Judging Freedom - Max Blumenthal: Death Squads In Syria.

Episode Date: December 23, 2024

Max Blumenthal: Death Squads In Syria.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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diversify into gold and silver. They can help you too. Call Lear today at 800-511-4620, 800-511-4620, or go to learjudgenap.com. Max, my dear friend, welcome back to the show. Thank you. Thank you for all the time you've given us in 2024. It's been a pleasure becoming your friend and your colleague as we battle so many battles on so many fronts. Why is Syria being torn apart even as we speak? Well, we witnessed the culmination of a decades-long assault on Syria because it was a bulwark of Arab independence and stood alone, practically alone, as the last independent Arab state following a dirty war that lasted for eight years of insurgency, and then three years or so of just ruthless economic warfare on the Syrian state. And now that the government of Bashar al-Assad has been toppled, and toppled in relatively swift and bloodless fashion, you can actually hear the U.S. government discuss the lifting of sanctions and acknowledge that sanctions has destroyed Syria's economy, which is what has caused so much of the corruption and rot at the top of the

government that became a major source of complaint, along with the Captagon trade and everything that the US was using to justify the sanctions in the first place. But what this is about primarily is Syria as an independent state, which called on its alliances with Iran and Russia, the so-called axis of evil, to prevent what we're seeing right now, which is Islamist death squads backed by NATO taking control of the country and establishing a sectarian Sunni supremacist regime. And for that, Syria had, the Syrian state had to be punished. You know, you can draw a parallel there to understand why this is happening with the government in Russia. I mean, during the 1990s, Boris Yeltsin waged a brutal war in Chechnya and President Bill Clinton compared Boris Yeltsin to Abraham Lincoln,

who was trying to keep the union together by waging his own brutal war on the Confederacy in the South. Boris Yeltsin was beloved in Washington. But just several days ago, during his annual question hour with the Russian press and international press, Putin fielded a question from the BBC reporter in Moscow who asked him about his rule for 25 years and whether he planned to step down, basically accusing him of being a dictator. indeed beloved in the West. The Western media overlooked his drinking. And then as soon as Boris Yeltsin protested NATO's war to destroy Yugoslavia and called the bombing of Belgrade a violation of the UN charter, then they started to point out that he was a drunk, that he was corrupt, that he was destroying the Russian economy after the West and the U.S. fixed an election for him. And then Boris Yeltsin was on his way out. And Putin was actually selected with the blessing of Russia's biggest pro-Western oligarch, Boris Berezovsky,

and was praised in the Wall Street Journal by none other than Bill Browder. He was supposed to be the next Western puppet. So none of this is about in Syria. None of this is about the corruption of the so-called Assad regime or the Captagon trade or war crimes. It's about transforming Syria into another Arab puppet state like Jordan or Egypt. And they're well on their way now, just in just like two weeks, towards the recolonization of Syria. When President Obama authorized the CIA to do whatever they do, funding jihadists and attempting to overthrow President Assad. What reasons did he give? Sorry, you cut out for a second. Can you repeat the question?

When President Obama authorized the CIA to overthrow Assad by funding the jihadists, what justification did he give? Well, I mean, there was sort of supposed to be a covert operation that was kept out of the conscience of the Western media masses. And it was only later, thanks to the work of WikiLeaks, that emails submerged, like the notorious one signed by Jake Sullivan, then an advisor to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, declaring in 2012, Al-Qaeda is on our side in Syria. And we later learned about Operation Timber Sycamore, providing something like one out of every $13 in the CIA's black budget to these so-called moderate rebels. And we were constantly told they're moderate rebels. The Free Syrian Army are just like American patriots. John McCain actually

stated those very words on CNN and said, God bless Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia, because he was funding Jaysh al-al Islam, the army of Islam, which had taken over and ravaged the Ghouta area east of Damascus. So this was kind of all out in the open. I guess they assumed the American public was too stupid to understand what was going on. But do you remember back in 2013, when the Obama administration was preparing to bombard Damascus in response to some very dubious reports of chemical attacks in that area that those Saudi rebels controlled in eastern Ghouta, it caused a massive backlash in the United States and Republicans, including McCain, were hammered at town halls by Tea Party Republicans and

Republicans who are Arab Christians. The left was rising up against Obama. So there was this backlash. And now those very forces that we were warned about, including ISIS, ISIS's deputy commander just had the $10 million bounty on his head removed by the U.S. government, Mohammad Jolani, by the U.S. government after meeting with the State Department's Middle East advisor, Barbara Leaf, Middle East liaison, Barbara Leaf, only because he pledged not to resist Israeli and U.S. occupation. The U.S. occupies northeastern Syria. Israel occupies southwestern Syria, the Syrian Golan, and they're recolonizing Syria. And Jolani said, I'm just going to be a stooge and you just let me have my Sunni supremacist

