07/25/13 – Pepe Escobar – The Scott Horton Show

Hey all, Scott Horton here to tell you about this great new project, Listen and Think Audio at listenandthink.com.
They've got two new audiobooks read by the deepest voice in libertarianism, the great historian Jeff Riggenbach.
Our last hope, Rediscovering the Lost Path to Liberty by Michael Meharry of the Tenth Amendment Center is available now.
And Beyond Democracy, co-authored by Frank Karsten of the Mises Institute Netherlands and journalist Carl Beckmann, will be released this month.
And they're only just getting started.
So check out listenandthink.com.
You may be able to get your first audiobook absolutely free.
That's listenandthinkaudio at listenandthink.com.
All right y'all, welcome back to the show.
I'm Scott Horton.
This is my show.
Thanks for tuning in.
Here Monday through Friday at scotthorton.org.
Every day but Thursday at noagendastream.com.
Full interview archives are available at scotthorton.org.
More than 2,900 interviews now going back to 2003.
And also, while you're at it, stop by scotthorton.org/donate.
I'm doing kind of a mini fundraiser sort of thing to see if I can stay alive through the summer.
I like being alive.
All right, that's scotthorton.org/donate.
Next up, first up on the show today is the great Pepe Escobar from the Asia Times.
That's atimes.com.
We can find the best of Pepe Escobar.
He's also the author of Obama Does Globalistan, which is sort of like Debbie Does Dallas, but different.
Welcome back to the show.
How are you doing, Pepe?
Hey, man.
Always a pleasure.
Greetings from the South China Sea.
Oh, you're in Hong Kong right now, huh?
Yeah, you bet.
Okay.
Right on.
I guess you didn't get a chance to hang out with Snowden and Greenwald while they were there, huh?
Well, I told somebody a few days ago he was hanging out here in my apartment.
Oh, you're in the safe house.
My apartment is NSA proof.
You're like Gene Hackman.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Because we can, right?
Yeah.
All right.
So, let's talk about Syria.
Yes.
We got a lot of Syria to talk about.
So, hey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he wrote a letter to the Senate saying, man, we really can't do it.
It's too much.
We just can't.
Exactly.
Exactly.
I talked about this in one of my pieces this week.
He outlined what a disaster it will be.
But still, the John McCain's, Lindsey Graham's, you know, the war mongering gang, they still want it.
You see what they passed, the next bill in the Senate, right?
Sanctions against anybody that offers asylum to Snowden, including Russia.
I want to see this bunch of cowards trying to set sanctions against Russia.
It's easy to try to, you know, strong arm Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia.
I want to see they do it with Russia, you know, really.
And I want to see them try to do anything by passing UN, obviously, because they'll never get it, even by passing NATO in terms of a military operation against Syria.
What Russia is going to do about that?
In fact, by the way, this week, no, this week we learned that Iran and Syria are into negotiations for finally Iran gets the S-300 missile defense system.
So Putin is going to Iran for the inauguration of Rouhani next month.
So maybe they'll clinch the deal next month.
So this means that Iran is going to have the missile defense system.
They could even, you know, supply a little bit to Syria just in case, you know.
So I want to see these developments.
You know, the way it's the whole thing in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, it's completely out of control now, totally out of control.
Did you see the Abu Ghraib jailbreak a few days ago?
Yeah.
They're saying 500 something Sunni based insurgent types escaped.
Exactly.
So I don't know if Patrick Colborne is in Iraq at the moment.
He will be the ideal guest for you to talk about that.
But anyway, my fixer, she's probably the best fixer in the world.
So we were exchanging emails for the past 24 hours.
She told hair raising stories about this jailbreak.
First of all, the numbers, nobody knows about the exact numbers.
It could have been 1,400 escapees.
Obviously, we cannot prove it.
But according to her best sources, it's possible that even the al-Maliki government was involved into this jailbreak or whatever.
How?
They would like to extract some of these top al-Qaeda leaders that were in Abu Ghraib, send them to Syria so they will fight the Free Syrian Army in Syria.
This is a completely crazy plot.
It's possible.
Very hard to prove, of course.
And according to some of her other sources, she told them that maybe even Iran gave some help to the al-Maliki government for the jailbreak.
It's very hard to buy all these options, of course.
