06/10/15 – Philip Giraldi – The Scott Horton Show

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All right, y'all, welcome back.
I'm Scott Horton, it's my show, the Scott Horton Show.
And our first guest on the show today is our friend Phil Giraldi.
He's a former CIA and DIA officer, and now he is the executive director of the Council for the National Interest.
And he writes for the American Conservative Magazine and UNZ.com.
That's U-N-Z, UNZ.com.
Welcome back to the show.
How are you doing, Phil?
I'm fine, Scott.
How about you?
I'm doing great.
Hey, you wrote an article and it's at UNZ.com.
It's called the USS Liberty must not be forgotten.
Yeah, well, what about those people who never heard of it in the first place?
Tell them.
You know, that's funny.
There was, you know, there were about 50 of us there for this commemoration because it was the 48th anniversary of the attack.
And we had like a tour guide bus from Arlington Cemetery that drove us out to the area where the memorial was located.
And she didn't know anything about the Liberty.
And it was just like a complete mystery to her.
And we had to explain it.
And yet she was a girl that could tell you in detail who was buried and buried in each one of the, you know, 48 different sections of the of the cemetery.
So it's it's funny that supports exactly what you're saying, that there's been a deliberate attempt or a certainly a successful attempt to make people forget about the Liberty.
Right.
Yeah.
In other words, for for that job, she had to really study and be trained very well to be expert in who's buried where.
And that is just such a glaring omission.
It must be deliberate.
There's a there's a somewhere there was a conversation that said, no, we're not doing that.
Yeah, certainly.
I mean, it's been, you know, the right from the start, if you I was, I guess, a junior in college when the attack took place.
And I remember right from the beginning how the media was kind of playing this up as, no, it couldn't possibly be the Israelis, blah, blah, blah.
And then the story kind of went away.
And of course, the White House assisted in that process by making sure there was was no after the fact investigation, that there was no public awarding of medals for those who had been wounded and so on and so forth.
So, you know, this was kind of a story that was born to die.
Yeah.
Yeah.
From even in the middle of the dang thing.
And this is the very worst part.
I'll go ahead and skip right to it.
Fighter jets were dispatched and the president of the United States himself, Lyndon Baines Johnson, ordered them to turn back.
Yeah, that's correct.
Lyndon Baines Johnson instructed Robert McNamara, who was secretary of defense at the time, to have the jets recalled.
And there are also some apocryphal stories around that, too, that the apparently one of Johnson's staff heard him say something to the effect of I don't care if that damn ship sinks to the bottom as long as it doesn't embarrass our friends.
Unreal.
All right.
So.
All right.
Stop.
Hold it right there.
Rewind.
Go back.
What's the USS Liberty?
What's it doing and what sea and how did it get bombed and by who and everything?
OK, the USS Liberty was an intelligence gathering ship.
It was an old Liberty ship from Second World War vintage that had been refitted with intelligence antennas in gear and had translators on board.
And it had various intelligence types as the crew.
And it was attacked on June 8, 1967, by Israeli forces.
It was in international waters at the time.
It was clearly marked as as a United States naval vessel with a huge American flag.
And the Israelis basically attacked it from the air and then came in with torpedo boats to finish the job.
And due to the efforts of the crewmen who survived the attack, they kept the ship afloat and eventually made it back to Malta for repairs.
Thirty four sailors were killed.
One hundred and seventy one more were wounded.
This was the most significant toll on one ship since the Second World War.
And it was also the most significant attack on a U.S. naval vessel ever in peacetime.
So it was this was a major attack.
The captain, whose name was McGonagall, was awarded the Medal of Honor.
But Lyndon Johnson would not even present it to him.
Normally, medals of honor are presented in the White House by the president.
He refused to do it.
And he had his secretary of the Navy do it in a secret session with no press at the Washington Navy Yard.
So that was the cover up we're talking about that that took place after the Liberty incident occurred.
Yeah.
Well, President Johnson was terribly upset at the captain's treason for saving his own life and those of the crew that he was responsible for.
He was supposed to die that day, I guess.
