Primary Sources - Empire of Lies feat. Matthew Hoh

Empire of Lies feat. Matthew Hoh

10/08/21 • 92 min

"There's been one systemic process of lying throughout the Afghan War. From the Bush Administration to the Obama Administration to the Trump Administration it has just been systemic lying from the American government about the war."
This is what Matthew Hoh says about the US war in Afghanistan during this episode of Primary Sources. Hoh would know. After already completing two assignments in Iraq, Hoh joined the US State Department in Afghanistan. In 2009, he made headlines when he resigned in protest of President Obama's plans to escalate the Afghan War. Hoh joins host Chip Gibbons to discuss the four decade history of US intervention in Afghanistan, his own journey as a whistleblower, and how the Pentagon hired a PR firm to discredit him when he spoke out against the war.

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Previous Episode

Jailing the Messenger: The CIA's Torture Whistleblower feat. John Kiriakou

After September 11, 2001, the Central Intelligence Agency, with the approval of President George W. Bush, began a highly classified program of renditions and torture. While torture violates both US and international law, President Obama declined to hold any one accountable for the program, saying he was looking forwards, not backwards.

That policy, however, did not apply to whistleblowers. The Obama Administration prosecuted former CIA analyst and case officer John Kiriakou for revealing information about the US torture program. Kiriakou first confirmed the CIA had used waterboarding while Bush was still in office. In spite of the CIA filing a crimes report, they declined prosecution. But the Obama Administration, at the request of CIA Director John Brennan, revived the case and sent Kiriakou to prison.

To date, he remains the only person to be held accountable in connection to the torture program.

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Next Episode

The Drone Whistleblowers feat. Lisa Ling, Cian Westmoreland, Keagan Miller & Christopher Aaron

Those in the drone program have witnessed first hand the serious human costs of the US's global assassinations program. For years, veterans of the drone program have worked to alert the public to the realities of the drone warfare.
The Kabul Strike, which killed 10 civilians, including 7 children, shocks the conscience of all thinking people. But as drone whistleblowers, have tried to warn, it was hardly an unusual event.
Host Chip Gibbons is joined by drone whistleblowers Lisa Ling, Keagan Miller, Cian Westmoreland, and Christopher Aaron for a timely and troubling conversation.

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