Showing posts with label Assad. Russia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Assad. Russia. Show all posts

Saturday, October 12, 2019

SYRIA AND THE KURDS



THE ABSURD TIMES


I;;ustration: Since a lot of religion gets mssed into these issues, here is the Christian side, by Redd Foxx.

Syria, the World, and the Kurds
By
Czar Donic

I'll start out with letting all the hyperemotional Kurd lovers a note of equal time.  At the bottom of this is a long interview illustrating how poorly the Kurds have been treated over time and how we should weep for them.  OK?  So, scroll down and weep and feel good about yourselves.  I want to talk about what is really going on.

First off, Assad bears a great deal of the blame for being too much of a nice guy.  Let me tell you a little bit about Homs, or Homa, or whatever.  Assad's Dad ran the country for a long time until the Moslem Brotherhood tried to overthrow him.  Here is what happened:  "In response to an attempted uprising by the brotherhood in February 1982, the government crushed the fundamentalist opposition centered in the city of Hama, leveling parts of the city with artillery fire and causing many thousands of dead and wounded. During the rest of Hafez al-Assad's reign, public manifestations of anti-government activity were very limited."  (I just stole that to avoid having to type it out again.  If you know about Syria, you know it's true.  If you don't, trust me. In other words, he stopped the crap in one month and that was that.  He also helped stop a civil war in Lebanon and many other things.

So, he dies (as people do).  His first son is supposed to take over and he was trained for the job and ready.  He dies (as people do).  The lines keep going until Hafaez (the current one) winds up in charge.  Now this guy, who was an eye doctor in England, a good one, and doing well.  That's all he really wanted to be.  Well, he winds up in charge and has to move there with his British wife.  The last thing on his mind was running Syria on the Border with Israel and so forth.  His assessment of Endogen of Turkey, live on the BBC-TV, was that he "wants to be an Emperor."  In other words, he wanted to go back to the old Ottoman Empire.  (Forget I brought that up – we don't have time for it now.) 

So, during the so-called "Arab Spring," which the U.S., Hillary was a major force, this turned into a major campaign of "Regime Change."  Sisi, the guy we have in charge, was trained by us (so was Morsi).  Anyway, back to Homs:  this time it is some group calling itself "democratic" and then the "Free Syrian Army" starts to cause trouble.  Instead of bombing the crap out of them, Assad starts to negotiate and try to get along.  Then comes ISIS (trained by us, the leader was a graduate of Abu Gharab (once a College of Agriculture under Saddam), ISIS starts to take over the Mideast.  It's a bunch of weird, nutty fanatics.  They slice people heads off, auction off girls and women to each other and so on.  Bashir just wanted to be a damn eye doctor!  So now, he starts to get pissed.  We join in, Russia joins in, Nato joins in, Turkey joins in, and the Kurds join in.

Well, now it's time to remind you of something that sound a bit out of context.  Remember the "Pirates off of Somalia?"  The Blackhawk down, and so on?  Why do you suppose that stopped?  Well, these pirates kept stopping ships and getting ransom, one after another, until they made the mistake of capturing a Russian ship.  Putin blew the whole dam thing up in the water, and we never heard about another pirate at all (except for Hollywood movies).  Well, that's what they should have done in Syria.  We would never have had the problem in the first place. 

Ok, so now they go on with the ISIS part of this.  Everyone hates ISIS.  The Kurds were supposed to get their own homeland as the west divided up the Mideast after WWI and gave a large chunk of the Ottoman Empire to them.  (The Russians had already made their own deal.)  Trouble is, we ignored the problem when Turkey decided to keep that chunk.  The only country to give them any autonomy was Iraq under Saddam Hussein, limited Autonomy, and they just kept wanting more, and more.  Iran said "no way."  Sure Saddam gassed them.  Is that any worse than what turkey is doing and what we did in leaving them there?  The truth is, no country wants them.  The only reason they fought ISIS was that they thought they would get a chunk of Northern Syria as a result.  We see what happened as a result.  So, there it is.

Now, here are the Kurds talking, openly, plenty of freedom to present their opinion, as Amy can always be counted on doing for anybody:

The Kurdish side:
Turkey has launched an aerial and ground assault on northern Syria targeting Kurdish-controlled areas. The offensive began Wednesday, just days after President Trump ordered U.S. troops to fall back from their positions on the Turkish-Syrian border. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reports at least 16 Kurds have been killed so far. Turkey is claiming the death toll is far higher. The Trump administration has faced widespread criticism from both Republican and Democratic lawmakers for abandoning the stateless Kurds who had helped the U.S. fight ISIS. Turkey is claiming the assault is needed to establish a "safe zone" in northern Syria where Turkey could relocate Syrian refugees who fled over the past eight years of fighting, but the Kurds see the offensive as part of a decades-long attack by Turkey to crush their attempts at greater autonomy. The Kurds have been responsible for holding over 10,000 ISIS fighters and their families in detention. While Trump has claimed Turkey will take control of the makeshift jails, there is growing concern many former ISIS fighters will be able to escape during the Turkish assault. At least one Kurdish prison has already been shelled. To discuss the implications of Turkey's assault, we speak with Elif Sarican, a Kurdish Women's Movement activist and anthropologist at the London School of Economics. We also speak with Ertuğrul Kürkçü, honorary chair of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party in Turkey, known as the HDP. He is a former member of Parliament in Turkey.


Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Turkey has launched an aerial and ground assault on northern Syria targeting Kurdish-controlled areas. The offensive began Wednesday, just days after President Trump ordered U.S. troops to fall back from their positions on the Turkish-Syrian border. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reports at least 16 Kurds have been killed so far. Turkey is claiming the death toll is far higher. Some of the heaviest fighting has been in the Syrian town of Tel Abyad. Turkish jets and artillery have reportedly hit at least 81 targets east of the Euphrates River.
The Trump administration has faced widespread criticism from both Republican and Democratic lawmakers for abandoning the stateless Kurds who had helped the U.S. fight ISIS. Turkey is claiming the assault is needed to establish a, quote, "safe zone" in northern Syria where Turkey could relocate Syrian refugees who fled over the past eight years of fighting. But the Kurds see the offensive as part of a decades-long attack by Turkey to crush their attempts at greater autonomy.
AMY GOODMAN: Fear is also growing that the Turkish assault could lead to the mass release of ISIS fighters. Up until now, the Kurds have been responsible for holding over 10,000 ISIS fighters and their families in detention. While President Trump has claimed Turkey will take control of the makeshift jails, there's growing concern many former ISIS fighters will be able to escape during the Turkish assault. At least one Kurdish prison has already been shelled. The New York Times is reporting the U.S. military has moved as many as several dozen Islamic State prisoners to more secure locations. This includes two British members of ISIS who are accused of beheading Western hostages, including the journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff.
The Turkey assault is facing international condemnation. The U.N. Security Council is expected to meet later today. The European Union has warned Turkey's hostilities would, quote, "further undermine the stability of the whole region." Earlier today, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has threatened to send millions of Syrian refugees to Europe if Turkey's assault is criticized.
PRESIDENT RECEP TAYYIP ERDOĞAN: [translated] Hey, European Union, pull yourself together. I say it again. If you try to label this operation as an invasion, it's very simple: We will open the gates and send 3.6 million refugees your way.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: On Wednesday, President Trump described Turkey's assault as a "bad idea" but defended his decision to shift U.S. troops away from the Syrian-Turkish border.
Here in New York, protesters demonstrated on Wednesday in front of the offices of Democratic Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand in New York City, demanding the U.S. defend the Kurdish autonomous region known as Rojava. This is Ozlem Goner, an assistant professor of sociology and anthropology at CUNY, the City University of New York.
OZLEM GONER: Kurds have lost thousands, tens of thousands of lives, their homes, their lands, their agricultural production — so, all their livelihood — in order to defeat ISIS so that European and U.S. citizens are comfortable in their homes. And now they are once again paying with their lives for having protected our lives.
AMY GOODMAN: We're starting right now with two guests. In London, we're joined by Elif Sarican, a Kurdish Women's Movement activist. She's an anthropologist at the London School of Economics. In Brussels, Belgium, we're joined by Ertuğrul Kürkçü, the honorary chair of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party, known as the HDP. He's a former member of Parliament in Turkey.
We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Elif Sarican, let's begin with you. Let's start at the beginning, what we understand and what you understand is happening on the ground now. You have this conversation last Sunday between President Trump and the Turkish President Erdoğan, and apparently Trump tells him the U.S. will pull troops back in northern Syria, and Erdoğan makes very clear he is going to attack this area with Turkish troops. Explain what has happened since.
ELIF SARICAN: I mean, just to give it some context, you know, this is not a new development. Erdoğan has been trying to push for this for many months, if not years. And finally, somehow, through quite a mysterious and unclear phone conversation, Trump agreed to withdraw the few U.S. soldiers that were positioned there. And just to make clear that the U.S. Army, the U.S., Trump himself, the Syrian Democratic Forces and Turkey were well aware that these troops still remained posted there essentially to act as human shields to stop a Turkish invasion.
Now, what we saw yesterday was the beginning of this invasion, the long-promised invasion by Turkish President Erdoğan. And, you know, as many people have said, as there's a consensus all around the world and with public opinion, is the consequences of this can be grave and will be grave. It's not only that it's essentially threatening a Kurdish genocide; it will — it's not even just a possibility, it will — create and cause the resurgence of ISIS. It will add to the international refugee crisis. But also, equally as importantly, it will crush the democratic, ecological and women's liberationist experiment that has been happening there, as well as the Kurds fighting against ISIS.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, Elif, the situation is quite extraordinary. A U.S.-NATO ally, Turkey, is relentlessly attacking, with U.S.-made arms and ammunition, a U.S. ally, the SDF, the Syrian Democratic Forces, who were also trained and armed by the U.S. Now, what do you understand is happening today? In these last two days, what do we know about casualties, both civilian, Kurdish civilian casualties, as well as casualties among the SDF?
ELIF SARICAN: So, because the situation is unfolding so quickly, it's quite difficult to get any precise figures at this moment, but some of the official figures that we've had in the last 24 hours is that there's over 10 civilians that have been killed, there's at least 15 injured civilians. And also CNN reported Clarissa Ward was going through part of the region yesterday and reported quite horrific scenes of civilians killed but left on the street, because people can't get to them because the shelling is so intense. And in terms of the SDF, again, we don't know the exact figures. We know there's clashes, with the six coordinated attacks in six border areas of northern Syria, and the Turkish Army with its allied jihadi forces don't seem to want to stop, by any means.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to bring Ertuğrul Kürkçü into the conversation and get your response to what President Trump is now just saying. Kurdish forces have fought alongside the U.S. against ISIS for nearly half a decade, nearly 11,000 fighters dead. On Wednesday, Trump criticized the Kurds, saying they didn't help the United States during the battle of Normandy in World War II. This is Trump speaking to reporters at the White House during an event in the Roosevelt Room.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Now the Kurds are fighting for their land, just so you understand. They're fighting for their land. And as somebody wrote in a very, very powerful article today, they didn't help us in the Second World War. They didn't help us with Normandy, as an example. They mention names of different battles.
AMY GOODMAN: And he also said — The Washington Post is reporting the U.S. military has no plans to intervene if Syrian Kurdish forces leave their posts guarding ISIS prisons, raising the question of what will happen to the 11,000 ISIS militants and their families currently detained in some 20 prisons and camps under Kurdish control. So the president, Trump, was asked about this Wednesday.
REPORTER: ISIS fighters escape and pose a threat elsewhere.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, they're going to be escaping to Europe. That's where they want to go. They want to go back to their homes, but Europe didn't want them, for months.
AMY GOODMAN: Ertuğrul Kürkçü, you're honorary chair of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party. If you could respond to both of these points, that the Kurds didn't help the U.S. at Normandy in World War II and if the ISIS prisoners get freed, they can — they will go to Europe?
ERTUĞRUL KÜRKÇÜ: Yeah, this is horrific, not only for the Kurds, but for all the world and for the Americans themselves, that they are governed by the most ignorant person in the world as a statesman. He doesn't even know that the Kurds didn't have a stake: They were not a party to the Second World War. They were enslaved by four different countries in the Middle East. And he is now speaking about the war in Normandy and why the Kurds weren't there. So he is totally ignorant of the realities of the world order, which was based on the outcome of the Second World War.
And secondly, he has no understanding of ISIS and what it means for the civilized world and Middle East and Europe, why ISIS is a problem not only the United States or Europe, but for the United Nations. ISIS is one of the two groups — one is al-Qaeda, and the second on is ISIS — which is pinpointed by the United Nations as the terrorist organizations which could be — whom should be stopped by international cooperation. And that's why the United States is having a function in the Middle East. This was not Trump's own idea.
What I would like to say, that it was the worst idea also by the Obama administration to intervene in the Middle East affairs, to export regime change in Syria, which deeply changed all the course of things in the Middle East and in Syria. And at the middle of the road, the Obama administration changed their course and took the ISIS as the enemy number one. This was a better understanding of the course of things.
