08/30/13 – Pepe Escobar – The Scott Horton Show

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For KPFK 90.7 FM, August 30th, 2013, I'm Scott Horton.
This is Anti-War Radio.
All right, y'all, welcome to the show.
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All right, so tonight's guest is the great Pepe Escobar, reporter for the Asia Times and columnist for the Asia Times and Time Dispatch.
Here he is at RT.com.
War on chemical weapons.
Pepe Escobar traps himself into Syrian combat.
Welcome back to the show, Pepe.
How are you doing?
My man, Scott.
I'm at your disposal.
Well, I'm very happy to have you here on the show.
Very important article that you've written here, but first of all, let's just start with the breaking developments.
The Secretary of State, and we're recording this Friday afternoon, and Secretary of State Kerry has just given a speech announcing what he says is the evidence that the Assad regime is against the recent chemical weapons attack in eastern Damascus and other nearby areas, and says that they're going to do something about it, but not too much.
I guess give us your spin here.
What's going on?
Look, the scariest part is that it was written with some sort of a Jeffersonian gravitas.
Very, very scary.
I was listening to it and thinking about the onion.
The onion said that there are a lot of flesh-eating bacteria and shrieking black-caped horsemen in the borders of Turkey and Syria, and I said, oh man, this is a much better description of what's going on than this Jeffersonian crap, in fact.
Yeah, it might as well have been Assad giving the speech.
I'm going to invade and help the people of Syria at this point.
But look, I was struck by the last minute or so, where after saying that this guy is worse than Hitler, we heard that ten years ago, of course, he said, no, there's no possible solution.
We know everything.
The UN is useless.
If we don't do anything, we're going to embolden those evil players of Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah.
We're going to do something, but we know it's not going to work, because we still have to sit down and have a diplomatic solution.
So what is he saying?
He doesn't know what he's saying, in fact.
He didn't sell this to the 91% of American public opinion that it's against yet another war in the Middle East.
These things, these surgical strikes, they don't disappear like that.
You don't hit ...
Damascus is one of the cradles of civilization.
They're always disputing with Aleppo, which is the oldest urban settlement in the world.
He's going to bomb areas around Damascus.
Can you imagine the possibilities of everything going wrong, collateral damage, you name it?
And ah, but it's going to be limited.
We have 384 Tomahawks in the Eastern Mediterranean.
Remember, we're going to use 10, 15, 20.
It's not like that.
It's completely crazy.
And credit to American public opinion, most people say this is crazy, and they are against it.
Right, yeah, the polls say 9% would ...
9% support, exactly.
... could be bothered to say that, yeah, go ahead and get involved.
Which is amazing, right?
That's unprecedented, ever, for any country to have that low of a support for war, right?
No, but it's great, because at least, maybe we're seeing now ...
Remember the real anti-war movement in the late 2002, early 2003?
Maybe only 10 years later, you see how this whole thing developed underground, in fact.
This is really great news.
But the problem is, these people are very dangerous, first of all, because Obama is alone.
He created this whole mess.
I was on RT yesterday, on a live interview, in fact.
I think it's still on the loop today, on RT.
It's a crosstalk program, half an hour.
And I was saying that basically that Obama painted himself into a corner, because he, as President of the United States, you cannot issue a red line unless you know the consequences.
He said that, what, over a year ago.
There was not a single national security advisor to tell him, Mr. President, if you do this, this means that you're having to go to war, if anything happens.
And now, when they still don't have ...
Even the intelligence agencies know this is not a slam dunk.
We don't know for sure.
Nobody knows for sure, because you don't have time.
Example.
I think it's ...
This article that you refer to, that I wrote, it's crazy, because I don't even remember anymore.
It was two or three days ago.
But I give the example of the Russian investigation concerning an attack that happened last March.
It took the Russians three months to go on the spot, interview a lot of people, collect samples, organize a report, write an 80-page report, very detailed.
They presented this report at the United Nations last month, and proved with 98, 99% that this attack came from rebel positions, with the DIY rockets, which is more or less what may have happened in Ghouta.
