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Why the UAE Secretly Funds a Genocide in Sudan
Due to the important information in this interview, our full episode this week will be free to all listeners
December 12, 2025
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Time is running out: get this episode and 2 MONTHS of Useful Idiots FREE.

This week we speak with Suad Abdel Aziz, a Sudanese-American lawyer and founder of the human rights advocacy organization Decolonize Sudan. The Sudan Genocide is a topic we haven’t covered extensively at Useful Idiots, so Suad educates us with a history of the region, explains what’s going on now, and reveals how the US is involved.

Useful Idiots: Can you give us a brief history of Sudan and how we got to where we are?

Suad Abdel Aziz: Despite how mainstream media frames it, there is not an internal power struggle or civil war that’s happening in Sudan. What’s happening is a foreign-backed genocide, carried out by a militia called the Rapid Support Forces, or the RSF, as part of a colonial project to completely destabilize Sudan in order to seize land within a larger imperial scheme designed to extract resources, consolidate economic control of Sudan, and control Sudan’s foreign policy.

Beginning in April of 2023, the RSF violently seized Sudan, and over the course of over two years now, destroyed and leveled the bulk of Sudan’s infrastructure and has displaced over a third of the population, which is over sixteen million people. They have waged a campaign of genocide and ethnic cleansing marked by mass killings, including killings of entire family lineages, sexual violence, and the deliberate starvation of entire communities.

The RSF is only able to do this through the backing of the United Arab Emirates, who provide the funds, the fighters, and the weapons for this militia. In exchange, the UAE is extracting the resources of Sudan, with the main export that it’s smuggling being gold. And the UAE’s gold exports have increased by over 25% since this siege began.

Useful Idiots: What is the connection between Sudan and Palestine?

Suad Abdel Aziz: Sudan has historically been allied with Palestine and against Israel, which is key in understanding why the US seeks to align Sudan’s foreign policy with its own in order to serve its larger interests of domination of the Middle East. It’s very clear that if elections were to happen in Sudan, that the people would elect in anti-colonial Muslim governance. And this is a threat to US control of the Middle East and of Muslim countries.

Listen to or watch our full interview with Suad Abdel Aziz, unpaywalled for all listeners. And don’t miss our limited time deal: 2 MONTHS of Useful Idiots FREE. Your support of independent media means everything.

Plus, don’t miss this week’s Friday Free-For-All: Aaron Maté on Confronting Hillary Clinton

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Sanctions Are a Form of Warfare

“Sanctions are a form of war. They’re economic warfare. And they destroy people’s lives.”

Joshua Landis (https://twitter.com/joshua_landis), Sandra Mackey Chair in Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, is one of the foremost experts on Syria. This week, as Syria, along with neighbor Turkiye, grapples with the aftermath of the devastating earthquake, Professor Landis joins the Useful Idiots to explain the deadly consequences that sanctions pile on to the damage.

“America likes to talk about all its precision bombing and hitting someone with a drone to avoid collateral damage,” Landis explains. “But sanctions? It’s all about collateral damage. Very little of it is targeted.”

But if you read corporate media outlets like the New York Times or Washington Post, you’d find a much different story. Both papers this week published headlines that were hastily changed when they realized they were being a little too truthful. See if you can tell the difference:

The ...

00:01:17
"Shameful" New York Times Changes Headline to Protect Sanctions

“Sanctions are a form of war. They’re economic warfare. And they destroy people’s lives.”

Joshua Landis (https://twitter.com/joshua_landis), Sandra Mackey Chair in Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, is one of the foremost experts on Syria. This week, as Syria, along with neighbor Turkiye, grapples with the aftermath of the devastating earthquake, Professor Landis joins the Useful Idiots to explain the deadly consequences that sanctions pile on to the damage.

“America likes to talk about all its precision bombing and hitting someone with a drone to avoid collateral damage,” Landis explains. “But sanctions? It’s all about collateral damage. Very little of it is targeted.”

But if you read corporate media outlets like the New York Times or Washington Post, you’d find a much different story. Both papers this week published headlines that were hastily changed when they realized they were being a little too truthful. See if you can tell the difference:

The ...

00:01:24
Free preview: Matt Taibbi Exposes Russiagate Bots

With Matt Taibbi’s Twitter Files and Jeff Gerth’s new in-depth reporting for CJR exposing the years of lies spread by Russiagaters, bitter attacks from outed journalists are rolling in.

