Krystal Kyle & Friends

Just over a year ago, Intercept journalists Ryan Grim and Murtaza Hussain broke a story that turned Pakistani politics upside down. The US had encouraged the Pakistani military establishment to oust Prime Minister Imran Khan, that country’s most popular politician. That ouster triggered a sequence of events that led to Khan’s jailing on bogus charges, and a public backlash so overwhelming that Khan’s party just defied all odds to notch a massive victory. Unfortunately, the Pakistani establishment could not simply let those victories stand. So in one of the most blatant instances of rigging you can imagine, they switched off the national election monitoring website in the middle of the night, and changed the results of dozens of races in order to deny Khan’s party an outright majority.

Hearing Ryan tell the story from start to finish, it is almost unbelievable. From the brazen actions of the military to the incredible heroism of the Pakistani people who stood up against threats of violence and actual violence. And now the US is faced with a conundrum, do they pretend that the blatantly rigged results were free and fair to back their allies in the Pakistani military, or do they show a modicum of commitment to the democracy and human rights rhetoric that they have used so frequently when it comes to Ukraine?

Ryan has been making regular visits to the State Department briefing room to press their spokespeople on exactly this question along with demanding answers on the Biden administration’s endless support for Israel’s genocide. In this episode he also reveals how he formulates his questions and what he expects to get out of these empire propagandists.

Watch our conversation below:

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