What if everything you’ve been told about the military — “fighting for freedom,” “protecting democracy,” “serving your country” — was a lie?

In this explosive episode of "The Watchdog," British-Iraqi artist and host Lowkey sits down with former Army Ranger and intel insider Greg Stoker, who saw the beast from the inside and walked away from it.

Stoker breaks the silence on:

• How the U.S. military breaks young men to serve the empire
• Why most soldiers join out of economic desperation, not patriotism
• The real reason so many vets kill themselves when they get out
• How the Pentagon built the internet to spy on Americans and suppress dissent
• Why Israel would collapse in weeks without U.S. money and weapons
• Britain’s role as America’s lapdog in every foreign war

You won’t hear this on Fox. And you won’t hear it from military recruiters or the GOP establishment either.

This is the raw truth about how our government feeds your sons and daughters into endless wars to prop up foreign regimes, while bankrupting your future.

Lowkey’s U.K. tour starts in September. Tickets here: https://linktr.ee/lowkey0nline

Full episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/1df4KXhYSNk

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The Watchdog is 100% independent and listener-supported.

We don’t take corporate ad money. We don’t have billionaire backers. Episodes like this are only possible because of you.

If you value fearless journalism and critical conversations, please consider joining our community of supporters:

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Together, we can keep this work going.

Lowkey is a British-Iraqi hip-hop artist, academic and political campaigner. As a musician, he has collaborated with the Arctic Monkeys, Wretch 32, Immortal Technique and Akala. He is a patron of Stop The War Coalition, Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Racial Justice Network and The Peace and Justice Project, founded by Jeremy Corbyn. He has spoken and performed on platforms from the Oxford Union to the Royal Albert Hall and Glastonbury. His latest album, Soundtrack To The Struggle 2, featured Noam Chomsky and Frankie Boyle and has been streamed millions of times.

On this powerful episode of "The Watchdog," Lowkey sits down with Ahmed Alnaouq, a Palestinian writer, journalist, and co-founder of We Are Not Numbers—a collective that amplifies Palestinian voices through storytelling. 

Alnaouq joins from the U.K. to talk about his best-selling new book, "We Are Not Numbers," a humanizing collection of 74 stories written by 59 Palestinians, two of whom have since been killed during Israel’s ongoing war on Gaza.

Alnaouq speaks with urgency about the genocide unfolding in Gaza, the silencing of Palestinian voices, and why it is imperative to talk openly about Zionism—not as abstract theory, but as a lived reality. As he explains:

The episode also revisits Alnaouq’s viral confrontation with Piers Morgan, during which he dismantled the media narrative that framed the conflict as a religious war. Instead, Alnaouq sets the record straight:

With over 55,000 Palestinians—mostly women and children—killed in Gaza, and the United Nations warning of starvation and collapse, Alnaouq urges the world to act, speak out, and bear witness.

We Are Not Numbers is available now and has already been translated into multiple languages.

Watch the full interview on MintPress News and subscribe to The Watchdog for more conversations that challenge censorship, expose propaganda, and speak truth to power.

Support the show

The Watchdog is 100% independent and listener-supported.

We don’t take corporate ad money. We don’t have billionaire backers. Episodes like this are only possible because of you.

If you value fearless journalism and critical conversations, please consider joining our community of supporters:

🔗 Support us on Patreon

Together, we can keep this work going.

Lowkey is a British-Iraqi hip-hop artist, academic and political campaigner. As a musician, he has collaborated with the Arctic Monkeys, Wretch 32, Immortal Technique and Akala. He is a patron of Stop The War Coalition, Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Racial Justice Network and The Peace and Justice Project, founded by Jeremy Corbyn. He has spoken and performed on platforms from the Oxford Union to the Royal Albert Hall and Glastonbury. His latest album, Soundtrack To The Struggle 2, featured Noam Chomsky and Frankie Boyle and has been streamed millions of times.

In this powerful episode of "The Watchdog," host Lowkey speaks with Palestinian-American author and activist Susan Abulhawa about her firsthand experiences inside Gaza during the ongoing Israeli assault. 

As one of the few Western-based voices to enter the besieged enclave during the genocide, Abulhawa shares her deeply personal account of life under bombardment, the psychological toll of witnessing mass devastation, and the political cost of speaking uncomfortable truths in Western institutions.

Abulhawa reflects on the eerie stillness of Gaza’s ruins, the erasure of daily life, and the overwhelming sense of loss she encountered, both human and environmental. 

She also opens up about the backlash she faced upon returning to the West, including de-platforming, public smears, and institutional silencing, such as censorship from major academic venues like Oxford.

