02/06/13 – David Enders – The Scott Horton Show

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All right, y'all, welcome back.
I'm Scott Horton, and our first guest on the show today is David Ender, special correspondent for McClatchy Newspapers.
Welcome back, David.
How are you?
Good, good.
Thank you for having me.
Very happy to have you here.
And you're in Lebanon now, is that right?
I'm in Beirut, yep.
Yep.
And now, when was the last time you were actually in Syria?
November.
November, okay.
But I guess you still got contacts.
You're talking on the phone to people in Syria now?
Yeah, no, I'm in daily contact.
I attempted to make an aborted trip into Syria a couple weeks ago from Jordan.
And we'll be returning probably next week via Turkey.
Well, do be careful.
In fact, can you give us an update on the last you've heard from TICE, the missing McClatchy journalist there?
Well, we believe Austin Tice is in the custody of the Syrian government, and we're hoping for his release.
They're sort of above my head.
I think some possible, we hope, contacts being made.
Okay.
Well, we don't want to say too much and screw something up if people are in the middle of negotiating anything.
But it was good news.
I guess back in November, was it November when they released that video where he's at least still alive?
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
We definitely certainly believe him to be alive and in Syrian government custody.
All right.
Well, that's very good to know.
So much to cover here.
I guess, first of all, your latest piece is titled, Few Expect Results from Syrian Opposition's Offer to Negotiate Indirectly with Assad.
Now, I think if I refer back to just your last few stories, too, it's sort of doubtful that this opposition coalition really does represent the people of Syria.
You say in here it's recognized by the U.S. and 70 other countries, but is it recognized by the mass of the Sunni Arab population of Syria as what they want to be their new government?
Well, I think it's moving maybe closer to that.
The choice of Mawaz al-Khatib as the head of the council.
He was jailed and eventually sent into exile for supporting the revolution or the rebellion early.
And he's the former imam of the Umayyad Mosque, which is sort of the largest, most important mosque, not necessarily the largest, but the most important mosque in Syria.
And so there does seem to be a little bit of a movement toward coalescing.
Obviously, there's still a huge, huge gap between the politicians outside the country and the people who are doing the fighting on the ground inside.
Right.
And now.
Well, now, so it's interesting in it how lately there have been these leaks.
I guess Hillary Clinton had a leak.
It seemed like it came from her.
Well, he's at least cooperated, right?
The Americans have at least been cooperating with the Saudi and Qatari efforts and and Turkish efforts to to support the rebels.
And, of course, as you reported, some of these rebels say they got American training in Jordan and really, really good training.
And they're trying to figure out how they're going to get back to the United States.
And they're trying to figure out how they're going to get back to the United States.
And they're trying to figure out how they're going to get back to the United States.
And really, it seems like the bottom line is the United States has supported.
I think the president has supported the rebels demand up until this point anyway, or the opposition umbrella group here's demand that Assad leave before any talks begin, at least up until this point.
So it seems to me like that's kind of de facto supporting their their goals, if not, you know, sending them, you know, helicopters to fly.
You know what I mean?
Well, certainly.
But there's a big difference between the non-lethal aid, moral support that's provided in actual, actual arms.
Well, in a way, I guess what I'm trying to say is, doesn't sound like he's sort of stating that it's the American policy that they not lose.
Right.
Sort of like in Libya, where they said, you know, we have to put up a no fly zone.
It's the only way to guarantee the security of these civilians.
And then de facto, that meant, well, Qaddafi's got to go is the only way to secure these civilians.
At this point, it doesn't seem that there's any pressure, you know, via the State Department on the opposition to negotiate directly with the regime or to drop their demands to Assad discuss leaving as a precondition for talks.
Although, but you're saying this guy's gone ahead and done that anyway, or at least begun to put out a little bit of a trial balloon along those lines, it sounds like.
Well, it was a it was a smart move.
I mean, in one sense, he's talking to people who support Assad.
In another sense, he's speaking to people who are just disillusioned with the rebellion and the lawlessness and lack of services that's permeated a lot of the areas under rebel control.
So in one sense, the overture wasn't necessarily to Assad, it was to two other groups.
I mean, I think, you know, facts being facts, we can't expect the government of Syria to negotiate unless it feels that it's actually in a position where it might lose.
And right now, not being dislodged is essentially winning.
So I think we're a long way off from the conditions we need to see for talks to really move forward.
OK, well, now, so that's a very important point.