But Trump doesn't understand why this was an immense problem for the American interests, as well as the Syrian interests and as well as the Kurdish interests. So, it's a pity that the United States and the world is now — is between the lips of an ignorant and a reckless person who is the leader of the United States, the number one country in the world, which assumes huge responsibilities for the peace in the world, for the stability in the region, and therefore a world where people will have to live in reconciliation. So, now Donald Trump himself may be the biggest problem for the Middle East peace.
AMY GOODMAN: And his response, what will happen to ISIS prisoners that escape from prisons, that they'll simply go to Europe?
ERTUĞRUL KÜRKÇÜ: Actually, the real situation in the field is even more problematic than Donald Trump believes to be. They are not only going to escape to Europe; they are going to operate in Turkey. And until this day, during ISIS massacres, around 200 Turkish people, 99% of whom are government dissidents, have been killed. And today, in a very interesting statement, the Turkish minister of domestic affairs, or the interior minister, in response to a question, says, "ISIS doesn't have any other opportunity than to cooperate with us, because they are at loggerheads with all the world, so they should coalesce with us." Now we have a country led by a government, an interior minister, who believes ISIS will be their ally.
So, we have done two problems. One is the Turkish official approach to ISIS, a kind of an ally against the Kurds. And the second one is that Donald Trump, that ISIS is a European problem, so that Europeans should tackle with the problem. It doesn't mean anything for Donald Trump. But he forgets 9/11, I think. They were in the United States and cost the lives of 3,000 Americans. It's a pity that, really, this guy is leading the United States. Where? Into an abyss, I see.
AMY GOODMAN: We're going to break, then come back to this discussion. Ertuğrul Kürkçü, honorary chair of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party, is speaking to us from Brussels, Belgium. And Elif Sarican is a Kurdish Women's Movement activist, speaking to us from London. We will also be joined by Debbie Bookchin, co-founder of the Emergency Committee for Rojava. This is Democracy Now! Back in a minute.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: "Dear Viyan" by Miranda De La Frontera. This is Democracy Now! I'm Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh. Our guests are Ertuğrul Kürkçü, the honorary chair of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party, joining us from Brussels in Belgium, and Elif Sarican, a Kurdish Women's Movement activist. Also, Debbie Bookchin is with us in New York, co-founder of the Emergency Committee for Rojava.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: I'd like to ask Elif — you said earlier, of course, that there is a real risk of a Kurdish genocide, given what's happening. And it's important, I think, to remind people that over 10,000 SDF fighters have died in the fight against ISIS. And the question is: Now, given this overwhelming Turkish assault in northeast Syria, are the Kurds likely to receive any support from anybody? Some have said that they're likely to be forced to turn to Assad in an attempt to defend themselves against this assault. Could you talk about whether you think that's true and what the implications of that would be for the Kurds?
ELIF SARICAN: So, Amy [sic], as you say, there's been 11,000 people martyred in the fight against ISIS. There's 22,000 wounded in this fight, including many international volunteers, from the U.S., from the U.K., as well, and other countries included.
Now, to see what the consequences of a Turkish invasion will be, we don't have to look too far. In January 2018, the Turkish Army, again allied with ground jihadi forces, invaded Afrin, causing, in a couple of months, 1,000 — killing 1,000 people, mostly civilians, causing the displacement of 300,000 people, out of a population of 800,000, again, mostly Kurdish people. So, even at that time, and now it continues, the Syrian Democratic Council, which is the umbrella formation that also includes the Syrian Democratic Forces, have said they will negotiate, and they will sit at tables — at a table with any actor in the region to bring about a peaceful solution to the conflict and the situation of the region and, you know, the effects of it on the wider Middle East and also the world.
So, this does bring the question of the ultimate aim of all of this needs to be, of course, as we said, the U.S. was — the U.S. soldiers were acting as human shields, essentially, but, you know, that was always going to be a solution that expired. So, the solution must be that — and, you know, the recognition is that this is, in some ways, less about the U.S., but more about the Turkish invasion, if that makes sense. So, therefore, the solution must be, you know, whether it's including Syria, as well, and Russia and the U.S. and all of the actors in the region, including Turkey, too — why not? — to be able to come to a political, diplomatic and peaceful solution to the future of the people of Syria, in general, which means the Syrian Democratic Council being included in the rewriting of the Syrian constitution, and being included in political developments of the region, as well.
And this is one of the reasons why the situation has got to where it has got to today, because there was a tactical alliance between the U.S. and the Syrian Democratic Forces in the fight against ISIS, but strategically there was never any political alliances. And this is what needs to be developed right now, because the question isn't — I don't think the question should be whether U.S. soldiers should return there or not. Of course, as a short-term solution, that would solve — you know, solve the or push back the invasion, and therefore save the lives of millions of people. But ultimately there needs to be a political solution, and that's what the people of northern Syria and the Syrian Democratic Council have been continuing to call for.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, Elif, as you know, one of the principal objectives that Erdoğan has said for the military invasion is creating a safe zone to which millions of Syrian refugees can be returned. But there have been numerous reports of Turkey recently violently deporting thousands of Syrian refugee men and boys back to Syria. Turkish border guards have reportedly shot and killed Syrians when they tried returning to Turkey to reunite with their families. Now, you've spent time talking to Syrian refugees who have attempted to flee through Turkey. What did the Syrian refugees tell you about how they've been treated by Turkey?
ELIF SARICAN: So, I was in a refugee camp in Greece in 2016, and I spent a short time with them and, you know, talking with them, discussing with them. Most of them, at this camp, happened to be Kurdish, but there was also Syrian Arabs and other peoples at this camp, as well. And it was a — you know, it was almost every single person we spoke to, spoke about the brutality of the Turkish authorities at the border of when they were trying to cross, the extortion of these people, making — you know, confiscating their belongings, their goods. If they had any gold or money on them to, obviously, try and live and look after their families, a lot of the time these were confiscated. They reported things like doing work for — working at some of these — trying to work at local places, and because there was no protection, their wages not being paid. And, you know, so, therefore, shooting refugees trying to flee into Turkey in the first place is not a new thing. Now the forcing of Syrian refugees back into Syria, again, almost entirely, is not a voluntary move.
So, Erdoğan declaring at the General Assembly of the United Nations on the 24th of September, with a map, essentially declaring that he was going to alter the demographic of this region and, quote-unquote, "settle" his Syrian brothers and sisters in this region, is absolutely unprecedented, because often world leaders do not declare beforehand that they're about to commit war crimes. You know, firstly, an unprovoked attack is, obviously, by definition, by the U.N. and Nuremberg principle, a war crime. But also, to force the movement of people involuntarily and also to alter the demographic of a region is, again, by definition, ethnic cleansing. And Erdoğan declared all of this publicly at the United Nations a few weeks ago. But for some reason, he can do it and get away with it, which, to us on the receiving end, seems bizarre. But it also seems like he's very, very good, as you've already mentioned today, at blackmailing Europe with the 3.5 million Syrian refugees that he holds in Turkey — unfortunately, in very bad conditions. But nonetheless they're there, and he's somehow preventing them from getting to Europe.
AMY GOODMAN: I also want to bring —
ELIF SARICAN: But it's also —
As Turkey launches an aerial and ground assault on northern Syria targeting Kurdish-controlled areas, we look at how the offensive threatens the Kurdish region of Rojava with Debbie Bookchin, co-founder of the Emergency Committee for Rojava. She is a journalist and author who co-edited a book of essays by her father, Murray Bookchin, "The Next Revolution: Popular Assemblies and the Promise of Direct Democracy." We also speak with Elif Sarican, a Kurdish Women's Movement activist and anthropologist at the London School of Economics, and Ertuğrul Kürkçü, honorary chair of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party in Turkey, known as the HDP. He is a former member of Parliament in Turkey.


Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to bring into this conversation Debbie Bookchin, co-founder of the Emergency Committee for Rojava. Her father, the late political philosopher Murray Bookchin, helped to inspire the Kurdish movement in Rojava. She just returned from there a few months ago and wrote a piece for The New York Review of Books titled "What the West Owes Its Best Ally Against ISIS." There are many who have not heard of Rojava, Debbie. If you can explain what it is and its significance today in what's happening just this week?
DEBBIE BOOKCHIN: That's right. Thank you, Amy. You know, one of the things that we focus on is ISIS, which has obviously been a critically important part of the United States' relationship with the Kurds. But in addition to discussing what the Kurds have been fighting against, it's incredibly and critically important, and especially to the progressive community in the American left, to talk about what they are fighting for. And that is a society that is really unparalleled right now in the 21st century. It is a society that is focused on the ideals of grassroots democracy, feminism and ecology. And —
AMY GOODMAN: And explain exactly where Rojava is.
DEBBIE BOOKCHIN: Well, Rojava is along the northern third of Syria. It is now — the Kurds are really helping [inaudible] a huge land mass, basically a third of Syria, which is another reason why it's absurd that they are not being included as part of the negotiations on the future of Syria.
But I think what's critically important — and I am very proud of the fact that a lot of my father's ideas have influenced the Rojavan society. What is critically important is that they are saying that we have to create a society that truly empowers people at the local level. And that means, especially in the Middle East, a feminist society. And I was just there, and I had the opportunity to talk to many people. And if you look at what they are doing there, and if you look at, for example, the social contract, which is their equivalent of our Constitution, it enshrines the rights of women, in a way that puts our Constitution to shame, frankly. So, really, we're talking about a very progressive society. And I think anybody in the United States, anywhere in the world, who considers themselves a progressive or a feminist should be very strongly behind the Rojava project. So, that's one very, very important aspect of it.
And I think that the other thing that I just want to emphasize is that, you know, there are not only 10,000 or 12,000 ISIS prisoners, but there are also 100,000 families that are now being held in camps. And many of these women — there's many children, of course, as well — but many of them, especially the ones who streamed out of Baghouz near the end of the so-called caliphate, the defeat of the caliphate, are very hardcore, serious jihadists. So, for Trump to say that this is not going to be a problem for us is an absurd thing to say. And you can imagine that they're jumping for joy right now. But I think it's really very — it is very important.
And I would actually like to say that, you know, I think that it's, in a certain sense, to the enduring shame of the progressive community in the American left that there hasn't been more support for Rojava over the years. We haven't heard our Democratic candidates really even talk about Syria. And this is a — and part of the reason that this can be happening, especially after what we saw in Afrin, where the [Turkish] Army — and it's really mostly a jihadi militia that the [Turks] have employed, because, as you know, after the coup attempt, Erdoğan got rid of a good chunk of his Army. So, you have essentially thugs who have come in and taken this once-peaceful region of Rojava called Afrin and turned it into basically an extension of a Turkish Islamic State, in which they've taken away people's rights, in which they've looted, robbed, kidnapped people. And this is what we can look forward to. This is what's going to happen in the rest of Rojava. And it is truly incumbent on all of us who claim to care for progressive values to stand up, to demand a no-fly zone for Rojava, to go to our representatives and say, "You know what? Tweeting your crocodile tears is not enough. We have to actually become active." And the progressive left should really play a huge role in this. It is not something that we should cede to the Republicans.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to bring Ertuğrul Kürkçü back into the conversation in Brussels and ask you to respond to what Debbie is saying, but also to talk about the significance of the military that is now invading Syria. We're talking about the second-largest army in NATO?
ERTUĞRUL KÜRKÇÜ: Actually, this is the exact example of what an unjust war is. It has no legal basis. It has no legitimate basis for Turkey's security. It has no aim of bringing peace to any part of the world. But it is just designed for Tayyip Erdoğan's domestic ambitions of crowning his presidency with a military victory against a people which comprises only one of the hundred of its, Turkey's, population, which doesn't have an army as such, but armed citizens.
And Turkey is now seeking to suppress their gains from the Syrian administration for self-governance. Their sin is to self-govern themselves, which is a must in any modern society, across Europe, in the United States, even in the Middle East. So, now Kurds are being punished because they are becoming a bad example for the northern Kurds — that is, the Turkish citizens.
The outcome of this war, when looking at the balance of the weapons, the armament balance, Kurds may be in a bad position. But when looking at the matter from the legitimacy of the cause, it is obvious that Turkey has lost the war from the start. And not even an international organization, not a serious government across the globe is for Turkey's crackdown on Kurds in Syria. And all the peoples of the world are for the Kurds' right to determine their future. So, in the long term — maybe the Kurds, in the short term, may be inflicted casualties, but in the long term they are going to gain not only the hearts, but also the minds of the peoples of the world, because they present the only viable outcome of the Syrian war: a democratic country with self-governance for every entity in Syria.
And this will be understood, whatever the Turkish government's propaganda machine would say. They are called "terrorists." Imagine, in Turkey, there are at least 50,000 terrorists in prison. Everybody against Tayyip Erdoğan is a terrorist. Even the main opposition party is a terrorist party. But this party, tragically, said yes to a Turkish incursion into Syria. They are both crying for the losses but also supporting the war efforts of the Turkish government. It is just like the German parliament which started the First World War in 1914.
So, I would like to say that, even now, at the beginning of this Turkish incursion in the Kurdish-controlled areas, there will be no support, no empathy with the Turkish government for occupying this land. And if the international community understands, comes to the support of a nation which has the right to rule themselves, anywhere in the world, then the outcome of the war may change. All unjust wars have been lost by their perpetrators. And this is going to be lost also. But this is going to cost the Turkish people economic assets —
NERMEEN SHAIKH: I'd like to go — Ertuğrul, we'd like to go back for a second to Elif Sarican.
ERTUĞRUL KÜRKÇÜ: OK.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: If you could talk, Elif, about what you expect to happen now? How long do you expect this Turkish offensive to continue?
ELIF SARICAN: I mean, if Turkey gets its way, if the Turkish Army and Erdoğan gets its way, it will continue until they have genuinely achieved the genocide of the people of northern Syria, northeast Syria.
But, of course, a lot of this is dependent on the international community, as well, and actually even more importantly the international community. You know, we've seen that the public opinion is deeply and quite aggressively opposed to this invasion. We've seen a lot of people, you know, very, very close aides of Trump, come out very strongly to this, including the sanctions bill that has been put together. We've seen a lot of important academics, like David Harvey, pull out from conferences in Turkey, and celebrities, like Cher, who have come out with this.
So, this kind of solidarity and this kind of public outrage is genuinely important, because the lives of 5 million people are in question, including almost 3 million Kurds, but also not just Kurds, right? It's Arabs. It's Assyrians. It's Turkmen. It's a lot of other Christian groups. It's Yazidis. So there's many people, many marginalized — historically marginalized communities that are at risk here, because the Turkish Army just are not making distinctions. You know, yesterday, an Armenian village was also bombed, including other Christian neighborhoods, as well. So, this is an all-out war against the people of northern Syria. But as Debbie mentioned, as well, and Ertuğrul Kürkçü, this is against and aims to crush the beacon of hope that is the system based on direct democracy, ecology and women's liberation.
So, I think what's important is that people — you know, a lot of people want to do things, but they don't know exactly how to. It's important to encourage people to academically, culturally, touristically boycott Turkey at this point and make sure that if there is an international power or a state that is not willing to stop this Turkish invasion, that the people of the world, that we'll come together and make sure that they definitely pay for it.
AMY GOODMAN: We want to thank all our guests and also end with The Washington Post report. The Washington Post ran a piece earlier this week headlined "Trump's decision on Syria crystallizes questions about his business — and his presidency." The article notes Trump himself has acknowledged his conflict of interest with Turkey. Even after Trump became president, Trump Towers Istanbul remained part of the Trump Organization and continued to generate revenue for Trump himself.
We'll leave it there, Elif Sarican, Kurdish Women's Movement activist, speaking to us from London; Ertuğrul Kürkçü, honorary chair, pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party, speaking to us from Brussels, Belgium; and Debbie Bookchin, co-founder of the Emergency Committee for Rojava.
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Tuesday, December 22, 2015

