therealnews--2020-03-02--What Is the Real Story of Buttigieg’s Service and Time in Afghanistan?

This is a rush transcript and may contain errors .
It will be updated .
Pete Buttigieg : America deserves a commander in chief who knows what that sacrifice means , and who will honor the sacred promise we make to our veterans .
Mark Steiner : Welcome to The Real News , I ’ m Mark Steiner .
Yes , Pete Buttigieg .
He really weaponizes his time in the military and his six month tour in Afghanistan , pun intended .
What did he really do over there ?
How did he become an intel officer ?
Why @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is so potentially dangerous about a Buttigieg presidency in this context ?
What was this outfit , the Afghan Threat Finance Cell , or AFTC as it was known , that he was assigned to ?
What did they do ?
What was their role in this war and why does it matter , and what questions should Buttigieg and the others who are running for president have to answer about these wars , and the wars we don ’ t want to see come ?
We ’ re joined by a man @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Matthew Hoh , who wrote Heaven Protects Us From Men Who Live The Illusion of Danger : Pete Buttigieg and the US Military , that he wrote for CounterPunch .
And welcome Matt , good to have you with us , as always .
Mark Steiner : And Matthew Hoh is an activist and a writer .
He ’ s a member of advisory boards of Expose Facts , Veterans for Peace and World Beyond War .
In 2009 he resigned his position with the State Department in Afghanistan to protest the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ And previously , he had been in Iraq with the State Department , and served combat tours of the US Marines as an officer in Afghanistan , and is a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy .
So , Matt , it is good to have you back , and I really love this article you did for CounterPunch , it ’ s something that I think needs to be talked about in this way .
Let ’ s talk a bit about what we know and why it ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s service in the US Navy , how he became an officer through a direct commission , and what is that , because it seems to serve a purpose but it ’ s really unclear how he got in , for privilege .
So , talk a bit about what all that means .
Matthew Hoh : Well , thanks for having me on again Mark .
And it is important , because Buttigieg is doing well in the polls nationally .
He won in Iowa , came in second in New Hampshire @ @ @ @ @ @ @ up , and he ’ s doing well .
And he is campaigning , a large part of his campaign , is based upon his military service .
In his speeches , at his campaign rallies , you will see posters of him in uniform .
On his TV advertisements , there is video or photos of him in uniform carrying a rifle , and in the interviews , speeches he does when he ’ s behind the podium at the debates , he says things that , to paraphrase him , are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ know about war and peace peace , and I know about these issues , ” regarding , say , Iraq and Iran or Afghanistan and Libya or whatever , “ Because I was in the Navy , because I was in Afghanistan , because I went to war.
” He says things like , “ I know the meaning of sacrifice .
I know what it means to go to war .
I know what it means to live in a dangerous combat zone.
” So , it ’ s important because this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ himself apart from the other candidates .
This is something that he is using to basically state why he has the experience to be president , because his other experiences are pretty limited , particularly when compared to the other front-running candidates , all of who have had years , I mean , decades of elected service and have filled other roles .
It ’ s also very important too , and this is I think why I started to write the piece , because in the United States , the military is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ piece , a para-clerical organization .
I wouldn ’ t want to say quasi-religious , it is a religious organization .
And the idea that you question the military , you question somebody ’ s record in the military , what they actually did , and in this case where someone is using it too , Buttigieg is using it to define why he would be a better president , that you are committing a heresy , that you are blaspheming .
You see this , and I ’ ve seen this in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I ’ ve gotten to my essay .
It basically breaks down along the lines of , “ How dare you question a veteran ?
” This is a very serious problem we have in the United States .
This is a reason why we continue to be not just sustaining and continuing these wars , but on the verge , seemingly weekly , of getting involved in new ones .
The ability to question the military and the militarism in this country , again , it borders on the heretical .
Mark @ @ @ @ @ @ @ write about here is that he got his commission as a captain through something called a direct commission .
And that , no matter , you talked about being able to look through his records , there was no record .
Let me just read what you wrote here .
You said , “ There is no record , and here I ’ ll offer the possibility that his record in incomplete , of his attendance at any form of military schools or his participation whether as a mobilized active duty officer or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ only one DD-214 , ” which is a record of his active service .
And those were important .
So , let ’ s talk about that .
Why is it important to know this about him ?
I mean , let me just say it in one context here .
A lot of guys in , say , Vietnam , didn ’ t see combat .
They were pushing papers .
But everybody went over .
So , why is this important ?
Matthew Hoh : Again , because this is what @ @ @ @ @ @ @ say , the question of General Soleimani ’ s assassination by President Trump or the question of the United States pulling its forces , supposedly pulling its forces out of Syria , we know that didn ’ t really occur , they were just redirected to the oil fields in Eastern Syria .
But you know , when he receives questions like those , Buttigieg will say , and again , to paraphrase him , he will say “ My experience has informed my decision making on this.
” And when you look @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t have much military experience .
He received a direct commission , which , a direct commission means that you are literally appointed as an officer of the US military , that pen is put to paper , and voila , you are a military officer , and in this case he was made an ensign that way .
Most likely , the campaign… And I will say this , too .
As I went through his autobiography , as I went through a number of interviews , a bunch of different @ @ @ @ @ @ @ over the last year , his campaign repeatedly has denied requests for more information about his military career .
So , when you look at his military records , which are available , I believe it was The Hill , the newspaper The Hill first released , at least notified people that his military records were available , you will see a large part of them are redacted , but that ’ s personal information .
And again , a large part of it is redacted , but again , that ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ available is important because it shows how often he actually wore the uniform .
It shows , as you stated , Mark , in my essay , that he never attended any schools , he never attended any form of training .
He never received what ’ s called an MOS , a military occupational specialty , or in the Navy they call it a designator , but just to keep it simple here , let ’ s use you use the common term , MOS , right .
He never received that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ here ’ s this other thing about the direct commission , is that it requires no selection process .
It requires no training .
There ’ s no hardship .
So , whereas the vast , vast , vast majority of the men and women who are officers in the US military go through the service academies , go through ROTC or go through officer candidate school and there ’ s selection involved , there ’ s training , it ’ s hard , it ’ s difficult .
Pete Buttigieg did none @ @ @ @ @ @ @ young man at the time , he was 28 or so roughly .
So he certainly could have done this if he wanted to .
This direct commissioning program , there ’ s a practical for its existence in that in times of crisis or emergency , the United States military can just bring in specialists , doctors , lawyers , people that have specific skills that the military requires at the time .
But there ’ s also a political aspect of this , and as I note in the essay , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , or infamous… You know , Hunter Biden received a direct commission into the Navy , and then was discharged for a positive drug test within about a month of his commissioning .
But in my time in the Marine Corps , the Marine Corps I don ’ t believe does direct commissioning , but I have met a bunch of Naval officers who were direct commission .
Some of them were public relations people that were brought in because they had that skill , they had that talent , and others were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Bush administration or in the Obama administration , who got them these appointments because somebody was high up in the campaign , someone donated a lot of money .
And that ’ s what seems to have been Buttigieg ’ s route , was during the 2008 campaign , he met somebody , when he campaigned for Obama , he worked for Obama , he met somebody who was able to secure him in this position .
And so with a kind of a magic wand , pen on paper , he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ any training , there ’ s no records of his time with the reserve unit .
There is anecdotal evidence , there are people who are part of the reserve unit who speak highly of him , and so it does seem like he did at least on occasion .
How often we don ’ t know , because the campaign won ’ t say this .
How often he actually went to the unit we don ’ t know , but it seems like he did .
The reports are positive , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s a very smart man .
He seems like he ’ s very personal and very positive .
He probably would be a very good junior officer , but he just didn ’ t do the work , and you have to also now get into speculation because the campaign won ’ t release more information .
Did he even have the security clearances necessary to do the intelligence work that he claims he did , or that he says he was , yeah… Mark Steiner : Well let ’ s just @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a couple of things you said here I really want to kind of tackle .
So , one of them is that you wrote about people who live like Buttigieg , an illusion of danger , that he would become a dangerous president .
What does that mean to live with an illusion of danger , making you a dangerous president ?
You wrote that a couple of times in different ways .
Matthew Hoh : Yeah .
Well , I think it ’ s something our country goes through daily .
Whether @ @ @ @ @ @ @ whether it ’ s the fact that one person had , of however many , literally at this point billions of air travelers in the last 20 years , one person tried to light a shoe on fire and blow up an airplane , and we still ritually take our shoes off when we go into the airport , right ?
So , as a nation , whether it ’ s those color-coded terror alerts , whether it ’ s the fact that we are okay with the NSA listening and recording all @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , all our email , all these types of things , when there is no danger , or the danger is so minimal that it is statistically insignificant .
And we go along with it because there is something in our society that worships this danger .
You could see this also too in other ways , and I point this out in the essay .
We ’ re a nation that has more guns than people .
Why is that ?
Because people have these fantasies of having to protect their home @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that they need these assault rifles because they ’ re going to have to fight the government at some point .
We live as a people , as a society , with these dangers .