Islamist regime in the area I control. And you guys can do whatever you want, pillage us. And we're going to open up. They've announced the new Syrian junta, which never won an election, said we're going to open up our economy to the free market, which doesn't mean competition between Syrian businesses or Main Street capitalism. What it means is what's happening in Ukraine, BlackRock and the vultures can come in. It would be a repeat of Russia in the 90s. This is a wet dream for the US and Israel. Here's a clip of the $10 million man. You might

not recognize him because he's westernized. He took a shower. He trimmed his beard. But listen to what he has to say. He doesn't even use the name Al-Jalani anymore. But listen to what he had to say. Cut number one. There are many differences between Syria and the Taliban. The way we govern is different. Afghanistan is a tribal community. Syria is completely different. The people just don't think in the same way. The Syrian government and the ruling system will be in line with Syria's history and culture. Pepe Escobar says the Togbash. Well, I think the Taliban might actually have more success in controlling the population and keeping chaos to a minimum under its watch. China and Russia have been able to establish some sort of relations with the new

Taliban. Can HTS control what's taking place in its realm? What we just saw in western Hama, the countryside of Hama, is a very bad omen. It took place in a village called Al-Sakala Bayah. And a day after a Christmas tree was lit by Christian locals there, it was torched, set on fire, reportedly by foreign fighters who were speaking Fusha, like classical Arabic. In other words, they were not native Arab speakers. They were probably Uyghurs. And they torched a Christmas tree and then terrorized Christian locals. Then Syrian members of HTS, this militia band or umbrella group that Jolani controls, came in and apologized for that. But we'll see if Jolani can even keep control. There's

a long history of these militias fighting one another. And Syria is currently descending into despotism under Jolani's watch. He has just appointed his buddy named Abu Isa, who was the commander of a death squad called the Falcons of Sham, as the governor of Idlib. This is someone who has absolutely no experience in civil administration beyond maybe counting the skulls of the bodies his fighters have liquidated. He has appointed as governor of Latakia, formerly the heartland of the Alawite minority and a major base of support of Assad, a former commander of Arar al-Sham, which is a Contra gang, which was backed by Turkey throughout the dirty war. Another member of Arar al-Sham who is a cleric from their Shura council, not a civil administrator,

has been given another governorship. So it's like a despotic Planet of the Apes scenario where governorships are being handed out as the spoils of war after the US has greenlit the entire thing alongside London and removed the bounty from Jolani's head. So I would say the prospects are pretty dark for him fulfilling the wishes of the West to perform an effective role as a kind of technocrat. Colonel McGregor reports the report of a slave market in Damascus, and you have reported death squads. Why is the West supporting this? Yeah, I mean, we can say for sure that the governorships are being handed out to death squad leaders. No doubt about it.

I don't know anything about slave markets. after the NATO destruction of Libya, because Libya was a major transit point for sub-Saharan African migrants who were desperate, moving north towards Italy, towards like Lampedusa, something Gaddafi warned about. And the scenario became so bad that actually there were some sort of auctions taking place, which were actually exposed by CNN. I don't know if that context is possible. What kind of a landmass does Al-Jilani preside over with the Israelis taking what they want, the Turks taking what they want, the Americans maintaining what they want, the Russians staying where they want to stay. Well, it's a fluid landmass, but I mean, the key areas are Aleppo and Damascus, the two largest cities. And what's shocking to me is that

the Israelis have advanced all the way to Daraa in southern Syria, almost beyond the Golan Heights, and they have actually opened fire on Syrian protesters, which means that there's going to be some kind of at least small-scale insurgency against the Israeli presence, and that the Israelis are seeking to expand greater Israel beyond where we thought was possible. They've set their eyes on Lebanon. Hezbollah has managed to hold them back there, but they've established a clear presence in the Gaza Strip through the Netzerim Corridor. And now they're having Israeli influencers take photos of themselves skiing on Mount Hermon in the Syrian Golan Heights, and Israeli tanks are in Daraa. And this all took place in Syria without any

resistance. They've destroyed the entire Syrian military to prevent Syria from resisting. Syria has been completely neutered. Syrian sovereignty is gone. Syria as an independent Arab bulwark is over and greater Israel is expanding before our eyes. And at the State Department at Foggy Bottom, the spokesman Matthew Miller has justified the entire thing on the basis of Israel establishing a buffer zone. Would they have said that about Russia in relation to its special military operation in the Donbass? No, that's an invasion. So one man's invasion is another imperialist buffer zone. Are Christians safe in the new Syria? Well, one thing is for sure is that Syrian Christians are very courageous. They're undaunted by the takeover by a Sunni supremacist regime,

