Guillermo Jimenez Presents Peter Van Buren
On this edition of De-Manufacturing Consent: Guillermo is joined by Peter Van Buren, State Department whistleblower, and author of the books We Meant Well: How I Helped Lost the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People, and Ghosts of Tom Joad: A Story of the 99 percent. We discuss Peter’s time in the State Department, leading two Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Iraq from 2009 to 2010, what he saw, and why he blew the whistle. Peter summarizes the complex situation in Iraq, the various competing interests involved, and the disastrous consequences of US intervention. We also discuss the recent redeployment of US “advisors” and Apache gunships to combat the latest US trained and funded bogeymen in ISIS (the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria).
We round out our conversation by talking about the “crime” of linking online, how Peter’s whistleblowing case relates to Barrett Brown’s, and the motivation for writing Ghosts of Tom Joad.
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