Assad v. Isis



THE ABSURD TIMES



Illustration: The six corporations that own over 98% of all media in the U.S.  You can see the numbers.  Pacifica is one exception that now owns an amazing 7 stations and it was under attack by corporations.  Free Speech TV and Amy Goodman on Democracy are amazing exceptions, and if you are looking for the truth, that is the place to start.



Assad v. Isis



Just to summarize, Assad in Syria is secular.  He does not interfere with freedom of religion or dress.  The so-called "free Syrian Army" supplies weapons to the Wahabbi of purveyors of Isilanity.   Assad has protected the Christians and other minorities. 



Putin was invited in by Assad to Syria.  Thus, Russia is the only country carrying out military activity legally.  All other forces are there illegally according to international law and a slew of Geneva Convention regulations. 



I don't see any reason to say any more.  Below is a full discussion of all the issues:



A new report by the Pulitzer-winning veteran journalist Seymour Hersh says the Joint Chiefs of Staff has indirectly supported Bashar al-Assad in an effort to help him defeat jihadist groups. Hersh reports the Joint Chiefs sent intelligence via Russia, Germany and Israel on the understanding it would be transmitted to help Assad push back Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic State. Hersh also claims the military even undermined a U.S. effort to arm Syrian rebels in a bid to prove it was serious about helping Assad fight their common enemies. Hersh says the Joint Chiefs' maneuvering was rooted in several concerns, including the U.S. arming of unvetted Syrian rebels with jihadist ties, a belief the administration was overly focused on confronting Assad's ally in Moscow, and anger the White House was unwilling to challenge Turkey and Saudi Arabia over their support of extremist groups in Syria. Hersh joins us to detail his claims and respond to his critics.




TRANSCRIPT


This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: The United Nations Security Council's passage of a peace plan for Syria has been called perhaps the best chance yet to end the country's civil war. The measure, approved Friday, calls for a ceasefire, talks between the government and opposition, and a roughly two-year timeline to form a unity government and hold elections. Secretary of State John Kerry outlined the terms.

SECRETARY OF STATE JOHN KERRY: Under the resolution approved today, the purpose of those negotiations between the responsible opposition and the government is to facilitate a transition within Syria to a credible, inclusive, nonsectarian governance within six months. The process would lead to the drafting of a new constitution and arrangements for internationally supervised election within 18 months.

AMY GOODMAN: The resolution is silent on the fate of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The U.S. has insisted on excluding Assad from a political transition, pointing to the mass killings of his own people throughout the more than four-year war. But Russia and China have staunchly backed Assad. The world powers' impasse has fueled U.N. inaction amidst a death toll of more than 250,000 and the world's worst refugee crisis. Although the U.S. remains opposed to Assad, his omission from the Security Council resolution signals a softening stance and a potential diplomatic turning point. The Obama administration has quietly backed off its public insistence that Assad must go, claiming it's no longer seeking regime change in Syria.

Now an explosive new report says U.S. military leadership in the Joint Chiefs of Staff has held that view all along and has taken secret steps to move U.S. policy in that direction. According to award-winning veteran investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, the Joint of Chiefs of Staff has tacitly aided the Assad regime to help it defeat radical jihadists. Hersh reports the Joint Chiefs sent intelligence via Russia, Germany and Israel, on the understanding it would be transmitted to help Assad push back Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic State. Hersh also claims the military even undermined a U.S. effort to arm Syrian rebels in a bid to prove to Assad it was serious about helping him fight their common enemies. At the Joint Chiefs' behest, aCIA weapons shipment to the Syrian opposition was allegedly downgraded to include obsolete weapons. Hersh says the Joint Chiefs' maneuvering was rooted in several concerns, including the U.S. arming of unvetted Syrian rebels with jihadist ties, a belief the administration was overly focused on confronting Assad's ally in Moscow, and anger the White House was unwilling to confront Turkey and Saudi Arabia over their support of extremist groups in Syria.

Hersh's report in the London Review of Books follows his controversial story in May challenging the Obama administration's account of the killing of Osama bin Laden. Like that story, his latest piece relies heavily on a single source, described as a "former senior adviser to the Joint Chiefs." And while critics have dismissed both stories as conspiracy theories, it turns out that key aspects of the bin Laden report have since been corroborated. After the bin Laden story came out, U.S. and Pakistani intelligence sources confirmed Hersh's reporting that the U.S. discovered bin Laden's location when a Pakistani officer told the CIA, and that the Pakistani government knew all along where bin Laden was hiding.

For more, we're joined by Seymour Hersh. He won the Pulitzer Prize for exposing the 1968 My Lai massacre in Vietnam, when U.S. forces killed hundreds of civilians. In 2004, Sy Hersh broke the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal. His latest piece in theLondon Review of Books is headlined "Military to Military: US Intelligence Sharing in the Syrian War." Hersh is working on a study of Dick Cheney's vice presidency.

We welcome you back to Democracy Now!, Sy Hersh. Why don't you lay out this very controversial report that you have just published in the London Review of Books. What did you find?

SEYMOUR HERSH: Well, it began, actually, as I wrote, with a very serious, extensive assessment of our policy, that was completed by June—let's say by middle of 2013, two-and-a-half years ago. It was a study done by the Joint Chiefs and the Defense Intelligence Agency that came to three sort of conclusions, that may seem obvious now but were pretty interesting then.