Gerth and Taibbi, who come from the old style of journalism where you fact check your work and don’t accept government officials’ claims on faith, have each shown clear, indisputable evidence of disinformation campaigns pushed by corporate reporters. And since the so-called journalists can’t argue the facts, they dig themselves a deeper hole with more lies and name-calling.

Jeff Gerth has been working as a reporter for decades and published, in the very mainstream Columbia Journalism Review, a 20,000-word report on his findings, only to be called a liar and misdirecting magician in the most self-important article by Mother Jones’ David Corn (“The true media failure is that Trump got away with it and that articles like this one that you are now reading are still necessary.”) And possibly worse ...

00:54:34

Emphasized "Dancing with 88

I have altered space here—   to

a rupture in the silent fabric,

where every atom reclaims its song.

A change, seen on my 90° angle,

becomes the pivot of a daring ballet,

the precise intersection where fate unspools.

In that crisp right-angle lie the secrets

of all absorbed twilight and reborn dawns,

a moment where geometry becomes prophecy,

transmuting static lines into dynamic rhythms,

inviting the cosmos to twirl in unexpected arcs.

And then—

I find myself dancing with 88,

a numeral of resonance, a muse of mystery.

It whispers in binary beats,

each pulse a portal leading into

symphonies scribbled on the canvas of space-time.

This is no choreographed routine,

but a wild, liberated waltz

where dimensions bend and merge—

where the old order crumbles

under the heat of relentless transformation

and every step unearths a layer of being.

At that 90° juncture,

the universe unfolds like a secret map,

revealing uncharted realms in every fracture,

while 88 becomes the score for a cosmic ballet,

...

Has the Gaza Pier Been Beached? | Army Watercraft come ashore off Gaza and Israel

March 26, 2024

Good to be part of the community. I think that Aaron and Katie do a brilliant job in these hellish times when such great in - depth research and reporting are essential.

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Elon Musk Unknowingly Quotes Mel Brooks’ Hitler Character
Plus, did Kamala Harris call Pennsylvania Governor (and former IDF soldier) Josh Shapiro an Israeli agent?

Elon Musk is a bad joke teller.

“You know I heard about the formation of the Peace Summit,” Musk sets up the joke in a what else, what else rhythm. “And I was like… is that spelled P-I-E-C-E??” He looks around with a big grin, waiting for the laugh.

There’s silence. Next to him onstage, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink laughs nervously. Only then does Musk realize he hit the wrong punchline. So he does what any good comic does, and explains the joke: “You know, a little piece of Greenland? A little piece of Venezuela? All we want is piece!”

Now which is the worst part of this: that awful delivery, or the fact that in the 1983 film To Be or Not To Be, Mel Brooks plays none other than Adolf Hitler and makes literally the same joke to great laughter from a Nazi audience. But in 2026, it’s told completely unironically.

Mr. Brooks, if you’re a Useful Idiots subscriber, please let us know which one hurts more, the Nazi thing or how he badly he butchered your joke.

Also in this week’s Friday Free-For-All: former IDF soldier Josh Shapiro got offended that Kamala Harris’ 2024 VP vetting team asked if he had ever been an Israeli agent (the answer is yes, he has). Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent accidentally admits that US sanctions were designed to kill ordinary Iranian civilians. And a new Zohran Mamdani-vs-Israel feud leads to a vicious Twitter battle between Katie and a brain-dead Zionist.

It’s all this, and more, on this week’s Friday Free-For-All. Support independent media and subscribe to watch the full episode here:

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GOP Senator Accidentally Blows Iran Secret
Plus, ADL's Jonathan Greenblatt tries to take down Hasan Piker

“I would support removing the regime,” says Oklahoma Senator Markwayne Mullin on CNN.

“So you’re in favor of taking out the Iranian regime?” responds CNN’s Kaitlin Collins, unable to believe he said that out loud.

“I am, at this point,” Mullin responds proudly, clearly not yet understanding the seriousness of a sitting senator calling to oust a foreign leader…. Until later in the interview when he suddenly backtracks.

“We’re not into regime change…”

“But you just said you are for regime change, there.”

“No, I, I said I’m for the strikes. I didn’t say––”

“You said before that you were for taking out the regime.”