This episode intersects witness, memory, and resistance, and why narratives like Abulhawa’s are crucial to breaking the wall of manufactured silence surrounding Israel’s actions in Gaza.

Support the show

The Watchdog is 100% independent and listener-supported.

We don’t take corporate ad money. We don’t have billionaire backers. Episodes like this are only possible because of you.

If you value fearless journalism and critical conversations, please consider joining our community of supporters:

🔗 Support us on Patreon

Together, we can keep this work going.

Lowkey is a British-Iraqi hip-hop artist, academic and political campaigner. As a musician, he has collaborated with the Arctic Monkeys, Wretch 32, Immortal Technique and Akala. He is a patron of Stop The War Coalition, Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Racial Justice Network and The Peace and Justice Project, founded by Jeremy Corbyn. He has spoken and performed on platforms from the Oxford Union to the Royal Albert Hall and Glastonbury. His latest album, Soundtrack To The Struggle 2, featured Noam Chomsky and Frankie Boyle and has been streamed millions of times.

It was a pogrom, the likes of which have not been seen in Europe since the days of World War Two. Or at least that is how corporate media across the world presented last month’s violence in Amsterdam, as Israeli team Maccabi Tel Aviv came to play Ajax in football’s Europa League.

In total, five people were hospitalized, with a few dozen more minor injuries. And yet, the event generated hysteria across the West. President Biden, for example, described the supposed attacks against Israelis as “despicable,” adding that they “echo dark moments in history when Jews persecuted.”

Dutch King Willem-Alexander, meanwhile, compared the events to the Holocaust.

Yet even as public official after public official was denouncing the Dutch and spreading the persecution narrative, video clips showing a very different reality were going viral on social media, challenging the official story.

On today’s episode of “The Watchdog,” Lowkey catches up with an eyewitness to November’s violence. Rachid El Ghazoui, better known as Appa, is a legend of Dutch hip hop. Active for over two decades, the rapper is known for his political content and his fierce criticism of racist Dutch politicians, such as Geert Wilders. His lyrics have made him a leading voice among the Moroccan community in the Netherlands.

Appa tells a different story to Biden or King Willem-Alexander, presenting it as a tale of Israeli football thugs trashing a beautiful city, and then being challenged and overpowered by locals. As he told Lowkey:

From there, the Israeli thugs were beaten back, and the resistance put up by locals – many of them of Moroccan descent – was treated as a vicious racist attack. Thus, what was a pretty typical case of European soccer hooliganism was transformed for political gain into a supposedly senseless anti-Semitic pogrom.

The plot thickened even further after Israeli media revealed that Israel had sent many Mossad agents to Amsterdam who were present among the Maccabi fans.

Ajax won the game 5-0.

Support the show

The Watchdog is 100% independent and listener-supported.

We don’t take corporate ad money. We don’t have billionaire backers. Episodes like this are only possible because of you.

If you value fearless journalism and critical conversations, please consider joining our community of supporters:

🔗 Support us on Patreon

Together, we can keep this work going.

Lowkey is a British-Iraqi hip-hop artist, academic and political campaigner. As a musician, he has collaborated with the Arctic Monkeys, Wretch 32, Immortal Technique and Akala. He is a patron of Stop The War Coalition, Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Racial Justice Network and The Peace and Justice Project, founded by Jeremy Corbyn. He has spoken and performed on platforms from the Oxford Union to the Royal Albert Hall and Glastonbury. His latest album, Soundtrack To The Struggle 2, featured Noam Chomsky and Frankie Boyle and has been streamed millions of times.

Israel’s attack on its neighbors could not be sustained without support from the West. And much of that support comes from the United Kingdom. Only a few hundred kilometers from Gaza, the British military base in Akrotiri, Cyprus, serves as the “heartbeat” of the Israeli assault. Israeli warplanes fly there to be serviced and repaired, while Western supply planes fly into the base before making the final trip to Israel.

“Almost no one in this country [the United Kingdom] had heard about it before Gaza and before our work on it,” investigative journalist and returning guest Matt Kennard told Lowkey today, adding:

Kennard is a writer and journalist for Declassified UK. He has broken several stories about secret British collaboration and support for Israeli actions. Previously, he worked as a reporter for The Financial Times and was a fellow and a director of the Center For Investigative Journalism in London. His latest book is “Silent Coup: How Corporations Overthrew Democracy.”

For Kennard, Britain’s active support of Israeli actions makes them participants in the ongoing genocide. Last October, the British government issued a “D Notice” instructing media outlets not to report on any elite U.K. SAS commando operations in Gaza. This action immediately raises the question, “What are British special forces doing in Gaza?”

