Guest: Elijah Magnier. We discuss the recent Israeli bombings in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq, the political situation and the impending retaliation by Hezbollah. Also we talk about the purpose and importance of the occupation of al Tanf and the battle for Idlib including Turkey’s realignment and the Astana agreement.
Elijah Magnier is a veteran war correspondent and political analyst with over 35 years of experience covering the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).
FOLLOW Elijah Magnier @ejmalrai. Read and support his work at ejmagnier.com
Around the Empire is listener supported, independent media. Pitch in at Patreon: patreon.com/aroundtheempire or paypal.me/aroundtheempirepod. Find all links at aroundtheempire.com.
SUBSCRIBE on YouTube. FOLLOW @aroundtheempire and @joanneleon. SUBSCRIBE/FOLLOW on iTunes, iHeart, Spotify, Google Play, Facebook or on your preferred podcast app.
Recorded on August 30, 2019. Music by Fluorescent Grey.
Timestamps:
2:30 Recent Israeli bombings in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq, violation of 2006 rules of engagement
10:30 Hezbollah warnings of retaliation, preparation for war
14:00 Political situation in Lebanon and Israel, Hezbollah response before Israeli elections
22:45 Hezbollah response to recent attacks is imminent
29:00 Political impact on Netanyahu, Trump/Netanyahu alliance, risk to American soldiers after bombings in Iraq
36:00 Israeli launched attacks in Iraq from an American base
41:45 Al Tanf base, economic warfare
49:30 Situation in Idlib, Syrian army advance, Turkey realignment and withdrawal of support for former allied jihadi groups; Astana agreement
Reference Links:
Guest: Whitney Webb. We continue the discussion on Whitney’s multi-part investigative journalism articles on the Jeffrey Epstein affair, the multi-national criminal enterprise, with an American wing that is whole heartedly bipartisan and perennial. Today we focus on Part 4 of the series: From “Spook Air” to the “Lolita Express”: The Genesis and Evolution of the Jeffrey Epstein-Bill Clinton Relationship.
Both familiar and unfamiliar names and events turn up in this episode. Iran Contra, Bill & Hillary Clinton, Mena, Arkansas, Rose Law Firm, William Barr, BCCI, PROMIS, Systematics, Danny Casolaro, Jackson Stephens, Adnan Khashoggi, and more. Part 4 is the final piece of this series but not really the end, and Whitney gives us some hints about spinoff investigations that will be pursued.
Whitney Webb is a MintPress news journalist and the co-host of the MintCast podcast. She is based in southern Chile and has contributed to numerous independent media outlets with writing and interviews and Whitney is the 2019 winner of the Serena Shim Award for Uncompromised Integrity in Journalism.
FOLLOW @_whitneywebb, find her work at MintPress News and the MintCast podcast. Support her work by contributing to MintPress News or by becoming a patron at patreon.com/MintPressNews.
Around the Empire is listener supported, independent media. Pitch in at Patreon: patreon.com/aroundtheempire or paypal.me/aroundtheempirepod. Find all links at aroundtheempire.com.
SUBSCRIBE on YouTube. FOLLOW @aroundtheempire and @joanneleon.
SUBSCRIBE/FOLLOW on iTunes, iHeart, Spotify, Google Play, Facebook or on your preferred podcast app.
Recorded on August 23, 2019. Music by Fluorescent Grey.
Reference Links:
Guest: Mark Sleboda. Mark Sleboda joins us today from Moscow to talk about political affairs in Ukraine and the recent snap elections in the Ukrainian parliament, the Rada. The “throw the bums out” trend continues and the new president,Volodymyr Zelensky and his brand new political party now has a rare absolute majority and they begin the task of actually governing this troubled state.
Mark is an International Affairs & Security Analyst, a US Navy veteran, a university lecturer and a foreign policy realist.
FOLLOW Mark on Twitter @MarkSleboda1 and on Facebook, look for his appearances on RT, Sputnik and other international channels.
Around the Empire is listener supported, independent media. Pitch in at Patreon: patreon.com/aroundtheempire or paypal.me/aroundtheempirepod. Find all links at aroundtheempire.com.
SUBSCRIBE on YouTube. FOLLOW @aroundtheempire and @joanneleon. SUBSCRIBE/FOLLOW on iTunes, iHeart, Spotify, Google Play, Facebook or on your preferred podcast app.
