10/07/14 – Reese Erlich – The Scott Horton Show

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All right, y'all, welcome back to the show.
I'm Scott Horton.
This is my show, The Scott Horton Show.
Hey, look at this.
Frank Tauk from Graham Fuller, the former chief of station in Kabul, attempts to kick out Assad, brought us the grand jihadists.
Well, it's okay to admit that more than halfway through 2014, I guess, just as long as no one gets in trouble for it.
All right.
Well, I got Reese Ehrlich on the line, and his website is ReeseEhrlich.com.
His latest book is Inside Syria, the backstory of the civil war and what the world can expect.
Well, hell, I should read that.
This article is the spotlight on AntiWar.com over the weekend and for very good reason.
Ten myths about Obama's latest war in Iraq and Syria.
On one hand, it's a listicle, and you like that.
On the other hand, it's really got a lot of great background and explanation about what the hell's going on here for you, too.
I mean, you'll really learn a lot reading it.
It's good.
Ten myths about Obama's latest war in Iraq and Syria.
Welcome back to the show, Reese.
How are you doing?
I'm doing fine.
Can you hear me okay?
I can hear just fine.
I appreciate you joining us today.
My pleasure.
It seems to me like you did a pretty good job of picking the order of importance here.
If you'd like, we could just kind of go through this list.
Tom Englehart has a new piece that begins on the topic of your statement number one here about he was just palling around with some lady in New York, and she was saying, oh my God, I hope ISIS doesn't kill us all and whatever.
This is really working.
The American people are really afraid that ISIS is going to attack, and maybe them, wherever they are, sometime soon.
What do you think?
It's a real myth.
Whenever administration is in power, they are never straight with the American people about why we're going to war.
They have to trump up fears that terrorists are going to be bringing suitcase bombs or who knows, crossing the border, bearing Ebola was one version.
What I point out in my first myth is that ISIS or Islamic State, whatever you want to call them, is not a threat to the American people.
It's very much a threat to the people of Iraq and Syria, and a very serious issue.
Those folks are focused on what's going on over there.
They're not about to attack the United States, either militarily or through terrorist means.
It's a hype to get people worked up about the war.
On the other hand, it seems like, along with the beheadings, well, I guess the beheadings are enough, but if the beheadings weren't enough, might they attack the United States in order to provoke the kind of overreaction that they got out of Bush?
Well, I don't think they're capable of doing that.
It's a local group.
They came out of developments in Syria, particularly in Iraq, as a direct result of the U.S.-Iraq war and reactions to that.
Sure, is there a danger of an airplane being attacked or some building being bombed?
Yes, and we've seen that sporadically by individuals or by people who are taking up the extremist cause, but that's a far cry from saying that these folks are an immediate threat and, in fact, by bombing them, we're giving them an excuse to up the ante and kill more Americans.
Right.
Well, and then, I mean, what's really important here is just how successful all the fear-mongering has been, where even cable TV was surprised at how successful they had been with a week, maybe a week and a half worth of propaganda.
The poll came back that 70 percent or something, am I getting it right, it was some kind of super majority, believe that there are already ISIS sleeper cells all across America ready to rise up and get us.
Yeah, that's pretty, that's right up there with them bringing Ebola across the border from Mexico.
Yeah, it's just amazing.
Yeah, no, I was in northern Iraq, I was in Kirkuk and Erbil and the areas where ISIS was threatening, and they are a group that have, in some cases, leadership by former Iraqi military men, they're focused on attacking and holding cities in Iraq and in Syria.
At the moment, they're not at all focused on trying to attack the United States.
Yeah.
Now, oh, I'm sorry, go ahead.
No, I was just going to say that if you trace back its history, this group and terrorist groups in general did not exist in Iraq under Saddam Hussein.
He ran a brutal dictatorship which, among other things, clamped down on any of these extremist-type groups.
It was only with the U.S. invasion in 2003 and the falling apart of Iraqi society as a result that groups like this formed, and in fact did in around 2006, 2007.
