Coast to Coast AM - Oct 13 2013 - Dulles Brothers

Date: 10-13-13
Host: John B. Wells
Guests: Stephen Kinzer, Jeffrey Phillips, Anthony Antonello

In the first half, John B. Wells was joined by Stephen Kizner, award-winning foreign correspondent, for a discussion on the extraordinary lives of John Foster Dulles and Allen Dulles, two immensely powerful brothers who led the US into a series of foreign adventures which are still shaking the world today. He explained that the brothers commanded tremendous power because John Foster Dulles, as Secretary of State, would use his position to depict various foreign regimes as hostile to America while Allen Dulles, directing the CIA, would simultaneous work on covertly engineering the downfall of these 'rogue' states. According to Kizner, this methodology proved successful in causing regime changes in Guatemala and Iran as well as spawning the United States' entrance into the Vietnam War.

Kizner suggested that the brothers' proclivity for pushing America to intervene in global affairs was influenced by two aspects of their early life. Being sons of a preacher, he said, the boys were taught that "good people have to go out into the world and crush evil." Additionally, Kizner noted their decades of employment with the law firm Sullivan & Cromwell, which represented the foreign interests of American multinational corporations. As such, he surmised that "they came to think the interests of the American corporations were the interests of the United States." Ultimately, however, Kizner observed that this intervention on behalf of short term economic goals led to a "terrible long term effect" on America's relationships with various nations around the world in the modern era.

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In the latter half, Jeffrey Phillips and Anthony Antonello talked about the case of Adam Kokesh, an Iraq War veteran who was arrested for posting a video of himself loading a shotgun at the Freedom Plaza in Washington D.C. Phillips detailed how Kokesh had previously been arrested several times at political protests, culminating in his July 4th demonstration of civil disobedience. For the crime of openly carrying a firearm in Washington D.C., Kokesh was arrested, denied bail, and has been held for the last 97 days, including over 80 days in solitary confinement. "It's become apparent that it's something personal," Phillips observed, "they don't like his methods and they're definitely trying to suppress him."

Reflecting on the current state of affairs in the United States, Antonello lamented that "tyranny has come to America." He lauded Kokesh for sacrificing his own freedom in order to alert his fellow citizens that "this government has been hijacked by people who do not have the best interests of Americans or humanity in mind." He noted that Kokesh has declared that he will not accept a plea bargain for the charges against him and plans to "put it in the hands of jury nullification" in the hopes that his peers will disagree with the nature of the laws he is accused of breaking. Should Kokesh be found guilty, however, he faces five to ten years in prison for his protest.