And when you get it down to the individual level , when in a case of Buttigieg , where he did go to Afghanistan , saw no combat from everything we can see , did not work on intelligence matters , was attached to an intelligence unit , but seemed to have , according to his own words @ @ @ @ @ @ @ other officers around , driving them to meetings , not going into the meetings , waiting with the vehicle outside .
But then , coming back and saying things like he does to CNN and to other places , and this is what he said , he said , “ I didn ’ t kill bin Laden , but what I was doing was dangerous.
” Well , I mean , when you have that kind of chutzpah to say those kinds of things , to run your presidency on a very shallow @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , what is he going to do in office when he is confronted by the generals and the admirals , and the generals and the admirals always lie .
I include a Dwight Eisenhower reference to that , Eisenhower speaking about that as well .
It ’ s something his granddaughter relates , that Eisenhower said , looking at his chair in the Oval Office , and I ’ m sure I ’ ve said this on The Real News before because it ’ s one of my favorite quotes , but I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about the US military and the American government , is that he said [ inaudible 00:14:29 ] , he says , “ I ’ m scared for this country when a man sits in this chair who doesn ’ t know the military the way I do.
” And he doesn ’ t mean that you need to be an expert strategist , you need to be a tactician , you need to know operations , you need to understand logistics .
It means that you need to understand that the generals and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you look at Buttigieg , I don ’ t think he has that understanding .
His photos , and there are lots of photos online of him with various generals , various colonels , and he is like a kid at a football game .
He is excited .
He is just wide-eyed and grinning , not even grinning , a huge smile .
You get this , his work did not put him in a way to , one , truly understand war , to truly understand the significance or the reality @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the fog of it , all these types of things .
But also , two , I don ’ t think he was ever in a position to really get that the generals and the admirals lie all the time , and certainly nothing about how he presents himself would lead you to believe that when they come into the Oval Office , if he is president , that he is going to stand up to them .
Rather I think , because he has this image he wants to protect of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that he would continue to use the military as a political tool , to include going along with whatever the generals and the admirals want .
Mark Steiner : So , let me conclude with this in the time we have left .
One of the things you write extensively about in the article I think is important , he was assigned to this group called the Afghan Threat Finance Cell .
And you talk about them in the context of the Afghan war , and the drugs in Afghanistan and what their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this all kind of really played a part that the media doesn ’ t want to get into because it ’ s so complex about that and about how the Taliban was really funded , in large part , by our allies in the Middle East , by the Gulf states and war , and how this feeds into one another .
He won ’ t address it , none of the candidates will address it .
The media will not address this because it ’ s too messy .
I can remember @ @ @ @ @ @ @ War , the same things , with importing heroin and opium coming out of Vietnam and Laos , and the same thing was going on , but this in some ways is a much larger scale .
Matthew Hoh : Yeah , this goes back to the 19th century .
This goes back to the China trade .
I recommend the books of James Bradley , Alfred McCoy .
There was a documentarian called Al Profit , a writer named Julian [ inaudible 00:17:16 ] .
There have been books and books written @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is probably too weak of a word , that the US military , US intelligence agencies , US government , have been arm and arm with drug lords and organized crime , going back nearly 200 years now , at least 180 years now .
And it ’ s no different in Afghanistan .
And so , there ’ s this Afghan Threat Finance Cell , which dates back to in the years after 9/11 , Treasury Department had this idea that , “ Look , we ’ re going to try and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ groups and their financiers.
” And of course , it really has never come to anything , because most of the financing for these terror groups , these Sunni terror groups , comes out of the Gulf monarchies , comes from our allies .
The Saudis , the Bahrainis , the Qataris , the Emiratis , you know what I mean ?
The Kuwaitis .
And so , it really has been , again , this kind of goes back to the topic , the title of the essay , with regards to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s really been this illusion about fighting both terrorism as well as , too , its ties into the war on drugs .
And this is an issue that… Look , I mean , the opium crisis at its peak was killing 200 Americans a day just a couple of years ago .
There has been no investigations from the US government , from our Congress , as to that linkage between the Afghan War , where in the last 20 years we ’ ve seen poppy cultivation go from zero to 80 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s heroin and illicit opium production , and this opium crisis in the United States , or this opiate crisis in the United States .
So , when you start to pull these things apart and you see that people like Pete Buttigieg are at least assigned to these units , and come away with the idea that everything that we are doing there is right and just , and that the workings and the apparatus of the United States government are correct and authoritative and are necessary , you really get into @ @ @ @ @ @ @ very dangerous president .
I mean , this was a man who was attached to this unit that ’ s purpose was to disrupt the drug trafficking in Afghanistan .
It was run by the the DEA , the Drug Enforcement Agency , and the biggest drug lords in Afghanistan have been in the Afghan government , have been in the Afghan military .
I mean , until he was assassinated , the biggest drug lord in Afghanistan was President Karzai ’ s brother in Kandahar , Ahmed Wali Karzai .
So , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ these things that , as you said Mark , are really messy , really sloppy , and they don ’ t get brought up , and they don ’ t get questioned .
Now this gets back to what we originally talked about , about how with the veneration , with the deification of veterans , with the unquestioning of the US military , these things continue to propel themselves .
And they ’ re just not effecting people over overseas where tens of millions continue to suffer from these wars , but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on the United States .
Again , there is literally no investigation by the US Government , no investigation by major American media on , well , okay .
I mean , again , is it just a coincidence that poppy production has soared in Afghanistan at the same time that US opiate crisis has begun ?
You get shouted down as you ’ re a complete conspiracy theorist , but I think any rational person , would say particularly knowing , as we brought up , the history of the U S @ @ @ @ @ @ @ all throughout Asia , through the Mediterranean , after World War II et cetera , that this is not conspiracy .
This is actually , there is real history to this , and certainly we could talk for hours about all the different things I understood when I was over there about the drug trade , how the Afghan Air Force that we were giving these planes and helicopters to , use those planes and helicopters to move drugs out of the country .
How there is very real evidence that some of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were killed by Afghan soldiers were killed because of issues involving drug trafficking .
I mean , there ’ s all kinds of things that have just been shut away .
And when you step back and look at Buttigieg running for president , it makes sense that you have a man who has this elusory military record , this is the basis of his running for office , where most of his experience seems to come from .
That and being the mayor of the fourth-largest city in Indiana .
You have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we have a real problem in this country and it ’ s going to propel things to be worse if we don ’ t put some type of brake on it .
Mark Steiner : Well Matt Hoh , it ’ s always great to talk to you .
I appreciate your time , the work that you do , bringing this to the fore .
Thank you so much for joining us here on The Real News .
Mark Steiner : Oh , thank you .
And if any of you were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ listen to this broadcast .
Read the transcript , think about what we ’ re talking about here and what this is really all about .
I ’ m Mark Steiner here for the Real News Network , thank you all for joining us .
Let us know what you think .
Take care .

Mayor Pete received an instant commission, no training, and served as a chauffeur in a questionable unit. Men with an illusion of having experienced danger make for dangerous leaders.
Story Transcript
PETE BUTTIGIEG: America deserves a Commander in Chief who knows what that sacrifice means, and who will honor the sacred promise we make to our veterans.
MARC STEINER: Welcome to The Real News. I’m Marc Steiner.
Yes, Pete Buttigieg. He really weaponizes his time in the military and his six month tour in Afghanistan–pun intended. What did he really do over there? How did he become an intel officer? Why was this officer a chauffeur? What is so potentially dangerous about a Buttigieg presidency in this context? What was this outfit, the Afghan Threat Finance Cell, or AFTC as it was known, that he was assigned to? What did they do? What was their role in this war and why does it matter, and what questions should Buttigieg and the others who are running for president have to answer about these wars, and the wars we don’t want to see come?
We’re joined by a man who knows a bit about all this: Matthew Hoh, who wrote Heaven Protect Us From Men Who Live the Illusion of Danger: Pete Buttigieg and the US Military, that he wrote for CounterPunch. And welcome Matt, good to have you with us, as always.
MATTHEW HOH: Thanks, Marc.
MARC STEINER: And Matthew Hoh is an activist and a writer. He’s a member of advisory boards of Expose Facts, Veterans for Peace, and World Beyond War. In 2009 he resigned his position with the State Department in Afghanistan to protest the escalation of the war under Obama. And previously, he had been in Iraq with the State Department, and served combat tours of the US Marines as an officer in Afghanistan and is a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy.
So Matt, it is good to have you back, and I really love this article you did for CounterPunch, it’s something that I think needs to be talked about in this way. Let’s talk a bit about what we know and why it’s so important to know about Buttigieg’s service in the US Navy, how he became an officer through a direct commission, and what is that, because it seems to serve a purpose but it’s really unclear how he got in, for privilege. So talk a bit about what all that means.
MATTHEW HOH: Well, thanks for having me on again, Marc. And it is important, because Buttigieg is doing well in the polls nationally. He won in Iowa, came in second in New Hampshire, and we have Super Tuesday coming up, and he’s doing well. And he is campaigning, a large part of his campaign, is based upon his military service. In his speeches, at his campaign rallies, you will see posters of him in uniform. On his TV advertisements, there is video or photos of him in uniform carrying a rifle. And in the interviews, speeches he does when he’s behind the podium at the debates, he says things that–to paraphrase him–are along the lines of, “I know about war and peace, and I know about these issues,” regarding, say, Iraq and Iran or Afghanistan and Libya or whatever, “Because I was in the Navy, because I was in Afghanistan, because I went to war.”
