Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, broad/webcasting since 1999. The show is archived at: www.gorilla-radio.com. The GR blog is at: gorillaradioblog.blogspot.com, and you can find and support the program at GRadio.Substack.com. Financial support is also possible through the Patreon site: https://www.patreon.com/PacificFreePress. He’s too the past contributing editor to the web news site, www.pacificfreepress.com, (now defunct) and tweets at @paciffreepress. G-Radio is dedicated to social justice, the environment, community, and providing a forum for people and issues not covered in the corporate media. Some past guests include: M. Shahid Alam, Joel Bakan, Maude Barlow, Ramzy Baroud, David Barsamian, William Blum, Luciana Bohne, Helen Caldicott, Noam Chomsky, Paul Cienfuegos, Yves Engler, Laura Flanders, Denis Halliday, Julia Butterfly Hill, Sam Husseini, Robert Jensen, Dahr Jamail, Chalmers Johnson, Malalai Joya, Kathy Kelly, Ingmar Lee, Dave Lindorff, Andrew Gavin Marshall, Stefania Maurizi, Greg Palast, Michael Parenti, John Pilger, Kevin Pina, Ted Rall, Paul Craig Roberts, John Ross, David Rovics, Joan Russow, Danny Schechter, Vandana Shiva, Norman Solomon, David Swanson, Andy Worthington, Mickey Z., Howard Zinn and many others.
Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded April 26th, 2023.
Long before CIA whistle-blowers Jeffrey Sterling, John Kiriakou, or Philip Agee revealed the crimes of “The Agency” and warned of the dangers it posed to democracy – and decency – everywhere, there was David W. Conde. The first self-described “CIA Watcher” is the subject of an extensive article just out at CovertAction Magazine.
Jeremy Kuzmarov is a journalist and author who also serves as Managing Editor at CAM. His book titles include, ‘Obama’s Unending Wars’, and ‘The Russians Are Coming, Again’, written with John Marciano. Jeremy’s recent piece at CovertAction – one of a raft of great articles he’s put up this month -‘Meet a Forgotten CIA Critic Who Presciently Characterized The Agency as a Cancer in 1970 Book‘ is a fascinating profile of David Conde and his career spent exposing the criminal enterprise that is America’s most famous intelligence organization.
Also, CovertActionMagazine’s Spring fund drive is on. It’s the chance you have to support the kind of fearless journalism everyone says they want to support, if only they knew how!
Today, Jeremy Kuzmarov on David W. Conde’s the CIA – Core of the Cancer, and more.
Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded April 2nd and 5th, 2023.
Just thirty years since the fall of the USSR and end of the Cold War, the atomic Mexican stand-off between East and West is hotter than its ever been. At this moment, nervous fingers hover above buttons and toggles that once triggered mean the end of everything we know. Worse, with the advent of AI, human agency is no longer required; its messy, indecisive moral acid removed from the Earth-ending equation.
Dr. Helen Caldicott is a physician, author, and lecturer who has for more than forty years studied, written, and campaigned against the proliferation of nuclear weapons and their derivatives, delivering impassioned speeches and making imprecations to both the politicians and power-brokers overseeing the precarious atomic tinderbox, and more importantly, imploring the people step up to stop the madness.
Helen Caldicott’s book titles include: ‘If You Love This Planet,’ ‘Nuclear Power Is Not the Answer,’The New Nuclear Danger,’ ‘Depleted Uranium: Metal of Dishonour,’ ‘If You Love This Planet: A Plan to Heal the Earth,’ and her most recent, ‘Sleepwalking to Armageddon’ in which she assembles contributions from the world’s leading nuclear scientists and thought leaders to “assess the political and scientific dimensions of the threat of nuclear war today.”
Helen Caldicott in the first half
And; Reporters Without Borders was to pay a visit to Julian Assange, the journalist wasting in Belmarsh Prison, London this week but in yet another example of arbitrary cruelty at the last moment authorities refused the RSF visit, barring too for good measure Assange’s wife, Stella.
