01/25/13 – Philip Giraldi – The Scott Horton Show

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All right, y'all.
Welcome back to the show.
I'm Scott Horton, and introducing the Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, Phil Giraldi.
He's a former CIA officer.
He writes for the American Conservative Magazine and also for Antiwar.com.
Welcome back to the show, Phil.
How's things?
Okay, Scott.
Well, good.
I appreciate you joining us here.
And now, listen, it's next Wednesday, I believe, correct?
You have a big anti-Islamophobia thing.
Another great panel in Washington, D.C., about Islamophobia and specifically Christian Zionism.
Tell us all about it.
Well, it's next Wednesday.
It's at noon to 3 o'clock at the National Press Club, which is downtown near the Capitol.
And we've got some good speakers who are going to speak on various aspects of Christian Zionism and also the impact of Christian Zionism on politics, which in many ways translates into an acceptance of what we would call Islamophobia, the designation of Muslims as the other in American politics and American society, as the immutable enemy.
So that's what we're going to be talking about.
And we welcome listeners of your radio broadcast to drop by if they're in the Washington area.
And we're going to allow plenty of time for questions.
Great.
Yeah, I sure hope that people will do that.
Again, it's at the National Press Club.
Let's see, 529 14th Street in Washington, D.C., next Wednesday at 1215.
Well, that sucks.
Right in the middle of my show, Phil, but OK.
No.
And then let's see.
So you'll have you'll be giving a talk.
And then also our great our good friend John Basil Utley will be there.
And Norton Mavinsky, who's a professor emeritus from the University of Connecticut, and Fuad Shaban, who is a professor affiliated with universities in Jordan and Syria.
All right.
Now, well, let's say the Islamophobia part for just a second.
Let me ask you a little bit, you know, could you give us a preview of your talk?
Maybe explain a little bit about Christian Zionism and and what this really means.
Maybe what percentage of Protestant Christians, you know, fall into this category, et cetera.
Yeah, well, it's hard to come up with solid numbers.
I mean, I've just been trying to do that today.
There are probably something like 30 to 40 million Protestants in the United States who refer to themselves as evangelicals.
That generally means that they embrace a whole whole series of conservative mindsets in terms of the authenticity of the Bible as the source of all truth and and so on and so forth.
And other conservative positions socially as to who the Christian Zionists are.
They're a little bit different.
The Christian Zionists are, of course, evangelicals.
They essentially believe that the second coming of Christ is imminent, that the second coming, as outlined in the book of Revelations, requires certain conditions to take place before them.
And one of the conditions is the return of the Jews to historic Israel, historic Judea.
And so that means essentially that they have a political agenda, that they support 100% and uncritically, absolutely, completely, the Israeli government and whatever the Israeli government does.
It doesn't make any difference if they're burning Arabs in the public square.
That's OK.
They're really that extreme on the issue of Israel because, as they see it, Israel is a precursor for the second coming of Christ, so it's got to be supported.
And that's essentially the way they look at it.
So the danger here is obvious, that this is a very highly organized...
They're numerous in certain states, the Bible Belt states.
They have good entree to congressmen.
They work as a lobby.
They raise money.
They bring out people during political campaigns to go around and knock on doors.
So they're pushing, essentially, a one issue in terms of foreign policy, which is support of Israel.
And this has had obvious consequences.
I won't say they're the only component of the Israel lobby.
That's far from being true.
But they certainly are a powerful element that is driving our policies in the Middle East.
So, I guess, in other words, what you're saying, no matter what Israel does, it's all part of God's plan, basically, is the theory.
As long as there's some kind of reference in what Daniel or revelations to Israel will be created again, then however many, what, 50 years after that, it doesn't matter that the time has come and gone, right?
Somewhere right around 50 years after that, that means Jesus is due to come back any time now.
And all actual facts from the real planet Earth that we live on are completely subordinated to this religious belief, basically, is what you're telling me.
Yeah, yeah.
Basically, they're anticipating the end of the world.
And at the end of the world, it doesn't matter because all the believers, which, of course, they are the believers, are going to be wafted up to heaven, and the rest of us are going to go to hell.
And one of the real ironies of this, of course, is the fact that the Jews themselves will not be wafted up to heaven unless they convert.
And so the whole, shall we say, philosophy behind this love of Israel is rather flawed, in a way.