One is that they said Assad must stay, at least through—through the resolution of the war, because, as we saw in Libya, once you get rid of a leader, like Gaddafi—same, you can argue, in Iraq with the demise of Saddam Hussein—chaos ensues. The second—so that was an issue, that there—the point being, elections at some point, certainly, but for the short term, while we're still fighting, he has to stay. And that wasn't the American position then. And, I would argue with you, I still think the American position is very muddled, although they have seemed to soften it.

Secondly, the other point they made is that their investigation showed this notion of a moderate force just was a fiction, was just a fantasy, that most of the Free Syrian Army, by the summer, by mid-2013, were in some sort of an understanding with al-Nusra, or, as you put it, ISIL, the Islamic State. There was a lot of back-and-forth going—arms going into the Free Syrian Army and other moderates were being peddled, sold, or transferred to the more extremist groups.

And the third major finding was about Turkey. It said we simply have to deal with the problem. The Turkish government, led by Erdogan, was—had opened—basically, his borders were open, arms were flying. I had written about that earlier for the London Review, the rat line. There were arms flying since 2012, covertly, with the CIA's support and the support of the American government. Arms were coming from Tripoli and other places in Benghazi, in Libya, going into Turkey and then being moved across the line. And another interesting point is that a lot of Chinese dissidents, the Uyghurs, the Muslim Chinese that are being pretty much hounded by the Chinese, were also—another rat line existed. They were coming from China into Kazakhstan, into Turkey and into Syria. So, this was a serious finding.

It was not the first time some of these points had been raised. And there was simply no echo. Once you pass this stuff on to the White House or into the other agencies—the Defense Department does this routinely. These are very highly secret. This study was composed of overhead satellite intelligence, human intelligence, etc., very compartmentalized stuff. But it did go to the State Department and to a lot of offices in the White House and National Security Council. No response, no change in policy.

So, at this point, as I wrote, the Joint Chiefs, then headed by an Army general named Dempsey, Martin Dempsey, who has since retired, decided that they had—that there was a chance to do something about it without directly contravening the policy. And that was simply that we were aware that Germany, the German intelligence service, the German General Staff, had been involved pretty closely with Bashar in terms of funneling intelligence. Russia—and it's— a lot of people will find this surprising, but the United States military, the military has had a very solid relationship with the leadership of the Russian military since the fall of the Soviet Union in '91. And General Dempsey, in particular, had a one-on-one relationship with the general who now runs the military for the Soviet Union. And so, we knew the Russians and the Israelis were also involved in some back-channel conversation with Syria, with the idea being Israel, sort of very on the margin on this, understood that if Bashar went, what comes next would not be healthy for Israel. They share a border with Syria, and you don't want Islamic State or al-Nusra or any of those groups to be that close to the Israelis. It would be a national security threat for them.

So there was a lot of people, a lot of other services communicating, and so what the Joint Chiefs did is they began to pass along some of this very good strategic intelligence and technical intelligence we have—where the bad guys are, you can put it; what they might be thinking; what information we had. That was passed not directly to Assad, but it was passed to the Germans, to the Russians, through the Israelis, etc. The exact process is, of course, way beyond my ken, but there was no question that was a transmission point. The point being that there was no direct contact, but the information certainly got to him, and it certainly had an impact on Saddam's—the Syrian army's ability to improve its position by the end of the year, 2013.

AMY GOODMAN: And talk—

SEYMOUR HERSH: Period. That's the story. Go ahead.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about the source that you used for this story and the criticism of your single-source method.

SEYMOUR HERSH: Oh, my god. Well, you know, as you know, it's usually anonymous sources you get criticized for. That's always been traditionally, although any day inThe New York Times and Washington Post, they're full of anonymous sources. That's an easy way out. I wish I could tell you that I haven't been relying on this particular person for since 9/11, but I have been. And many of the stories I wrote for The New Yorker about what was going on inside Iran, what was going—there was no bombs inside Iraq, part of those early stories I was writing, all came from one particularly well-informed person, who, as—you know, who, for a lot of reasons, I can't make public. One is them is this government would prosecute him.

So the idea that there's one source, that's—I've done that—I worked for The New York Times, as you know, for eight or nine years, all during Watergate and the Vietnam War years, and won many, many prizes based on stories based on one source. I don't know what the public think goes on, but, you know, if you get a very good source who over many years has been totally reliable, I'm not troubled by it at all. And neither—you know, the London Review, as many in America know, is a very, very seriously edited magazine, who did the same amount of very intense fact checking as happened when I worked at The New Yorker, which is famous for its fact checking, and the editing was certainly as competent and as good as you get in The New Yorker. I'm very happy working for them. And so, it's not as if I'm not put to the same question that you're putting, that critics may put, by the editors of the magazine. And they get—they have direct contact. They know who the person is. They have discussions with him, and with me not present. All of these standards are met.

AMY GOODMAN: Well—

SEYMOUR HERSH: Yes, go ahead.

AMY GOODMAN: Let me share with you some of the criticism of your piece—

SEYMOUR HERSH: Oh, oh, spare me.

AMY GOODMAN: —like Max Fisher's writing in Vox—but let me share it with our audience, as well—who, you know, talks about your relying entirely on one unnamed source for your principal allegation that U.S. defense officials bypassed the Obama administration and shared intelligence with allies, who subsequently shared it with the Assad regime. Fisher goes on to conclude, quote, "We are required to believe that the senior-most leaders of our military one day in 2013 decided to completely transform how they behave and transgress every norm they have in a mass act of treason, despite never having done so before, and then promptly went back to normal this September when Dempsey retired." Can you respond to that?

SEYMOUR HERSH: Well, there's—it's so many instances where the military disagree with a president. We've seen this in World War II, MacArthur. I mean, the idea that the Joint Chiefs of Staff—let me just say, in general, when you're at that level, at the Joint Chiefs of Staff, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, you make an oath of office not to the president of the United States, but to the Constitution. And there's been many times the military objects. There were times just in the last couple of years, in congressional testimony, that General Dempsey has made it clear he disagrees with the policy.

Specifically about some of the matters that were raised in that article—and I did look at it, of course—is that, for example, Dempsey agreed in testimony that we should arm the moderates—the opposition, rather. And, in fact, what he agreed to—this is with the head of the CIA, Leon Panetta, at the time—when this discussion came up of arming dissident groups, opposition groups inside Syria, Panetta and the chairman both made a point of saying "vetted groups." They said only those groups we really know are reliable, and not wackos and not jihadist groups that want to exclude anybody except those who share their particular beliefs in the future state, if they were to take it over. So there's a lot of—there's a lot of contradictory evidence about it. And there are—there certainly can be more sophisticated arguments to make than this has never happened before. This is certainly unusual that, in a time like this, the military would give information to allies, our allies, at their request, that differ from the official policy. Sure, that's a very complicated thing, and it was a tough thing to do, but it happened.