Nobody knows for sure, but I also, based on independent researchers, in fact, the best possibility, I think the most credible possibility.
And now there's another report by an AP correspondent doing the rounds on the net extensively, where he interviews people in the area, and they say, this is the work of foreigners, basically.
And I was not ...
One of them, in fact, he points his finger directly at Bandar Bush, which is something that I could not do it before.
We don't have direct evidence.
My theory, which is, I think, as good as anyone, in fact, much better than the official version, is that since Bandar, Prince of Darkness, is in charge of the Syria war for the past two months or so, since he was appointed Director of National Intelligence by King Abdul, and since he convinced the Americans that I'm running the show now, I'm going to do it my way.
It means that he's going to use everything.
Everything includes giving chemical weapons to mercenaries, foreigners, non-Syrians, that they can use and blame on the Assad government, especially because they don't have emotional ties, family ties, communal ties with the victim.
Well, you know, that report that said that, you know, where the locals, they claimed anyway, the reporter claimed that local sources were telling him, yeah, Bandar Bush and the Saudis came and that's where these weapons came from.
And they said that, you know, the Jabhat al-Nusra, suicide bomber, prisoner beheader type guys, the leaders of the war, well, they make us regular FSA types do all their grunt work.
But they don't tell us anything.
So they had us hiding all the chemical weapons in the tunnels, but they didn't tell us what we were handling.
And so, you know, perhaps it was just all an accident that some chemical weapons were released and killed 300 people, which is now 1,400 or whatever they say.
Exactly.
And it's crazy because even some of these, in this neighborhood, 90 percent or even more, they're all opposed to Damascus.
But some of them are even willing to concede that it might have been mercenaries, jihadists, Jabhat al-Nusra linked or not, came from abroad, non-Syrians.
And also this caveat as well, there could have been an accident.
This is completely crazy.
It was not an accident.
This was on purpose.
And one of these researchers, the guy's doing a very meticulous work on it.
His name is Petri Krohn, the Finnish guy.
And you know, it's amazing.
I think he spends 48 hours a day analyzing this.
He more or less proved conclusively that these rockets came from a place called Kabul, which is a military base that has been occupied by the rebels since June.
So this would configure a perfect false flag, you know, a place that technically is controlled by the Assad government, but it's not, at least for the past two months.
Foreigners, Jabhat al-Nusra.
This means they could come from anywhere, but they are not Syrians.
Some could be Iraqis from al-Qaeda in Iraq, in fact.
They mingle with the locals.
They don't tell the locals what's going on.
They launch the weapons with DIY rockets, and then they leave the scene of the crime.
So this is what the UN inspectors should be doing now.
They should be doing now what this AP reporter did for the past few days, be on the spot and talk to a lot of people, and also collect the samples, of course.
But when you give the UN inspectors what they had, what, three days of work, three and a half days of work, and now they are already in Jordan, as we speak.
They already left.
Ban Ki-moon apparently ordered them to leave.
I think he was pressured by the Americans to let ...
Ban Ki-moon doesn't do anything that the Americans don't tell him to do.
Ban Ki-moon pressured them to leave.
They already left.
They cannot conclude, conduct a decent job scientifically in three days.
The Russians took three months, and it was very pro.
But you wouldn't read about it in U.S. corporate media, in fact, because it conclusively proved that it was not the Assad government, this thing that happened in March.
Okay, now, the thing of it is, well, yeah, and you're right.
I mean, although there are plenty of previous examples of hoaxes by the rebels, including chemical weapons attack hoaxes, apparently, and that's, of course, what the UN was just arriving in town at the time of this attack to investigate.
But you know, John Kerry, in his speech today, he, I think, was trying to confront that idea that, no, listen, there have been chemical weapons attacks by the government that can be definitively traced to the government of Syria that have taken place all over the place.
As David Cameron put it in the British Parliament yesterday, 14 different occasions, here, there, and the other place.
And so, you know, you could construct a Prince Bandar false flag scenario for one or two of these things, but not 14, man.
Come on, Pepe.