And the Israeli government, of course, is very, very cooperative with the Christian Zionists for obvious political reasons, but they must be holding their noses while they're doing it.
Well, now, I'm sure you saw this thing that broke late last week about, I don't know how prominent he is, but there's an Israeli politician, I think from the Likud party, who was giving a talk in Florida to some Christian Zionists and was saying, yeah, what we want to do is we want to blow up the Dome of the Rock and build the third temple there and invite all of you Christians to come and pray.
He said, we don't want you to convert to Judaism.
That's not what we're about.
We want you to come and pray.
And then he was leading them to believe, oh, yeah, and then your Jesus will come back, and I'm buying that.
And I just thought it was kind of funny, in a way, because you could tell what a liar the guy was and how cynical he was.
And now he didn't believe what he was saying.
He was just manipulating these rubes from the Florida panhandle somewhere.
Yeah, that's, of course, the way the game is played.
And it's quite ridiculous, because it's not in the interest of the Israelis to support this brand of theology.
I mean, far from it.
But yet there's a political advantage to support a group of 30 million activists that gives uncritical support to whatever Israel wants to do.
So that's the name of the game.
And then also, as you say, these people, they sort of seem to be like the cutting edge on whether they mean to be or not.
They really are what legitimizes, because there's so many of them, and such power numbers, more than even government employees in this country, where they get to normalize this new racism or this new bigotry against Muslims, particularly Arabs.
But, you know, it's not OK to be racist against little black girls who want to go to public school anymore, like they used to persecute.
So now they have somebody new.
Yeah, well, that's it.
And the interesting aspect of it, of course, is that this leads to a kind of racism, or an extension of racism, as you say.
It probably was in the genetic makeup before.
But the fact is that these people dismiss Arabs as like they're nothing.
I mean, they're non-people.
And, of course, the inbuilt irony in that is, of course, at one time, a lot of these Arabs were Christian.
And there were thriving Christian communities throughout the Middle East, which have disappeared, pretty much, as a result of the kinds of policies that the Christian Zionists and others support.
All right, now, so what about the pushback?
I mean, obviously, you're doing your best here, but aren't there a lot of people who really are past this kind of thing, working on them anymore?
I mean, there's a lot of it, but then again, it doesn't seem nearly as bad as McCarthyism got, right, where you really were supposed to believe there was a commie under every bed.
Yeah, well, you know, I don't know what these people believe, because it's kind of hard to get inside their heads.
I've heard a lot of them speak.
And I think it's like, if you really believe in a faith-based way what the Bible says and how they interpret the Bible in very strict terms, then, you know, you're kind of locked into this kind of black-and-white view of the world, this Manichean view of the world.
And I think certainly when I lived in Texas, here in Texas I know now, I certainly encountered a lot of them.
And I found them basically hateful people.
If you're not exactly the same as them, you're not exactly seeing the world the same way as they do, then they have no time for you.
And you're obviously not one of God's select, and you're going to wind up in hell, so it really doesn't matter.
But both my wife and I had the same experience.
We never found them people that were sympathetic in any way.
They were people that you could actually talk to or even talk to about Christian teachings.
They're not interested in that kind of thing.
They're interested in this second coming, which seemed to me as a fringe issue.
Yeah, well, and you're right.
I mean, their dear leader is this guy John Hagee from the Cornerstone Church down there in San Antonio, who likes to say things like the Pope is the devil and everybody follows him, and they're all satanic plot.
And of course the Jews brought the Holocaust on themselves, he claimed.
Max Blumenthal called him out for that, and he just stuttered and stammered and pretended he never said it.
But he's busted.
Yeah, that's right.
I mean, that's some pretty hateful stuff, man.
Anyway, all right.
And then, so let's see.
I wanted to ask you, too, about your latest thing at the American conservative, Philip Giraldi.
Oh, drone doubts at the CIA, a report on the post-Petraeus CIA and jihadist refugees in Turkey.
Well, two very important subjects there.
Let's start with the drones.
Well, I was trying to kind of reconstruct what direction the CIA might move in as a result of the change of leadership with Petraeus gone.
And what I'm hearing is basically that there's a lot of dissatisfaction inside the agency with the drone policy, and this goes really up to the highest levels.
And people don't feel that it serves U.S. interests or that it works very well.
And there's going to be a lot of pushback with a new leadership, a new management at the agency, in terms of getting out of these kinds of things, getting out of these programs.