So while the U.S. was not, of course, involved in creating ISIS, very much the actions of the U.S. war effort led to its formation and the crisis that we face today.
Yeah, even to the degree that the current leadership of ISIS all became buds, the Baathist generals and the Islamist preachers in Kambuka prison under American authority there.
Exactly.
And then afterwards, when they were fighting the U.S. in Anbar province, the so-called surge that took place in 2006, 2007, which was hailed as a great victory here, I and many other critics were saying at the time that it's a false, it's not really a victory, and now we've seen what the actual results were.
You could go back, too, to, well, and there's a million of these in the whole course of events, but it's just the same damn story every time, where when they attacked Fallujah, I think the first and second time in 2004, they said it was all about getting Zarqawi.
They were trying to blame every bit of resistance among the predominantly Sunni-based insurgency on Zarqawi, and he'd never even been to Fallujah before.
But they sure turned Fallujah upside down, killed all these people, and made a legend out of him, which served their purposes and his only too well.
Absolutely.
And it's worth noting that the current war, in its relatively calm stage, is costing $10 million a day.
That's from the Wall Street Journal.
$10 million a day for what?
For another losing operation in which civilians are going to get killed and eventually Americans are going to die as well.
Yeah.
Well, we're going to get to that, the ground troops here.
Let me take a note.
Hey, let me ask you this real quick before we got to take this break, Reese.
This is kind of a theme on this show so far today.
I've been talking with Mitchell Prothero and Eric Margulies about this, and I'm interested in your take on just how much intervention has taken place on America's behalf.
How much, maybe a better way to put it, how much responsibility do you put on Washington for Saudi and Qatar and Turkey backing the rebels this whole time?
How much direct responsibility do you put on America for intervening against Assad the last three years, and how much that particular American part of the intervention has led to this?
Well, I don't think that the U.S. is directing everything that's going on among the Syrian opposition, which is what the Assad regime claims.
On the other hand, the U.S., I knew and I reported in Global Post that Saudi Arabia was backing the Al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria.
It's called the Nusra Front.
And if I knew it, certainly the U.S. government knew it.
And that was what year?
This was two years ago.
And so the fact that the U.S., whether the U.S. encouraged that or simply looked the other way, it doesn't really matter.
If the U.S. had really cracked down on Saudi Arabia and Turkey for arming certain kinds of groups, they would have stopped.
What Prothero said was, hey, go back and look.
America classified Al-Nusra as Al-Qaeda in Iraq, in Syria, terrorist enemies on the State Department official list immediately, which is true.
I remember reading it in McClatchy at the time.
There was no secret about how bad these guys were, but it seemed like, I guess he was saying that the Americans really didn't want the Saudis to back them, but they kept doing it anyway.
But I think I'm more in agreement with you.
It sounds like if Obama had been really serious and tried to make these guys stop, they would have.
Yeah.
I mean, I think if you're sitting in the White House, you know, you've got a plan A, a plan B, a plan C, and so on.
They're down to about plan F or D, you know.
And what their original plan was to find a moderate rebels, which means pro-U.S. rebels, and arm them and ignore the efforts of Turkey and Saudi Arabia or cooperate with them only insofar as they back the same forces.
But the U.S. was unable to put together a group like that because everybody in Syria opposes U.S. policy in the region.
So it wasn't so easy to come up with some proxies.
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia and Turkey and others in the region said, well, you're not getting anywhere.
We're going to go with our plan B, which is to arm these extremist groups.
We're going to call them moderates.
All right.
Well, hold it right there.
We've got to take this break.
I want to read your book.
I've got to email back and forth about that.
It's Reese Ehrlich.
He's got this great one at Antiwar.com, 10 myths about Obama's latest war in Iraq and Syria.
We'll be right back.
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All right, y'all.
Welcome back to the show.
I'm Scott Horton.
This is my show, The Scott Horton Show.
I'm talking with Reese Ehrlich.