And after all, what, do you love Bashar al-Assad?
He's the evil Baathist dictator.
He's as bad as a Democrat, at least.
Why wouldn't he use gas on somebody?
Look, I'm not, I never implied that I was defending Bashar al-Assad's government.
Look, I've been there many times.
It is a disgusting police state, if you are not part of it, of course.
And don't forget that all those business leaders, Sunnis, by the way, especially in Damascus, but also in Aleppo, they are in bed with the government.
They don't want anything to change.
It's not a matter of defending the government.
As journalists, we have to know where this whole thing comes from, on a case-by-case basis.
The previous cases, the best documentation that we have is this attack in March that the Russians decided to thoroughly examine.
The other attacks, nobody sent a delegation, foreigners or locals, forget about anybody in the Middle East sending a delegation to examine an attack like that.
So based on what we know from this particular case, it proves conclusively that it was not good.
And considering that Bashar and his ruling elite, they knew that the red line had been drawn for over a year now, they would be absolutely stupid to launch a chemical weapons attack because apparently until today they know that there's going to be a response.
So it doesn't make sense at all.
And the fact that this thing last week happened when they were on an offensive in the suburbs of Damascus, in Homs, they had retaken Qusayr, they were planning an offensive in Aleppo, they were monitoring what was going on in the Syrian-Jordanian border with those mercenaries trained by the CIA and Qatari special forces in Jordan.
So what's the point of launching a chemical attack?
Of course, I always keep the possibility open.
They thought that they could get away with it.
But we need 100% proof, right?
If they actually did it, I would even support a bombing.
But depending on what you're going to bomb, if you're going to bomb some of their military bases or their command and control center, and you simply cannot trust the Americans in terms of there's not going to be collateral damage.
I saw what they did in Iraq, where all the time they were saying, oh, there's no collateral.
They destroyed 80% of the country's civilian infrastructure, including schools, power plants, telephone exchanges, bridges, you know.
This could happen in Syria all over again.
Right, yeah, I was going to say, even if they're telling the truth, you still don't want to give them permission to do anything.
You know, the American people gave George Bush the permission to go hunt down Osama bin Laden and cut his throat for crying out loud.
And what did George Bush give us?
A decade-long plus war of and on terror, you know, under the excuse of being against terror, but war of terror and regime change all over the place and the disaster in Iraq that you just mentioned and on from there, right, into Somalia, into Libya, into Syria, and into Pakistan.
And it's absolute madness.
So you can't give them a quarter of an inch.
They'll take a thousand miles.
And Scott, Kerry gave the game away when he mentioned Iran.
He said that if we don't do anything, it's going to embolden Iran.
That's it.
Everybody knows this.
It's the famous road to Damascus as road to Iran.
Everybody knows that.
It's first Syria.
If we take out Syria, then we can take out Iran.
It's the same thing.
That's the Israeli agenda.
That's the neocons agenda.
That's Bandar Bush and the House of Saud agenda.
I think this is the only point that the three agendas are convergent.
Yeah.
Well, because...
And in other words, it's kind of sour grapes from the fact that we fought a war for, you know, we thought for Israel, but ultimately for Iran in Iraq.
And so now, well, at least we can take out the Syrians because we can't reinvade Baghdad, right?
Exactly.
Exactly.
And at least we're going to break the most important node in the so-called axis, so-called node, because this is what they call it in the region, the axis of resistance, which is Iran, the government in Baghdad at least, Syria and Hezbollah.
So the rationale has been forever, I would say, for the past 10 years at least, that's it.
The next step has to be Syria, because then Hezbollah is enfeebled, then Israel can do another 2006, try to invade the southern Lebanon again.
And they're going to be in deep, deep trouble if they try it again.
But still, this is their wishful thinking.
And of course, the U.S. can still dream about regime change in Iran, even when you have the perfect president now to start a negotiation.
Like Rouhani now is like Khatami was, what, 12, 15 years ago.
Khatami tried.
He was completely rebuffed.
This is the last chance.
Rouhani, he knows what he's talking about.