Recorded on August 7, 2019. Music by Fluorescent Grey.
Timestamps:
01:30 Ukraine presidential and snap parliamentary elections, Zelensky, “Servant of the People”, rejection of Poroshenko, anti-corruption, vague policies that appeal to East and West Ukraine, new inexperienced Zelensky party in Rada with diverse policy positions, no party platform or ideology
11:00 Oligarch Kolomoisky, originally pro-Maidan, funded & armed nationalist/neo-Nazi battalions, Privat Bank, fled country with IMF funds, self-exiled and later returned, possibly created Zelensky
16:30 Zelensky continues orientation toward EU and the West, Minsk agreement, privatization and austerity
18:30 Civil war, refusal to talk with Donbass separatists leaders, relations with Russia
21:30 Ukrainian economy
27:30 Control of military and national guard, intelligence services
30:30 Ukraine elections and parties (also with an introduction to Mark’s pets voicing their opinion in the background :) (see photos in reference links)
44:00 VICE article (see reference links) propaganda on the far-Right militias, influence on Europe, missiles found in Italy, blowback of Western proxies, current situation with neo-Nazi militias, previous contradictory work of VICE in Ukraine
Reference Links:
Guest: Carl Zha. A wide-ranging discussion about colonial Hong Kong, the transition back to China, and the social and economic changes that developed. We analyze the current Hong Kong protests, the forces at work and the prospects for a military crackdown or peaceful resolution.
Carl Zha is an engineer, historian, podcaster, and a Caltech Alum. His podcast, Silk and Steel, is about China, US-China Great Power competition and the history of Empires, past and present.
FOLLOW @carlzha, SUBSCRIBE to his podcast Silk and Steel and listen to his previous podcast, Clash.
Around the Empire is listener supported, independent media. Pitch in at Patreon: patreon.com/aroundtheempire or paypal.me/aroundtheempirepod. Find all links at aroundtheempire.com.
SUBSCRIBE on YouTube. FOLLOW @aroundtheempire and @joanneleon.
SUBSCRIBE/FOLLOW on iTunes, iHeart, Spotify, Google Play, Facebook or on your preferred podcast app.
Recorded on August 15, 2019. Music by Fluorescent Grey.
Reference Links:
Guest: Douglas Valentine. We talk about the CIA, foreign intelligence and liaison operations, Donald Trump and the Jeffrey Epstein affair.
Douglas Valentine is an author, investigator, journalist and poet. He’s the author of many books, including “The Phoenix Program: America’s Use of Terror in Vietnam,” and “The CIA as Organized Crime: How Illegal Operations Corrupt America and the World.” He is well known for his extensive research and interviews of numerous CIA officers, former CIA director William Colby and others involved in the Phoenix Program. The Phoenix Program was a large operation that involved kidnapping, torture, and assassination. Its goal was the destruction of the Viet Cong insurgency, a political and paramilitary movement that worked against the United States and the US-backed South Vietnamese government during the Vietnam war.
FOLLOW Douglas Valentine @dougvalentine77 and find his books, writing and archives on his website www.douglasvalentine.com.
Around the Empire is listener supported, independent media. Pitch in at Patreon: patreon.com/aroundtheempire or paypal.me/aroundtheempirepod. Find all links at aroundtheempire.com.
SUBSCRIBE on YouTube. FOLLOW @aroundtheempire and @joanneleon. SUBSCRIBE/FOLLOW on iTunes, iHeart, Spotify, Google Play, Facebook or on your preferred podcast app.
Recorded on July 29, 2019. Music by Fluorescent Grey.
Timestamps:
2:30 Clip from Andrew McCarthy interview on expectations for the IG report on Russiagate/Spygate, foreign intelligence and liaison operations
7:45 Origins of CIA, political police force, liaison operations, Trump and Epstein, gangsters, ideology based in capitalism, makes it possible for people like Trump & Epstein to thrive, anti-communism/socialism, patriarchy, system enables sexual predatory activity
14:00 Mafia is a model for capitalist corporate enterprises, CIA exempt from laws, all intel services organized similarly, CIA tries to shape social and political environment in other countries for US business enterprises
18:30 To control other countries CIA must control criminal underworld in those countries, Various tactics like sexual blackmail used to coerce businessmen and officials in other countries, partners with organized crime for blackmail, arms and drug trafficking
22:30 1980’s Donald Trump wanted to advance his business overseas, money laundering
26:00 CIA has intel on American businessmen and makes use of them to do its bidding in the US without conducting operations here, immunized and covered up by the national security state
31:30 Five directorates of CIA, directorate of operations has two parts. Foreign intelligence/liaison branch spies and recruits assets, partners with and bargains with foreign intelligence services.