He wrote this one for Antiwar.com, 10 myths about Obama's latest war in Iraq and Syria.
His website is ReeseEhrlich.com.
That's with a CH on the end there.
Reese Ehrlich and his latest book, and he's written a lot of them, his latest is Inside Syria, the backstory of their civil war and what the world can expect.
And so, Reese, speaking of the moderates and support for Jihad all this time, the policy at this point still apparently is, and correct me if I'm off the story here because I admit I'm a little confused because it's a little confusing, but they say that the policy is to build up a militia of 5,000 men to be trained in Saudi Arabia, like hiring Al Capone to train the police, you say in your article here.
And then these 5,000 men are going to take on al-Nusra and the Islamic State, as well as Assad and his friends in Hezbollah.
And then they will be the new rulers of the future Syria.
And yet somehow I don't see that making sense.
And I don't even see how they thought that made sense as a talking point that that was what their plan was.
But so it obviously raises the question of what do you think their plan is?
What the hell is going on here?
Are they just going ahead and switching back to Assad or are they still targeting him for regime change?
And they'll use ISIS as a pretext to get their camel nose under the tent flap.
And then it's on at some point regime change Damascus still.
Well, I think what you described in the beginning there is accurate, which is that they claim in a year, mind you, they'll be able to train these new moderate guerrillas and they're turning it over to the Saudis, whose ideology and whose religious beliefs are actually very close to the very extremists that the U.S. says it wants to fight.
The Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia formed the basis for the al-Qaeda style groups that of which ISIS is one.
So the idea that Saudis are going to train moderates is just a myth.
The U.S. has been trying it for roughly two years in Jordan.
It had U.S., Jordanian and Israeli intelligence officers trying to vet and train so-called moderates.
And it's very interesting.
There have been some articles, some interviews with.
I'm sorry to interrupt, Rhys, but let me ask you real quick on that point.
Are you reporting to me that Israelis are there or do you have sources, footnotes you can reference?
Oh yeah, it's in my book.
It's footnoted.
There was a former guerrilla who flipped from the pro-U.S. group to another extremist group, gave an interview and was published.
And I cite it in my book.
And it's actually, he gives it in such details that it's pretty, it's credible.
I believed it.
And basically, they were suspicious of everything that these guys wanted.
For example, if they grew a long beard, the U.S. was suspicious that they had become fundamentalist, whereas from their standpoint, they were doing it because everybody was doing it.
And that's what you do when you're fighting in Syria.
And it was actually a very revealing interview about the problems the U.S., Israelis and Jordanians had in finding moderates or even some of the groups who accepted weapons, accepted training, went into Syria and flipped over to the other side.
There's something like 1,500 rebel groups in Syria right now.
And they're constantly changing.
One group that's a strong coalition one day is suddenly dissolved and formed into a new coalition the next day.
And the U.S. is going to have a heck of a time being able to identify, let alone arm and keep people on its side.
But you're saying there's still no change in the policy.
This is really what they're going to continue trying as laughable as it is on its face.
It is.
And you mentioned before, what about Assad?
Well, objectively, right now, the U.S. is siding with Assad against the extremist rebels.
And apparently the U.S., according to press reports, is notifying Assad, as they are the Israelis, when airstrikes are going to take place and presumably so that the Syrian Air Force stays out of the way.
But how long that can last is a big question mark.
And I wrote in my article, 10 Myths, that sooner or later, if the U.S. is actually successful and defeat some of these extremist groups, that's going to strengthen Assad.
And the U.S. is going to say, well, wait a minute, we're not in this to strengthen Assad.
We're going to have to start bombing Assad military targets as well.
Right.
They've actually even been saying that from the beginning before they even started bombing that we might have to bomb both at the same time to keep it fair.
Like kids arguing in the backseat or something.
What?
Yeah, with cruise missiles.
No, it's a crazy policy and it's going to blow up on their bomb administration.
Yeah.
And, you know, judging by just one step removed kind of consequences down the line, I wonder which is worse, working to continue overthrowing Assad, which would lead to the horrible, butchery civil war between all those ethnic and religious minorities and the jihadist types and all that.