He says things like, “I know the meaning of sacrifice. I know what it means to go to war. I know what it means to live in a dangerous combat zone.” So it’s important because this is what he is using to set himself apart from the other candidates. This is something that he is using to basically state why he has the experience to be president, because his other experiences are pretty limited, particularly when compared to the other front-running candidates, all of who have had years, I mean, decades of elected service and have filled other roles. It’s also very important… And this is I think why I started to write the piece, because in the United States, the military is a, as I said in the piece, a para-clerical organization. I wouldn’t want to say quasi-religious; it is a religious organization.
And the idea that you question the military, you question somebody’s record in the military, what they actually did, and in this case where someone is using it too, Buttigieg is using it to define why he would be a better president, that you are committing a heresy, that you are blaspheming. You see this, and I’ve seen this in the last few days with the responses I’ve gotten to my essay. It basically breaks down along the lines of, “How dare you question a veteran?” This is a very serious problem we have in the United States. This is a reason why we continue to be not just sustaining and continuing these wars, but on the verge, seemingly weekly, of getting involved in new ones. The ability to question the military and the militarism in this country, again, it borders on the heretical.
MARC STEINER: One of the things you write about here is that he got his commission as a captain through something called a direct commission. And that, no matter, you talked about being able to look through his records, there was no record. Let me just read what you wrote here. You said, “There is no record, and here I’ll offer the possibility that his record in incomplete, of his attendance at any form of military schools or his participation whether as a mobilized active duty officer or a drilling reservist. His record contains only one DD-214,” which is a record of his active service. And those were important. So let’s talk about that. Why is it important to know this about him? I mean, let me just say it in one context here. A lot of guys in, say, Vietnam, didn’t see combat. They were pushing papers. But everybody went over. So why is this important?
MATTHEW HOH: Again, because this is what he is campaigning on. When, say, the question of General Soleimani’s assassination by President Trump or the question of the United States pulling its forces, supposedly pulling its forces out of Syria, we know that didn’t really occur, they were just redirected to the oil fields in Eastern Syria. But you know, when he receives questions like those, Buttigieg will say, and again, to paraphrase him, he will say “My experience has informed my decision making on this.” And when you look at his record, he really doesn’t have much military experience. He received a direct commission, which, a direct commission means that you are literally appointed as an officer of the US military, that pen is put to paper, and voila, you are a military officer. And in this case, he was made an ensign that way.
Most likely, the campaign… And I will say this, too. As I went through his autobiography, as I went through a number of interviews, a bunch of different articles on this that have been written over the last year, his campaign repeatedly has denied requests for more information about his military career. So when you look at his military records, which are available, I believe it was The Hill, the newspaper The Hill first released, at least notified people that his military records were available, you will see a large part of them are redacted, but that’s personal information. And again, a large part of it is redacted, but again, that’s personal information. The information that is available is important because it shows how often he actually wore the uniform.
It shows, as you stated, Marc, in my essay, that he never attended any schools, he never attended any form of training. He never received what’s called an MOS, a military occupational specialty, or in the Navy they call it a designator, but just to keep it simple here, let’s use you use the common term, MOS, right. He never received that qualification as an intelligence officer. And here’s this other thing about the direct commission, is that it requires no selection process. It requires no training. There’s no hardship. So whereas the vast, vast, vast majority of the men and women who are officers in the US military go through the service academies, go through ROTC or go through officer candidate school and there’s selection involved, there’s training, it’s hard, it’s difficult. Pete Buttigieg did none of that. And he was a young man at the time, he was 28 or so roughly. So he certainly could have done this if he wanted to.
This direct commissioning program, there’s a practical for its existence in that in times of crisis or emergency, the United States military can just bring in specialists, doctors, lawyers, people that have specific skills that the military requires at the time. But there’s also a political aspect of this, and as I note in the essay, Hunter Biden is probably the most famous, or infamous… You know, Hunter Biden received a direct commission into the Navy, and then was discharged for a positive drug test within about a month of his commissioning.
But in my time in the Marine Corps, the Marine Corps I don’t believe does direct commissioning, but I have met a bunch of Naval officers who were direct commission. Some of them were public relations people that were brought in because they had that skill, they had that talent, and others were political. They had benefactors, in the Bush administration or in the Obama administration, who got them these appointments because somebody was high up in the campaign, someone donated a lot of money. And that’s what seems to have been Buttigieg’s route, was during the 2008 campaign, he met somebody, when he campaigned for Obama, he worked for Obama, he met somebody who was able to secure him in this position. And so with a kind of a magic wand, pen on paper, he becomes a Navy officer. Never does any training, there’s no records of his time with the reserve unit.
There is anecdotal evidence, there are people who are part of the reserve unit who speak highly of him, and so it does seem like he did at least on occasion. How often we don’t know, because the campaign won’t say this. How often he actually went to the unit we don’t know, but it seems like he did. The reports are positive, and you could imagine that, he’s a very smart man. He seems like he’s very personal and very positive. He probably would be a very good junior officer, but he just didn’t do the work, and you have to also now get into speculation because the campaign won’t release more information. Did he even have the security clearances necessary to do the intelligence work that he claims he did, or that he says he was, yeah…
MARC STEINER: Well let’s just get to that. There’s a couple of things you said here I really want to kind of tackle. So one of them is that you wrote about people who live like Buttigieg, an illusion of danger, that he would become a dangerous president. What does that mean to live with an illusion of danger, making you a dangerous president? You wrote that a couple of times in different ways.
MATTHEW HOH: Yeah. Well, I think it’s something our country goes through daily. Whether it’s in the practical, whether it’s the fact that one person had, of however many, literally at this point billions of air travelers in the last 20 years, one person tried to light a shoe on fire and blow up an airplane, and we still ritually take our shoes off when we go into the airport, right? So as a nation, whether it’s those color-coded terror alerts, whether it’s the fact that we are okay with the NSA listening and recording all our conversations, all our text messages, all our email, all these types of things, when there is no danger, or the danger is so minimal that it is statistically insignificant. And we go along with it because there is something in our society that worships this danger.
You could see this also too in other ways, and I point this out in the essay. We’re a nation that has more guns than people. Why is that? Because people have these fantasies of having to protect their home from armed intruders, or these fantasies that they need these assault rifles because they’re going to have to fight the government at some point. We live as a people, as a society, with these dangers.
And when you get it down to the individual level, when in a case of Buttigieg, where he did go to Afghanistan, saw no combat from everything we can see, did not work on intelligence matters, was attached to an intelligence unit, but seemed to have, according to his own words, spent most of the time driving other officers around, driving them to meetings, not going into the meetings, waiting with the vehicle outside. But then, coming back and saying things like he does to CNN and to other places, and this is what he said, he said, “I didn’t kill bin Laden, but what I was doing was dangerous.”
Well, I mean, when you have that kind of chutzpah to say those kinds of things, to run your presidency on a very shallow military record, you have to wonder, what is he going to do in office when he is confronted by the generals and the admirals, and the generals and the admirals always lie. I include a Dwight Eisenhower reference to that, Eisenhower speaking about that as well. It’s something his granddaughter relates, that Eisenhower said, looking at his chair in the Oval Office, and I’m sure I’ve said this on The Real News before because it’s one of my favorite quotes, but I think it really tells us so much about the US military and the American government, is that he said, “I’m scared for this country when a man sits in this chair who doesn’t know the military the way I do.”
And he doesn’t mean that you need to be an expert strategist, you need to be a tactician, you need to know operations, you need to understand logistics. It means that you need to understand that the generals and the admirals always lie, and if you look at Buttigieg, I don’t think he has that understanding. His photos, and there are lots of photos online of him with various generals, various colonels, and he is like a kid at a football game. He is excited. He is just wide-eyed and grinning, not even grinning, a huge smile.
You get this, his work did not put him in a way to, one, truly understand war, to truly understand the significance or the reality of combat, the complications of it, the fog of it, all these types of things. But also, two, I don’t think he was ever in a position to really get that the generals and the admirals lie all the time, and certainly nothing about how he presents himself would lead you to believe that when they come into the Oval Office, if he is president, that he is going to stand up to them. Rather I think, because he has this image he wants to protect of being a part of the military, that he would continue to use the military as a political tool, to include going along with whatever the generals and the admirals want.
MARC STEINER: So let me conclude with this in the time we have left. One of the things you write extensively about in the article I think is important, he was assigned to this group called the Afghan Threat Finance Cell. And you talk about them in the context of the Afghan war, and the drugs in Afghanistan and what their role was with that, and how this all kind of really played a part that the media doesn’t want to get into because it’s so complex about that and about how the Taliban was really funded, in large part, by our allies in the Middle East, by the Gulf states and war, and how this feeds into one another. He won’t address it, none of the candidates will address it. The media will not address this because it’s too messy. I can remember this stuff from back in the Vietnam War, the same things, with importing heroin and opium coming out of Vietnam and Laos, and the same thing was going on, but this in some ways is a much larger scale.