I understand what you're saying there, that in putting this out there, in a way, he's saying to the Shiites and the Druze and whoever else, the Alawites, that we are open to negotiation.
We are not maybe in a sense, he's taking back all those slogans about we're going all the way to the Mediterranean and to hell with everybody in our way and all that.
Yeah, he's reaching out, in a sense, to people who still support the government because they believe it's what protects them from extremist religious movements.
Well, it seems like he's probably got a pretty steep hill to climb there since at the same time, the rebels, I guess the ones actually doing the fighting, like to do suicide bombings.
And they put out videos of them making little kids cut off a guy's head and all this kind of stuff, which seems to be saying, oh, no, you're not safe.
You better not negotiate with us.
You don't have a prayer.
Well, that's exactly right.
The facts on the ground are obviously much different from what a lot of the rhetoric is.
And the minority groups have a real reason to feel threatened, I think.
So I guess, well, geez, I don't know.
During the Iraq war, there was this giant Sunni-based insurgency.
There were Shiite members of it, obviously.
But it was at least on the leadership level, they were pretty much all Sunnis.
And they were fighting against the domination of the Shiite parties that the Americans and the Iranians were backing and installing in power there.
And the Americans always claimed pretty much, you know, maybe if you really nail them down, they'd clarify.
But mostly they claim that the entire Sunni-based insurgency was al-Qaeda in Iraq.
You know, the only reason they're fighting us at all isn't for any legitimate Iraqi self-defense kind of a reason, nationalist or individual kind of reason.
No, it's just because they're terrorists.
And that's what terrorists do, kind of PR on the American side.
And on the other hand, though, al-Qaeda in Iraq were the ones setting off the bombs in the marketplaces.
And they were the ones who were least afraid to die and were doing a lot of the fighting.
And so even though they were a small percentage of the Sunni-based insurgency, they kind of helped the Americans out in grabbing all the headlines for themselves with some of their more spectacular craziness.
And so I guess I wonder whether you think that's pretty much a good analogy to what's going on here in Syria, where you have at least the way it was explained to me back when this thing first broke out, that it's sort of a 50-50 split with 50 percent Sunni Arabs, and then all the other minorities are the other 50 percent in a coalition supporting the dictatorship.
And yet it's these al-Nusra beheaders and suicide bombers who are the ones who are the least afraid to die and therefore do the best fighting and are leading the rebellion and kind of screwing it up for everybody who really just wants to overthrow their police state in a very legitimate kind of way.
I'm sorry for talking so much, but you understand where I'm going with that, right?
Yeah, well, there is some parallel to the split between extremist militants and nationalist militants in Iraq, although I think what we're seeing here with the influence of Saudi and Qatari money in particular is these groups really are bigger in Syria and are fielding actual fighting brigades, as opposed to what you saw in Iraq, which was often very limited hit-and-run attacks, suicide bombings.
So it is, to some extent, the Sunni community, certainly the fighting is the Sunni community versus pretty much everyone else.
That's fairly accurate, although the Kurds are split, the Palestinians are split, with militias forming to support either side in those communities.
So I mean, it is a little more nuanced than that, but yeah, it's not an unfair parallel.
I wanted to make sure and kind of cover that part of it.
I sound very often like I'm very anti-rebellion here, but really I'm just, you're a reporter, right?
But I have an agenda here, which is I'm against American intervention on anybody's side in this thing at all.
And that's paying Assad to torture people for us or paying al-Qaeda suicide bombers to try to overthrow him or anyone else.
But I do always identify with the average guy in the average town anywhere in the world.
So if I was a Syrian of pretty much any category or whatever, however people define themselves, religion or ethnicity or whatever, I would like to see Assad shot.
He's a brutal dictator.
What right does he have to inherit a dictatorship?
None at all, of course.
And then I do sort of sound like I'm probably smearing his opposition so much because they are suicide bombers, as you're saying, really brigade-sized numbers.
I mean, the rebellion really does seem to be being carried out by a people who would very likely be much worse than Bashar al-Assad for the people of Syria, for the people of the region, for the future of spreading wars.
I mean, you just barely mentioned Kurdistan there.
But talk about the Tinder box where, as everyone says, it's not a matter of if, only when.
This thing could really spread and really get out of control.
It's already given Netanyahu the excuse to say, well, these aren't normal times.
So now we're just going to go and do some more strikes in Syria before they had to claim they were taking out a nuclear reactor, which was a lie, by the way.
But this time, you know, well, some missiles were being transferred.
And so now I got the Israelis already.