But on the other hand, America outright, you know, going back to Bill Clinton and George W. Bush days of aligning with Assad and objectively Iran against these guys is just going to cause that much worse of problems, especially if it's the Quds Force on the ground, Assad's army and Hezbollah on the ground with America flying the air cover.
I mean, what the hell is that for the future of America's relations with all Sunni people and states in the region forever?
Yeah, I think you've you've put it well, which is the best thing the U.S. can do is not get involved with either side.
And I know that's not popular in Washington.
And after all, we're a superpower, so we have to do something.
But whatever choice the U.S. makes militarily, it's going to be a disaster for the people of Syria.
And they will be able to sort it out with time on their own.
Right now, what about ground troops?
Because, you know, we it's just kind of in the wings and on Fox News all day that, you know, come on, everybody admits, just like with the Syria rebels, it's the same thing with the airstrikes.
No one really believes that this is the solution.
The solution comes down to sending in the U.S. Marine Corps under the assumptions and the premises of the American empire.
Is there any other way?
Who's going to do it?
The Turks aren't going to do it.
The Iranians aren't going to do it.
The Iraqi army can't do it, obviously.
Assad can't do it.
I mean, maybe if we stopped backing the rebels against him, he could at least take back all of Syria someday.
But he's going to root the Islamic State out of Mosul.
Nope.
So who's going to?
Well, that's exactly the problem.
And the U.S. already does have ground troops in both Syria.
Well, certainly inside Iraq, not necessarily Syria.
Those spotters, when I was in northern Iraq, a U.S. diplomat told me that there are the spotters of their American military troops on the ground directing the airstrikes.
There's nobody else capable of doing that.
The latest information is that the U.S. is going to be piloting helicopters with the Iraqi army going in to fight in the Sunni areas that ISIS is in control.
Now, if you fly helicopters, I suppose that's not literally boots on the ground, but that's by anybody's definition, that's combat troops.
So I think the U.S. is slowly moving in the direction of having more and more active combat troops involved, whether they call them advisers or whatever they might, whatever euphemism they may give.
And that's because airstrikes by themselves are not going to win.
And there's nobody else on the ground who's capable of taking back the Sunni areas of Iraq.
The Peshmerga in northern Iraq, in the Kurdistan region, they probably can take back control of their areas, although that leads to a whole other set of problems, which I talk about.
But other than that, there's no certainly nobody in Syria and neither the Iraqi army nor anyone else is capable of holding and taking back key cities like Mosul.
So who's going to do it?
U.S. troops.
All right.
So now this is kind of a stupid question, but I mean, it's an important thing, but I don't expect you to have a real answer.
So it's OK if you don't.
But what the hell can we do to stop this thing?
This is as bad a slow motion train wreck as the last two times around, certainly as bad as the last time around.
And yet it's just all so inevitable.
I can hear it in in, you know, every the premise of everything that you say.
Just yeah, here we go again.
And what are we going to do?
Well, it's you know, the train wreck doesn't have to happen.
And had the U.S. not invaded Iraq in the first place, we wouldn't be in the situation that we are today.
But it's true.
The once you're in the middle of the mess, it's very hard to sort it out.
The best thing the U.S. can do is stop all military support for anybody, whether it's the Iraqi army, the Kurds or the Syrian opposition or Assad, for that matter.
It will, in the short run, seem like a big crisis.
But in the long run, people will sort it out.
Remember, there's lots of the reason that we're so concerned about this crisis is because the administration is making a big deal and the media is making a big deal.
There's plenty of very serious crises, including humanitarian crises going on in other parts of the world that we don't hear about and we don't get worked up about because it hasn't been focused on as a key area of oil or other strategic corporate interests.
Right.
Well, what's funny, too, is I heard Pappy Cannon say one time, OK, well, what if China and I don't know the degree, the exact relationship between the Chinese government and the Mongolian government, honestly, but he says, what if the Chinese move into Mongolia and ruthlessly crush all resistance and seize all their mines?