MATTHEW HOH: Yeah, this goes back to the 19th century. This goes back to the China trade. I recommend the books of James Bradley, Alfred McCoy. There was a documentarian called Al Profit, a writer named Julien Mercille. There have been books and books written about how not just–complicit is probably too weak of a word–that the US military, US intelligence agencies, US government, have been arm and arm with drug lords and organized crime, going back nearly 200 years now, at least 180 years now. And it’s no different in Afghanistan. And so, there’s this Afghan Threat Finance Cell, which dates back to in the years after 9/11, Treasury Department had this idea that, “Look, we’re going to try and stop the money traveling between the terror groups and their financiers.”
And of course, it really has never come to anything, because most of the financing for these terror groups, these Sunni terror groups, comes out of the Gulf monarchies, comes from our allies. The Saudis, the Bahrainis, the Qataris, the Emiratis, The Kuwaitis. And so, it really has been… Again, this kind of goes back to the topic, the title of the essay, with regards to an illusion of danger. It’s really been this illusion about fighting both terrorism as well as, too, its ties into the war on drugs. And this is an issue that… Look, I mean, the opium crisis at its peak was killing 200 Americans a day just a couple of years ago. There has been no investigations from the US government, from our Congress, as to that linkage between the Afghan War, where in the last 20 years we’ve seen poppy cultivation go from zero to 80 to 90% of the world’s heroin and illicit opium production, and this opium crisis in the United States, or this opiate crisis in the United States.
So when you start to pull these things apart and you see that people like Pete Buttigieg are at least assigned to these units, and come away with the idea that everything that we are doing there is right and just, and that the workings and the apparatus of the United States government are correct and authoritative and are necessary, you really get into this idea that this will be a very dangerous president. I mean, this was a man who was attached to this unit that’s purpose was to disrupt the drug trafficking in Afghanistan. It was run by the DEA, the Drug Enforcement Agency, and the biggest drug lords in Afghanistan have been in the Afghan government, have been in the Afghan military. I mean, until he was assassinated, the biggest drug lord in Afghanistan was President Karzai’s brother in Kandahar, Ahmed Wali Karzai.
So you have these nexuses, you have these things that, as you said Marc, are really messy, really sloppy, and they don’t get brought up, and they don’t get questioned. Now this gets back to what we originally talked about, about how with the veneration, with the deification of veterans, with the unquestioning of the US military, these things continue to propel themselves. And they’re just not effecting people over overseas where tens of millions continue to suffer from these wars, but they have a very real effect here on the United States. Again, there is literally no investigation by the US Government, no investigation by major American media on, well, okay.
I mean, again, is it just a coincidence that poppy production has soared in Afghanistan at the same time that US opiate crisis has begun? You get shouted down as you’re a complete conspiracy theorist, but I think any rational person, would say particularly knowing, as we brought up, the history of the U S government’s relationship with drug lords all throughout Asia, through the Mediterranean, after World War II et cetera, that this is not conspiracy. This is actually, there is real history to this, and certainly we could talk for hours about all the different things I understood when I was over there about the drug trade, how the Afghan Air Force that we were giving these planes and helicopters to, use those planes and helicopters to move drugs out of the country. How there is very real evidence that some of the American military members in Afghanistan who were killed by Afghan soldiers were killed because of issues involving drug trafficking.
I mean, there’s all kinds of things that have just been shut away. And when you step back and look at Buttigieg running for president, it makes sense that you have a man who has this illusory military record, this is the basis of his running for office, where most of his experience seems to come from. That and being the mayor of the fourth-largest city in Indiana. You have to say, hey, look, we have a real problem in this country and it’s going to propel things to be worse if we don’t put some type of brake on it.
MARC STEINER: Well Matt Hoh, it’s always great to talk to you. I appreciate your time; the work that you do bringing this to the fore. Thank you so much for joining us here on The Real News.
MATTHEW HOH: Thank you, Marc.
MARC STEINER: Oh, thank you. And if any of you were thinking here about Pete Buttigieg, please listen to this broadcast. Read the transcript, think about what we’re talking about here and what this is really all about. I’m Marc Steiner here for The Real News Network. Thank you all for joining us. Let us know what you think. Take care.
Studio: Adam Coley, Will Arenas
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therealnews--2020-03-02--New Documentary Explores Five Largely Unknown Truths about Israel/Palestine

This is a rush transcript and may contain errors .
It will be updated .
A new documentary called “ Solidarity : Five Largely Unknown Truths about Israel , Palestine and the Occupied Territories , ” was recently published on YouTube .
It combines interviews with activists , Palestinians , Jews , and others fighting injustice in Palestine with archival footage and analysis from Edward Said , Noam Chomsky , and others .
In five chapters the film discusses the history of the Israeli occupation , colonization , and apartheid in Palestine .
The efforts to achieve justice and the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to Palestinians and to prop up the state of Israel as a proxy of us imperial power in the Middle East .
Here ’ s a brief clip from the film .
Speaker 2 : When an Israeli is killed , you hear about it in the media a lot .
There ’ s a lot of attention to that person .
He or she is humanized , we know their name , their age , what they were doing with their lives , what their dreams were , we get so much @ @ @ @ @ @ @ which is great , every life matters , but when Palestinians are killed , it ’ s a very different treatment .
You just hear about five Palestinians were killed in one sentence .
Greg : Joining me now to discuss the film is its director Bob Peck .
He studied cinema and theology and has made several documentary films advocating rights and equality .
Thanks for joining us today Bob .
Bob Peck : Thanks so much , Greg .
Greg : So , you ’ ve published a series of films @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the US and address topics such as yoga , Islam , indigenous people ’ s rights and more .
But what brought you to the topic of Israel , Palestine and convinced you to make a film like this ?
Bob Peck : Yeah , thanks so much .
I met some Palestinian Americans .
I think I , like most Americans , was relatively uninformed on the state of the Israeli Palestinian conflict until meeting these guys and after so many happy hours realized that from talking to them and hearing their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ injustice going on over there that so many Americans even relatively politically informed Americans are unaware of .
So they kind of led me down the rabbit hole and a few Edward Said lectures later and panels and articles and so on , there ’ s so much content online about it , it just became a really a compelling subject to try to learn more about .
Greg : You also wrote an article about the process of making it , I ’ m just wondering if you could tell us a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ process was like and how much time you spent on it ?
Bob Peck : Yeah , it took a long time .
It was September 2017 is when myself and my two Palestinian American co-producers , [ inaudible 00:00:03:00 ] , we said , “ Hey , let ’ s do this.
” We started doing research in the end of 2017 and set up the first interview .
That first interview was December 2017 and then the last interview was August of last year with Mark Ellis , professor Ellis , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ professor .
And so the interview process was about a year and a half this whole time I had been researching , reading articles , watching panels , listening to podcast , watching the Norman Finkelstein , Crocodile Tears video , listening to Chomsky on Democracy Now , really trying to comb through as much as I could to paint the full picture .
Greg : Now actually , something that really sets this film apart , I think , and sets it apart from dozens of other documentaries on Israel Palestine and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that you also include theological and spiritual issues kind of on the side perhaps , but still , it ’ s included , which usually isn ’ t .
Now on the one side , you show Israeli defense minister Naftali Bennett citing the Bible to justify colonization and then on the other side you have Mark Ellis who you just mentioned who has written books on liberation theology .
Let ’ s show a brief clip as an example .
Naftali Bennett : [ inaudible 00:04:25 ] , I guess what you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ change the Bible .
You need to change the narrative of the Bible because it ’ s all there .
Mark Ellis : My Jewish theology of liberation begins with the Holocaust , not with the Bible , and if there ’ s any claim , if we call this a claim for the creation of the state of Israel , we would have to talk about Europe , not ancient Europe , modern Europe , the Nazi years and the Holocaust .
There ’ s a reason that Jews sought their own @ @ @ @ @ @ @ others , which I agree with .
However , that led to the displacement and a profound injustice .
And that continues now for the Palestinians .
Greg : Talk about the role of theology and spirituality in your approach .
Why do you consider it to be an important dimension for a documentary like this ?
Bob Peck : Sure .
Well , great question .
I think Greg , it is the Holy land obviously , and it ’ s funny you say that because I thought that I kind of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ how powerful , for example , the Southern Baptist churches are in the funding of Israeli support , but to the point of activism , I think you ’ re absolutely right in that a core component of Judaism and a really interesting and useful component of it is the solidarity with the persecuted .
That it ’ s an inherent aspect to the Jewish religion .
And it ’ s what has kind of activated all these Jewish activists [ inaudible 00:06:09 ] over the last 10 years or so .
Kind @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel ’ s , Mark Ellis and liberation theology , kind of uniting that core component of Judaism and standing up for others who are suffering , who are kind of at the receiving end currently of the state of Israel it ’ s so important .
It ’ s been really inspiring to become more familiar with those organizations and leaders .
Greg : But what I think is interesting that you contrast that perspective also with the defense minister who I just mentioned , who uses theology as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would you say that perhaps that this is a particularly important element to the conflict in Israel Palestine ?
Bob Peck : Yeah , absolutely .
You ’ re right .
There is a contrast there .