Yeah, that's right.
You know, here we have Lyndon Johnson, who was the legend of Lyndon Johnson, the dirt poor farmer from Texas who became a multimillionaire after a life in politics and had a lot of vested interest with people with money and a lot of interest of all kinds.
And then he wasn't going to allow a bunch of sailors to get in the way of his more compelling friendships.
So this guy, as I said in my article, I hope this guy is burning in hell together with McNamara.
And, you know, it's it's it's one thing to to play the political game in terms of who your friends are and so on and so forth.
It's another thing to kill American soldiers and seamen or American civilians as you're pursuing your own agenda.
That is just totally unacceptable.
All right.
Now, I know the argument goes that, hey, man, come on.
Speaking of McNamara, of course, especially the fog of war.
Phil, there's a lot of war fog.
And these guys were in the middle of the Six-Day War, right, against Egypt and Syria.
And well, something must have gone wrong and they accidentally bombed the Americans.
Why would the Israelis, our good friends, ever bomb us deliberately?
You must be confused, sir.
Well, that's the part of the story nobody knows the answer to, or at least no one has come through with a compelling answer.
Why would they do it?
There are a couple of different stories that have been floated.
One of them was that that the Liberty had intercepted.
They had Hebrew interpreters, too, on the ship.
Incidentally, they interpreted messages to indicate that the Israelis were about to occupy the Golan Heights.
Another story was that the the Israeli army had 500 Egyptian prisoners and they shot them dead.
And they didn't want that's a war crime.
They didn't want this story to come out.
Those those stories, those two accounts are not particularly convincing.
Whatever the motivation was, it was a clear attack by the Israeli military on a recognized U.S. warship.
One of the Israeli pilots, the NSA was listening in on communications.
One of the Israeli pilots said, hey, that's an American ship.
I'm not going to attack it.
And he and he peeled off.
So, you know, it was clear that this was an American vessel that was under attack.
Right.
And now I actually have a folder here.
And I guess probably after this interview in.
Oh, no, I don't have any more segments.
Well, maybe on a later show, I'll play this audio.
But there was Al Jazeera special that they did about a year ago where you have a lot of this audio, you know, translated of the soldiers clearly recognizing that this is an American vessel and and asking their commanders, are you certain you want me to bomb these guys?
And being told, yeah, you heard me.
Get back to it.
Just kind of, you know.
Yeah.
So there's no question about it.
And the fog of war is just kind of an excuse.
So you don't have to blame the Israelis.
And, you know, but all right, fine.
I understand, you know, how the process works and everything like that.
They can whenever a U.S. naval vessel is attacked or seriously damaged, they have to convene a court of inquiry.
They did convene one and it was headed by Admiral John McCain, the senator's father.
And he instructed the court that basically they were going to come back with it with a with a finding of it wasn't deliberate.
And they had like one week to prepare, whereas normally a hearing like this takes six months.
And that was the that was the verdict that they wanted.
And that came straight from the White House.
And why we know this is because people that were part of this process, part of the inquiry, such as it was, later were so disgusted by what happened that they later, you know, basically described just how they had been railroaded.
Yeah.
Well, you know, Ray McGovern has said on the show he was in the CIA at the time and they all knew what was going on in real time.
Then there's no question about it, whether it was an accident or not.
All right.
Now, hold it right there.
We'll be right back, everybody, with Phil Giraldi from UNS.com and the American Conservative magazine.
Right after this.
Hey, I'll Scott Horton here.
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All right, guys.
Welcome back.
Now, Fitz in the chat room is stealing all my thunder.
I have to give him credit for all the things I was going to say anyway.
Now, my questions for Phil.
Two things.
First of all, as though the Israelis don't know what each and every Egyptian military naval ship looks like.
Right.
Which ones are where at any given time?
They look at the USS Liberty bristling with antenna and, of course, the oversized American flag.
But no, they're just confused and think that maybe that belongs to the Egyptians.
Then he also raises the question, I mean, is that even possible, first of all?
