10/22/12 – Philip Giraldi – The Scott Horton Show

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All right, y'all.
Welcome back to the show.
I'm Scott Horton, and this is the Scott Horton Show.
ScottHorton.org is my website.
I keep all my interview archives there.
And on the line, we got Phil Giraldi.
Sorry for calling so late, Phil.
Welcome to the show.
Hi, Scott.
How are you doing?
I'm doing great.
Appreciate you joining us today.
Everybody, you know Phil.
He's a former CIA and DIA officer.
Now he's the executive director of the Council for the National Interest, which resides at, well, an address somewhere, which we're going to talk about here in a minute, but also on the web.
It's councilforthenationalinterest.org.
And of course, he writes for the American Conservative Magazine and antiwar.com as well.
And the big news today is about this conference, a panel discussion being held on Christian Zionism and Islamophobia at the Council for the National Interest this Wednesday.
Is that correct?
Well, it's actually being held on Capitol Hill.
It's going to be in the House Visitor Center, which is this underground complex they've created between Library of Congress and the Capitol building.
But anyway, they have conference rooms and that sort of thing.
And we've taken over a conference room on Wednesday afternoon to have some speakers in to talk about Christian Zionism.
Cool.
And now, so what's Christian Zionism for people who don't know what Christian Zionism is?
Well, everybody kind of knows what the evangelicals are.
The evangelicals are the fundamentalist Christians in the United States.
They tend to be very conservative.
They tend to be very pro-Israel because of their attachment to the Old Testament.
And they tend to be very strict in terms of other social issues like abortion and so on and so forth.
The Christian Zionists are probably the fundamentalists of the fundamentalists.
They're the ones that believe that the second coming of Christ is imminent, and that because of the second coming of Christ, the return of the Jews to Israel is a fundamental part of this.
And that Israel can do no wrong, and that essentially there's going to be a huge battle.
This is Armageddon, they refer to it as, which will end the world and lead to all the faithful being raptured up to heaven.
So that's what they think.
And because of that, there are a lot of political overtones to how they view the world, how they view Muslims, how they view Catholics even.
They have a rather strange way of looking at things.
Well, now, and here's the thing too, you know, part of my whole libertarian bent is that I am pro-whatever you believe.
I don't care.
You know, as long as you want to believe a thing, your freedom of your own conscience and freedom of religion, that's the American way more than anything else as far as I'm concerned, man.
That's one of the most valuable things that Americans actually still do believe in, in terms of freedom, is not really caring whether their next door neighbor is Catholic or Presbyterian.
Or whatever the hell, I think for the most part, people don't care about those things.
And so really, I don't even mind if my next door neighbor is some Haggai.
My only problem is, are you really telling me that this whole, you know, bring Jesus back sooner so that we can have the apocalypse and all this, that this really plays an important role in American politics and the formulation of real policies toward the Middle East, Bill?
Well, I mean, it does.
I mean, it basically, if you pay attention to what the Republican Party is doing, they're essentially trying to keep this constituency very much wrapped up in with them and voting for them and out and active and, you know, proselytizing for them.
So that's part of it.
But then, you know, there are other bits of it, too.
Obviously, they basically, or many of their leaders, they're not exactly homogeneous.
But John Hagee and some of their other more prominent figures, they openly advocate a preemptive war against Iran, for example, because Iran is, and Islam in general, they describe as satanic.
They describe it as evil.
And they basically are in favor of a global war by the United States against Islam.
They see this as the final battle that will be the Battle of Armageddon that will lead to the end of the world.
So what they're doing is they're essentially politicizing the issue in a way that has unfortunate consequences.
It makes the United States perceived, the United States is perceived as being anti-Islamic largely because of the activity of groups like these people.
That doesn't do us any good anywhere.
So in effect, you have a pro-Israel lobby that has this army of foot soldiers that basically all they need to do is they just send out their mass emails and they call on their telephone tree and they got whatever, however many million of these Christian Zionist rank and file Republican Party voters out there who can be relied upon to immediately respond and give their congressman hell for crossing the party line at any time, huh?
Well, that's exactly right.
And that's exactly how the Republicans see it.
They see it as a as a core constituency that said this is a group that is active, that is engaged, that gives its money, that does all the right things in terms of how politicians see these things.