I think it ’ s , having taken several Bible classes at the University of Texas , really kind of trying to understand scriptural interpretations to take a 3000-year-old document as a land deed is pretty shaky business .
I think the Edward Said clip at the very beginning of the film is right on about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a variety of people have lived in that area .
It ’ s a fertile area , it ’ s the center of earlier human civilization .
So , of course , there was different groups there and the Jews have every right to be there , thanks to their ancestral presence , but so do the indigenous Arabs because they ’ ve been there for centuries as well .
So , I think it ’ s easier for the secular crowd to start to kind of divorce some millennia-old land claim than @ @ @ @ @ @ @ But I think it ’ s , to Mark Ellis ’ s point , it ’ s something that really began 75 years ago , really the Balfour Declaration is early 20th century .
Greg : Now you call the five chapters in your film , the five truths .
Now , assuming that viewers accept these truths as actually being true , what kind of reaction do you hope that viewers will take away from it ?
Bob Peck : Yeah , thanks so much .
That ’ s a great question @ @ @ @ @ @ @ having to explain the film to fellow Americans .
A lot of people , friends would ask me , what ’ s the new project ?
What are you working on ?
And finally , it ’ s kind of funny , a friend of mine who ’ s a marketer said , “ Okay enough with the rambling and on and on here about the film , what are the three main things that I don ’ t know that I should know about it ?
” And eventually added two more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of that digestibility , I guess , aspect of it .
A core reason why there is so much lack of education about the topic is because it is so complex and it is so layered and there ’ s just so much to it .
So , to kind of make it this one through five series of the most important kind of core concepts to understand , made sense and getting it out there further .
Greg : Yeah , I think that was a very interesting and very important way @ @ @ @ @ @ @ And I hope people will get a chance to see it .
We ’ ll definitely link to it together with this video , but we ’ re going to leave it there for now .
I ’ m speaking to the documentary filmmaker Bob Peck , who just released the film “ Solidarity : Five Largely Unknown Truth about Israel , Palestine and the Occupied Territories , ” which was released on YouTube .
Thanks again , Bob for having joined us today .
Bob Peck : Awesome , thanks so much @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you , for joining The Real News Network .

The documentary “Solidarity: Five Largely Unknown Truths about Israel, Palestine and the Occupied Territories” debunks the myths that lie at the center of the injustice in the region. We discuss the film with its director, Bob Peck.
Story Transcript
GREG WILPERT: It’s The Real News Network. I’m Greg Wilpert in Baltimore.
A new documentary called Solidarity: Five Largely Unknown Truths about Israel, Palestine and the Occupied Territories was recently published on YouTube. It combines interviews with activists, Palestinians, Jews, and others fighting injustice in Palestine with archival footage and analysis from Edward Said, Noam Chomsky, and others.
In five chapters, the film discusses the history of the Israeli occupation, colonization, and apartheid in Palestine. The efforts to achieve justice and the United States’ efforts to deny justice to Palestinians and to prop up the state of Israel as a proxy of us imperial power in the Middle East. Here’s a brief clip from the film.
SPEAKER: When an Israeli is killed, you hear about it in the media a lot. There’s a lot of attention to that person. He or she is humanized, we know their name, their age, what they were doing with their lives, what their dreams were, we get so much information about that one Israeli life, which is great. Every life matters. But when Palestinians are killed, it’s a very different treatment. You just hear about five Palestinians were killed in one sentence.
GREG WILPERT: Joining me now to discuss the film is its director Bob Peck. He studied cinema and theology and has made several documentary films advocating rights and equality. Thanks for joining us today, Bob.
BOB PECK: Thanks so much, Greg.
GREG WILPERT: So, you’ve published a series of films already in which you interview people in the US and address topics such as yoga, Islam, indigenous people’s rights and more. But what brought you to the topic of Israel, Palestine and convinced you to make a film like this?
BOB PECK: Yeah, thanks so much. I met some Palestinian Americans. I think I–like most Americans–was relatively uninformed on the state of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict until meeting these guys. And after so many happy hours I realized that from talking to them and hearing their story that there’s a grave injustice going on over there that so many Americans–even relatively politically informed Americans–are unaware of. So they kind of led me down the rabbit hole and a few Edward Said lectures later and panels and articles and so on, there’s so much content online about it, it just became a really a compelling subject to try to learn more about.
GREG WILPERT: You also wrote an article about the process of making it, I’m just wondering if you could tell us a little bit more also about what that process was like and how much time you spent on it?
BOB PECK: Yeah, it took a long time. September 2017 is when myself and my two Palestinian American co-producers Bilal & Mahmoud Shreidi, we said, “Hey, let’s do this.” We started doing research in the end of 2017 and set up the first interview. That first interview was December 2017 and then the last interview was August of last year with Mark Ellis, professor Ellis, who’s a Jewish liberation theology professor. And so the interview process was about a year and a half this whole time I had been researching, reading articles, watching panels, listening to podcast, watching the Norman Finkelstein, Crocodile Tears video, listening to Chomsky on Democracy Now, really trying to comb through as much as I could to paint the full picture.
GREG WILPERT: Now actually, something that really sets this film apart, I think, and sets it apart from dozens of other documentaries on Israel Palestine and on the occupation and the illegality is that you also include theological and spiritual issues kind of on the side perhaps, but still, it’s included, which usually isn’t. Now on the one side, you show Israeli defense minister Naftali Bennett citing the Bible to justify colonization and then on the other side you have Mark Ellis who you just mentioned who has written books on liberation theology. Let’s show a brief clip as an example.
NAFTALI BENNETT: I guess what you need to do is go back and change the Bible. You need to change the narrative of the Bible because it’s all there.
MARK ELLIS: My Jewish theology of liberation begins with the Holocaust, not with the Bible. And if there’s any claim, if we call this a claim for the creation of the state of Israel, we would have to talk about Europe, not ancient Europe, modern Europe, the Nazi years and the Holocaust. There’s a reason that Jews sought their own power and not to be dependent on others, which I agree with. However, that led to the displacement and a profound injustice. And that continues now for the Palestinians.
GREG WILPERT: Talk about the role of theology and spirituality in your approach. Why do you consider it to be an important dimension for a documentary like this?
BOB PECK: Sure. Well, great question. I think Greg, it is the Holy land obviously, and it’s funny you say that because I thought that I kind of, I didn’t talk about how powerful, for example, the Southern Baptist churches are in the funding of Israeli support, but to the point of activism, I think you’re absolutely right in that a core component of Judaism and a really interesting and useful component of it is the solidarity with the persecuted. That it’s an inherent aspect to the Jewish religion.
And it’s what has kind of activated all these Jewish activists over the last 10 years or so. Kind of picking up the mantle of the Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel’s, Mark Ellis and liberation theology, kind of uniting that core component of Judaism and standing up for others who are suffering, who are kind of at the receiving end currently of the state of Israel it’s so important. It’s been really inspiring to become more familiar with those organizations and leaders.
GREG WILPERT: But what I think is interesting that you contrast that perspective also with the defense minister who I just mentioned, who uses theology as well to justify the occupation.
So would you say that perhaps that this is a particularly important element to the conflict in Israel Palestine?
BOB PECK: Yeah, absolutely. You’re right. There is a contrast there. I think it’s, having taken several Bible classes at the University of Texas, really kind of trying to understand scriptural interpretations to take a 3000-year-old document as a land deed is pretty shaky business. I think the Edward Said clip at the very beginning of the film is right on about it. Archeological scholars have determined that a variety of people have lived in that area. It’s a fertile area, it’s the center of earlier human civilization.
So of course, there was different groups there and the Jews have every right to be there, thanks to their ancestral presence, but so do the indigenous Arabs because they’ve been there for centuries as well. So, I think it’s easier for the secular crowd to start to kind of divorce some millennia-old land claim than it is for the more religious. But I think it’s, to Mark Ellis’s point, it’s something that really began 75 years ago, really the Balfour Declaration is early 20th century.
GREG WILPERT: Now you call the five chapters in your film, the five truths. Now, assuming that viewers accept these truths as actually being true, what kind of reaction do you hope that viewers will take away from it?
BOB PECK: Yeah, thanks so much. That’s a great question. I came to that format by having to explain the film to fellow Americans. A lot of people, friends would ask me, what’s the new project? What are you working on? And finally, it’s kind of funny, a friend of mine who’s a marketer said, “Okay enough with the rambling and on and on here about the film, what are the three main things that I don’t know that I should know about it?” And eventually added two more. But I just really liked kind of that digestibility aspect of it.
A core reason why there is so much lack of education about the topic is because it is so complex and it is so layered and there’s just so much to it. So, to kind of make it this one through five series of the most important kind of core concepts to understand, made sense and getting it out there further.
GREG WILPERT: Yeah. I think that was a very interesting and very important way to get your point across, actually. And I hope people will get a chance to see it. We’ll definitely link to it together with this video, but we’re going to leave it there for now. I’m speaking to the documentary filmmaker Bob Peck, who just released the film Solidarity: Five Largely Unknown Truth about Israel, Palestine and the Occupied Territories, which was released on YouTube. Thanks again, Bob for having joined us today.
BOB PECK: Awesome. Thanks so much, Greg.