April 11th marks the four year anniversary of Julian’s incarceration, under the harshest measures the British penal system can mete out. He’s held not for any crime committed in Britain, or against Britain, but because an American warrant seeking his extradition is “in process”.
June 6, 2019, I recorded an interview with Nils Melzer, then the United Nations Special Rapporteur on torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. Melzer visited Assange in May of that year and subsequently issued a public call for Assange’s immediate release, along with a searing rebuke of both his current jailors in Britain and those in America who would be if their extradition petition is executed.
Nils Melzer and the continued call for Julian Assange’s release in the second half.
Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded March 29th and April 2nd, 2023.
And welcome to the Spring of discontent! While leaders In the capitals of Europe and America promise to carry on the Ukraine proxy war no matter the price, the People are already in the streets protesting the real and rising costs of that belligerence. For Canadians, whose government is already full-throatedly behind: the bellicose stance against Russia, prospects of an expanded war against China and Iran, battles by sanction in Venezuela, Nicaragua, and elsewhere, there is too Haiti.
Last week, the Trudeau Liberals blithely announced another $100 million dollars to be delivered to the tiny island nation’s military and police effort to keep the restive population under heel. This on top of millions already delivered. It’s almost as if Ottawa believes the fatted tax goose’s golden eggs will never flag.
Yves Engler is an independent, Montreal-based journalist and author. He’s written twelve books on Canadian foreign policy, including ‘Canada in Haiti: Waging War on the Poor Majority’, co-authored with Anthony Fenton. His recent article, ‘Canadian government prioritizes war over climate crisis‘ is a troubling portrait of a country few here in our home and native land would recognize.
Yves Engler in the first half.
And; just what is Canada’s place in the world? Generations of us have been taught we are global agents of good; fair-minded, and justice-seeking. You know, “Wherever they’s a fight so hungry people can eat, we’ll be there. Wherever they’s a cop beatin’ up a guy“, etc., etc.
It’d be a great story, if only it were true.
Pitasanna Shanmugathas completed an advanced degree at one of Canada’s world-class Universities but found, beyond Canada’s “two solitudes” another bifurcation – one not in the curriculum – separating the real from an imagined nation. And so, he says, he set out on an epic three year journey of discovery, from coast to coast to coast, and across the tractless prairies. He documented his Canadian quest in the film series, ‘Truth to the Powerless: An Investigation into Canada’s Foreign Policy‘.
Pitasanna Shanmugathas and the hunt for Canada’s elusive identity in the second half.
But first, Yves Engler and Trudeau of the Tropics, taking Haiti.
Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded March 29th and April 2nd, 2023.
And welcome to the Spring of discontent! While leaders In the capitals of Europe and America promise to carry on the Ukraine proxy war no matter the price, the People are already in the streets protesting the real and rising costs of that belligerence.
For Canadians, whose government is already full-throatedly behind: the bellicose stance against Russia, prospects of an expanded war against China and Iran, battles by sanction in Venezuela, Nicaragua, and elsewhere, there is too Haiti.
Last week, the Trudeau Liberals blithely announced another $100 million dollars to be delivered to the tiny island nation’s military and police effort to keep the restive population under heel. This on top of millions already delivered. It’s almost as if Ottawa believes the fatted tax goose’s golden eggs will never flag.
Yves Engler is an independent, Montreal-based journalist and author. He’s written twelve books on Canadian foreign policy, including ‘Canada in Haiti: Waging War on the Poor Majority’, co-authored with Anthony Fenton.
Welcome to Gorilla Radio recorded March 8th, 2023.
March 20th marks the twentieth anniversary of America’s second invasion of Iraq. Despite the tens of millions of people across the globe coming into the streets to hold at bay the dogs of George Bush’s “generational war” Operation Iraqi Freedom’s “shock and awe” – called “blitzkrieg” in another era – was launched.