I'm still buying the option that this was al-Qaeda in Iraq coordinated because it's their modus operandi, a series of car bombings and suicide bombings, simultaneous attacks against one prison in the north of Baghdad and Abu Ghraib at the same time.
But we cannot discount the possibility that for the al-Maliki government, this is a very good deal.
These guys are not inside Iraq anymore.
They already crossed the border to Syria.
And obviously, if they are in Syria, they're going to fight against the different gangs of the Free Syrian Army over there, because this is what's been happening for the past two or three weeks, in fact.
In fact, the so-called rebels are fighting among themselves, in fact, instead of fighting the Bashar al-Assad's Syrian army.
So, you know, just to give an idea of how complicated this stuff is at the moment.
Well, now, let me ask you this, because it makes sense to me that the Americans are trying to train up Free Syrian Army guys and convince them to fight against the al-Nusra Front in order that it won't be outright high treason for America to keep supporting the Mujahideen here, because those guys are the worst of them and they've declared their loyalty to al-Zawahiri and whatever.
But why would it be beneficial to Maliki and the Iranians to have the al-Nusra types win out over the FSA?
Because it seems like if the FSA can, the American stooges, the more stoogey of the American types, if they win out over the jihadists, then they'll be a hell of a lot easier for Assad to destroy, since they're the so-called moderates who really hardly fight at all.
And it seems like that's ultimately what Iran and what Tehran and Baghdad both want, is for Assad to survive and thrive.
Exactly.
Look, what Iran would like, what Iran and Assad, basically, they would love to have all these cross-border jihadis, Iraqis with battleground experience against the Americans, Jabhat al-Nusra, the connection between al-Qaeda in Iraq and Jabhat al-Nusra, to be fighting against the free Syrian army gangs inside here, instead of fighting, obviously, the Syrian army.
This is what's been happening for a while now.
And they would like this to go on, in fact.
Because now we know that, and we have on the record a lot of free Syrian army commanders of different factions, going on the record talking to journalists, Lebanese journalists or Saudi media journalists, saying, look, we want to get rid of these jihadis.
Even though the jihadis are the real fighting force, the reorganized fighting force in northern Syria, they even hold some territory in northern Syria, more or less near where the Kurds are, in fact.
But I would say like 50, 60 kilometers away from the Kurdish area in northeast.
So they hold, even hold territory.
But they cannot hold territory in the big city.
They hold what?
A suburb of a suburb of Aleppo, for instance.
But for Hezbollah, that would be great to have these guys over there, and fighting among themselves, while Hezbollah protects the Syrian-Lebanese border.
This is what they're doing.
Hezbollah is not fighting inside Syria.
This is a myth that you read in New York Times and Washington Post.
It's not happening.
And the Americans, obviously, they would like to arm the so-called good rebels, as if the CIA knew who the good rebels are among, what, 1,200 different factions of the free Syrian army.
That's the latest estimate that we have.
And obviously, arming the good rebels, so they would get the new so-called light weapons and fight in homes again, and fight to keep Aleppo.
This is not going to happen.
This is completely crazy.
We all know that in a war situation, in a war theater, these weapons will be appropriated by the most capable fighting forces.
Obviously, Jabhat al-Nusra people and these Iraqi commanders that cross the border.
They cross the border all the time.
There's no border.
It's just a bloody desert with a bunch of sheikhs on both sides, and they're all cousins.
So, there's no border to stick with.
So, this is the American dream.
It's not going to happen.
So, I think for the moment, there is a sort of consultation of Assad with al-Maliki, with the Iranians, and also with Hezbollah, how we're going to organize our so-called axis of resistance here from now on, considering that the Americans now are going to play the game in a much more hardcore way.
We cannot discount the possibility sooner or later there will be a strike.
This is, you know, this is the warmongering side in Washington.
But I think they're coordinating their game much more at the moment.
And this would explain this possibility, which is very hard to prove, of course, that the jailbreak had a sort of al-Maliki government hand on it to say, let's get rid of these al-Qaeda princelings.
Send them to Syria.
They're going to Syria anyway.
And they'll keep fighting over there.
They don't, they're not inside Iraq.
They're not in communication with the jihadis inside Iraq.
And when we get to Syria, obviously, they will be fighting primarily the Free Syrian Army gang and not Assad's forces.
But it's very murky.
I agree.
But it's explainable.
Yeah.
No, I see what you mean.
I mean, it's a long way of saying that Maliki's a politician and he's an idiot.