GREG WILPERT: And thank you for joining The Real News Network.
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therealnews--2020-03-02--Assange Extradition: Political Persecution for Journalism?

This is a rush transcript and may contain errors .
It will be updated .
Greg Wolpert : It ’ s The Real News Network .
I ’ m Greg Wolpert in Baltimore .
Julian Assange ’ s long-awaited extradition hearing is finally underway in Belmarsh Prison outside of London .
The hearing will determine whether WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange should be extradited to the United States , to face 17 charges of violating the Espionage Act of 1917 , for his role in obtaining and publishing secret military and diplomatic documents .
If convicted , he could face up @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s US lawyer , Barry Pollack , said the following to the press at the start of the hearing last Monday .
Barry Pollack : Today , the United States took the remarkable position that any journalist anywhere in the world can be subject to extradition to the United States for publishing truthful information .
This is extraordinary , it is unprecedented .
It is the exact position the Obama administration decided could not be taken consistent with the First Amendment , and I ’ m confident that at the end of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ accept that proposition .
Greg Wolpert : A few days into the hearings , Assange ’ s lawyers filed complaints that he is being treated as if he were a terrorist sitting behind a glass barrier , where he can hardly hear the proceedings and can not communicate with his lawyers during the hearing .
Joining me now to discuss the Assange extradition hearing is Kevin Gosztola .
He is a writer and publisher for Shadowproof , and co-hosts a weekly podcast called Unauthorized Disclosure .
Kevin joins us from London , where @ @ @ @ @ @ @ few journalists attending the hearings .
Thanks for joining us again , Kevin .
Kevin Gosztola : Yeah , thanks for having me .
Greg Wolpert : So before we get into the actual arguments , let ’ s start with the conditions under which Julian Assange is being held and is participating in this hearing .
Nils Melzer , the UN rapporteur on torture who visited Assange in prison last year , has said that the conditions under which Assange is being held are a form of psychological torture .
On top @ @ @ @ @ @ @ conducted as , as I mentioned , as if he were a terrorist , and only 16 people are allowed to observe the trial .
Talk about what you have witnessed with regard to the conditions of the hearing .
Kevin Gosztola : Yeah , so first of all , there were many journalists here covering the proceedings , but there were a small number , I would say from the United States .
This case seems to be something that ’ s important to people throughout Europe , in [ inaudible 00:02:26 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ parts of the globe .
People are following , but we ’ re still having trouble , I think communicating to the US press , how the stakes matter and why people should be here from media organizations to cover the Julian Assange proceedings .
And as Nils Melzer has said , Julian Assange survived psychological torture while he was in the Ecuadorian Embassy , and then after he was expelled from the embassy , he was moved to Her Majesty ’ s Prison Belmarsh Prison , which is in Woolwich , London @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the Woolwich Courthouse where the extradition proceedings took place this past week .
The courthouse is a counter-terrorism courthouse .
The prison is known as a kind of British Guantanamo , so to speak .
It ’ s known for holding prisoners who are alleged to be involved in some kind of terrorism offenses , and these are some of the people who Julian Assange is imprisoned with or detained with , while he awaits the ultimate decision on whether he ’ ll be extradited .
And in this facility , initially @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that only added to the deteriorating health that he was experiencing , and in the midst of him needing treatment for all that had gone untaken care of while he was in the embassy , he was in isolation , again , he was being denied sunlight , which was also something that he endured while he was in the embassy .
And so , it took a solidarity effort from prisoners within Belmarsh to convince the authorities to move him into general population .
It took a effort from advocates to convince @ @ @ @ @ @ @ general population .
And so now , the issues with mistreatment extend to how he is treated like a terrorism suspect or like a violent criminal , while he is in the courtroom .
And as you were saying , there is this glass barrier .
This is what we call a secure dock .
Most Americans wouldn ’ t know what that is .
In fact , I can say that I didn ’ t have much of an understanding of how the secure dock functioned or why it existed in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the pond this past week .
But what this is , is a very isolating area set up in the back of the courtroom .
Some courtrooms have it off to the side .
This courtroom has it way in the back .
Julian Assange just walked out and he sits in the back of the room , and the legal team for him can not see him , so if he wants to communicate with them , he can not be seen .
Usually , it takes the judge stopping proceedings to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to say something , or he ’ ll stand up and disrupt the proceedings , which doesn ’ t make the judge that happy , and he ’ s not able to participate in the proceedings .
He ’ s isolated , and this has an impact on fair trial rights .
I think it goes to your right to have a presumption of innocence when you are being accused of a crime , when you are being put through these kinds of proceedings .
And there ’ s nothing like this in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ our law , leaving aside the many issues that are fundamental to our mass incarceration system or our criminal justice system , we ’ ve always had it that the defendant gets to sit with their attorneys during a criminal proceeding .
There are other ways that we might humiliate somebody who is accused of a crime , but for the most part , yes , you don ’ t have this where someone is removed from the process or set aside , and it impairs their ability to consult with their attorneys @ @ @ @ @ @ @ means that if they want to get information , the attorneys for Julian Assange do not know when he needs some additional information , so that he can follow the law .
We ’ re going to , at some point , have witnesses being called forward to testify in the proceedings , and Julian Assange may want to provide some insights to his lawyers about what those witnesses are saying .
This glass box that he is being kept in , that the judge ordered him to remain in this past week @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is going to get in the way of his ability to put on the best defense case possible .
Greg Wolpert : I want to turn to now the main arguments that both sides are making , but let ’ s start with the side of the US government and also the UK government , basically .
What have they presented so far ?
Now , according to another blogger , Craig Murray , who has also been at the hearings and writing about them , he had an interesting report about how @ @ @ @ @ @ @ prosecution made the case that Assange ’ s extradition has nothing to do with freedom of the press , but then when the judge pressed the lawyer representing the US on the issue , he eventually had to admit that all journalists who published WikiLeaks revelations could actually be prosecuted .
So how did that go over in the court with this judge who seems to be very partial to the prosecution or to the US side , and what other arguments has the prosecution made really , to justify its extradition request @ @ @ @ @ @ @ exchange that you ’ re talking about , which Craig Murray , who ’ s a former ambassador , he was there in the public gallery posting some good dispatches from the proceedings , that particular exchange related to some evidence that was put on the record , where the prosecution claimed that there were these examples of informants , or confidential human sources that were endangered by the publication of the diplomatic cables , they were getting into examples of Iraq or Afghanistan war logs that were specifically charged against Julian Assange @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who are working with the US military , their lives at risk .
And the question from the judge was whether this would extend to journalists , in addition to Julian Assange , and I think he had to admit that if those media organizations who were handling the material were also involved in this publication , then this could extend to them , because the very argument that he is making is that in managing this material , the decision to publish these documents that contained these specific details , they ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ issue of the First Amendment and not make it seem like they ’ re criminalizing publication by going a step further and identifying documents , and saying that there were individuals whose identities were revealed in these documents .
But the fact is , unless we address the context in which those people were named , we don ’ t really know if that material deserves to be criminalized , and we don ’ t know if there was maybe some kind of a defense for knowing who these people were .
We @ @ @ @ @ @ @ its word that these individuals are who they say they were , and that they were completely innocent , that there ’ s no reason to doubt their motives , that everything they were involved in was respectful of human rights , was altruistic , and was involved in promoting democracy , and advancing the cause of US foreign policy , which is of course , to be the beacon of freedom to all of us in the world .
And so , I think there ’ s reason to be skeptical when @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in front of us and we can ’ t look at it , and the prosecution is making their own bear case based on the indictment that we ’ ve all seen that criminalizes publication , but then they ’ re going beyond it because , I think there ’ s a side issue here , which is they don ’ t have to prove their case in this courtroom .
The burden is on the defense to convince the judge that Juliana Assange should not be extradited , that there may be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ request that need to be taken care of , and I know we ’ ll get to those in just a moment , but the core thing , the most important thing that the prosecutors are trying to do , is to say that there is a United States – United Kingdom extradition treaty .
It does not contain an exception for political offenses , which is , let me break this down very quickly .
The concept of political offenses is that you are accused of a crime that involves the allegation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a state government , or you committed a crime that only that state government would maybe considered a crime .
So for example , being a dissident involved in political struggle would likely be considered a political offense .
So if you ’ re accused of a political offense , it ’ s universally recognized throughout the world in many , many extradition treaties , in the UN Model Treaty , Interpol Treaty .
This is the way that it has typically been handled , that you do not extradite for a political @ @ @ @ @ @ @ war on terrorism , there have been exceptions added to it , so that terrorism suspects aren ’ t able to argue that they ’ re covered by the political offense exception .
And so , then what happened in 2003 , is the United Kingdom adopted their own law that was called the UK Extradition Act , and it does not contain this exception in the written language , and so the prosecutors are hiding behind this technicality to say , it ’ s not in the domestic law .
The judge @ @ @ @ @ @ @ based on domestic law , she should ignore the treaty , she should ignore international law , and she should approve the extradition of Julian Assange .
Greg Wolpert : Now , that ’ s of course very strange , which , because after all , usually treaties are considered to be part of national law .
But let me move on .
And is Assange ’ s defense team saying in terms of… what kind of response have they mounted to the prosecution ’ s allegations ?
What have their main arguments @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is an abuse of process case .
They ’ re looking at the way in which the extradition was pieced together , making arguments that there are fair and improper , and inaccurate allegations within the affidavit , as well as the indictments that have been put forward , making these arguments that it was done in bad faith , that the officials who are running the United States government , particularly in the Trump administration , have politicized this case .
We heard evidence related to possible , well , I would @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , where in effect , Trump was using the threat of prosecution by having an intermediary meet with Julian Assange back in 2017 when he was still in the Ecuador Embassy .
There was this allegation that the defense has put forward that Dana Rohrabacher , a former Republican Congressman , and Chuck Johnson , a far-right journalist activist , met with Julian Assange , and suggested if he could help Donald Trump by saying that the DNC emails that were published , that he did not get those from a Russian source @ @ @ @ @ @ @ some kind of a win-win deal where he could leave the Ecuador Embassy and be free , and Julian Assange rejected it because that means revealing your confidential sources .
It means also allowing the justice department to get away with this kind of abuse , and also , he had already said that this didn ’ t come from the Russians , so why does he have to participate in some kind of deal making with Donald Trump ’ s administration ?
And this is one aspect that the defense has been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of this Spanish security company involved with the CIA working on the behalf of US intelligence to spy on Julian Assange while he was in the Ecuador Embassy , and to target him and his lawyers as well as journalists , and any American visitors or Russian visitors that were coming into the embassy , and the violations of privacy there form a case that ’ s unfolding in the Spanish courts right now , and we heard evidence related to that involving the owner who inked a contract with Sheldon Adelson , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ all of these people who get elected to Congress , and people… Sorry , he ’ s been donating massive amounts of money to Donald Trump .
And so , while he was in the United States in 2017 , I believe , he inked this contract , and then he also got a contract with the US intelligence agencies about the same time , and he went back overseas , and this operation was carried out , and it got away from everyone .
There are whistleblowers from the company who say @ @ @ @ @ @ @ kidnapping against Julian Assange , to snatch him and remove him from the embassy .
They discussed poisoning Julian Assange in order to get him from… [ Inaudible 00:16:52 ] killed him while he was in the embassy , and this was something that they put forward .
They ’ re talking about these clear examples of how this has been managed , as far as the case goes .
They ’ re making a distinction between Donald Trump ’ s administration and the Obama administration , which talked about this New York @ @ @ @ @ @ @ prosecute Julian Assange without putting New York Times reporters at risk if they pursued the case .
And essentially , they ’ ve gone after the whole theory of the case to show that there is no evidence to support their claims that he was reckless and endangering lives .
They meticulously went through examples of how he handled the information .
They looked at the motivation that he had to induce changes to government policy , which would make what he was doing public interest journalism , and this is the way @ @ @ @ @ @ @ show the judge that he should not be extradited to the United States .
Greg Wolpert : Yeah , it definitely seems to be that to the whole thing now hinges on whether or not this is a political case or not to end .
The evidence seems , I mean , from what you ’ re saying , it ’ s pretty overwhelming that it is a highly political case on that , and then of course the question is whether the political clause of the treaty , extradition treaty applies or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ briefly , what ’ s the next step , what ’ s going to happen now that this phase of the hearings seem to be over ?
You mentioned that there will probably be witnesses .
When can we expect the whole process to be over and a decision to be made ?
Kevin Gosztola : The next stage of the process comes on May 18th .
There ’ s going to be a three week hearing , although it may extend longer because the judge is keeping Julian Assange in this glass @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the proceedings cumbersome , and she even said herself that that would be okay .
This three week hearing could become a six week hearing , and so we have a three to six week hearing that we can look forward to , May into June , possibly extending further , and they ’ re going to be bringing witnesses forward on the defense and the prosecution side .
I believe we ’ ll probably see more witnesses from the defense and the prosecution .
The defense again , has the burden of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and then when she makes her ultimate decision , there are higher levels in the court system in the UK , three or four levels .
I mean , it can go all the way up to the European Court of Human Rights , and this whole process could unfold over a span of two to three years , and I ’ ve been telling people that this is what ’ s going to happen , unless for some reason there ’ s a political shift that takes place within the justice department @ @ @ @ @ @ @ no longer want to pursue Julian Assange ’ s extradition .
Greg Wolpert : Wow .
Okay .
Well , that gives us an idea as to what Assange has to look forward to .
We ’ re going to leave it there for now , but continue to follow the story .
I was speaking to Kevin Gosztola , writer and publisher for the website Shadowproof .
Thanks again , Kevin , for having joined us today .
Greg Wolpert : And thank you for joining The Real News Network .

Julian Assange’s extradition hearings have finally begun in London, and his defense has the burden of showing that the US case is an act of political persecution.
Story Transcript
GREG WILPERT: It’s The Real News Network. I’m Greg Wilpert in Baltimore.
Julian Assange’s long-awaited extradition hearing is finally underway in Belmarsh Prison outside of London. The hearing will determine whether WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange should be extradited to the United States, to face 17 charges of violating the Espionage Act of 1917, for his role in obtaining and publishing secret military and diplomatic documents. If convicted, he could face up to 175 years in prison. Assange’s US lawyer, Barry Pollack, said the following to the press at the start of the hearing last Monday.
BARRY POLLACK: Today, the United States took the remarkable position that any journalist anywhere in the world can be subject to extradition to the United States for publishing truthful information. This is extraordinary, it is unprecedented. It is the exact position the Obama administration decided could not be taken consistent with the First Amendment, and I’m confident that at the end of the day, this court will not accept that proposition.
GREG WILPERT: A few days into the hearings, Assange’s lawyers filed complaints that he is being treated as if he were a terrorist sitting behind a glass barrier, where he can hardly hear the proceedings and cannot communicate with his lawyers during the hearing.
Joining me now to discuss the Assange extradition hearing is Kevin Gosztola. He is a writer and publisher for Shadowproof and co-hosts a weekly podcast called Unauthorized Disclosure. Kevin joins us from London, where he has been one of the very few journalists attending the hearings. Thanks for joining us again, Kevin.
KEVIN GOSZTOLA: Yeah, thanks for having me.
GREG WILPERT: So before we get into the actual arguments, let’s start with the conditions under which Julian Assange is being held and is participating in this hearing. Nils Melzer, the UN rapporteur on torture who visited Assange in prison last year, has said that the conditions under which Assange is being held are a form of psychological torture. On top of this, his case is being conducted as, as I mentioned, as if he were a terrorist, and only 16 people are allowed to observe the trial. Talk about what you have witnessed with regard to the conditions of the hearing.
KEVIN GOSZTOLA: Yeah, so first of all, there were many journalists here covering the proceedings, but there were a small number, I would say from the United States. This case seems to be something that’s important to people throughout Europe, in [inaudible 00:02:26], in Australia and in other parts of the globe. People are following, but we’re still having trouble, I think communicating to the US press, how the stakes matter and why people should be here from media organizations to cover the Julian Assange proceedings. And as Nils Melzer has said, Julian Assange survived psychological torture while he was in the Ecuadorian Embassy, and then after he was expelled from the embassy, he was moved to Her Majesty’s Prison Belmarsh Prison, which is in Woolwich, London, and this is an adjacent prison to the Woolwich Courthouse where the extradition proceedings took place this past week.
The courthouse is a counter-terrorism courthouse. The prison is known as a kind of British Guantanamo, so to speak. It’s known for holding prisoners who are alleged to be involved in some kind of terrorism offenses, and these are some of the people who Julian Assange is imprisoned with or detained with, while he awaits the ultimate decision on whether he’ll be extradited. And in this facility, initially he was held in extremely restrictive conditions that only added to the deteriorating health that he was experiencing, and in the midst of him needing treatment for all that had gone untaken care of while he was in the embassy, he was in isolation, again, he was being denied sunlight, which was also something that he endured while he was in the embassy.
And so, it took a solidarity effort from prisoners within Belmarsh to convince the authorities to move him into general population. It took effort from advocates to convince them that he should be in the general population. And so now, the issues with mistreatment extend to how he is treated like a terrorism suspect or like a violent criminal, while he is in the courtroom. And as you were saying, there is this glass barrier. This is what we call a secure dock. Most Americans wouldn’t know what that is. In fact, I can say that I didn’t have much of an understanding of how the secure dock functioned or why it existed in the British courtroom, until I traveled across the pond this past week. But what this is, is a very isolating area set up in the back of the courtroom. Some courtrooms have it off to the side. This courtroom has it way in the back. Julian Assange just walked out and he sits in the back of the room, and the legal team for him cannot see him, so if he wants to communicate with them, he cannot be seen.
Usually, it takes the judge stopping proceedings to inform the attorneys that he is trying to say something, or he’ll stand up and disrupt the proceedings, which doesn’t make the judge that happy, and he’s not able to participate in the proceedings. He’s isolated, and this has an impact on fair trial rights. I think it goes to your right to have a presumption of innocence when you are being accused of a crime, when you are being put through these kinds of proceedings. And there’s nothing like this in the United States, because enshrined in our law, leaving aside the many issues that are fundamental to our mass incarceration system or our criminal justice system, we’ve always had it that the defendant gets to sit with their attorneys during a criminal proceeding.