But I would argue that they also have a significant downside in that they they create, among other things, false perceptions about what Muslims are like and American Muslims.
I mean, you know, the Peter King hearings last year, earlier this year, basically going after American Muslims and declaring them as disloyal.
This is something that grows out of this kind of sentiment that Muslims are not quite right.
And as I noted, I mean, people like Haiti have also said awful things about Catholics.
I mean, Catholicism is the Catholic Church is the whore of Babylon.
Catholicism is is an evil religion.
You know, there's there's a line where by preaching this kind of thing, you create an environment in which people feel that that religion, their own religion, is justifying hatred.
And it's it's kind of an interesting thing.
But the fact that these people are at the same time very politically powerful.
You know, something that's really been interesting to me is how and especially in contrast to my own experience of having no effect whatsoever.
I look at the scum of the earth.
Right.
I mean, we're talking about the dregs of the neocons when you're looking at Frank Gaffney and David Horowitz.
I mean, these guys aren't invited to the family dinner at the Kagan's house and stuff right there below the the real neocons or something.
But with just a few other allies, I mean, if you at least my understanding of Max Blumenthal's writing on this and and Eli Cohen at ThinkProgress, their big study that they did and the new impact study.
It's a very small number of people who are really the root, the Pamela Gellers, right, is the scum of the neocon movement who are so successful, so inordinately successful at smearing American Muslims in total.
I mean, it really is like we're supposed to believe they can all hear each other think and they are all secretly here for one reason and one reason only to subvert American society and enslave all our kids under Sharia law and who knows what.
Yeah, well, that's exactly what's happening.
I mean, these people, you know, you remember how Lenin used the expression useful idiots for people that were basically convinced to to to help in these kinds of insane efforts.
And the Pamela Gellers and people like that and Frank Gaffney's are basically Israel first years.
I mean, that's really what drives them.
But the fact is that they see these Christian Zionists as being their kind of bread and butter, the people that support them in their kind of insane rantings and and do all this kind of thing.
I like, for example, and again, we have to emphasize these people are not powerless.
They have a lot of people think they're crazy, but the fact is that they exercise a great deal of influence over the Republican Party in particular.
The I'm sure you know, the Republican Party in its platform this year had a plank about Sharia law that the Republican Party would make sure that there is no Sharia law in the United States and that Sharia law doesn't become a basic basis for any legal judgment in the United States.
I mean, it's kind of stuff thinking is insane.
Yeah, it is insane.
It's it's absolutely ridiculous.
But so now, well, tell me about this, because when you were in the CIA, you were stationed in Turkey.
You were the chief of something or other over there, right?
Yeah, I was something.
Yeah.
So that's not quite the Arab world, but it's the Muslim world.
So you were you know, lots of Muslims, you have experience over there in the old world around there.
Is there something that's just I mean, maybe we've got to give them a little bit of credit.
These kooks, right, they must be able to cite something that's true about what's wrong with Muslims, that their society and ours, their culture, their civilization and ours just are not compatible, huh?
Well, I can tell you exactly what that is.
Yeah, I lived in Turkey for three years and I certainly have traveled throughout the Middle East a lot in addition to that.
And, you know, Muslims, Turks, all these people, they're just like anybody else.
I mean, most of them are are focused on making a living, taking care of their families, trying to behave decently.
And the difference, the fundamental difference here is that we in the West, we European based, you know, where our education is European based, we are products of the Enlightenment of the 18th century, which was basically an anti religious movement to get away from the medieval restraints of the church and so on and so forth.
And so we see things like separation of church and state, as it is in the U.S.
Constitution, as virtues.
Now, for a Muslim, if you if you're a believing Muslim, there is no separation of the church and state because your your essence as a human being and as a religious person is complete.
It's tied up with everything you do and it's tied up with your role in society and how you relate to government and so on and so forth.
So a lot of these people like Pamela Geller and others and Frank Gaffney have exploited this to to sort of say that, you know, because of this, Muslims are not modern, that Muslims are medievalist, that Muslims are are basically don't understand fundamental freedoms.
And the fact is, every opinion poll in Muslim countries shows that that Muslims indeed do understand fundamental freedoms very much, which is why you had the Arab Spring.