This thing seems to be spreading.
And anyway, I'm just saying I'm not against average folk rebelling.
I'm just against this mess and the American government making it my mess, if you understand what I mean.
And I don't mean to be unfair to the people who, you know, of course, do have a right to throw off tyranny, you know?
Sure.
And well, you know, as you're saying, you got brigades worth of these crazies.
But then again, you've met a lot of plain old guys who just grabbed their rifle and want to overthrow their police state as you're reporting on this thing from Syria, right?
Yeah.
And there is a very populous element and plenty more people willing to fight than actually weapons.
Oh, yeah.
Well, I'm sure that's true, too.
Big gun control country there in Syria.
So now tell me this.
And I think we've discussed this before, but I like hearing your take on it.
The numbers of casualties from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, you say in this piece, David, January death toll in Syria rises as talks remain.
So you say there are other groups who argue that the total is even higher.
And I was wondering if you could tell me who those other groups are, because I sort of feel like I have nobody to compare this so-called observatory to.
There's the Syrian Network for Human Rights, which doesn't track government casualties, but does track casualties.
And they tend to come out with higher civilian numbers.
And the observatory has the difference is about 10,000.
The observatory's number now for all dead is over 50,000.
And the Syrian Network's number is over 60,000.
Wow.
And well, now you reported on the Iraq war.
I don't remember now anymore, David, which years.
But you've reported on both of those numbers.
Sound pretty credible to you compared to what you've seen in Iraq.
Yeah, no, I've spent some time documenting casualties and comparing them with what these groups come up with.
And I, yeah, I think they're accurate.
Like, I spent some time with the people on the ground who report to them, you know, just trying to get a sense if the reporting was accurate.
And then what I've observed is that it is.
OK, well, I take that very seriously coming from you for sure.
What do you think about this Syrian observatory?
I mean, I guess on the on the surface, it's just some Syrian expat who's just trying to do right by his rebel friends back home.
But it sort of seems strange.
You got this one guy in England who speaks for the entire insurgency all day, you know?
Well, that's that's a problem with journalism.
Like I said, I mean, I've spoke with Dr.
Abdulrahman, I use him as a source frequently because, like I said, I've met the people inside who are reporting out those figures and sending the videos and documenting evidence for the report.
He more or less compiled and essentially publicized it.
And he sort of oversees the effort.
And so based on, you know, being with them and seeing what they were documenting and seeing their process, I really do believe that they're accurate.
And he's also gone to great lengths, actually, to cultivate a network across the country on both sides so that he's able to document government casualties and civilian casualties in government held areas, just like he's been able to do in rebel held areas.
OK, well, that's very good to know that that you take him that serious.
I wasn't sure what to make of it, you know, even if it's no, I'm wary of things like that and reporters should be.
But like I said, I mean, I made an effort because, you know, to see who they were relying on on the ground and whether it seemed accurate.
Tell me this, if you can.
I saw this thing in UPI.
I don't know if you saw it.
I don't know if you saw it.
Jihadist rebels in Syria, Zarqawi's legacy.
And they're saying that you got not only just people who are veterans of al-Qaeda in Iraq and that war against the United States from a few years back.
Well, they're still fighting the Maliki government in a way to some degree now.
But even Zarqawi's brothers in law and his cousin are part of this thing in Syria or have been part of this thing in Syria and that a big part of this al-Nusra front.
And they I think they're citing this Quilliam Foundation, which I'm a little skeptical of.
I don't know.
But anyway, do you think that that's really fair to say that like this really is in large measure, not just sort of, you know, Syrian al-Qaeda, but it really is al-Qaeda in Iraq.
They just, you know, packed up their Toyotas and drove north.
There does seem to be some idea here based on Nusra guys I've talked to say, yeah, that commander's Iraqi, that commander's Iraqi.
Yeah.
And also there was a lot of Syrians who went and fought with al-Qaeda in Iraq.
There's also a large element of former members of groups like Jund al-Sham and Fatah al-Islam, which were used as proxies by the Syrian government, which also then channeled these guys to Iraq in some cases, or in some cases arrested them when they said they were going to Iraq.
The Syrian government was quite fickle with some of these proxy groups at times and wary of the fighters and then, you know, turning against the Syrian government, which now they have.
But there is now, I mean, it's becoming more regional.
Um, you know, there are lots of Lebanese fighters as well, and the Lebanese-Palestinian camps to some extent are becoming centers of operation for these groups outside of Syria.