There are other ways that we might humiliate somebody who is accused of a crime, but for the most part, yes, you don’t have this where someone is removed from the process or set aside, and it impairs their ability to consult with their attorneys during the proceeding, but it also means that if they want to get information, the attorneys for Julian Assange do not know when he needs some additional information, so that he can follow the law. We’re going to, at some point, have witnesses being called forward to testify in the proceedings, and Julian Assange may want to provide some insights to his lawyers about what those witnesses are saying. This glass box that he is being kept in, that the judge ordered him to remain in this past week and not be allowed out of, is going to get in the way of his ability to put on the best defense case possible.
GREG WILPERT: I want to turn to now the main arguments that both sides are making, but let’s start with the side of the US government and also the UK government, basically. What have they presented so far? Now, according to another blogger, Craig Murray, who has also been at the hearings and writing about them, he had an interesting report about how on the first day, apparently the prosecution made the case that Assange’s extradition has nothing to do with freedom of the press, but then when the judge pressed the lawyer representing the US on the issue, he eventually had to admit that all journalists who published WikiLeaks revelations could actually be prosecuted. So how did that go over in the court with this judge who seems to be very partial to the prosecution or to the US side, and what other arguments has the prosecution made really, to justify its extradition request?
KEVIN GOSZTOLA: I remember that exchange that you’re talking about, which Craig Murray, who’s a former ambassador, he was there in the public gallery posting some good dispatches from the proceedings, that particular exchange related to some evidence that was put on the record, where the prosecution claimed that there were these examples of informants, or confidential human sources that were endangered by the publication of the diplomatic cables, they were getting into examples of Iraq or Afghanistan war logs that were specifically charged against Julian Assange, that they were claiming put people who are working with the US military, their lives at risk.
And the question from the judge was whether this would extend to journalists, in addition to Julian Assange, and I think he had to admit that if those media organizations who were handling the material were also involved in this publication, then this could extend to them, because the very argument that he is making is that in managing this material, the decision to publish these documents that contained these specific details, they’re trying to get around the general issue of the First Amendment and not make it seem like they’re criminalizing publication by going a step further and identifying documents, and saying that there were individuals whose identities were revealed in these documents.
But the fact is, unless we address the context in which those people were named, we don’t really know if that material deserves to be criminalized, and we don’t know if there was maybe some kind of a defense for knowing who these people were. We’re taking the US government at its word that these individuals are who they say they were, and that they were completely innocent, that there’s no reason to doubt their motives, that everything they were involved in was respectful of human rights, was altruistic, and was involved in promoting democracy, and advancing the cause of US foreign policy, which is of course, to be the beacon of freedom to all of us in the world.
And so, I think there’s reason to be skeptical when we don’t have this information in front of us and we can’t look at it, and the prosecution is making their own bear case based on the indictment that we’ve all seen that criminalizes publication. But then they’re going beyond it. Because I think there’s a side issue here, which is they don’t have to prove their case in this courtroom. The burden is on the defense to convince the judge that Juliana Assange should not be extradited, that there may be some kinds of abuses within the extradition request that need to be taken care of, and I know we’ll get to those in just a moment, but the core thing, the most important thing that the prosecutors are trying to do, is to say that there is a United States – United Kingdom extradition treaty.
It does not contain an exception for political offenses, which is… Let me break this down very quickly. The concept of political offenses is that you are accused of a crime that involves the allegation that you conspired against the interests of a state government, or you committed a crime that only that state government would maybe consider a crime. So for example, being a dissident involved in political struggle would likely be considered a political offense. So if you’re accused of a political offense, it’s universally recognized throughout the world in many, many extradition treaties, in the UN Model Treaty, Interpol Treaty. This is the way that it has typically been handled, that you do not extradite for a political offense.
In recent years with the war on terrorism, there have been exceptions added to it, so that terrorism suspects aren’t able to argue that they’re covered by the political offense exception. And so, then what happened in 2003, is the United Kingdom adopted their own law that was called the UK Extradition Act, and it does not contain this exception in the written language, and so the prosecutors are hiding behind this technicality to say, it’s not in the domestic law. The judge only is going to make her decision based on domestic law, she should ignore the treaty, she should ignore international law, and she should approve the extradition of Julian Assange.
GREG WILPERT: Now, that’s of course very strange, which, because after all, usually treaties are considered to be part of national law. But let me move on. And is Assange’s defense team saying in terms of… what kind of response have they mounted to the prosecution’s allegations? What have their main arguments been?
KEVIN GOSZTOLA: Their case is an abuse of process case. They’re looking at the way in which the extradition was pieced together, making arguments that there are fair and improper, and inaccurate allegations within the affidavit, as well as the indictments that have been put forward, making these arguments that it was done in bad faith, that the officials who are running the United States government, particularly in the Trump administration, have politicized this case. We heard evidence related to possible, well, I would call it unlawful influence on the case, where in effect, Trump was using the threat of prosecution by having an intermediary meet with Julian Assange back in 2017 when he was still in the Ecuador Embassy.
There was this allegation that the defense has put forward that Dana Rohrabacher, a former Republican Congressman, and Chuck Johnson, a far-right journalist activist, met with Julian Assange, and suggested if he could help Donald Trump by saying that the DNC emails that were published, that he did not get those from a Russian source, that then they could work out some kind of a win-win deal where he could leave the Ecuador Embassy and be free, and Julian Assange rejected it because that means revealing your confidential sources. It means also allowing the justice department to get away with this kind of abuse, and also, he had already said that this didn’t come from the Russians, so why does he have to participate in some kind of deal making with Donald Trump’s administration?
And this is one aspect that the defense has been pushing. There is this whole issue of this Spanish security company involved with the CIA working on the behalf of US intelligence to spy on Julian Assange while he was in the Ecuador Embassy, and to target him and his lawyers as well as journalists, and any American visitors or Russian visitors that were coming into the embassy, and the violations of privacy there form a case that’s unfolding in the Spanish courts right now, and we heard evidence related to that involving the owner who inked a contract with Sheldon Adelson, who is this Republican oligarch known bankrolling all of these people who get elected to Congress, and people… Sorry, he’s been donating massive amounts of money to Donald Trump.
And so, while he was in the United States in 2017, I believe, he inked this contract, and then he also got a contract with the US intelligence agencies about the same time, and he went back overseas, and this operation was carried out, and it got away from everyone. There are whistleblowers from the company who say they started talking about carrying out a kidnapping against Julian Assange, to snatch him and remove him from the embassy. They discussed poisoning Julian Assange in order to kill him while he was in the embassy, and this was something that they put forward.
They’re talking about these clear examples of how this has been managed, as far as the case goes. They’re making a distinction between Donald Trump’s administration and the Obama administration, which talked about this New York Times problem of not being able to prosecute Julian Assange without putting New York Times reporters at risk if they pursued the case. And essentially, they’ve gone after the whole theory of the case to show that there is no evidence to support their claims that he was reckless and endangering lives. They meticulously went through examples of how he handled the information. They looked at the motivation that he had to induce changes to government policy, which would make what he was doing public interest journalism, and this is the way that they’ve about trying to show the judge that he should not be extradited to the United States.
GREG WILPERT: Yeah, it definitely seems to be that to the whole thing now hinges on whether or not this is a political case or not to end. The evidence seems, I mean, from what you’re saying, it’s pretty overwhelming that it is a highly political case on that, and then of course the question is whether the political clause of the treaty, extradition treaty applies or not. But before we conclude very briefly, what’s the next step, what’s going to happen now that this phase of the hearings seem to be over? You mentioned that there will probably be witnesses. When can we expect the whole process to be over and a decision to be made?
KEVIN GOSZTOLA: The next stage of the process comes on May 18th. There’s going to be a three week hearing, although it may extend longer because the judge is keeping Julian Assange in this glass box, which is going to make the proceedings cumbersome, and she even said herself that that would be okay. This three week hearing could become a six week hearing, and so we have a three to six week hearing that we can look forward to, May into June, possibly extending further, and they’re going to be bringing witnesses forward on the defense and the prosecution side. I believe we’ll probably see more witnesses from the defense and the prosecution.
The defense again has the burden of convincing the judge not to extradite, and then when she makes her ultimate decision, there are higher levels in the court system in the UK, three or four levels. I mean, it can go all the way up to the European Court of Human Rights, and this whole process could unfold over a span of two to three years, and I’ve been telling people that this is what’s going to happen, unless for some reason there’s a political shift that takes place within the justice department, and they suddenly decide that they no longer want to pursue Julian Assange’s extradition.
GREG WILPERT: Wow. Okay. Well, that gives us an idea as to what Assange has to look forward to. We’re going to leave it there for now but continue to follow the story. I was speaking to Kevin Gosztola, writer and publisher for the website Shadowproof. Thanks again, Kevin, for having joined us today.
KEVIN GOSZTOLA: Thank you.
GREG WILPERT: And thank you for joining The Real News Network.
Studio: Bababtunde Ogunfolaju, Adam Coley
Production: Genevieve Montinar, Adam Coley, Andrew Corkery
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