We all know what happened, and the failure of the People to stop the slaughter then and in Afghanistan in 2001 seemed to be the end of hope for the Peace Movement; but the flame for a World without War didn’t die, and has in fact recently been spotted flickering in the capitals of Europe, Canada, and even in Washington, D.C.
Ken Stone is an executive member of both the Syria Support Movement International and Hamilton Coalition to Stop the Wars.
Today, Ken Stone and the smouldering desire for peace.
Welcome to Gorilla Radio recorded March 8th, 2023.
March 20th marks the twentieth anniversary of America’s second invasion of Iraq. Despite the tens of millions of people across the globe coming into the streets to hold at bay the dogs of George Bush’s “generational war” Operation Iraqi Freedom’s “shock and awe” – called “blitzkrieg” in another era – was launched.
We all know what happened, and the failure of the People to stop the slaughter then and in Afghanistan in 2001 seemed to be the end of hope for the Peace Movement; but the flame for a World without War didn’t die, and has in fact recently been spotted flickering in the capitals of Europe, Canada, and even in Washington, D.C.
And; far from fulfilling its mandate to first be an agent opposing war in the World the United Nations’ repeated failures in that seminal mission are now manifest in its endeavoring the opposite, the promotion of economic sanctions and military intervention. At least the recently released ‘Group of Experts on Human Rights on Nicaragua’ report leaves little else to conclude.
Dan Kovalik is a lawyer, educator, labour, peace, and justice activist, democracy defender, journalist, author, and filmmaker. His book titles include: ‘Cancel This Book: The Progressive Case Against Cancel Culture,’ the “Plot to” series on American efforts to undermine the governments and economies of Iran, Venezuela, Russia, (and the World generally) and ‘No More War: How the West Violates International Law by Using ‘Humanitarian’ Intervention to Advance Economic and Strategic Interest.’
His latest is the recently released, ‘Nicaragua: A History of US Intervention & Resistance‘, which “explores the pernicious nature of US engagement with Nicaragua from the mid-19th century to the present in pursuit of control and domination rather than in defense of democracy“.
Dan Kovalik and the latest chapter in the hybrid war* against Nicaragua in the second half.
But first, Ken Stone and the smouldering desire for peace.
Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded March 1st, 2023.
Welcome back to GR, etc. Much has been made of the first anniversary of Russia’s so-called “Special Operation” in Ukraine by the western press. Countless hours of television, and oceans of ink have been spilt to convince citizens of NATO nations of the righteousness of Kyiv’s cause, and more importantly, our noble motives in supplying its army with billions of dollars and an incomprehensible amount of high-tech weaponry. In fact, Washington et al has invested so much in the successful outcome of the war – for now – officially accepting the effort has been a tragic folly is all but impossible; but, just off-camera, the reality chorus is growing more voluble.
Robert Freeman is Founder and Executive Director of The Global Uplift Project. He’s a past educator, and author of ‘The Best One Hour History‘ series of books, covering history from ‘The Renaissance’ and ‘The Scientific Revolution’, to ‘The Protestant Reformation’, ‘French Revolution’, and the great wars of the last century.
Robert’s recent article, published at CommonDreams.org, ‘Ukraine and the Tunnel at the End of the Light‘ is a hard-eyed assessment of both the disaster that is the Ukraine/Russia war, and the doomed political and economic dynamics behind the conflict.
Today, Robert Freeman and shedding the rosy aura around Ukraine’s war prospects.
Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded February 19th, 2023.
On February 8th of this year, Dutch police presented new evidence to the District Court of The Hague regarding the July 17th, 2014 downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17.
Upon entering their evidence, the Dutch government and an Australian investigator on the case admitted to having held American military satellite images from the court, the press, and defence lawyers throughout the two-year trial for the wrongful deaths of the two hundred and ninety-eight people who perished aboard that ill-fated flight.
