Moderate Rebels

What was Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg doing in his safe house in Iraq — and why is he hiding it? Max Blumenthal and Ben Norton speak with Peter Van Buren, a longtime US State Department employee turned whistleblower.

Van Buren explains how corporate contractors profited from the war and built a shielded bubble of corruption in Baghdad's Green Zone. We also address McKinsey & Company's work with the CIA and Mayor Pete's links to American intelligence agencies.

Peter Van Buren's website: https://wemeantwell.com/blog/the-author/

What was Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg doing in his safe house in Iraq — and why is he hiding it? Max Blumenthal and Ben Norton speak with Peter Van Buren, a longtime US State Department employee turned whistleblower.

Van Buren explains how corporate contractors profited from the war and built a shielded bubble of corruption in Baghdad's Green Zone. We also address McKinsey & Company's work with the CIA and Mayor Pete's links to American intelligence agencies.

Peter Van Buren's website: https://wemeantwell.com/blog/the-author/

Max Blumenthal and Ben Norton speak with journalist Wyatt Reed, who is reporting on the ground in Bolivia after a US-backed far-right military coup against democratically elected leftist President Evo Morales. He describes the bloody repression of Indigenous protesters and the state of resistance.

Max Blumenthal discusses how corporate media manufactures consent for hybrid warfare and regime-change campaigns, from Russiagate to Libya, Venezuela to Syria.

(From the panel "PROPAGANDA: How Propaganda Manufactures Consent," organized by the Big Apple Coffee Party in New York City on November 19.)

Max Blumenthal and Ben Norton discuss President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), Mexico's first left-wing leader in five decades, with journalist Alina Duarte, who warns that right-wing forces may be trying to overthrow him in a coup, as Mexican foreign policy increasingly challenges the US and OAS.

NOTE: This interview was recorded on November 7, before the US-backed far-right coup in Bolivia.

Ben Norton and Max Blumenthal speak with journalist Alina Duarte, who is in Chile reporting on the enormous protests against right-wing billionaire oligarch President Sebastián Piñera. We discuss his neoliberal capitalist policies, growing poverty and inequality, the brutally violent police and military repression of the demonstrations, the regional implications, and the historical echoes of the Pinochet dictatorship.

Ben Norton continues his discussion with Max Blumenthal and Anya Parampil, who traveled to Syria to report on how the brutal regime-change war continues, now through economic siege, sanctions, and psychological warfare.

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(Recorded on September 21, 2019)

Ben Norton speaks with Max Blumenthal and Anya Parampil about their week reporting on the ground in Syria, where they saw the hell unleashed on civilians by foreign-backed Salafi-jihadist "rebels."

PART 1 OF 2

Max Blumenthal and Ben Norton continue discussing Hong Kong with China expert Carl Zha. We address the US government's role stoking the violent protests, corporate media lies and propaganda, and the new cold war against Beijing.

PART 2 OF 2

Max Blumenthal and Ben Norton discuss the violent protests rocking Hong Kong with China expert Carl Zha, who explains the colonial history with Britain, the anti-Chinese right-wing nativism fueling the protests, the economic conditions, and local oligarchs' leading role in the chaos.

PART 1 OF 2