But then also, secondly, he raises the question of motive of the false flag attack, that maybe if the ship had sunk, they would have successfully gotten away with saying that the Egyptians had done it and brought the Americans in the war to, I guess, just obliterate Egypt in the name of the liberty.
What do you think about that?
Yeah, that's another theory that's surfaced.
And it is quite credible in some ways.
It would not have necessarily led to obliterating Egypt, but it certainly would have led to the United States getting involved and probably supplying the Israelis with all kinds of weapons and intelligence and that kind of thing.
No question about it.
Yeah, that theory is a viable one that they basically wanted to sink the U.S. vessel.
Clearly, they were trying to sink it.
I mean, there was a 40 foot hole by torpedoes in this in the ship.
It's a miracle that did not sink.
And especially when Johnson called back the planes and the support and there was a destroyer racing to the site, too, when they were all called back.
I mean, the ship, the likelihood the ship would sink was very, very high, like approaching 100 percent.
And so it was a miracle it didn't sink.
And if it had sunk, it would have been blamed on the Egyptians, no doubt about it.
And and with consequences, obviously, for politics in the Middle East and all kinds of other things you can imagine.
So that's that's that indeed is a very viable theory about why this was done.
And, you know, it sounds a little, oh, that's kind of conspiratorial, except remember the Maine and remember the Lusitania and remember the Gulf of Tonkin and the Maddox there, the pseudo attack there.
This is a tried and true way to get into a war.
Yeah, and the Israelis have tried things like this before.
I mean, obviously there was the Levant incident in Alexandria where they were going to blow up a British consular post and a U.S. information library and make it look like Nasserites, radical Egyptians had been behind it.
And again, the idea was to get the British and American governments in bed with Israel.
So, I mean, this is something in their thinking.
You can even you can even cite the Levant as a as a precursor for this kind of thing.
Yeah.
All right.
Now, so one of the benefits of doing this show for me and one of the benefits of writing all the time about this stuff for you is that we're on top of this stuff just as it comes out in real time.
We can always refer back to our previous conversations and previous coverage.
So there may be some people who are Johnny come lately to the America is backing Al Qaeda in Syria story, except not you and me, because you've been writing about it and I've been interviewing you about it since 2011 when America and Saudi first decided they're going to hijack this Arab Spring into a counterrevolution, exploit it where where they could in Libya and in Syria and clamp down against it everywhere else as best they could.
I guess there was kind of a pseudo regime change there in Yemen.
We saw how that worked out as well.
But all through the summer of 2011 and that fall, we were talking about this.
And then you came out with an article for the American Conservative magazine.
The anti-war.com version was America's Secret Wars.
And I always forget the name of the American conservative one.
Phil, do you remember it about the finding four years ago?
Yeah.
Sorry.
Well, I went to it every so often.
So I I'm sorry I'm spacing out.
But anyway, you wrote it was it would have been December the first week in December, maybe second week in December 2011, that Barack Obama had signed new findings authorizing covert action in Syria and Iran.
And clearly that meant on the side of the rebels who already were dominated by the suicide bomber types as that was going on.
So we've been covering this all along, the absolute absurdity of it and and even the treasonousness of it on on USS Liberty levels.
Actually, if you ask me, these people sworn to Ayman al-Zawahiri, who've been the beneficiaries of of all our arms and weapons all this time.
So I've been dying to ask you what you think of the DIA report from now released from FOIA, from the Judicial Watch, Larry Klayman and Judicial Watch.
The DIA report, August 2012, saying basically exactly what we were talking about on this show, that this policy is leading to the rise of a new state in eastern Syria and could lead to the rise of a state crossing that border.
And and al-Qaeda in Iraq taking over huge parts of Iraq, even creating that caliphate that used to just be part of George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden's imagination back in the day.
And so what do you say?
Well, yeah, it's as you say, you and I have been discussing this on and off for years now.
And the problem with the United States is that they always they always have this idea that if you support one group, it doesn't have any impact beyond that.
And or if you go after one group, so I mean, it's the same same argument.
And the fact is that when you basically, for example, like we're talking about Syria, we're talking about Iraq, you invade Iraq or you or you basically support rebels against the regime in Syria.