And so here he's, he's taking a very narrow view.
Great.
I can get rid of these al-Qaeda guys and ship them off to Syria.
But really what he's doing is he's helped energizing the Sunni insurgency in Iraq.
Anyway, that's a Coburn's term that he's used for the past two years, that the rebellion in Syria is energizing the former rebellion in Iraq and turning it back into the current rebellion again.
And they don't really have the ability to take Baghdad.
And I asked him about this.
Well, look, they already lost Baghdad.
So maybe they can kick the Shiite army out of the Sunni triangle or whatever.
It's not like they can take Baghdad back.
And he goes, yeah, but don't tell them that.
They're all excited.
They're looking at the map and saying, well, look, hey, if you if you never mind the borders drawn in the desert by the French and the British here, there's a hell of a lot more of us Sunni Arabs than there are Shiites.
Let's get them.
Let's take Baghdad back.
But the thing is, Scott, it's basically desert.
There's fucking nothing from eastern Syria to western Iraq to Anbar province.
There's absolutely nothing.
It's like 700 kilometers of desert.
What's the point of holding this area?
You know, you want to hold at least a suburb in Baghdad.
I remember in the beginning of the surge, Al-Qaeda, they held a neighborhood in south Baghdad, Dora.
That was a major thing.
In fact, they took over Dora.
They took over the houses of the people in Dora.
They killed a lot of people.
They beheaded a lot of people.
They actually took over a suburb.
This is what they would like to do in Aleppo.
But what they have at the moment is a suburb of a suburb.
It's something like, what, 35, 40 kilometers away from downtown Aleppo.
It's not good enough, you know.
They don't have the numbers.
They don't have the, how can I put it, the cosmic intelligence to deal with local populations because they are so into the caliphate, intolerant, purist, 7th century version of Islam that everybody else is an infidel, an apostate, and he could be killed, exterminated, beheaded, whatever.
That's why they cannot hold territory in big cities anywhere.
Man, that is such an important point.
Pepe, stop right there.
You've got to just hammer this home again for people so that they can understand.
If America just stopped, well, you say it however you want.
You can disagree with me to whatever degree that you want.
But it sure seems to me, if we just knocked off the entire terror war, Al-Qaeda would cease to exist altogether.
Even the wannabe Al-Qaedas would basically cease to exist within a few years because everywhere they go, people hate their guts because they're sicko, suicide bomber, hand-cutter-offers.
And this isn't the 1300s no more, man.
Absolutely, Scott.
This is the key point.
And we have now examples to prove it.
We have Dora that I mentioned in late 2006, early 2007.
We have what happened in Aleppo as well.
And this area that Jabhat al-Nusra controls in northeast, it's a village.
It's in the middle of nowhere.
The problem is there's some oil around there.
There's some pipelines.
So it is strategically important.
But they will never get hold of an urban area because it's impossible to explain to people how beyond any notion of intolerance that we have in the West, these people are.
I'm not even talking about Husna bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawiri, who are more or less exposed to the West.
I'm talking about these newborn jihadis, online jihadis, that, you know, pure hatred against anything that resembles civilized life as we know it, in fact.
And obviously we have moderate Muslims in all these places, in Iraq, in Syria, be they Sunni or Shiite Muslims.
Shiite is even worse because the only solution they see for Shiites is beheading, killing them all.
And obviously they have preachers, especially in Saudi and the Emirates, that they listen to or they go to forums on the net.
And these preachers are issuing fatwas or sub-fatwas or crypto-fatwas virtually every day, saying, let's kill all Shiites, Alawites, Twelvers, you name it.
So it's very easy to radicalize these people.
Very, very easy.
The problem is they don't have a program.
They only have this purist idea of Seventh-Century Islam in their head.
It's impossible to talk to them.
It's impossible to argue.
It's impossible to even try to explain to them that there are different interpretations of Islam.
Forget it.
Forget it.
So, you know, and it's true.
If we just, okay, forget about these assholes.
They're going to self-destruct anywhere they go.
And this is exactly what would already have happened, in fact, in 2002, 2003, 2004.
But obviously we all know we need a bogeyman.
So, you know, before we pass to China, we needed a stopover with this Al-Qaeda nebula all over.
Yeah, I just, you know, it was obvious that night when they declared war on September 11th, that evening when they declared war on terror, not even terrorism, but the emotional response to terrorism, the actual fear itself.