John Helmer is a journalist and author who’s spent decades living in and reporting from Russia. The principle behind the web news site, Dances with Bears, Helmer has too been a professor of political science, sociology and journalism, and served as advisor to governments at the highest levels. Among his many book titles are: ‘Skripal in Prison,’ ‘The Man Who Knows Too Much About Russia,’ ‘The Jackals’ Wedding: American Power, Arab Revolt’, his latest, ‘Australian Fascism: How It Destroyed the Courts,’ and ‘The Lie That Shot Down MH-17’.
Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded December 17th, 2022.
Looking at Europe’s tattered union today it would be easy to mistake just who the target of America’s proxy war in Ukraine is. Germany, the continent’s economic engine, has sputtered through the last half year, its industrial base shuttered by gas shortages and soaring electricity costs. And yet, Germany’s political leaders are backing the broadening of a war ostensibly meant to send Russia back to its agrarian age roots; no matter the cost to its own citizenry. How to make sense of it?
Diana Johnstone is an author and journalist. Her book titles include ‘ From MAD to Madness: Inside Pentagon Nuclear War Planning,’ ‘Circle in the Darkness: Memoirs of a World Watcher,’ and ‘Fools’ Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO and Western Delusion.’ Diana’s articles can be found at ConsortiumNews.com, where her recent piece, ‘The Specter of Germany is Rising‘ appears.
Diana Johnstone in the first half.
And; a major part of Germany and the EU’s expansion plans lay in the small and impoverished Western Balkan countries. Last month, European Union big wigs met in Albania for the ‘EU-Western Balkans Summit’. European Commission head, Ursula von der Leyen used the platform to express the EU’s “strong partnership” with the Balkans, saying, “…we are taking every opportunity to bring our regions and our people closer together.“
But, togetherness is the last thing desired for Western Balkans neighbours Serbia and Kosovo – the latter hived out of Serbia during NATO’s war there in the nineties, and later recognized – in some quarters – as an independent state.
James Bissett is a former Canadian Ambassador whose tenure in Yugoslavia coincided with its 1991 dissolution. At century’s end, he was one of the very few government insiders to oppose NATO’s 78 day bombardment of Serbia in the name of “humanitarian intervention.”
James Bissett and flaws in the EU’s recipe for Balkan integration in the second half.
But first, Diana Johnstone and what Germany’s eastward attentions mean for Europe’s future.
Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded November 12th, 2022.
Ten days ago, delegates from both sides of the two years-long war in Ethiopia convened in South Africa and signed a truce ending hostilities. The western press is declaring it a victory for the federal government of Abiy Ahmed, but is an end to the bloodshed without a reckoning for the crimes committed really peace – or merely a sowing of dragon’s teeth for future conflict?
Finian Cunningham is a prolific journalist and two-time Serena Shim Award for Uncompromising Integrity in Journalism recipient. He spent the better part of a decade living in and reporting from the Tigray region of Ethiopia, and his recent article, ‘Ethiopia Peace Deal is Cover for Western Destruction of a Strong, Independent African State’ questions the underlying motives behind both the war and its recently declared cessation.
Today, an extended interview with Finian Cunningham on Ethiopia’s Civil War aftermath in the making.
Gorilla Radio, recorded September 24th, and 25th, 2022
Autumn has come to America. The nights are cooler, with the promise of rain long-awaited. The Boys of Summer are readying for the World Series, and if the “lazy, hazy” days are past, the crazy, crazy ones are just getting started. You see, it’s election season in the Land of the Free, and November is just around the bend. Some argue mid-terms are a B-Squad affair, lacking the Presidential main event, and while that might normally be true this election’s biggest race – though not on the ballot – is all about who will make the White House dash in 2024.
And; Joe Biden announced the end of the Covid-19 pandemic last week; so everyone can go back to life as normal and forget this unfortunate blip in business as usual ever happened. But before rushing away there’s a few things needing clearing up; some questions waiting for answers: Questions like, how is it possible, after more than two and a half years we still don’t know from whence this modern scourge arose?