In addition to weapons sales, logistical aid and political support, Britain also secretly trains Israeli troops. Despite this, the Israeli government has continued to attempt to infiltrate and surveil top-level British politicians. Boris Johnson, for instance, revealed that Benjamin Netanyahu personally attempted to place a listening device in his quarters. Kennard’s investigation revealed that one-third of Johnson’s cabinet had their political careers funded either directly by Israel or by the pro-Israel lobby.

Support the show

The Watchdog is 100% independent and listener-supported.

We don’t take corporate ad money. We don’t have billionaire backers. Episodes like this are only possible because of you.

If you value fearless journalism and critical conversations, please consider joining our community of supporters:

🔗 Support us on Patreon

Together, we can keep this work going.

Lowkey is a British-Iraqi hip-hop artist, academic and political campaigner. As a musician, he has collaborated with the Arctic Monkeys, Wretch 32, Immortal Technique and Akala. He is a patron of Stop The War Coalition, Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Racial Justice Network and The Peace and Justice Project, founded by Jeremy Corbyn. He has spoken and performed on platforms from the Oxford Union to the Royal Albert Hall and Glastonbury. His latest album, Soundtrack To The Struggle 2, featured Noam Chomsky and Frankie Boyle and has been streamed millions of times.

In less than one year, Israel has managed to turn Gaza into rubble. A recent estimate by a global health expert suggested that around 335,000 Gazans could have been killed as a result of the Israeli attacks. 

Today, “Watchdog” host Lowkey speaks to one of the survivors of the Israeli bombing, Ahmed al-Naouq. Ahmed al-Naouq grew up in central Gaza and moved to the United Kingdom to attend Leeds University. In 2015, he co-founded We Are Not Numbers, a non-profit group that seeks to tell the stories of Palestinians to the world. 

The grief began right away for al-Naouq. “On the 7th of October, my fiancé’s house was bombed, and she lost her brother,” he told Lowkey, adding:

For Lowkey, the Israeli attack on Gaza is of historic proportions. He compared it to the 13th-century Mongol invasion of Baghdad in its similarity in that it destroyed thousands of years of civilization. What has been done, he said, was so intensely violent, not just physically but culturally, that it is almost incomparable. On al-Naouq, Lowkey noted that his story:

Al-Naouq, a journalist by training, lambasted the deceitful Western media coverage of the attacks, stating: 

After nearly twelve months of bombing, those attacks show little sign of slowing down, primarily because Western governments continue to supply Israel with the hi-tech weaponry it needs to continue and defend its actions in international bodies such as the United Nations. 

Support the show

The Watchdog is 100% independent and listener-supported.

We don’t take corporate ad money. We don’t have billionaire backers. Episodes like this are only possible because of you.

If you value fearless journalism and critical conversations, please consider joining our community of supporters:

🔗 Support us on Patreon

Together, we can keep this work going.

Lowkey is a British-Iraqi hip-hop artist, academic and political campaigner. As a musician, he has collaborated with the Arctic Monkeys, Wretch 32, Immortal Technique and Akala. He is a patron of Stop The War Coalition, Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Racial Justice Network and The Peace and Justice Project, founded by Jeremy Corbyn. He has spoken and performed on platforms from the Oxford Union to the Royal Albert Hall and Glastonbury. His latest album, Soundtrack To The Struggle 2, featured Noam Chomsky and Frankie Boyle and has been streamed millions of times.

On this episode of The Watchdog, host Lowkey is joined by three guests to discuss how progressive or radical change is blocked in the U.S. and the U.K. by our political establishment, specifically by the Democratic and the Labour Parties. 

Chris Williamson and his communications officer, Ammar Kazmi, join the show to discuss the political situation in the U.K. Between 2010 and 2019, Chris Williamson was a Labour member of parliament and was a shadow cabinet minister under Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. He was eventually forced out of the party he had joined in 1976 as a 19-year-old after he was the subject of a smear campaign depicting him as an antisemite. 

Also joining the show today is MintPress CEO and founder Mnar Adley. Adley notes that U.S. politics is set up to fundamentally limit the debate and framework for change by privileging the Democrats and Republicans over third parties, who are shut out of debates, ignored by corporate media, and censored by big tech platforms. All of this is done in order to promote voting for one of the two major parties. But “voting for the lesser evil is still evil,” she said. 

