A few days ago, U.S. President Donald Trump quoted Sputnik radio host John Kiriaku on his Twitter account.
John Chiriaku is an outstanding man, no doubt. There is good reason to believe that it was he who became the prototype of the main character of the spy series Motherland, Kerry - with that amendment, of course, that Kiriaku is a man and Kerry is a woman. Otherwise, there are too many coincidences.
Kyriakou, the grandson of immigrants from Greece, joined the CIA immediately after graduation - a talented student was recruited by one of his professors, a senior intelligence official. Kiriaku worked in the Middle East, including in Iraq, first as an analyst, then as an operative. He became a specialist in counter-terrorism operations, spent several years in his historical homeland - in Greece, where he fought with ultra-left militants. He was hardly killed by these militants - after a failed assassination attempt, Kiriaku was recalled to America, to the CIA headquarters. But he did not work there for long: after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Kyriakou was transferred to Pakistan, where he began (like Kerry from the “Motherland”) to direct all the CIA counterterrorism operations in this country. On his account, dozens of captured and eliminated al-Qaeda militants *. But the main success of Kyriaku in Pakistan was the capture of the right hand of Osama bin Laden, Abu Zubaida, who was considered the third person in the organization. The raid, during which Abu Zubaid fell into the hands of the Americans, Kiriyaku personally led.
It would seem that after such a success, John Kyriakou’s career was supposed to fly into the zenith, like a rocket. Nothing of the kind: a couple of years after the capture of Abu Zubaida Kiriaku leaves the CIA. Most likely, due to the inability to succumb to leadership - he is independent, non-caring, not ready to compromise.
Kyriakou left the CIA in 2004. And at the end of 2007, he gave an interview, which became a sensation.
“For a while he (Abu Zubayd. - K. B. ) was able to endure torture with water, maybe 30-35 seconds ... but shortly afterwards, the next day or something like that, he told the interrogators that Allah visited him in the cell and told him that he should cooperate (with investigators. - K. B. ), ”Kiriaku said.
Now we all know that in secret prisons of the CIA, water torture was widely used - when a person was tied tightly to a table, so that his head was below his body, and they poured water into his mouth, imitating drowning. And in 2007, no one had heard of this yet. John Kiriaku was the first employee to talk about water torture with Americans.
Kiriaku began to be invited to the studio of large television channels, he turned into a popular participant in the talk show, and ABC News offered him the position of his permanent consultant on terrorism. Kyriakou agreed, but did not stay in this position for long — a little more than six months. Senator John Kerry then invited him to work in Congress, and Kiriaku became senior investigator for the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
However, the bomb exploded in 2007 caused a chain reaction. Outraged by reports of torture by the CIA, human rights defenders bombarded Obama’s new presidential administration with angry inquiries.
Liberal Obama decided that if terrorists were indeed tortured in secret CIA prisons, then the blame for this lies entirely with his predecessor, Bush Jr., and the investigation was turned on. It also turned out that Kyriakou did not tell the whole truth: the same Abu Zubaid was tortured with water at least 83 times a month. In addition, he was deprived of sleep, locked in a kind of "big box", after which he lost his left eye.
It also turned out that the use of brutal methods of influence on caught terrorists gave very little effect - if at all. The story of Allah who appeared to Abu Zubaid was most likely, if not invented, then greatly exaggerated. Kiriaku’s mistake was most likely caused by the fact that he himself was present only during one episode of water torture, and he learned from the words of his colleagues that Abu Zubayd had split. But the job was done: the problem of torture in secret prisons of the CIA has long been one of the hottest topics in the American media.
At the CIA, of course, all this hype caused great irritation. Intelligence agencies generally do not like when civilians climb into their affairs, and even less so when their "their own" pull out their dirty linen. The department appealed to the Ministry of Justice with a complaint about “betrayal” of Kyriakou, but the liberal Obama lawyers did not find the corpus delicti in the actions of the former operative. However, intelligence never forgets anything (and does not forgive - at least, without a corresponding order). In addition, Gina Haspel, who led the secret CIA prison in Thailand, had a huge toothache at Kyriaku. CIA investigators dug a hole for Kyriakou for four years and in 2012 struck. This time, Kyriakou was accused of disclosing top secret information to journalists, including the name of an undercover CIA operative, and setting another employee of the department, Duce Martinez, under attack.