41:30 Recruiting people to spy on their own countries, wittingly or unwittingly. Creates many “proprietary companies” including charitable entities and NGOs, intelligence operations under cover of civic action.
46:00 Assets like Epstein are expendable. Trump became president, so not expendable. Ghislaine Maxwell and blackmail operations. Operations will never be revealed because covered by national security laws
50:30 Women can also perpetuate the corrupt, patriarchichal system. Details of various spectacles aren’t very important in the big picture, as nothing will change until the system is changed
Reference Links:
Guest: Whitney Webb. We continue the discussion on Whitney’s multi-part investigative journalism articles on the Jeffrey Epstein affair, his ties to intelligence and organized crime, trafficking networks and sexual blackmail operations, and the origins of the Epstein case, going back decades. We focus on Part 3: Mega Group, Maxwells, and Mossad: The Spy Story at the Heart of the Jeffrey Epstein Scandal,
Whitney Webb is a MintPress news journalist and the co-host of the MintCast podcast. She is based in southern Chile and has contributed to numerous independent media outlets with writing and interviews and Whitney is the 2019 winner of the Serena Shim Award for Uncompromised Integrity in Journalism.
FOLLOW @_whitneywebb, find her work at MintPress News and the MintCast podcast.
Around the Empire is listener supported, independent media. Pitch in at Patreon: patreon.com/aroundtheempire or paypal.me/aroundtheempirepod. Find all links at aroundtheempire.com.
SUBSCRIBE on YouTube. FOLLOW @aroundtheempire and @joanneleon.
SUBSCRIBE/FOLLOW on iTunes, iHeart, Spotify, Google Play, Facebook or on your preferred podcast app.
Recorded on August 7, 2019. Music by Fluorescent Grey.
Reference Links:
Guest: Major Danny Sjursen, US Army (ret.). We discuss what Danny refers to as “The Tulsi Effect” and its impact of forcing the issue of war onto the Democratic party agenda and the 2020 presidential election.
The issue of war and foreign policy is something that liberals and progressive candidates would much prefer to ignore in debates and on the public stage. As Danny Sjursen wrote: “This was ever so apparent in the first two nights of Democratic primary debates this week. Foreign policy hardly registered for these candidates with one noteworthy exception: Hawaii Representative Tulsi Gabbard—herself an (anti-war) combat veteran and army officer.” All of this is true, and stunning, especially given that our country “remains mired in several air and ground wars from West Africa to Central Asia.”
Tulsi has made ending the wars a centerpiece of her campaign and even though she is not a frontrunner she does stand out for making this her priority and not only that, she is forcing the issue of war onto the Democratic agenda. We also talk about Joe Biden’s Iraq War problem, Trump’s chaotic and contradictory foreign policy cabinet, the silent anti-interventionist majority in America and the state of the anti-war movement.
Major Danny Sjursen is a retired US Army strategist and former history instructor at West Point. He served tours with reconnaissance units in Iraq and Afghanistan. He is the author of a memoir and critical analysis of the Iraq War titled: Ghostriders of Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge. His articles are published by numerous media outlets: antiwar.com, The American Conservative, Truthdig, TomDispatch and others. He is the co-host of the Fortress on a Hill podcast.
FOLLOW Danny @SkepticalVet, find his podcast at Fortress on a Hill.
Around the Empire is listener supported, independent media. Pitch in at Patreon: patreon.com/aroundtheempire or paypal.me/aroundtheempirepod. Find all links at aroundtheempire.com.
SUBSCRIBE on YouTube. FOLLOW @aroundtheempire and @joanneleon. SUBSCRIBE/FOLLOW on iTunes, iHeart, Spotify, Google Play, Facebook or on your preferred podcast app.
Recorded on July 10, 2019. Music by Fluorescent Grey.
Reference Links: