04/02/15 – Philip Giraldi – The Scott Horton Show

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All right, you guys, welcome back to the show.
I'm Scott Horton and on the line I got Phil Giraldi.
He's a former CIA officer and now he is the executive director of the Council for the National Interest at councilforthenationalinterest.org.
Stop by, support.
He also writes for the American Conservative Magazine and unz.com, that's U-N-Z, unz.com.
His latest is declaring independence from Israel.
It's way overdue.
Boy, you got that right.
Welcome back to the show, Phil.
How are you?
I'm fine, Scott.
How about you?
I'm doing good.
Appreciate you joining us again on the show.
And you know, I'm curious, before we get too far into this article, well, first let me say the good news is they're announcing this pseudo kind of agreed framework type, not quite final deal, but next step on the Iran nuclear talks.
They have succeeded for now, I guess.
They're breaking news all over the Twitter and they're going to make their announcement here in just a minute or so.
But I'm curious about, from your time inside the CIA, when you had direct access to all this kind of classified information, I know you were stationed in Turkey for a time, that kind of thing.
I wonder what all you learned about Israel then, the kinds of things that regular American people just don't ever get a chance to hear about.
I don't want you to get yourself in legal trouble here, but you know what I mean.
Yeah, well, I won't be too specific.
When I was in Turkey, I was in a management position and I used to see everything that came in around the Middle East.
And among the things that I used to see on a regular basis were the so-called intelligence that Israel was sharing with us.
And this stuff was, in my opinion anyway, kind of a joke.
It was stuff that was very, very much generic, you would call it, just kind of commentary on various Arab countries and Arab groups and Arab leaders.
And it was always very derogatory, of course.
The information they were giving us was essentially propaganda.
And very often, you know, this stuff would come in and I would write a marginal comment to the effect of, here's a little more garbage for everyone to read.
And the Consul General at one point came in to see me and he said, oh, would you please stop doing that?
It's embarrassing to one of our close allies.
And I said, well, you know, this stuff is nonsense and if people don't appreciate what it is, they might actually believe it.
But that's just one example from my own experience.
I felt in my 20 years or so overseas that we were constantly being diddled by a number of people in various places.
But Israel was probably number one.
And now, you know, and I really mean this as an honest question.
I mean, obviously I have my biases, but I try to play devil's advocate so that I can continue to be right all the time about everything.
If I got to change my mind or understand some new facts, I'm happy to.
Even if I'm not happy to, I'll go ahead and do it.
Is Israel an ally of America in any way?
I mean, it seems like the answer would be, well, yeah, I mean, they do share intelligence with us, but I think he just threw cold water all over that one.
What is Israel ever done for America, Phil?
Well, I don't think they've done anything.
I mean, everything has been kind of negative.
I tell you, when this debate kind of goes around, Israel is constantly referred to as an ally.
An ally is, you know, Britain, Canada, Germany, Turkey even.
Because to be an ally, you have to have a signed document that tells exactly what your commitment is and what the other guy's commitment is.
That's an ally.
That's a legal ally.
So Israel's not an ally.
It's never been an ally.
And you get some people in Washington saying that Israel is a non-NATO ally, meaning that they don't have that contract.
But that's a fraud too.
I mean, the whole meaning of the word ally is that you have commitments that are very clearly spelled out.
And, for example, how could you possibly tell, say we had a commitment to defend Israel, and how could you tell that Israel was being invaded because you don't know where the border is?
Right.
Oh, sure we do.
It's the Jordan River.
Right.
Or Baghdad, maybe.
Right.
But, you know, the fact is that, you know, it defies belief that Israel is referred to as an ally.
Israel's not an ally.
And, in fact, I would argue, as I do and as I've done a number of times, that they're not even really a friend.
They do a lot of things that are not compatible with being a friend, like, for example, stealing our secrets.
Most recently, eavesdropping on the conversations going on with the Iranians, that sort of thing.
The Israelis are not exactly friendly in terms of how they go after the things they want, which I don't begrudge them that.
Every country should do what it feels it needs to do to be secure.
But the fact is that a lot of this stuff is done at the expense of the United States.
And that's why I say we need a new Declaration of Independence from Israel.
It would be good for both Israel and the United States.
All right.
Now, so we could go through a whole litany of all the things that they do that are contrary to the interests of the United States.
But backing up one step again to the friendship or the de facto alliance, as it's referred to, never mind actual paperwork or NATO status or anything like that.
I mean, do they do anything that that would qualify as even helpful or friendly or sort of de facto alliance for us?
Really?
Not that I can think of.
I mean, I can't imagine what Israel gives us in terms of our posture in the Middle East.
That is a plus.
And in fact, that's on the contrary, it creates difficult relationships for the United States with just about everybody.
And so I can't see where the where the plus would come from.
You get people that claim, oh, during the Cold War, Israel was the unsinkable aircraft carrier in the eastern Mediterranean because the Syrians were friendly with Russia, which they still are.
And the Egyptians were friendly with Russia, you know, this kind of thing.
But there was no practical gain out of that.
We never had a military base in Israel.
There was there was never any any quid pro quo that I can I can see.
Yeah.
I mean, that was kind of what I was thinking of, too, was this whole and I still hear this all the time that they're America's kind of advanced position over there and whatever.
Well, that's funny, because I remember both George Bush is begging them to stay out of our wars for Israel in the last two wars against Iraq, because, oh, man, especially Bush senior.
Boy, if you guys even when Saddam was shooting Scud missiles at Tel Aviv, Bush senior was saying, please stay out of it, please stay out of it or the whole alliance will fall apart.
Yeah, that's right.
I mean, the problem is, you know, the United States is perceived as as as Israel's protector.
And and and that's a bad thing in this case, because Israel is doing a lot of nasty things.
And in particular, the whole Muslim world is very aware of of every time Israel goes into the West Bank and kills a few kids.
It's not reported very much here in the US, but the rest of the world is seeing this stuff.
And and they're also concluding that Israel wouldn't get away with this stuff if it weren't for the United States.
So it does huge damage to us, I think, internationally.
And it does a lot of practical damage in terms of costs, in terms of the technology that they steal and then turn into weapons that they sell.
And that, you know, I'm no defender of the military industrial complex, but nevertheless, these are American jobs and, you know, however you want to cut it.
And so they take advantage of all that stuff.
And they they they basically have no regard whatsoever for the American people.
It's just that we're a resource for them.
And, you know, and that's that's unfortunately the way it is.
Yeah.
You know, I was thinking about when you're talking about the intelligence sharing there and all the spin.
It reminded me of that book, By Way of Deception, which is the slogan of of the Israeli Mossad by way of deception.
Thou shalt do war by Victor Ostrofsky.
And he talks about in there how the Israeli Mossad's attitude is the Americans better tell us everything that they know.
But when it comes to them giving us any information that we might need to know, well, the Americans are big boys.
If they can't figure it out for themselves and screw them and even down to the degree of they knew good and well to the detail, time, place and everything else about the truck bombing of the barracks in Lebanon in 2000, I mean, pardon me, in 1983, that killed more than 200 American soldiers and or I guess Marines and how they just didn't share the information because I guess they figured if a bunch of Americans got killed, maybe that would convince Reagan to double down.
And maybe that's part of the reason why he decided to pull out, because he realized that the Israelis were were being so cynical and trying to manipulate him that way.
Yep.
A very important book for anyone to read there.
And in fact, I think there's a sequel to it, too.
But anyway, I'm sorry.
We've got to take this break.
We'll be right back with Phil Giraldi on the subject of declaring independence from Israel.
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All right, guys, turn it to the news and put it on mute and turn on your closed captions.
They're announcing the agreed framework right now.
Or the whatever the hell they call it.
It's not quite the final deal, but it's a big step toward the final deal.
We're on the line with Phil Giraldi.
What do you have to say about this?
Phil, does this look like maybe Obama's declaring a little bit of independence from Israel right now in front of our eyes?
It sure does look like that.
And I would like to be a fly on the wall over at APAC right now.
But in Netanyahu's office.
Yeah.
Well, Netanyahu was already threatening military action.
I don't know if you saw the some of the wire services even before he saw the terms.
But anyway, he knows he can't do that.
It won't work.
But the fact is, yeah, I'm impressed because yesterday I really thought this was going to miss again.
And I figured if it missed one more time, that was it.
And so I would like to see where this goes.
I want to see what the actual terms of this are.
But from what I just heard, it sounds like a pretty good deal from both sides.
And I don't know.
I don't know.
I would say you get every European country behind it and the Russians and China and and the whole U.N. Security Council, it's going to be pretty hard to overturn all of our actual allies, in other words, and plus our adversaries, too.
Yeah.
Actually, China is a better ally than many of the others.
But anyway.
Yeah, I don't know.
I'm very happy about it.
I really think this was this was a situation which threatened a war that would have overshadowed in magnitude all of the crap that's gone on for the last 13 years.
And I was terrified that this was going to turn into, you know, some kind of bizarre exercise in whatever from coming from people like Tom Cotton and John McCain and Lindsey Graham and people who should be taken out and locked up somewhere.
But, you know, maybe we'll get out of this and that would be good for all of us.
Yeah.
You know, this is just my speculation, but I think that if Benjamin Netanyahu had ever approached the president United States with the slightest bit of respect instead of acting like Obama should be his butler, that this would have never happened.
But that Obama's attitude has been, well, if I'm an N-word to you, then you can kiss the blackest part of my ass and watch me go ahead and do what I feel like.
No other president would have done this.
And I don't even think Obama would have done this if it hadn't been for Netanyahu's complete and total contempt for him.
Yeah, I agree with you.
I think this became a personal issue.
And I think Obama, you know, to give him his due, he played this well.
I was talking with some with Garrett Porter yesterday, I was saying it seemed to me a lot of this lead up where they kept saying there are problems, there are problems, there are problems.
I think what they were trying to do was defuse the opposition, was was trying to convince the Senate and AIPAC and people like that, that this was a lot more fraught with difficulties than than would seem to be the case.
But I have I really feel that quite some time ago they had a solution already in place.
Right.
You reported that in the American Conservative Magazine.
You had CIA sources told you that they had worked this out in Oman and they really the rest of this is just mostly for show.
That's right.
Yeah.
And I feel that was the case.
And the rest of this stuff has just been play acting in a way to to to kind of reach a point where the political objections to it would be diminished.
Although I think it hasn't really worked because obviously, you know, with Netanyahu's visit and everything, they've actually intensified the pressure on the White House.
But the White House, I think, intended to go, you know, to do what it had to do to get through this right at the beginning.
Yeah.
So this funny clip of Michael Scheuer, another former CIA officer, talking about Obama's racism against Netanyahu.
And I just thought, oh, man, you've got it all backwards.
Netanyahu is the Ku Klux Klansman who thinks that Obama ought to be shining his shoes.
And which I think is just great.
I mean, I welcome that kind of bigotry, that kind of blatant bigotry from Netanyahu just because of how well it's blown up in his face.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, I think Netanyahu would look pretty good in a white sheet.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, ask the Palestinians.
They'll tell you.
Yeah.
No.
He's burning across my front yard every other night.
That's right.
He's a white supremacist.
Yeah.
Well, anyway, I mean, this is, you know, this is, I think, good news.
And I think that that it's going to have a snowballing effect on the relationship and on how people perceive Israel.
Because Netanyahu has felt himself compelled to say so many things that are just totally outrageous to get reelected, that it's hard for anyone, whatever their religious belief or their ethnic solidarity or whatever it is, to really take Netanyahu and what he represents seriously.
And I think this is this is just going to to snowball into a kind of, you know, why?
Why do we treat Israel so specially?
I mean, what is apart from the, you know, the Bible thumpers?
I mean, most other people aren't going to buy into that anymore.
Right.
And well, by the way, what is the real answer to that?
I mean, we are talking about a country the size of Maryland over on the other side of the planet here.
And they get to boss our entire capital city, seem most of the time like it's under their total control.
Do you want me to answer that?
Honestly?
Yeah.
Jews have a lot of money.