I'm not suggesting that they're going to go away, but I am suggesting that we might be moving into a phase where these things will be kind of de-emphasized.
Now, this is strange.
I think this is the only place I've ever read, although you're referring to something you read somewhere else here, I guess.
Brennan has privately criticized drone operations, stating they do more harm than good.
Is that something that was reported, or that's something you know from your sources?
Well, I've heard it privately, but it also was reported in the New York Times.
I don't remember what the article – it was a longer article, but it was about – I think it was the article where they were talking about how they're going to institutionalize counterterrorism policies.
Somebody in the article mentioned it was written by, I think, Tree Journalism.
Somebody obviously came up with information suggesting that Brenner was very reluctant to expand the drone program, and in fact felt it was counterproductive.
Well, I mean, he's most famously known as the guy in charge of it, right?
Yeah, well, you know, but the fact is when you get at that level of the bureaucracy, you support a policy even if you don't agree with it.
And it was interesting to me to see that maybe Brenner actually is not total flunky, that maybe he does actually have independent views on these issues that might be construed as positive.
Well, yeah, I guess we'll see.
I could see how – I mean, assuming that it's true what the Washington Post says about what's happened to the analysis side of the CIA, that they're basically nothing but drone strike targeters now, I could see why they might resent that and want it to be the good old days again or whatever.
Well, and also the operations side, where I came out of.
You know, the operations side, we were the kings.
We controlled the agency, and we were the spy handlers.
And the fact is that they've been – they've had their budgets cut.
They're not very used – they don't conduct normal spying operations anymore.
In most places, they just don't know how to do it anymore.
So it's, you know, it's that kind of thing where all of a sudden there's – you know, when you get in a situation with a big bureaucracy, everything kind of goes along, and then all of a sudden something happens and you have pushback.
And that's what I think we're seeing.
Okay.
Although, not that this really implies even if these changes kind of go and the pushback is successful, it doesn't necessarily mean that the drone war will wind down at all because you've still got the special operations and joint special operations command.
They can still do whatever they want, right?
Yeah, that's right.
And I'm not suggesting for a second the drone war is going to wind down.
I'm just – I think I'm more suggesting that it's probably not going to be expanded.
Yeah, okay.
And it's something that obviously costs money.
They say, well, drones are cheap, but, you know, after you buy the drone, what do you do with it?
You have to hire whole battalions of people to do the analysis, to collect the information, to maintain it, to set up a base.
You know, it's incredibly expensive.
Whereas, you know, running a classic espionage operation out of an embassy in a city overseas is very cost-effective.
Then again, they've got new jobs to do, right?
I mean, you mentioned Texas before.
North Mali is the size of Texas.
Yeah.
So that's going to take quite a few drones to cover that, right?
Yeah, no, absolutely.
This is, you know, this is a – So they need a whole new drone agency.
Well, yeah, that's the problem.
And, of course, that is the problem with when you pump in the logistics to doing these sorts of things, it becomes incredibly expensive.
All right.
Now, so tell us all about the second piece of this, too.
It's sort of a – this is a deep background, is it, or something else?
I don't know.
It's the American conservative.
Western intelligence agencies operating in Turkey and Jordan are alarmed at the massive security problem presented by the flood of refugees from Syria.
What are ideal launching pads for terrorist groups?
Do tell.
Well, they apparently have detected a number of people that they had already tagged as terrorists who had infiltrated into the refugees and were basically using the identifications of people who'd been killed inside Syria.
And so, you know, since there are now huge refugee camps in almost all the adjacent countries, the question is, how many of these people are basically setting up as terrorist cadres and getting their acts together undercover being refugees?
And so the partial solution to this is, of course, they're going crazy with biometrics and everything to try to identify who everyone is.
But as this has demonstrated in Afghanistan, this doesn't work particularly well.
It's like putting a Band-Aid on a hemorrhage.
Yeah.
Well, now, tell me this.
When the Obama administration put the al-Nusra Suicide Bomber Brigade on the terrorist list, was that just for PR?
Or are they really trying to find someone else to do the fighting for them there?
Because they've recognized the government that al-Nusra is fighting, the group that al-Nusra is fighting for, as the legitimate government of Syria.
Yeah, it's crazy.