There are other people that are going to fill these vacuums and they don't ever seem to get that.
And that's exactly what we're talking about.
I mean, today, the beneficiary might be ISIS.
Last week, it might have been al-Qaeda.
But they don't seem to get it, that they are creating the conditions for the very harsh stories that they're using to defend this kind of action.
Now, I, you know, there's there's no I can I can really not understand how all these smart people in Washington with all their intelligence resources and everyone that can't figure these things out.
I also heard this morning, as I'm sure you did, that they're sending 400 more trainers to Iraq.
You know, I mean, do they want to hand them, you know, over a couple thousand more Hummers or a couple of a few more tanks?
And what is that?
Yeah, what is the logic to all this kind of stuff?
There's no there's never any end game.
And that's what that's what really is disturbing about it.
Yeah, well, and in fact, Obama said, no, we don't have a strategy because the strategy depends on the Iraqi government.
And of course, the strategy is completely bogus that they're going to put Humpty Dumpty back together again when it was America that broke it.
And when the parties that America put in power in Baghdad are the very ones who wanted to split Iraq in three, the more Iran loyal of the Shiite parties, the Dawa Party and the Supreme Islamic Council and the and their militias in the Badr Corps.
They always wanted to just thanks for the capital city, America now get out and create their own little Shia stand, not necessarily break Iraq up, but certainly not do anything to get along with the people in Fallujah, Ramadi and Mosul.
Screw them.
What's interesting is watching what's going on with the Republicans right now, because they're all they're all screaming about what's going on in Iraq.
And we should have left troops there.
We should have left troops or we couldn't leave troops there.
The Iraqis basically kicked us out.
Don't they remember that?
Yeah.
The guys that we helped win said, thanks a lot for giving the capital city to us.
Now get out.
Yeah, exactly.
That's what they said.
They said, we know you won't stay.
You won't have any more bases in Iraq without a status of forces agreement.
And we're not going to give you a status of forces agreement.
That was that was an exit.
Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.
Right.
Yeah.
Fifty six bases.
Nope.
Sorry.
All right now.
But so here's this DIA report from 2012.
It says exactly what we were saying, which is, hey, I mean, and they even call it a danger.
I don't think I mean, they say, yeah, I guess this is sort of what we're trying to do in Syria.
But it reads to me like, hey, boss, this could lead to all of Iraqi Sunni stand ending up, you know, finally completely breaking away from Iraq and then being under the sway of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, guys.
And that's a real danger.
They call it a danger in there.
And so really, you know, they're not that blind to it.
At least their their military intelligence advisers aren't that blind to the consequences.
I mean, how could they be?
In fact, Obama himself.
This is Dan Sanchez's new article at Antiwar.com.
He's got great quotes.
I have that great Hillary Clinton quote always play.
But he's got great quotes of Obama, too, from when Ben Swan cornered him about it.
And a couple of others reporters asked him about it in 2012, saying, yes, it's true.
A lot of the rebels in Syria are terrorists who we do not want to end up arming.
That's why I'm real squeamish about this.
And that's why I'm telling Hillary, no, basically, I only want to give them some guns and not too many.
So he has kind of been half assed in it, because as he said himself, he recognizes that the rebellion is basically led by a bunch of bin Ladenites.
But yet he still persists.
It's not like he has put the brakes on the project completely or or done the slightest thing to stop, you know, Turkey, Saudi, Qatar from and Israel from continuing to back this policy of supporting the bin Ladenites.
Yeah, you're absolutely right.
And, you know, but let me tell you a partial explanation for how this works is that in Washington, you have that report and that's working its way up through the system.
And then at simultaneously with that, you have the guys who sit at the top of the system saying, this is what we want.
And that works down in the system.
And people forget about the report.
You know, everything everything that comes out of Washington comes out of the top levels.
We want is completely politicized and as as as little connection with reality as as, you know, a comic book.
And that's unfortunately the way that the whole thing works.
I saw that repeatedly when I was in the agency, the political considerations ignored intelligence that was being developed on the ground when it wasn't when it wasn't something that they were comfortable with.