We have nothing to declare war against except fear itself, which is whatever we want, anywhere in the world.
And it was so obvious that they were specifically not narrowing it down to Al-Qaeda.
They wanted to be able to attack whoever they wanted.
But if it had just been a war with Al-Qaeda, the whole thing could have been over by Christmas, so it won.
And there was not even really a war to be fought here, was there?
Absolutely, especially because most of the, I would say, historic Al-Qaeda was already infiltrated, controlled, or very well known by intelligence services, starting with the ISI in Pakistan.
It's great.
You know, the number one thing about so-called terror in Pakistan is the ISI knows the address of every bloody jihadi in Afghanistan, Pakistan, because they used to run most of these people, you know.
This is the number one thing, you know.
So as long as they were serving some broader agenda of the Islamabad, Rawalpindi military, industrial intelligence complex, fine, especially in Afghanistan when the Taliban were in power.
They were in close contact with the ISI, and the ISI knew everybody, knew every Al-Qaeda address and every Al-Qaeda training camp inside Afghanistan.
Same with the tribal, same with both Waziristans and the rest of the tribal area.
So, you know, it would be very easy.
But at the time, for the Pakistanis, it was a good thing.
You know, it served their purpose.
After 9-11, obviously, they were confronted by the West, and now we have to change our game.
And they started an ambiguous relationship with most of the historic Al-Qaeda.
The most intelligent thing, I would say, in terms of some of these historic Al-Qaeda commanders, they decided to, okay, let's diversify.
Let's not be so ambitious, and we're going to spread out.
We're going back to the Middle East.
We're going to North and Africa, small cells, forget about Europe, and we do our recruiting online in English.
And it works for them.
Well, you know, there's this new thing in the Christian Science Monitor about this new Rand Corporation study that basically concedes that, well, it's right between the lines, anyway, pretty blatantly, that it was the American occupation of Saudi Arabia that provoked this whole thing against us in the first place, really, and that what is called Al-Qaeda, what Michael Scheuer calls the global Islamist insurgency, likes to call itself Al-Qaeda here and Al-Qaeda there or whatever, right, in the Arabian Peninsula or in the Islamic Maghreb or the Jabhat al-Nusra or whatever, that basically they all just have local interests.
I mean, what was unique about bin Laden and Zawahiri was that they wanted to attack America at all, but it was really just to bait us into drowning ourselves in the quicksand and bleeding ourselves to bankruptcy so that we would no longer be able to back up all the local dictatorships they wanted to overthrow, including Saddam's and Assad's, as well as Mubarak's and the Saudi King's, right?
Exactly, Mubarak.
It's amazing, because Al-Zawahiri, it took him 20 years to get rid of Mubarak.
It was not Al-Qaeda who did it, it was Pierre Scheuer.
That's the whole irony.
That's fantastic, in fact.
Although America ended up proving him right by overthrowing the Muslim Brotherhood and kicking them right out of power and proving that Zawahiri was right when he said the Muslim Brotherhood were fools to participate in the democratic process at all.
Exactly.
But coming back to what you said about the Iran Corporation study, it's absolutely correct.
It started in the first Gulf War, in fact.
The first after-effect of the first Gulf War was the radicalization of Osama Bin Laden.
And it all cascaded from there, right?
Oh, by the way, man, I crossed paths with Prince Turki a few weeks ago, but I could not ask him the big question because the Saudi friend who was with me told me, don't even try this, you're going to be killed on the spot.
I wanted to ask Prince Turki about his relationship with his very old close pal, Osama Bin Laden.
Oh, man, it's too bad that your buddy was there.
Yeah, you know, Greg Pallast actually reported about Prince Turki bringing Bin Laden's men a giant sack full of money back in 1996 at a hotel in Paris, a bunch of protection money.
Fantastic.
They were extremely close.
Wait, we only got three minutes, so let me ask you this.
And yeah, I think that's right, too, about Prince Turki.
And that's a whole other line of questioning, I guess.
But I want to get back to the current thing in Syria.
I read a thing where Henry Kissinger seemed to think that Obama believes his own nonsense about that this fight in Syria is a fight between a dictatorship and its people rather than a Sunni versus everyone else thing or a Sunni extremist versus everyone else, including other Sunnis thing.
And he seemed really concerned about it and said what he thinks would be the better thing would be to break Syria in half.