AMY GOODMAN: Was there direct communication between the United States and Syria?

SEYMOUR HERSH: I'm going to stand by what I wrote in the article.

AMY GOODMAN: Which was?

SEYMOUR HERSH: I wrote in the article that there was no direct contact, that the whole purpose was to use the cutouts, that there was no attempt to directly engage with Bashar al-Assad or his regime.

AMY GOODMAN: And what—

SEYMOUR HERSH: But there—yes?

AMY GOODMAN: What did the U.S. get in return?

SEYMOUR HERSH: Well, there was an understanding, obviously, conveyed by our allies. And the understanding was that we were going to give this stuff, and if Bashar would, among other things, agree to an election, a monitored election, once the war was over, and presumably he had re-established—you know, Bashar—there's a lot of talk about the success of the Islamic groups, but Bashar right now, although he doesn't control 100 percent—much less, 60—I'm not sure of the number, but it was more than 50 percent, less than—the opposition groups controlled large swaths, 30 percent, 40 percent. But he does control as much as—I've seen estimates of 86 percent of the population. And the notion that everybody in Syria despises him, etc., all these things you hear, that's not true. He has a lot of native support, and even from Muslims, because every Muslim in Syria is not a Wahhabi or a Salafist, an extremist. Many are very moderate people who believe they would be in trouble if the Islamic force, the Islamic groups, came into power, because they would go and seek out those fellow Muslims that don't agree with their extreme views. So he does have an awful lot of support, more than most people think. This is not to say he's a good guy or bad guy. We're just talking about reality.

And don't forget, we are a country that, in World War II, a year after the Russians had done—were in a pact with Hitler, we joined with the Russians against Hitler. So, you know, you sometimes overlook—one of the points also made by—in this article is this incredible hostility towards Russia and these allegations, time and time again, that Russia is not really serious about going after the Islamic State. And there—even just in the debate over at the U.N., a statistic suggesting that 80 percent of the Russian attacks have nothing to do with ISIS, but they're attacking the ISISopposition, the moderates. And you just have to say to yourself, "Well, why then didISIS bomb, as we all believe and the Russians believe, destroy a Russian airliner? Why was ISIS upset with Russia, if Russia was basically bombing their enemy, the moderates?" It doesn't—it just—the logic in some of the American thinking and the thinking around the world on this, it doesn't make much sense to me.

AMY GOODMAN: We're going to break and then come back to this discussion. Sy Hersh is our guest, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. His latest piece is in theLondon Review of Books; it's headlined "Military to Military: US Intelligence Sharing in the Syrian War." This is Democracy Now! Back in a minute.

At Saturday's Democratic presidential debate, front-runner Hillary Clinton rejected what she called a "false choice" between defeating the Islamic State and overthrowing Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. "We will not get the support on the ground in Syria to dislodge ISIS if the fighters there who are not associated withISIS, but whose principal goal is getting rid of Assad, don't believe there is a political, diplomatic channel that is ongoing," Clinton said. Rivals Bernie Sanders and Martin O'Malley disagreed, saying it is not for the U.S. to decide Assad's fate. "I think there should be learning curves for people with that kind of power," Hersh says of Clinton. "I think what happened in Libya should have instructed anybody in the government, including the president, that when you depose a dictator, you have to be aware of what's going to come next, and you have to think long and hard about what you're doing. I think, by any standard, getting rid of Gaddafi has proven to be a horrible event. It was a terrible decision, and we seem not to have learned enough from it."




TRANSCRIPT


This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. Our guest is Seymour Hersh, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. Well, during Saturday's Democratic debate, ABC host David Muir asked former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about Senator Bernie Sanders' plan for Syria.

DAVID MUIR: We heard from the senator just this week that we must put aside the issue of how quickly we get rid of Assad, and come together with countries, including Russia and Iran, to destroyISIS first. Is he wrong?

HILLARY CLINTON: I think we're missing the point here. We are doing both at the same time.

DAVID MUIR: But that's what he's saying: We should put that aside for now and go after ISIS.

HILLARY CLINTON: Well, I don't agree with that, because we will not get the support on the ground in Syria to dislodge ISIS if the fighters there who are not associated with ISIS, but whose principal goal is getting rid of Assad, don't believe there is a political, diplomatic channel that is ongoing. We now have that.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: Secretary Clinton is right. This is a complicated issue. I don't think anyone has a magical solution. But this is what I do believe. Yes, of course, Assad is a terrible dictator. But I think we have got to get our foreign policies and our priorities right. The immediate—it is not Assad who is attacking the United States. It is ISIS. And ISIS is attacking France and attacking Russian airliners. The major priority right now, in terms of our foreign and military policy, should be the destruction of ISIS.

DAVID MUIR: Governor O'Malley?

MARTIN O'MALLEY: We shouldn't be the ones declaring that Assad must go. Where did it ever say in the Constitution, where is it written that it's the job of the United States of America or its secretary of state to determine when dictators have to go? We have a role to play in this world, but it is not the world—the role of traveling the world looking for new monsters to destroy.

AMY GOODMAN: That's former Governor Martin O'Malley, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, all vying for the presidency. Seymour Hersh, your response, and how these different views ally with either President Obama or the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as you've laid out in your piece, "Military to Military"?

SEYMOUR HERSH: Look, clearly what Mr. O'Malley and Bernie Sanders said would be—would ring very solidly with the Joint Chiefs. They would be in great distress about what Hillary Clinton said, because I think—you know, the fact is that if you really want to look at it, Bashar is still the president of Syria. The Russians are bombing in Syria at his invitation. We are bombing in Syria without his invitation. And so it's hard sometimes for Americans to think that we're not always on the side of the angels on legal issues, but we're certainly, by any normal standard of—you know, if there was a normal standard of international conduct, we would be the bad guys in that, just in terms of legalities. We're not invited in. We're doing it.

Obviously, there's a lot of agreement, and there's a lot of coordination going on with all the bombing, much more than we know. The Syrians are certainly coordinating with the Russians, and we're certainly coordinating with everybody. No pilot—no pilot from any country is going to fly into a combat zone without knowing exactly who's there and whether it's safe or not. So, there's much more cooperation going on, even now, than you can see. But the idea—you know, and in your opening, you mentioned that we seem to have moderated our view. And I think those are words that are being said, but the reality is, we still always say, "Well, we don't—we're not saying—we're not talking about regime change now." You'd think that maybe—

AMY GOODMAN: Well, didn't Kerry meet with Putin and then completely reverse the position?

SEYMOUR HERSH: No, not quite, because the position was—if you read the transcripts, there was a—he had a news conference or briefing after the meeting with Lavrov, the foreign minister of Russia, in which Kerry said—it's always this. The caveat is always: "But we don't think he can be in power while these negotiations can go on. He won't be able to preside over the negotiations." In other words, he's such a dissident force in this that we can't have a legitimate negotiation with various groups, some of which we believe are moderate, against all—most of the intelligence that's available. We still—the United States, the president still believes there are moderates there to work with. And there's just not much—you know, the Joint Chiefs certainly don't think there's any intelligence for it, nor does the DIA.

