want to go into public service. I want to see the world. She said, let's have dinner. So the three of us get together for dinner.
And he's like, the bad old days CIAs of the CIA are gone. The bad old days, he said? Yeah, the bad old days of the CIA are gone. He said, 75 with the Church Committee in the Senate, the Pike Committee in the House, changed everything, no more assassinations, no more overthrowing governments, which was true for a little while, a little while.
Because four years later, Ronald Reagan becomes president. The next thing you know, we're doing Iran-Contra and we're bombing different countries and everything just went back to the way it was. But there was like this golden period My friends are going to yell at me for saying that. There was this period where the CIA was a really awesome place to work. Got it.
And so when you're walking into that, when you're taking me back to that moment where you're walking in, did you feel like I'm a part of something that's important to America or I'm a part of just an intriguing life and this is exciting? Did you feel like I'm like Clark Kent? And there's no wrong answer. This is all just like curiosity.
Oh, sure. The first seven and a half years that I was there, I was an analyst. Actually, in the office that Dr. Post had founded, the political psychology division. And I really felt like I was a part of something big. I was only on the job eight months. And it was just as I started to feel like I really knew what I was doing. I was the leadership analyst, the psychological analyst on Iraq.
And the reason I was given Iraq was because, not my words, these were the words of my leadership, Nothing ever happens there. It's the same cabinet since the 1968 revolution. Nothing ever happens. So learn the writing style, learn the tradecraft, and you can move on to something interesting like Romania, they told me. I said, great.
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Chapter 4: What were the implications of the plea agreements with al-Qaeda figures?
The Biden administration department of defense reached plea agreements with, uh, Three prominent al-Qaeda figures, whom you just mentioned, accused of plotting the September 11th terrorist attacks. However, following intense political and public backlash, the administration moved to block the agreement and the courts later threw it out. So what happened to the guys?
Chapter 5: Why was the agreement to hold al-Qaeda figures blocked?
They're just still not being held?
They're just still there. You see right there the terms. They agreed to plead guilty to murdering 2,976 people in exchange for life without parole. Okay, so the deal was thrown out. So now what do they have? They have life without parole. That's the deal.
Right.
Same thing. It's the same thing. They're never going to be released.
But why didn't we, what was the reason why?
Oh, because the reaction from people?
Yeah.
It was really reaction from the Biden administration, from the Biden Defense Department.
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Chapter 6: What does John Kiriakou reveal about torture and its legal ramifications?
Well, it says 9-11 families too.
I guess the 9-11 families just want to chop everybody's head off. And I understand. I get it. I really do. It makes sense. I get it. But that's never going to happen. It's never going to happen. We're a country of laws. We can't just pretend that we're a country of laws, except when the laws aren't convenient for us.
But if you kill enough people, it seems like you would face the death penalty.
Yes, but you have to blame the CIA for that. If the CIA hadn't tortured these guys, they would all be- Alaska was inadmissible. It's all inadmissible. Got it. They confessed everything. Understood. But it was all under torture.
Chapter 7: How are foreign intelligence operations perceived in America today?
And so you can't do anything with that. Now there's no evidence against them, none.
What, I can't even imagine what it's like to be some of those families and just the drawn out of all of that.
It's been 24 years, 25 years in September.
Let's get a little bit more current. Oh, did you see that they just had the, like they have those flotillas that are going to Gaza? Did you see that the prime minister of Ireland's sister was on one of them?
I'll tell you, the Irish hate the Israelis and the Israelis hate the Irish. Has that always been the case, you think? No.
Only in the last eight or ten years. Let me see this. Gaza aid flotilla activist home after torture ship nightmare. Scroll a little. Irish activists have claimed they were kidnapped and beaten by Israeli forces after their aid flotilla to Gaza was intercepted in international waters.
Margaret Connolly, the sister of President Connolly, was among the emotional arrivals at Dublin Airport on Saturday. They wanted us to suffer. She said none of them could look us in the eye. What a dehumanizing thing to do to men and women aged from 22 to 75. That's just wild. Imagine if like Obama's sister died. Can you imagine? I can't even imagine. I want to interview Greta Thunberg.
That would be fun. It'd be cool, huh? Yeah. I just would like to get to see what she's like. You know, I've never been around her. I just see bits and clips of people. Right. So it'd be pretty fascinating.
The Irish detainees were among hundreds of participants from other countries who were also detained when the latest iteration of the global Samud flotilla was stopped by Israeli forces in international waters. And a lot of these groups were trying to get there to bring aid to the people in Gaza. And then also, I think, to just document what was going on there. Yes.
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