Our system is corrupt.
And if you have a lot of money and you're interested in one issue, you're going to get that you're going to get the results you want, because our system is totally corrupt.
Our Congress is totally corrupt.
Our media is totally corrupt.
And they had the people that are interested in Israel have a lot of money.
Yeah.
Well, and of course, the richer you are, the more right wing you are, too.
So it isn't just that Jews have a lot of money.
It's that the very richest Jews are very right wing and nationalistic on the Israeli side.
Because, of course, Jews lead the anti-war movement as well.
Yeah.
Plenty of Jews in the anti-war movement and plenty of Jews who don't fit that profile.
But the ones with the money are tend to be the institutional Jews, the ones who are, you know, the A-Fox men and people like that.
These people have access to lots of money.
I mean, AIPAC's budget is what?
$70 million a year?
Yeah.
Something like that.
So it's money that does it.
And, you know, and people don't want to talk about money, but it's money.
Our system, our government has become so corrupted over the last, certainly over the last, since the Second World War, probably, that, you know, it's, it makes, money makes everything happen.
Yep.
In fact, there was a great joke by Asif Mamvi, gave a speech or a little comedy routine thing last week where he said, he talked about how Congress has like a 2% or 4% approval rating and a 98% re-election rate, and he said, there's only two explanations for this.
One is our corrupt system of money and gerrymandering, and the other is the first one.
It's as simple as that.
Well, that makes sense to me.
I wish they'd send some money over to me.
I mean, for God's sakes.
I mean, it's just that, you know, it's depressing being on the wrong side of these arguments.
Giraldi for Congress.
You got my vote, Mr. President.
Yeah, right.
Exactly.
All right.
So, so tell us about what we can do, those of us who don't put Israel first, to try to declare independence from Israel.
To finish this process, Obama's got us on a good first step on here.
Well, I think, I think what those of us who are skeptical about this relationship, or even beyond that, critical of this relationship, we just have to be more expressive about it.
The problem is people are nervous about talking about Israel for various reasons, and it's, it's got to come out more into the, into the public sector.
And I think it is doing that.
If you read, certainly the newspaper coverage, the media coverage in the mainstream media, since Netanyahu went crazy, it's been highly critical of both him and politics in Israel.
And I think that's a start.
But we have to get, we have to focus more on the damage that the relationship does to the United States.
Because that's the only thing that will ultimately shift the American public on this issue.
Because they don't care about the Palestinians.
They don't care about, you know, how many kids are getting killed over there.
You know, I joked the other day, I said that, you know, they, when Gaza took place, people were sympathetic when they're seeing all these dead kids and everything like that.
But the next day, they were worried, they were worried about the Kardashians.
The public doesn't have any staying power on these issues.
So when you start, you know, saying, look, this is tax money out of your pocket.
This is damage to when you travel overseas, you become a terrorist target.
There are a lot of issues that impact on Americans in their daily life.
And that's what we have to, to, you know, to tell them.
Yeah.
I think the most important one of those is straight out of Lawrence Wright and Terry McDermott that Mohammed Atta and Ramzi bin al-Shibh, the reason they joined up with bin Laden was because of Israel's oppression of the Palestinians and the Lebanese.
That's why they participated in the 9-11 attack against the United States.
Yeah, that's right.
And in fact, bin Laden repeatedly wrote that that was one of the major motivating factors for him.
Right.
And then they get to pretend that, oh, now, see, all Muslims are your enemy, just like all Muslims are our enemy.
But really, no, it's our backlash, their backlash against our support for Israel in the first place that got us into this mess.
That's exactly right.
Yeah.
Well, someday, I guess the American people get it through their thick skull.
Thank you so much for your great writing and your great work and your time on the show again, Phil.
I sure appreciate it.
OK.
Take care, Scott.
We're working on him.
OK.
That's Phil Giraldi, guys.
He's at the Council for the National Interest dot org and at UNZ dot com.
This article is declaring independence from Israel.
It's way overdue.
Thanks for listening.
We'll be back here tomorrow.
Noon Eastern.
Hey, y'all.
Scott here.
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