They wanted to have the ability to vote, to control their own destinies.
And, you know, it's so this whole thing is kind of a silly argument that's been concocted.
OK, now, so I wanted to mention here or let you mention some of the people who are going to be the experts, because I sure would like to think that not only will a lot of people show up for this, that but that maybe a lot of people will bug their congressmen and say, hey, don't you know that there's a great anti-Islamophobia thing going on on Capitol Hill this Wednesday?
Yeah, well, we have we have some some very good speakers coming in.
Dr. Fawad Shaban is a Syrian by birth, but he's he has a U.S. green card.
He's taught extensively in the United States.
He's taught extensively in Syria at universities and also in Jordan.
And he's a he's an expert on on the how the Christian Zionists basically came into being, you know, what the theological and ideological influences were that that shaped them.
Another speaker is Norton Medzinski, who is, among other things, he's the uncle in law of Chelsea Clinton.
But he he also is a emeritus professor from Central Connecticut University.
And he is also an expert on on Christian fundamentalism and has done a lot of work and has written a number of books on it.
So those are our two principal speakers.
John Utley, whom you're probably familiar with, is also going to talk about the political aspects of this, which is which he was one of the first people to start writing about the Armageddonist.
These are the people that that basically build their political philosophy around the end of the world coming.
So John is a conservative.
He's written for the American conservative and a number of magazines, Reason magazine.
And he's going to be talking about that aspect of it.
Mm hmm.
Yeah.
He keeps the website against bombing dot org.
That's right.
Is a great anti-imperialist.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And in fact, his mother is Frida.
Utley was the world famous anti-communist author who's.
That's right.
Belongs on everybody's list for sure.
Yeah.
Great, great friend.
So John is a fervent anti-communist, but he's also, you know, he's also strongly opposed to these people that are basically subverting our system by by seeking higher agendas like like communism was.
And and then finally, we have Lorraine Barlett.
She's a recently retired lieutenant colonel in the United States Army.
She was a judge, judge advocate, general court.
And she was one of the defense lawyers from Guantanamo.
So she is now in private practice.
And what she brings to the table is that she's she was basically a member of a Christian Zionist congregation in in Georgia.
And she's going to share some of her experiences.
Oh, cool.
Well, I live really far from there, so there's no chance I'll see it.
But I sure hope that a lot of people show up and I sure hope that the listeners, I mean, come on, guys, what will it cost you to spend five minutes calling your congressman and letting his staff know that, hey, this thing is going on and you could show up there and maybe it'd be good politics for you to show up there and some things like that.
You know, come on.
Yeah, that would be a great idea.
I mean, I don't know what kind of turnout we're going to get, but we're going to try to film it.
So if we if we do get a film version of it, we'll be posting that on the Internet.
So hopefully we'll get a broader audience on this.
But, you know, this is a this is kind of an awareness issue that this stuff is going on.
I doubt if very many Americans are aware of the fact that there is a strongly politicized religious group in this country that basically is is pushing policies that are are all part of the world ending, which is what they're they want.
And they want a huge war to to bring this about.
So this is a this is kind of a serious issue, isn't it?
Yeah, it is.
You know, well, Jim Loeb tells the story and I actually found the original footnote for this somewhere and I've lost it now.
But but Jim Loeb told the story of someone asked Irving Kristol back in the 1970s, man, are you sure it's a good idea to arrange for these very rich Jewish pro-Israel activists to buy Jerry Falwell a jet plane?
Because, you know, these people are really hardcore right wing reactionaries who basically disagree with us about everything in the world and want, in fact, for Jesus to come back and kill all the Jews.
And so Irving Kristol responded, hey, it's their theology.
It's our Israel.
So let's go ahead and use them for every bit their worth, because it's not like Jesus is really going to come back and blow everything up no matter how bad they want it.
So might as well buy them a plane.
They're going to help us raise money and they'll help keep the Republican Party in line.
What could go wrong?
Yeah, well, I mean, yeah, in fact, you raise the point.
One of the funny things about them, of course, is that, you know, when the second coming occurs, I mean, the the Jews are going to be among the first victims of it.
I mean, that's the story, right?
Sure.
Unless unless they've converted.