Yeah, well, and then still they persist.
Stories come out every couple of weeks.
Oh, yeah, we're training these guys.
We're arming those guys.
Susan Rice comes out and says, yeah, we have been sent a lot more lethal weapons than we said, not just nonlethal weapons.
And and they just continue on.
And I made this joke to you before, but I think it's still true.
A year later, Phil, it's still true that the Israeli lobby sway and I guess the Saudi lobby, too.
I don't know exactly how it proportions out or whatever, but their political interests in Washington, D.C.
Those special interests are so powerful that they've got our policy in the Middle East so divided that they've prevented a much worse war in effect.
I mean, they created this situation.
Don't get me wrong, but I just mean at this point, if if it was cut and dry, well, look, the bad guys are the bin Ladenites.
We're going after them.
Then that's what they'd be doing.
But they can't do that because then they'd have to ally with Assad and outright ally with Iran, even though, like we talked about, they've been allied with the Iranian faction in Iraq all along and they still are.
But because the policy is so schizophrenic and nonsensical over there, it's actually prevented them, I think, from having a more clear cut narrative about who the enemy is and what to do about it.
Yeah, because basically what they're doing is they're allowing a lot of competing interests to cut out parts of the pie.
And that's that's how the whole process works.
And and where they wound up is they wound up in a situation where there's no exit.
And that's that's the true tragedy here.
If Obama tries to cut his losses and get out, he's going to have screaming from the Republicans and from the media.
And so that there and when the Republicans come in, they'll do another stupid surge, which will be will kill a whole bunch of people.
And six months later, it will be back to normal.
Yeah, I mean, I OK, so best case scenario, forget morality or cost or anything, but just like play imperialist for a minute.
If you really wanted to send in the Marines or the army and destroy the Islamic State in in Mosul, Fallujah, Ramadi, send in the B-52s to help soften those targets up.
Seems like it really could be done just mathematically, you know, in terms of the firepower that the American military has.
But is it even conceivable under those circumstances, under the best circumstances that you could actually get rid of what, you know, was Al-Qaeda in Iraq is now the Islamic State?
This group of guys, I mean, you could turn them back into an insurgency.
Obviously, you could H-bomb the place.
But short of that, is there anything that America could do other than simply occupying Mosul forever that would prevent this group or group just like it from coming back in?
I'm not saying I would advocate for it, but I'm just trying to figure out in the absolute best case scenario, a fantasy of American power being able to deliver on its ends.
I mean, is it even conceivable, Phil?
Well, I would give you, I would give you a radical solution.
The radical solution would be to empower the people who are the most powerful enemies of ISIS and Al-Qaeda, and that would be the Syrian government and the Iranian government.
We should enter into a de facto alliance with these people whom we will be holding our nose while we do it, but we should be helping them to eradicate these people, these ISIS and Al-Qaeda.
Yeah, but then what about when all the Iranian militias and factions and special forces do their sectarian cleansing like it seems like they've already accomplished in Tikrit and start taking more and more territory for the Shiites, populating those towns as they force ISIS out, they force more people into ISIS as their only defense against the Iranian invasion?
Okay, but what you succeed in doing, and I'm speaking of a real politique on the part of the United States, is you're taking an international problem and you're making it a regional problem and you're leaving it to the local players to take care of.
That's nasty, a lot of people are going to get the chop, but the fact is we as a nation presumably have our own interests which really have nothing to do with being on various sides in this conflict which have done nothing but also killed a lot of people.
So I would say we de-internationalize the problem by empowering the people and the Turks, if we could bring them into it, to deal with the problem because it is a regional issue.
Man, I want to ask you all about the Turkish elections and the results and what all that means for Turkish support for al-Nusra and all this, but we're all out of time, Phil.
But thank you very much for doing the show, gotta go, but I sure do appreciate you coming on again.
Okay, Scott.
Alright, bye-bye.
Alright, y'all, that's the great Phil Giraldi, he's at UNZ.com, that's U-N-Z, UNZ.com.
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