There was an attempt, we’re told, in the form of a task force commissioned by the English medical journal, The Lancet to investigate the proximal origins of Covid-19, but that body was collapsed in a confusion of conflict of interest by its chair, Jeffrey Sachs in 2021. Finally, just weeks ago, The Lancet released, from a commission again led by Jeffrey Sachs, ‘Lessons for the Future from the Covid-19 Pandemic’. The first of its key findings inform, “the proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2 remains unknown.”
Dr. Meryl Nass is an internal medicine physician who has testified multiple times before the US Congress, a variety of State legislatures, (including New Burnswick’s provincial parliament) on the subjects of bioterrorism, Gulf War syndrome, vaccine safety and vaccine mandates. Nass has too served as a consultant to a variety of World bodies and governments on the prevention, investigation, and mitigation of chemical and biological warfare and pandemics, and was the first to prove the world’s largest anthrax outbreak was in fact due to biological warfare.
In early May, Cuban president, Miguel Diaz-Canel returned the diplomatic favour, hosting his Mexican counterpart, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in Havana. The two signed various agreements tying the two nations closer, while AMLO used the opportunity to further criticize historical US foreign policy in the hemisphere, reminisce about Mexican support for Castro and the Cuban revolution, and to call for the lifting of the decades-long blockade against Mexico’s “sister nation.” None of this likely pleases the United States, but worse still for the Biden administration is Obrador’s hardly veiled threat to boycott next week’s Summit of the Americas confab in Los Angeles.
Tim Boultbee is a long-time activist for Latin American human and democratic rights. From Ronald Reagan’s Dirty Wars against the people of Nicaragua and El Salvador to the financial annexation of Mexico by means of the NAFTA agreement he has borne witness as an international observer at the front lines of the fight for justice. Tim is currently a member of CASC, the Victoria Central America Support Committee, assisted the Building Bridges Human Rights Project in Chiapas, and worked to raise funds for the Fray Bartolome Human Rights Center in San Cristobal.
Tim Boultbee in the first half.
And; just as Canada has supported US belligerence in Latin America, (earning for the trouble exclusion from CELAC, the organization likely to determine the cultural, political, and economic future of the hemisphere) the current administration too has gone along with its larger neighbour’s campaign to isolate China. The lengths Trudeau’s government is willing to go to please Uncle Sam was made painfully obvious in its two-plus years contralegal persecution of Huawei executive, Meng Wanzhou. Now, it has announced the exclusion of Huawei from this country’s 5G communications network development.
Ken Stone is a long-time antiwar activist whose served as an executive member of both the Syria Solidarity Movement and Hamilton Coalition to Stop the War. Ken and the Coalition fought tooth and nail against the incarceration of Meng Wanzhou and extradition efforts by the United States, and they’ve opposed the odious AUKUS military pact threatening war with China in the Pacific. The danger AUKUS presents to World peace ramped up last fall with the deal to provide nuclear powered submarines to Australia, and more lately with the announced rapid development of hypersonic missile technology and expanded electronic warfare aimed at the People’s Republic.
Ken Stone on Huawei in Canada, and AUKUS going over the top in the Pacific in the second half.
But first, Tim Boultbee and Biden’s Summit of the Americas proving a low point in hemispheric interrelations.
Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded February 23rd and 26th, 2022
As Canada stands on the precipice perhaps of war, what more timely moment could there be to examine Canadian foreign policy past and present, with an eye cast to a hoped for future?
The fire this time is burning in Ukraine, a country in which Canadian objectives – at least those of the political class – has played an instrumental role in the tumult there since 2014, leading to the crescendo of violence and uncertainty being seen today. The intrigues of Canada and its larger allies has ensnared Russia, as intended, and could lead next to similar conflict with China. But is this what Canadians want; following along in an endless parade of NATO-enforced wars and police actions in support of a failing U.S. empire?