While in Corbyn’s cabinet, Williamson pushed him to take more radical positions, such as committing to ending poverty altogether. “We are the sixth-biggest economy in the world. There is really no excuse for anybody to be living in poverty in this country,” he explained to Lowkey. Corbyn, however, was “far too timid” and, ultimately, did not stand up to the vicious waves of attacks and smears against him and his followers, particularly on the question of anti-Semitism. As Williamson said: 

No matter how hard they try, however, there is a growing movement in both countries demanding radical change. And if it continues to gather momentum, both Labour and the Democrats could be overtaken and consigned to the trashcan of history.

Support the show

The Watchdog is 100% independent and listener-supported.

We don’t take corporate ad money. We don’t have billionaire backers. Episodes like this are only possible because of you.

If you value fearless journalism and critical conversations, please consider joining our community of supporters:

🔗 Support us on Patreon

Together, we can keep this work going.

Lowkey is a British-Iraqi hip-hop artist, academic and political campaigner. As a musician, he has collaborated with the Arctic Monkeys, Wretch 32, Immortal Technique and Akala. He is a patron of Stop The War Coalition, Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Racial Justice Network and The Peace and Justice Project, founded by Jeremy Corbyn. He has spoken and performed on platforms from the Oxford Union to the Royal Albert Hall and Glastonbury. His latest album, Soundtrack To The Struggle 2, featured Noam Chomsky and Frankie Boyle and has been streamed millions of times.

The British public has spoken, and they have collectively let out a sigh of apathy. The latest election results might have produced a landslide for Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party. But going beneath the surface, Britons appeared less than pleased with the options they were given. Turnout was among the lowest seen since the 1880s when women (and most men) could not vote.

The notorious British press relentlessly promoted the far-right Reform U.K. party, but to little avail: Reform U.K. ended up with only five seats. Chief amongst those outlets were those of Rupert Murdoch’s empire. The Australian billionaire – described by former prime minister Tony Blair as one of Britain’s four most powerful people and an unofficial member of his cabinet – has worked for decades to push a reactionary agenda into British public life. This has included near-total support for the Israeli government and its expansionist project.

Today, “Watchdog” host Lowkey is joined by Alan MacLeod to discuss the U.K. media’s relentless support for Israel. Alan MacLeod is a senior staff writer and podcast producer for MintPress News. After completing his PhD in 2017, he published two books on media and propaganda and regularly teaches media studies at universities. He has recently published investigations into Murdoch’s close connections to the Israeli government and on Cyabra, an Israeli intelligence cutout organization posing as a neutral fact-checking group.

While Israel has failed to defeat Hamas militarily, it has been able to rely on the support of corporate media in the West, and most of all from Murdoch, who has extensive economic and ideological ties to the state of Israel. 

Earlier this year, conservative British newspaper The Daily Telegraph went after Lowkey, claiming that a network of Russian, Chinese and Iranian bots was artificially inflating his online pro-Palestine messaging. The basis for this extraordinary claim was an intelligence report from private firm Cyabra.

Yet Cyabra is far from a neutral organization. It was co-founded by Israeli military intelligence veterans and continues to work hand-in-glove with the Israeli government. Moreover, around fifty percent of its employees are military reservists who have been called up to serve in Gaza. 

Support the show

The Watchdog is 100% independent and listener-supported.

We don’t take corporate ad money. We don’t have billionaire backers. Episodes like this are only possible because of you.

If you value fearless journalism and critical conversations, please consider joining our community of supporters:

🔗 Support us on Patreon

Together, we can keep this work going.

Lowkey is a British-Iraqi hip-hop artist, academic and political campaigner. As a musician, he has collaborated with the Arctic Monkeys, Wretch 32, Immortal Technique and Akala. He is a patron of Stop The War Coalition, Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Racial Justice Network and The Peace and Justice Project, founded by Jeremy Corbyn. He has spoken and performed on platforms from the Oxford Union to the Royal Albert Hall and Glastonbury. His latest album, Soundtrack To The Struggle 2, featured Noam Chomsky and Frankie Boyle and has been streamed millions of times.

While the Labour Party may have triumphed in the recent British parliamentary elections, the real victors may have been Israel. Israel and its lobby have deep connections to the British Labour Party, headed by Sir Keir Starmer, and are likely pleased to see him come to power.

On today’s episode of “The Watchdog,” Lowkey is joined by John McEvoy to discuss his work uncovering Israel’s surprisingly firm grip over the British political system. John McEvoy is an investigative journalist for Declassified UK, a media outlet covering British foreign policy and intelligence agencies’ true role around the world. 