I think it just means that they really don't know who they're dealing with a lot of the time, and they're making gestures and trying to convince the interim government that they support, that we're serious about getting all these bad guys out of the system.
But I don't think there's any way they can do that, and I don't think there's any way they're going to be effective.
Well, so, I don't know.
How long do you think that the civil war in Syria is going to go on, anyway?
I mean, I guess Patrick Coburn says that the regime is still in charge of all the cities, but then again, the rebels have America on their side, right?
Well, they've got America on their side that's getting increasingly cold feet about the whole issue, and the Turks were obviously the ones that were driving a lot of this, and they've got definitely cold feet on the one issue of Turkish support of the Syrian rebels.
The Turkish public is, I think, in single digits.
They're about 8% supportive of the policy.
So you can see the Turks kind of pulling away from it.
I think I've been hearing right from the beginning that the government is a lot stronger than people have been suggesting, and I still hear that.
I think that basically Assad, if he wants to hang on, can hang on.
Well, I mean, the rebels have made it clear that anyone who resists them is going to suffer dearly, and so they've just given, you know, they don't really claim anymore, at least, to represent all the people of Syria or want what's best for them at all, which means that all the groups that are in the coalition that supports the dictatorship have all the more reason to support them even more, right?
You know, rather than go ahead and turn on them.
Yeah, when you tell everybody we're going to kill you if we take over, I mean, it really has a stiffening of the backbone effect, doesn't it?
Yeah, it would seem to.
But then again, I guess the status quo for the long term is okay, too, from the point of view of the Americans.
I mean, it just means that as far as being, you know, a useful ally to Iran in any way, they're busy doing something else.
Well, yeah, but of course, if you go back to square one, you just have to say to what extent was Syria ever a useful ally of Iran?
Useful for what?
Yeah, I don't know.
You tell me.
You're the former CIA guy.
No, well, I think that there's too much of a tendency in Washington to kind of want to put things in boxes, and the fact is that so what if Syria was an ally of Iran?
It really, in real world terms, what did it mean?
It didn't mean a whole lot.
It meant maybe that some weapons were getting into the hands of people we don't like in Lebanon.
Well, what about in the event of a war with Iran, the idea that the Syrians would then attack?
Yeah, well, of course, but if you oppose the idea of a war with Iran, then none of that makes sense either, does it?
Well, no.
No, no.
But, I mean, if you were the Israelis or the Americans and you thought, well, eventually we're going to bomb Iran, we sure would like to weaken Syria as much as we can first, that would sort of make sense, right?
Or I don't know.
I can see them figuring that anyway.
It might, except, you know, if I were the Israelis, I would want what's happened now, which is basically a Syria where it's very weakened and it's fighting internally.
I mean, that's a perfect solution for the Israelis.
But for the United States, I don't see where it really benefits us in any way, particularly if it's going to have the effect of providing cover for terrorists, genuine terrorists.
I'm saying not the usual brand that, you know, the way we call people terrorists, but I think that there are genuine terrorists, and obviously if they can infiltrate into this huge refugee stream, it could be a problem.
Yeah, I still remember Michael Sawyer back in, what, 2004 or 2005 or something saying, oh, man, you invaded Iraq, you just gave al-Qaeda direct access to the Levant.
You know, they had an entire Iran and Iraq in their way, and you just built them an escalator to northern Israel.
Yeah, yeah, that's right, that's right, that's right.
All right, well, listen, we've got to go because this is Mohamed Sahin's turn, but I sure appreciate your time, as always, Phil.
Okay, take care, Scott.
All right, everybody, that's Phil Giraldi.
He's at the Council for the National Interest.
That's councilforthenationalinterest.org.
Read him at the American Conservative Magazine.
That's americanconservativemagazine.com and antiwar.com, of course.
And check this out.
You can find it on the blog at antiwar.com.
You'll have to go back just a couple of pages, but it's called Christian Zionism and American Islamophobia.
Giraldi, Utley, January 30th in D.C.
It's next Wednesday at the National Press Club, 529 14th Street.
Wednesday, January the 30th, 2013 at 12.15 p.m.
It's Phil Giraldi, John Basil Utley, Norton Mazvinsky, and Fuad Shaybin.
All about Christian Zionism and Islamophobia in America.
It should be great.
I really hope that you will attend and maybe make a YouTube out of it for everybody later.
You can read about that again at antiwar.com/blog.
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