He was a negotiator before.
This is something we still don't know because it's too early.
Apparently the supreme leader will leave him more or less alone.
So this means he can organize, more or less, a foreign policy, a more inclusive foreign policy, especially because the Iranian population, if you talk to Iranians, not only think tank scholars, you know, the population, we are tired of this sanctions thing.
We want to talk, we want to live as a normal nation, finally, you know.
And Rouhani, you know, he's listening to the Persian street or Azerbaijani street.
He's listening.
This is very important.
But with this move now, Kerry already bombed the possibility of a decent negotiation with Iran with what he said today, the way I see it.
Yeah, well, and I guess it remains to be seen whether they can just do a Bill Clinton-ite tomahawk missile strike and then leave and the Syrians and Iranians are just going to sit there because what are they going to do about it?
You know, the fact that we can't even get the British on board, I think, means the world has changed a little bit in the last few years.
Exactly.
It did, Scott.
That's another good thing.
Of course, don't forget that this is, the offensive was mounted by a militia band from the Labor Party, so they wanted to get at Cameron and they saw the opening.
This is about hardcore, nasty British politics as well.
I'm going to settle for that.
So it wasn't really anti-war sentiment there.
It was no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Exactly.
It was much.
It had much more to do with an internal fight in Britain politically than they lost their will to fight.
Yeah, well, we'll settle for that here on anti-war.
I'll tell you what, we'll take it this time.
I want to see the very same sentiment in the U.S. Congress, too, if we can get it.
By the way, everybody, again, we're talking with Pepe Escobar from the Asia Times, and this one's at RT, Obama traps himself into Syrian combat.
But you know, the thing about that is, he's the president.
If he can launch a war, he can also decide not to do one.
And it seems to me like he's got the perfect, I mean, too late now, he's already sent Kerry out to read the thing he just read, but he had the perfect excuse, which is the generals really don't want to do this.
And he's already previously let the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, I think let, it seemed like he let him, go out there and say, here, senators, there are a hundred reasons we don't want to do it, or if we do invade or start a war here, we have to bring our whole army with us and spend $10 trillion, and you don't want to do that, right?
You know, it's a poison pill.
So all Obama has to do is hide behind that and say, hey, don't you want me to listen to my generals, Republicans?
The generals are saying we should stay out of this hornet's nest.
Look, I was, I was expecting, before Kerry starts speaking, I was expecting an opening like this.
I said, look, they could gently climb down, you know, open the possibility of, look, we're going to listen to everybody, so we're not going to have a hasty decision.
But it's crazy.
After two or three minutes, I could see that he was trying, it was a ultra hard sell because of the famous winner of opportunity.
This thing would have to happen within the next three or four days.
Like in Paris today, those former cheese-eating surrender monkeys today, they were talking about a date for the start of the bombing, 4th of September, which is next Wednesday, right?
Obama is going to be in Sweden, so he's going to order a tomahawk launch from Scandinavia.
That's fantastic, isn't it?
So this is what the French are spinning today.
And okay, but another thing, Scott, very important.
The information that Kerry was referring to, you know who passed this to General Martin Dempsey?
Benny Gantz, IDF chief in Israel.
Oh, the intercepts.
Yes, the intercepts.
Absolutely.
So it's crazy, because if Benny Gantz and Dempsey agreed on that, obviously Dempsey talked to the president and said, look, apparently Benny Gantz, what he showed me, I agree with it.
Sort of.
Chuck Hagel, he's on board for this thing, too.
He's made it clear he's not going to resign over this or anything like in some fantasies.
No, no, no, no, he won't, no, exactly, exactly.
But the scariest part, in fact, is how Obama is surrounded by a bunch of clowns and extremely incompetent people.
Susan Rice, she cannot manage a school.
Can you imagine as national security advisor?
I would say 80% of this mess, it's her fault.
She should have been fired months ago.
In fact, it's crazy.
He still listens to her.
Samantha, I got the power at the UN, is another story.
She was absolutely enraged because the Russian and Chinese ambassadors, they walked out of their meeting when the Brits tried to sell the idea of the bombing as soon as possible.