So you have both blowback from Syria's involvement in Iraq and then, you know, al-Qaeda in the Islamic State of Iraq does seem to be branching out a bit.
Wow.
And Fatah al-Islam, is that the same group that Hirsch reported back a few years ago about the CIA was trying to support them in Lebanon against Hezbollah?
Yeah, that's the same group.
Good times.
The redirection, I think, was the article and the policy.
And tell me what you think about that.
Is this whole thing just about America is now they realize that, oops, they empowered Iran big time with the Iraq war, but now that they're doing this redirection just toward the Saudis and the Sunnis in general, and that's kind of what's going on here with overthrowing the Alawites?
Well, it's not really a redirection.
It's kind of the policy that we've always had.
To some extent, there's not a lot of credible evidence that they've ever gotten very far with Sunni-proxy militias in Lebanon in recent years.
You know, no group would really want American support.
But yeah, you know, Saddam Hussein was supported against the Iranians, despite Iran-Contra.
So yeah, you do have sort of a, I mean, I guess, really, Iraq was kind of a blip in its empowerment of Iran.
Yeah, that George W. Bush sure was dumb.
All right, well...
It was, yeah, it did seem to kind of surprise them.
And of course, the real geniuses, they knew what to do.
They were the dumbest of all.
All right.
Now, so what was I going to ask you?
Well, I can't remember, so I'm going to ask you about the Kurds.
Can you tell us a little bit more about the Kurdish relationship with the dictatorship in Syria?
As you said...
Some Kurds have joined the rebels, and some Kurds are fighting essentially for Kurdish autonomy, which has led to fighting between rebel groups and the Kurdish militia that's linked to the largest political party in the Kurdish area of Syria, which is called PYD.
And so for the last three months or so, there have been sort of off and on clashes between the rebels who want to move further east toward the Iraqi border through the Kurdish area and the Kurdish militia, which is refusing to let them pass.
And you got the Turks bombing the Kurds in Iraq, and Maliki siding with Assad.
And I'm having trouble keeping it all straight these days, David.
Yeah, Iraq's kind of a mess.
Well, can you talk a little bit about that?
Because you know what?
I haven't seen much good journalism out of Iraq lately, except this lady in the Christian Science Monitor, who I can't get a hold of to talk on the show.
Well, obviously, the central Iraqi government is aligned with the Syrian government and the Kurdish regional government, which essentially has autonomy in Iraq's north, is at odds with the central government over oil contracts and land.
And they're also trying to support Kurdish autonomy inside Syria, which is contradictory to obviously the Syrian government, which is aligned with the Iraqi central government.
So the Syrian issue is becoming an issue amongst the different Iraqi factions, some of whom support one side, some of whom support another.
All right.
So now, I guess, as you were saying before, I don't want to pretend to quote you, because I remember exactly the words, but you were sort of saying the government of Syria, they have not lost this thing yet.
And it doesn't even look inevitable that they will at this point.
It's sort of a stalemate.
Is that right?
Well, it's the regime is contracting, but they still have air power.
They're training militia to supplant the army, which is a short term solution, but, you know, will prolong things.
You know, I think there's still a certain trajectory.
But, you know, any any sort of like outright rebel military victory, I think is very far away.
You know, the Kurdistan thing, at least, well, as Iraqi Kurdistan, it seems like that the tension over Kirkuk has been simmering.
I mean, people were getting killed and kidnapped and sort of it was a slower motion, ethnic cleansing than we saw in Baghdad during the war.
Right.
They're having elections.
They're having elections, provincial elections in April.
And as in all of the local provincial elections.
Since 2005, 2004, they won't be held in Kirkuk province because it's it's too sensitive an issue.
Well, that's good to hear.
Yeah, you're exactly right.
It's a slow burn.
Well, this is the deal.
If the people of Kirkuk vote, they'll vote that Kirkuk belongs to Kurdistan, not to lower Iraq.
And that's the big deal, because that's where all the oil is at.
Right.
Well, you go ahead and say what's the vote and what's the point of avoiding it?
Outright warfare, avoiding outright warfare.
Eventually, one side will just attempt to take it over.
And so neither side, I think, is very interested in doing that right at the moment.
But but they're definitely posturing.
All right.
Well, listen, we're out of time.
Thank you so much for your time, David.
It's great.
Thank you.
And be careful.
Thank you.
All right.
Talk to you soon.
Take care, everybody.
That's David Enders on the phone from Beirut reporting for McClatchy Newspapers.
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