John Kiriakou

Peter B. Collins Presents John Kiriakou

It is Memorial Day again. Some will celebrate. Some will drink too much. Some will march in parades. Some will rally around the flag. Some will go shopping. Some will mourn. I am among the mourners.
I mourn mostly for those we have killed — and I mourn for those we haven’t killed yet, but will in the days ahead. I mourn for all of the mothers and fathers who put their children to bed at night and wonder if this will be the night that they are killed by a drone attack.

In the week beginning April 20, 2015, the American people got three object lessons about equal treatment and the stratification of status in the twenty-first century.
Three events in the week beginning April 20, 2015, show convincingly that the American promise of national and global societal justice is a lie. They specifically show that in this new American century, one’s economic status, access to power, and place of birth determine one’s access to human rights and equal protection under the law. Any illusions to the contrary are just that.

What about the CIA officers who directly violated the law, who carried out interrogations that resulted in death? What about the torturers of Hassan Ghul?
— John Kiriakou, Democracy Now!, February 10, 2014

Although the Senate Intelligence Committee voted on Thursday to declassify a report detailing the CIA’s use of torture that will confirm the 2007 revelations from John Kiriakou, former CIA analyst and case officer, Kiriakou himself is still languishing in prison. Kiriakou still has at least another year left in prison, but as Americans confront the horror contained within the Torture Report, they ought to also call for justice and freedom for the brave whistleblower who warned us about it years ago.

Some sights are so strange that you can’t stop to look: that corpse with rigor mortis on the roadside; the monkey butcher’s stand; the mummy-wrapped form balanced crosswise on that slow bicycle’s cargo rack. You just blink and proceed. We all have doubtful memories like that.

By Cora Currier | ProPublica | July 31, 2013

Soon after taking office, President Obama pledged to open a new inquiry into the deaths of perhaps thousands of Taliban prisoners of war at the hands of U.S.-allied Afghan fighters in late 2001.

RT | May 30, 2013

The former CIA analyst who spoke out against the agency’s use of torture says he’s been deemed a “threat to public safety” and is serving his prison sentence in a crowded jail cell despite being promised admission to a federal work camp.