“Yeah, absolutely! That’s different than regime change. We didn’t – we’re not going after the regime. We’re going after the people that are killing their own people, and that happens to be the regime.”

“But just to be clear, you support taking out the supreme leader?”

“If he’s the one…then absolutely!”

“But that would be regime change.”

That’s right, it’s circus day at the GOP!

And just when Katie and Aaron get into the really good ridiculing of Senator Mullin, we flip over to another Republican on CNN who is mad that ICE protests are happening in the streets, instructing them to write “a letter to the editor, or start a podcast.” Ah yes, just like Dr. Martin Luther King would’ve done.

Flip again! AG Pam Bondi is yelling on Fox News about how she gleefully fired six prosecutors who refused to attack the widow of the woman murdered by ICE. Flip again! Karoline Leavitt is yelling at reporters for asking why that woman was murdered. Flip! Flip! Flip!

It’s a crazy circus here at the Friday Free-For-All, and that’s not even getting into the Zio-circus from the ADL’s Jonathan Greenblatt and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Hitch a ride with Katie and Aaron, they’re crashing through it all.

Thanks for supporting independent media, subscribe to watch the full episode here:

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Trump SHOCKED After Venezuela Oil Backlash, BRICS Conflict Looms
Watch a free preview of our episode and subscribe for the full chat with Professors Gabriel Hetland and Alex Aviña

Subscribe for the full episode at the bottom of the page. Watch a free preview here:

The Trump Administration’s regime change operations in Venezuela are escalating rapidly, making it a challenge to keep up with the facts, lies, hypocrisies, kidnappings, and killings. That’s why we’re speaking with Professors Gabriel Hetland and Alex Aviña, two experts on the historical implications of US destabilization attempts in Latin America, who deep dive into why Trump is attacking Venezuela, the role oil and natural resources play in this, and the broader conflict it will bring with China and BRICS.

Useful Idiots: Despite the invasion, Alex, you’ve argued that this can be read as a sign of weakness of the United States. Can you elaborate on that?

Alex Aviña: The fact that they didn’t opt for a larger military operation could be read as a recognition of the difficulty of such an operation. The military assets that the US had moved in the Caribbean are not nearly enough for an Iraq-style invasion or even what they did to Panama in December of 1989.

If we think about the broader context, and thinking about the national security strategy that the Trump administration published late last year, they more or less have conceded that they can’t frontally challenge China and Asia. So one way that they are going to proceed in the future is to indirectly challenge China.

China is the largest trading partner for South America, right? Historically every time that the US “comes home” and starts taking it out on Latin America, it’s usually after a moment of defeat or an admission that the global designs of the United States have met obstacles. So they have to retrench their power within Latin America.

Useful Idiots: Gabriel, you have a recent article at The Intercept: “The U.S. Desperately Wants Back in the Business of Empire With Venezuela. America carried out a coup in Venezuela to plunder the country’s resources. But Latin Americans will have the last word.” So what do you mean by that, Latin Americans will have the last word?

Gabriel Hetland: Trump’s attempt to dominate Latin America doesn’t always work out the way the US wants it to. Specifically, when the US attempts to push Latin Americans around, it sometimes has an immediate or more long-term backlash. And we’ve seen this repeatedly in Latin American history just this year.

Trump went after Lula, the president of Brazil, because he was prosecuting Jair Bolsonaro for attempting a coup. He talked about slapping 50% tariffs on Lula, and that helped Lula’s popularity. We saw something similar in 2002 with Evo Morales in Bolivia. The U.S. ambassador called him a narco terrorist and he immediately went to number two in the polls.

There’s also going to be a backlash against U.S. imperialism in other countries. In Colombia, Gustavo Petro has had huge rallies all week. Santos, the conservative former president of Colombia, who’s not an ally of Petro, actually said it was good that Petro and Trump were having a conversation. So when the president of the United States goes after leaders in Latin America, it can put conservatives in Latin America on the back foot and force them to actually defend leftists. It can also provide an electoral boost for nationalists and leftists and anti-imperialism overall. I think that it’s very, very likely that we’ll see more of that.

Subscribe to watch full interview with Alex Aviño and Gabriel Hetland on the nearly-satyrical levels of racism in the Venezuelan opposition that MAGA is propping up, as well as a controversial question from Aaron.

Subscribing also gets you our Friday Free-For-AllSurprise! Dr Phil is in Israel’s Pocket

Watch the full episode here:

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