They simply left and she was there talking to her British counterpart.
It was ridiculous.
Well, you know, yesterday I talked with Joe Lauria from the Wall Street Journal and he was reporting from the UN on all the pressure from probably Obama himself and from Samantha Powers on the UN to go ahead and just cancel the inspections.
Don't even bother inspecting because we don't care what you say anyway and it'll be too late for you to find out anything anyway and just go ahead and cancel it.
Actually, uncharacteristically, Ban Ki-moon pushed back a little bit and said, I don't know, out of personal loyalty to a certain inspector or something, I don't know, decided that no, actually you're going to have to wait.
I'm sorry?
For the first time in his life, Ban Ki-moon stood up for something.
Yeah.
Apparently so.
No, because there are credibilities on the line.
Can you imagine if you send inspectors, they spend two days in the Four Seasons in Damascus and then they leave.
Just like that.
Can you imagine?
Well, you know, it seemed like to read the original Wall Street Journal piece about it, which was supplanted by a revised version with less to the story, but it really read to me like a lot of panic.
Oh no, weapons inspectors are going out to the site.
We've got to stop them.
And someone must have said, I don't know, is it Susan Rice's job to say, well, yeah, but that's going to look really panicky.
What?
You know what I mean?
It went ahead and did it anyway.
Did you see that photo, Scott?
You have a photo of two inspectors, like they're landing on the moon with too many vials.
And there's a guy smoking right behind them.
It's like during Katrina where the guy's walking by in the background when the reporter's in the canoe.
Oh man, you're ruining my shot.
It's the same thing.
But look, very important, Scott, Bandar Bush, I have been writing about Bandar Bush, I think for two weeks now, nonstop, in fact.
He is the go-to guy.
If, can you imagine, if it's proven that this attack was with homemade chemical weapons, and there's very strong evidence for that, because last month, I alluded to this in this article, if I remember well, the Iraqi Defense Ministry, they had a press conference where they said, look, we just dismantled an al-Qaeda in Iraq cell, and they were building or concocting rudimentary chemical weapons.
And they said that they are going to exchange with, guess who, Jabhat al-Nusra in Syria.
This was in July.
It makes total sense.
These people, obviously Bandar, he's surveying the whole spectrum.
He plays mega, mega, mega chessboard.
And then when you see some people being interviewed in the air, in fact, and they are talking openly about Bandar, in fact, I almost fell off my chair when I was reading this thing.
And one of the witnesses said, look, this is Bandar who gave the chemical weapons to Jabhat al-Nusra.
And the guy actually says Bandar bin Sultan.
It's crazy.
It's not a coincidence at all.
Why would he have actually shown up himself there?
He didn't mean that, did he?
No, no, no, no, no.
But just everybody knew it was his operation.
Like he might as well have said, it's John McCain's man or Ayman al-Zawahiri's man.
Barack Obama's guys, al-Qaeda, you know.
Scott, Bandar was running the African Jihad in the 80s.
He knows everything about dirty tricks.
Everything.
Every, every, everything.
I was having dinner with one of my Saudi friends this week.
We spent the whole dinner talking about Bandar.
But he told me something very, very interesting.
But I think we'll have to wait for this.
He said, look, if in six months they throw everything they have against Bashar and he's still there, maybe in a typical Arab way, Bandar and the House of Saud, they're going to cut a deal under the table, which I think is not impossible.
But we still have to wait six months and anything may go terribly wrong in between.
For sure.
All right.
Well, listen, we're all out of time for this one, but we should, well, whenever you publish what you're writing right now about Bandar, I'd love to read it and have you back on about it.
OK, let's talk again next week, Scott, because this thing is going to get much worse.
Yeah.
Thanks very much, Pepe.
I sure appreciate it.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Always a pleasure, man.
All right, y'all.
This is Pepe Escobar, the great independent reporter from The Asia Times, atimes.com.
And here he is at RT.
War on chemical weapons.
Obama traps himself into Syrian combat.
I'm Scott Horton.
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