John Price is professor emeritus at the University of Victoria, and member of the Advisory Board of the newly formed Canada-China Focus, a project of the Canadian Foreign Policy Institute and UVic’s Centre for Global Studies. He is too author of the book, ‘Orienting Canada,’ and his essays appear at Canadian Dimension.com, where I found his eight-part series “investigating the crisis in Canada-China relations.”
John Price in the first half.
And; John Helmer and I spoke on the eve of what Russia is now calling its “military-technical” operation in Ukraine. Events, as John subsequently said, seem to have overtaken our conversation. Even so, the context he provides is invaluable, especially given the media landscape in this country, Canada where official sources do little more than parrot militarists in Ottawa and Washington – and, truth be told, they have been just that for some time longer.
Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded February 23rd, 2022
John Helmer and I spoke on the eve of what Russia is calling its “military-technical” operation in Ukraine. Events, as John subsequently said, seem to have overtaken our conversation.
Even so, the context he provides is invaluable, especially given the media landscape in this country where official sources are little more now than parrots of the militarists in Ottawa and Washington – and truth be told they have been just that for some time longer.
John Helmer is a journalist, author, and principle behind the web news site, Dances with Bears. He’s a past scholar, and advisor to government at the
highest level, and spent decades living in and reporting from Russia. His many book titles include: ‘The Lie That Shot Down MH-17, ‘Skripal in Prison,’ ‘The Man Who Knows Too Much About Russia,’ and his latest, ‘The Jackals’ Wedding: American Power, Arab Revolt’ is freshly out now.
John Helmer and the most dangerous days ahead in Ukraine, Russia, and the rest of the World.
Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded February 5th, 2022.
War and rumours of war are filling the headlines, and lede news broadcasts. Whether stories in the press are about a war recently past and its aftermath, like in Afghanistan, or a feared future war, as featured by sabres-rattling over Ukraine, what seems inescapable is war: War ever-present. This is perfectly illustrated in Afghanistan, where the end of war brings no peace, and in Ukraine where the killing and dying long preceded the rumour of fighting to come. So what’s left to do but work for peace – and keep on working for peace.
Kathy Kelly is a long-time peace and justice activist, essayist, author, and recipient of numerous awards for her peace service; including multiple nominations for the Nobel Peace prize. She’s a founding member of Voices in the Wilderness and Voices for Creative Nonviolence, co-authored the book, ‘Prisoners on Purpose: a Peacemakers Guide to Jails and Prison,’ and wrote, ‘Other Lands Have Dreams: from Baghdad to Pekin Prison.’
Kelly has made numerous trips to Afghanistan as an invited guest of the Afghan Peace Volunteers and has lived alongside ordinary Afghan people in working-class Kabul.
Kathy Kelly in the first half.
And; American and Canadian efforts to bring diplomatic and military pressure to bear on Russia over Ukraine may seem a mystery to those in the West who rarely receive context with their newspapers, or as part of their nightly newscasts. But worse still than the dearth of factual background information on critical issues available to readers and viewers from the media, the analysts and opinion-makers presented here more often than not represent those that profit most from the modern warfare economy. For those persevering though, it is still possible to glean sense from the chaos and even sometimes discern the hand behind the mayhem.
Ivan Katchanovski is a scholar, essayist, and author teaching at the School of Political Studies at the University of Ottawa. He’s the author of ‘Cleft Countries: Regional Political Divisions and Cultures in Post-Soviet Ukraine and Moldova’ and co-authored the books, ‘Historical Dictionary of Ukraine’ (Second Edition) and ‘The Paradox of American Unionism: Why Americans Like Unions More Than Canadians Do, But Join Much Less’. His articles feature at Canadian Dimension.com, where his recent piece, ‘The Hidden Origin of the Escalating Ukraine-Russia Conflict‘ appears.
Ivan Katchanovski and returning to Maidan to unwind the true origin story behind the current Ukraine-Russia conflict.
But first, Kathy Kelly and the war not over in Afghanistan.