While Labour has achieved a landslide victory, McEvoy warns that this was not because of widespread public support. Instead, it was down to a split in the vote between the Conservatives and their far-right challengers, Reform U.K. And while the public yearns for change, Starmer has been steadfast in his refusal to adopt bold policies to deliver what the people want. “Keir Starmer is poised to destroy a lot of hopes of British people and those who have wrongly invested their hopes in him. And that's a recipe for political disaster and a wider shift to the right here,” McEvoy told Lowkey. 

Perhaps even more worrying is the level of Israeli influence within the Labour Party. Pro-Israel money has flooded in; more than half of the new cabinet has been bankrolled by the British pro-Israel lobby, McEvoy’s recent study revealed.

Starmer has repeatedly refused to condemn Israel or do anything to concretely support a ceasefire in Gaza. His Labour Party has also elevated some of the most shameless propagandists into key positions. One example is Luke Akehurst, the former director of the pressure group, We Believe in Israel. 

Throughout its bombardment of Gaza, the U.K. has remained one of Israel’s closest allies. Arms exports have increased since October 7, and London has continued to provide diplomatic cover for the genocide. Moreover, British spy planes continue to fly over Gaza, while military supply planes have made dozens of trips to Israel since the bombardment began, making Britain an accomplice in war crimes.

Support the show

The Watchdog is 100% independent and listener-supported.

We don’t take corporate ad money. We don’t have billionaire backers. Episodes like this are only possible because of you.

If you value fearless journalism and critical conversations, please consider joining our community of supporters:

🔗 Support us on Patreon

Together, we can keep this work going.

Lowkey is a British-Iraqi hip-hop artist, academic and political campaigner. As a musician, he has collaborated with the Arctic Monkeys, Wretch 32, Immortal Technique and Akala. He is a patron of Stop The War Coalition, Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Racial Justice Network and The Peace and Justice Project, founded by Jeremy Corbyn. He has spoken and performed on platforms from the Oxford Union to the Royal Albert Hall and Glastonbury. His latest album, Soundtrack To The Struggle 2, featured Noam Chomsky and Frankie Boyle and has been streamed millions of times.

While the Labour Party may have triumphed in the recent British parliamentary elections, the real victors may have been Israel. Israel and its lobby have deep connections to the British Labour Party, headed by Sir Keir Starmer, and are likely pleased to see him come to power.

On today’s episode of “The Watchdog,” Lowkey is joined by John McEvoy to discuss his work uncovering Israel’s surprisingly firm grip over the British political system. John McEvoy is an investigative journalist for Declassified UK, a media outlet covering British foreign policy and intelligence agencies’ true role around the world. 

While Labour has achieved a landslide victory, McEvoy warns that this was not because of widespread public support. Instead, it was down to a split in the vote between the Conservatives and their far-right challengers, Reform U.K. And while the public yearns for change, Starmer has been steadfast in his refusal to adopt bold policies to deliver what the people want. “Keir Starmer is poised to destroy a lot of hopes of British people and those who have wrongly invested their hopes in him. And that's a recipe for political disaster and a wider shift to the right here,” McEvoy told Lowkey. 

Perhaps even more worrying is the level of Israeli influence within the Labour Party. Pro-Israel money has flooded in; more than half of the new cabinet has been bankrolled by the British pro-Israel lobby, McEvoy’s recent study revealed.

Starmer has repeatedly refused to condemn Israel or do anything to concretely support a ceasefire in Gaza. His Labour Party has also elevated some of the most shameless propagandists into key positions. One example is Luke Akehurst, the former director of the pressure group, We Believe in Israel. 

Throughout its bombardment of Gaza, the U.K. has remained one of Israel’s closest allies. Arms exports have increased since October 7, and London has continued to provide diplomatic cover for the genocide. Moreover, British spy planes continue to fly over Gaza, while military supply planes have made dozens of trips to Israel since the bombardment began, making Britain an accomplice in war crimes.

Support the Show.

The MintPress podcast, “The Watchdog,” hosted by British-Iraqi hip hop artist Lowkey, closely examines organizations about which it is in the public interest to know – including intelligence, lobby and special interest groups influencing policies that infringe on free speech and target dissent. The Watchdog goes against the grain by casting a light on stories largely ignored by the mainstream, corporate media.

Lowkey is a British-Iraqi hip-hop artist, academic and political campaigner. As a musician, he has collaborated with the Arctic Monkeys, Wretch 32, Immortal Technique and Akala. He is a patron of Stop The War Coalition, Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Racial Justice Network and The Peace and Justice Project, founded by Jeremy Corbyn. He has spoken and performed on platforms from the Oxford Union to the Royal Albert Hall and Glastonbury. His latest album, Soundtrack To The Struggle 2, featured Noam Chomsky and Frankie Boyle and has been streamed millions of times.