Kyriakou acquitted the first court, but the CIA did not back down. Prosecutors circled the former scout like vultures. He was again charged, and this time, Kyriakou made a deal with the investigation: he pleaded guilty to transmitting classified information to journalists (the very same interview) once. All other charges were dropped from him, and the sentence turned out to be rather mild by American standards - 30 months in prison (after 23 months, Kyriakou was released on parole).
The prison greatly influenced Kyriakou. He finally made sure that he had chosen the “right” side - this was evidenced by the revenge of the System itself, which he once convicted of using unsuitable methods, even to achieve good goals. From prison, the former Tsereushnik wrote an open letter to the former Air Force Officer (NSA, in Russian - NSA, National Security Agency) Edward Snowden, who was awaiting asylum at the Moscow Sheremetyevo Airport at that time.
In this letter, Kyriakou expressed his support to Snowden and warned him against talking to FBI agents. “Under no circumstances do you collaborate with people from the bureau!” He wrote.
In addition, in conclusion, Chiriaku wrote his own blog, Letters from Loretto (the name of the prison in Pennsylvania where he was sitting). This blog was very popular and caused a lively discussion about the conditions in which prisoners are held in American prisons. It is not surprising that, having released, Kyriakou took up journalism. And it is hardly possible to blame him for becoming the leading Sputnik radio, which the mainstream American media habitually calls the "mouthpiece of Russian propaganda."
Last week, Kyriakou was invited to Tucker Carlson’s evening program on Donald Trump’s favorite Fox News channel. We are talking about the mysterious "whistleblower" who leaked to the Democrats secret information about the conversation between the US president and the Ukrainian president. This drain gave Congressional Democrats the long-awaited opportunity to finally “convict” Trump of something very illegal (in fact, it was an investigation into the corruption schemes of the former vice president, and now Trump’s rival in the 2020 elections, Joe Biden) and begin the impeachment procedure.
The identity of the “whistleblower” is still hidden by fog, although the presenter Tucker Carlson not without irony remarked: “What else do CNN, the Democrats and everyone else in Washington agree: the one who reported on Ukrainian history is a hero! A brave hero who has provided invaluable services to this country! He is a whistleblower! ”
After this “introductory” Carlson, a true whistleblower, who spent two years in prison for an uncomfortable truth, said live on Fox News:
“I do not consider him a whistleblower. I don’t think at all. In my opinion, this is an anonymous source for Democrats in the House of Representatives ... A whistleblower is someone who reveals any evidence of embezzlement, fraud, abuse, crime or threats to public health and safety. And almost always this action is fraught with great personal troubles ... This so-called whistleblower at the CIA acts anonymously. Let me remind you that this man is not an undercover CIA agent. Apparently, this is an analyst who does not work undercover. You can’t hide the name of this person, his personality, just to save him from an awkward situation ... If he is a whistleblower, he needs to speak publicly, testify at open hearings and sound the alarm. ”
Donald Trump, which is not surprising, really liked these words of Kyriakou. So much so that he quoted it on his Twitter, and even gave a link to the interview.
Apparently, Kiriaku himself did not expect this. His first reaction was something like this: “Wow, Trump is quoting me!”
As for the non-alert anti-trump media, they, oddly enough, ignored the opportunity to once again bite Trump for his sympathy for Russia. And those who nevertheless were honored did it extremely gently - one might even say gently.
“Many White House officials were unfamiliar with Kyriakou and his case, and on Thursday one of them emphasized that the president may not have understood whose position he is strengthening. Kiriaku is currently receiving money from Sputnik, the Russian state-owned media, which Trump most likely did not know. In an interview with Fox News, he was not introduced as Sputnik’s presenter, ”writes the British Daily Mail.
But what if the opposite is true? If Trump knew perfectly well both about Kyriakou’s past and about whom he is currently working with? And, quoting a leading Russian media outlet, the American president made it clear who he considered to be a truly free press in his country?
In this case, a joke of RT’s editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan: “Nobody is watching, listening or reading. Except Donald Trump, ”it doesn't look so funny. Since imagining that the US president draws objective information from a source that all "independent" media in America consider to be the mouthpiece of hostile propaganda is just as difficult as, for example, listening to the Voice of America by the Secretary General of the CPSU Central Committee **. Although, they say, dear Leonid Ilyich was a big fan of "enemy voices."
This once again confirms the theory that the modern USA is very similar to the Brezhnev USSR of the era of late stagnation.
And it is possible that with similar consequences.
* Al-Qaeda - an organization recognized as terrorist by a decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation of February 14, 2003.
** Media recognized as a foreign agent by decision of the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation dated 05.12.2017.
The author’s point of view may not coincide with the position of the publisher.