In fact, one of the things I did in this article is I ended up talking to Michael Flynn, who had been director of the DIA from 2012 to 2014, at the time the assessment I wrote about came out. And Flynn was careful not to talk about a highly classified paper. But he did say, "I can just tell you that if the American public saw all the papers that were going into the government, in from us, the DIA, the intelligence into the Pentagon, into the White House, they would be very upset." And he also said, in an interview with Der Spiegel a week or so ago, maybe about two or three weeks ago now—it was published last week—he also just didn't understand why we were fighting the Russians. Why not let the Russians come in? What was the concern? The Russians' concern is not about establishing a new world order; their concern is terrorism, primarily. They have a big terrorism problem. There's no question the leadership—many of the leadership modes or groups inside the ISIL, or the Islamic State, originated from the Chechnyan war. They had two wars with Chechnya—one of them went 10 years—brutal wars, in which Russia did horrible things, the same sort of stuff that Bashar al-Assad did, and one could argue that—same things we did to Japan at the end of World War II, when you see your country is at stake. People do very rough things in all-out war.

And so, all of these issues seem to me to be not fully understood by Mrs. Clinton. But, you know, it's early in—I think it's—my guess is she's obviously going to be the candidate. And obviously, she's a very—you know, she's as smart as they come, and I would think she maybe will be—I hope she'll get to change her views as time goes on.

AMY GOODMAN: What is your assessment of her as secretary of state in dealing with Syria? I mean, she's laid out what her views are. She wants Assad out.

SEYMOUR HERSH: Well, I think—my only thing is I think there should be learning curves for people with that kind of power. And I think what happened in Libya should have instructed anybody in the government, including the president, that when you depose a dictator, you have to be aware of what's going to come next, and you have to think long and hard about what you're doing. And I think, by any standard, the getting rid of Gaddafi has proven to be a horrible event. It's increased the spread of the Islamic State in Africa, North Africa, increased their access to weapons and to money, etc. And it's been a terrible—it was a terrible decision.

And we don't—we seem not to have learned enough from it, because—you know, if I'm Putin, and I'm worried sick about—and forget about what happened in Ukraine. It's terrible. I'm not defending Putin. I'm just saying, from his point of view about international terrorism, he's seen the United States attack one secular leader, Gaddafi, destroy another secular leader, Saddam Hussein—no question that he was—he was not interested in the spread of international terrorism. Bashar, the same way, was always a secular state. There was a tremendous amount of freedom for all sorts of minorities and sects, and people don't appreciate—all the minorities can only look to him for safety. They certainly can't look to the international Islamic State for any sort of solace, in case they win out and take over the country. And so, if I'm Russia, I'm watching the destruction of three Syrian—or attempted destruction in Syria of three secular states and wondering what the hell is America up to.

They join with us in the worry about international terrorism. And I can't tell you how many people I know inside the military and the intelligence community, as loyal to America as you want to be, think our first move after 9/11 probably should have been to Moscow and to say, "What can you tell us about terrorism? We've got it right here, and you've had it for a long time. Let's talk about it." You have to separate some issues. But we don't seem to be very good. We seem to live in a world of propaganda and likes and dislikes above our own national interests.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to go back to your—the key point that you make in this piece. It's a kind of coup policy, the Joint Chiefs of Staff conducting a very different policy than President Obama was espousing. What has the White House—how have they responded to your piece, if they have?

SEYMOUR HERSH: I don't think they want to hear about it. He's in Hawaii. The mainstream press is sort of like, you know, "What? This can't be. It's an anonymous source." And you know the drill. We've been—you and I have been talking since 9/11. Every time I do a story, one of the things we talk about is—one of the reason I'm delighted to go on your show is, at least here I can have more than three or four sentences.

AMY GOODMAN: And General Dempsey, him leaving, what this means for their policy? Or has, overall, the policy shifted to what the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Dempsey wanted, to begin with?

SEYMOUR HERSH: There's a new leadership in the Pentagon. And both General—the new chairman, Dunford, has testified a couple of times—I write about this at the end of my piece—and following the party line totally, which is that Russia doesn't—is not bombing any Islamic States, and that there are moderates, and we can pull it out with the moderates. The new secretary of defense is on the same point. Ash Carter has said a few times, in testimony, and he gave a speech at Harvard the other week, in which he basically said—followed the party line—or followed the president's line dutifully. And I guess that's—you know, if you want to be in that job, you have to do so. And it's sort of interesting to me that at some point some other military leaders decided that they couldn't follow the policy, because it was nonsensical, and did something about it. I don't think there was any attempt here to undermine the government. I think the attempt of everything that was done by the Joint Chiefs and other members in the military, in terms of trying to do something to—it was really an attempt to change—make a midcourse correction in a policy they saw that was deadly wrong.

AMY GOODMAN: Last question about Turkey: The role it has played?

SEYMOUR HERSH: This is a national disgrace that we're not able—and this president—I think it—I just don't know why he—he just, in the last—after the climate summit, he literally has had a private meeting with Erdogan—

AMY GOODMAN: Erdogan.

SEYMOUR HERSH: —the head of Turkey, Erdogan, yes, in France, and came out and said, "I'm with him all the way," etc., etc., etc., when in fact all of the intelligence for a long time has been that he has, particularly in Hatay province, which is a contested province Syria controls, those—the border has been open for the Islamic groups, and he has not only been funneling—he's been funneling arms and money to the most extreme groups for years. We know about it. There's been a lot of intelligence reporting on it. His planes, once he began to join—allegedly join—with us in flying out combat missions, one of the first targets was, of course, the opposition Kurds, who are the best fighters inside Syria against the Islamic State, but he also bombed some of the Syrian army's own specific units—exactly the contrary, opposite of what was what he said to do and what was being reported in the press. He wasn't helping us.

AMY GOODMAN: And Saudi Arabia's role, a U.S. other ally here in the region?

SEYMOUR HERSH: Well, this is part of, you know, the great farce of our all time, you know, that this U.N. meeting is going to take the views of Saudi Arabia and Qatar very seriously, when both of those countries have been the leading exporters of money—and, in the case of Qatar, people—into the war in Syria on the behalf of the Islamic groups. There's just no question that they're both Wahhabi states and Salafist states, and so are the Islamic State, which is very extreme radicals. If there's going to be a new Syria under these states, there will be no Christians allowed, no Alawites, no Muslims that disagree with their point of view. It's going to be quite a state that we're supporting.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you for being with us, Seymour Hersh, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, joining us from Washington, D.C. We'll link to your latestpiece in the London Review of Books, headlined "Military to Military: US Intelligence Sharing in the Syrian War." Sy Hersh is currently working on a book on Dick Cheney's vice presidency.