And I wonder whether you think that he's really got Obama's ear in that.
Maybe that's what they're really working for here is to break the thing up again and undo those French borders.
Absolutely.
Look, two things.
One, if Kissinger is right, we should be desperate.
If we have a president of the United States that really thinks that what's going on in Syria is an evil dictator against the people, we are all fucked.
That's number one.
Number two, yes, the original plan for Syria would be balkanization.
Remember that the original plan for Iraq was balkanization, descended among others by the current vice president of the United States.
You remember that?
Ten years ago or so.
Of course, yeah, the Biden plan.
Break them up.
Exactly.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, that's what the Supreme Islamic Council wanted, too.
So the plan for both Syria and Iraq is double balkanization.
So we will have like six statelets, like preferably six new Gulf Cooperation Council-style emirates instead of two secular Arab republics.
That's where they were.
Remember that?
Well, Syria still is nominally, right?
So, yes, I think from now on at least some faction in Washington will be striving towards or slouching towards balkanization.
How they are going to accomplish is another story.
But the most, according to what you said about Kinshasa, this is the most worrying part.
If we have a president that actually believes in this good against evil John Wayne scenario in Syria, what kind of people are advising him?
Well, we have the answer.
People like Ben Rhodes, a total failure who doesn't know anything about the Middle East.
So now we have the 2.0 version of the Bush gang advising Bush before the invasion and occupation of Iraq.
Instead of Paul Wolfowitz, we have Ben Rhodes.
So this thing, it's endless.
The cosmic trail of incompetence is endless, right?
All right, we've got to leave it right there.
Thank you so much, Pepe.
Appreciate it.
Thank you, Scott.
Always a pleasure.
Cheers.
Great to have you on again.
Everybody, that is the heroic Pepe Escobar.
Atimes.com.
Atimes.com for the Asia Times.
Pepe Escobar.
We'll be right back with Eric Marlees on more Middle East stuff right after this.
This July issue features one by your favorite radio host on America's Middle East policy entitled Stupidity or the Plan?
So head on over to fff.org/subscribe and sign up for the future freedom in print or online.
That's fff.org/subscribe.
And tell them Scott sent you.
Oh, man, I'm late.
Sure hope I can make my flight.
Stand there.
Me?
I am standing here.
Come here.
Okay.
Hands up.
Turn around.
Whoa, easy.
Into the scanner.
Ooh, what's this in your pants?
Hey, slow down.
It's just my...
Hold it right there.
Your wallet has tripped the metal detector.
What's this?
The Bill of Rights.
That's right.
It's just a harmless, stainless steel business card-sized copy of the Bill of Rights from securityedition.com.
There for exposing the TSA as a bunch of liberty-destroying goons who've never protected anyone from anything.
Sir, now give me back my wallet and get out of my way.
Got a plane to catch.
Have a nice day.
Play a leading role in the security theater with the Bill of Rights Security Edition from securityedition.com.
It's the size of a business card, so it fits right in your wallet and it's guaranteed to trip the metal detectors wherever the police state goes.
That's securityedition.com.
And don't forget their great Fourth Amendment socks.
Hey, guys, I got his laptop.
Hey, everybody, Scott Horton here.
Ever think maybe your group should hire me to give a speech?
Well, maybe you should.
I've got a few good ones to choose from, including How to End the War on Terror, The Case Against War with Iran, Central Banking and War, Uncle Sam and the Arab Spring, The Ongoing War on Civil Liberties, and, of course, Why Everything in the World is Woodrow Wilson's Fault.
But I'm happy to talk about just about anything else you've ever heard me cover on the show as well.
Check out YouTube.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com LibertyStickers.com.
They'll take care of all your custom printing for your bandier business at TheBumperSticker.com.
LibertyStickers.com.
Everyone else's stickers suck.
Hey, y'all.
Scott Horton here for WallStreetWindow.com.
Mike Swanson is a successful former hedge fund manager whose site is unique on the web.
Subscribers are allowed a window into Mike's very real main account and receive announcements and explanations for all his market moves.
The Federal Reserve has been inflating the money supply to finance the bank bailouts and terror war overseas.
So Mike's betting on commodities, mining stocks, European markets, and other hedges against a depreciating dollar.
Play along on paper or with real money and then be your own judge of Mike's investment strategies.
See what happens at WallStreetWindow.com.