What are you going to do about that?
You know, have a hydrogen bomb war with China?
Or actually, there are some crises in the world that you just, you know, aren't your responsibility is you can cry serious tears, not even crocodile ones, but you just can't do anything about.
Yeah, well, I don't think the Chinese are about to invade Mongolia.
Yeah, it was just a hypothetical kind of thing about something out of reach.
Yeah, they've got their good trade relations.
That's all they need.
And you see, that's what's ironic is that the big bad guys, China, Russia, various European countries, when they want oil or other natural resources, they engage in trade, they establish friendly political relations, but they don't send aircraft carriers and set up military bases, at least certainly not.
Well, in the case of China, they don't set it up outside their country.
In the case of Russia, in their border areas that they consider vital.
But the United States is the only power in the world that has the largest and most of the largest military by a factor of 10 compared to the next group of countries.
So there's absolutely no reason to be spending that kind of money.
And the results is what we're seeing, which is even more disasters.
You know, there were about five million people died in the Congolese civil war.
Five million.
We're talking about one hundred ninety thousand maybe in Syria, which is a horrible tragedy.
But where was the cause to invade Congo and to send troops to fight our allies in Congo?
There wasn't because they decided they couldn't win it.
So therefore, we don't hear about it.
And it's not a big crisis.
Yep.
And it's amazing, isn't it, how the free media, even, you know, not even just quote unquote, you know, ironically, but the real kind of free media, independent media, whatever, even me, we just kind of stick to their narrative about what's important and not.
I've covered Congo a little bit, but mostly only in the context that you just talked about, about how nobody ever covers it, including me.
You know?
Yeah, well, I've actually been in Congo and I did cover it at the time.
Well, I didn't mean to include you, Reese.
I know you do real work.
No, but I understand.
You're absolutely right.
And there's an agenda in Washington that drives the daily news and that impacts all of us, including folks doing the talk show.
So I think what is important is to get out the word that that's not the only possible narrative and that there's other folks doing other things.
Yeah.
Well, and I guess, see, mostly my focus is trying to debunk what they're saying.
And if they're not talking about Congo, then there's not much to debunk.
But the truth is, it's still extremely important.
As you're saying, it's one of the worst crises going on in the world in the last decade and plus.
Right.
Time to debunk the funk.
Yeah, exactly.
All right.
Well, listen, I've already kept you over time, but I thank you very much for your time.
I hope people read what you want and what you write.
And and I want that's why I was jumping ahead there.
I want your book.
And again, it's called Inside Syria, the backstory of their civil war and what the world can expect.
Reese Ehrlich at Reese Ehrlich dot com.
Sure.
You can find that Amazon as well.
We're going to have to.
I am on a national book tour.
And oh, yeah.
Oh, yes.
I'm sorry.
You mentioned that in your email.
Tell us about that, please.
So I'm in the Bay Area for the next couple of weeks and I'm going back to New York and Boston and the East Coast in November and back to Oregon later in November.
And for details, you can see Reese Ehrlich dot com.
My website, it's R-W-E-S-E-E-R-L-I-C-H dot com.
Great.
Yeah.
And then right there at the top, it says speaking and media appearances.
So, yeah, there you go.
Come out and help support and get a great book.
Many of your listeners hear this and come to the events, come up and say hi.
Cool.
Yeah, I hope somebody does.
I bet you maybe someone will.
These things have happened before.
All right.
Hey, thanks very much, Reese.
It's good to talk to you again.
All right.
So that's Reese Ehrlich.
I mentioned earlier on the show, but not in the context in that interview.
But he was in Kurdistan when Mosul fell.
He's he he like I said, he does the real work there reporting these wars inside Syria, the fact story of their civil war and what the world can expect.
Forward by Noam Chomsky.
That's good.
Reese Ehrlich dot com for that.
And go see him speak at your local bookstore kind of thing coming up in your town soon.
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