So it's it's ironic that they have this this close relationship to Israel, which which in some ways is very hypocritical.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's the story is Jesus is going to come back and say, all right, this is your last chance.
Right.
Right.
All right.
That's Wednesday, the 24th from two to three thirty at the House of Representatives Visitor Center room H.V.
C. two hundred.
That's underground between the U.S. Capitol and the Library of Congress.
Go to Council for the National Interest dot com for more information or call two oh two eight six three two nine five one two oh two eight six three two nine five one.
And we still got four minutes.
So, Phil, tell me about this bombing in Lebanon.
Was it really the Syrians who did it?
And what can we expect to happen?
Another 20 year war there?
Well, you know, again, it's one of these things.
There are potential clients for doing this kind of thing.
There are quite a few of them.
But Hezbollah has denied that they did it.
They were obviously the ones with the means to do it and are also obviously very much in bed with the Syrians.
Syrian government would you would think the Syrian government at this point doesn't really want any more trouble.
And so I'm a little bit suspicious that they will be behind it.
They have a lot of other fish to fry at the moment.
And why they would kill this guy knowing that it would create considerable unrest right across the border in Lebanon is not it's not clear to me what the motive would be.
So I don't know.
I mean, you know, but Lebanon for so long has been a mishmash of of competing groups with competing interests.
This could be something where the motive is something that that we can't even see it or comprehend it.
I'm not sure what it means.
I'm a little more concerned, I think, in terms of what Turkey is getting up to in terms of Syria.
I think that Turkey is starting to panic about that.
There's been some stuff in the Turkish media about how starting to blame the United States for dragging Turkey into into this involvement in Syria, I think, if anything, is the other way around.
Well, it may be.
I'm not so sure.
I was probably who's zooming who there.
But I don't care if they blame America all damn day, if that means they're backing down rather than doubling down.
Right.
But I think the danger is they'll double down.
Yeah, you're right.
Absolutely.
If they if they decide that this kind of interference is just buying them a lot of trouble, that would be a good thing.
But somehow governments don't seem to think that way.
No, they never do.
They only just fail worse, better.
All right.
Now, so why is Barack Obama sending troops to Jordan?
Well, it's it's it's technically supposed to be a training exercise.
I don't I don't think I think actually it is related to Syria.
It's not related to Iran, which is always the other possibility.
I think they're they're anticipating a huge refugee problem, which creates a huge security problem, because when you have literally hundreds of thousands of refugees, refugees we're talking about, they're going to they're going to be a lot of people that are not so that you really don't want in your country that could be there for trouble.
And they're using the refugees as cover.
So I think that that's largely what it is.
It's kind of to set the stage for some major humanitarian effort.
If this refugee situation gets out of control, I guess I read one thing that speculated that maybe they would want to do a raid and try to seize serious chemical weapons.
What do you think of that?
I don't.
I don't buy that.
As far as I could tell, the chemical weapons are dispersed and we don't really know where they all are.
It's the same kind of theory about, you know, raiding Pakistan and taking away the nuclear weapons.
I mean, it's it sounds nice in theory, but it's in practice, it's pretty hard to do somewhere.
A general must be saying it won't work.
We can't.
Yeah.
Well, hopefully.
Oh, yeah.
Right.
Unless, you know, he got fired and then all we're left is the other guy.
All right.
Now, tell me this.
If you wrote a deep background about it, I missed it and we only got a minute.
But do you know anything special?
You talk to any of your CIA friends and know anything special about the origins of this innocence of Muslims video beyond what we already know out in the public there?
No, actually, there's been a lot of investigation on it, but the intelligence community did some checking on it to see if there were any overseas connections to it.
And I think the answer was no.
This is domestically produced, although it could have had, you know, money for or something from somewhere.
But the fact is that this seems to be a domestic issue, and I'm as much in the dark about it as you are.
All right.
OK, so everybody check out Phil's Raleigh and their great panel that they have Wednesday from two to three thirty at the House of Representatives Visitor Center.
It's underground between the Capitol and Library of Congress.
Learn all about it at Council for the National Interest dot com.
Freedom at the American Conservative and Antiwar dot com.
Thanks very much, Phil.
Appreciate it.
Thanks, Scott.
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