which is actually pledging to give citizenship to thousands of foreign fighters, including those who burned down the Christmas tree west of Hama. These are fighters who came into Syria through ISIS and Al-Qaeda, who are responsible for hideous atrocities, which the West and the so-called rules-based order has no intention of punishing, who in Idlib forced Christians out of their homes and handed them over to Uyghur fighters from the Turkestan Islamic Party, who forced Christians to convert at gunpoint, who also drove out Druce and forced them to dig up their dead because they were not buried according to supposed Islamic standards. So they are definitely concerned and we're hearing calls within certain Christian communities for

establishing militias to protect themselves. And this is something that Christians did in the areas outside in the Damascus countryside to defend themselves during the dirty war. I would not be surprised if this took place again. Once again, I mean, this is the fault, this is the result of the Western rules-based order, constantly eliminating Christian communities, supporting the Zelensky regime, which is raiding churches across Ukraine, targeting supposedly Russian clergy. The Christian community in Gaza has been under assault for a year. The Christian community in Bethlehem has been driven out and reduced to a tiny fraction of what it was before Israel built the apartheid wall in 2005. Munter Isaac, an evangelical Lutheran Christian, everyone should watch his sermon about Christmas this year about how much the Christian community has suffered there while the supposedly Christian

West gives Israel an unlimited supply of bombs and bullets to destroy it. So the Syrian Christian community is next on the chopping block. And Syria traditionally has been a pluralistic society where minorities were protected and women. This is another key issue. The government that is just, or the junta that has just taken over Syria, they reflect the legacy of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, which rose up against the Assad government in the city of Hama in the early 1980s, because that Syrian government authored a new constitution, which provided rights for women, equal rights for women, and ensured that Syrian women could go to school for free, which has led a generation of Syrian women into top positions, including judgeships.

And now the new Syrian government has suspended all judges and said that female judges will likely not be allowed to return to their positions because they do not possess the biological qualities which are needed. Where is the women life freedom crowd that freaked out about Iran and the mandatory hijab, which was clearly backed by the State Department? They're nowhere to be found and nowhere to be heard because all they care about is the geopolitics of fracturing Syria's relationship with Iran and destroying the axis of resistance. And the State Department itself has nothing to say about this development. Switching gears, did the government of Poland threaten to arrest Netanyahu if he arrived to commemorate the liberation of certain concentration camps?

Well, it needs to be said that Netanyahu is actually having a pretty good year, a reversal of fortune from October 7th. However, the ICC warrant that has been issued for him and his former defense minister, Yoav Galant, is preventing him from traveling to some important places. And going to Auschwitz has always been important for Israel's soft power. Israel traditionally flies Air Force jets over Auschwitz during the March of the Living and the commemoration of the Holocaust. And this was to be the 80th anniversary.

It's also significant because this is Netanyahu's ancestral homeland. Netanyahu, like all Zionists, is a phony who pretends that his ancestral homeland is Palestine. And he went to a pawn shop and bought a ring that said Netanyahu on it and claimed that this was an ancient ring that proves that he has a direct connection to Jerusalem and belongs there, when Netanyahu simply meant he was here. It's a fake name that he came up with. His real name is Milikowski, and his father, Benjamin Milikowski, was from Poland. Nathan Milikowski, his father, was from Poland. Nathan Milakovsky, his father, was from Poland. So Netanyahu would have loved to have gone to Auschwitz to invoke the memory and the horror of the Holocaust that Jews suffered

during World War II in order to justify the Holocaust that Benjamin Milakovsky Netanyahu is committing in the Gaza Strip. But he couldn't do it for one simple reason. Poland is a signatory to the Rome Statute, and it must observe the ICC warrant. I realize he's having a pretty good year. Perhaps even he was surprised at the rapidity with which the Assad government fell, even though the U.S US has been planning for it and paying for it for years. But how are his domestic legal problems piling up?

Well, Netanyahu has to testify for six hours, three days a week, which is a real headache for him. And he is, his corruption charges are going forward. But these are irrelevant in the, in the grand scheme of things, because Netanyahu has Donald Trump, his good friend entering office in January, Netanyahu was just treated to the ultimate puff piece in the form of an interview by the Wall Street Journal where he claimed victory, was allowed to claim victory for all his triumphs across the region. And this means that for the families of the hostages and captives who are still in the Gaza Strip, the situation is very bleak. They don't factor into his victory anymore. And all Netanyahu really cares about is his direct line to the Gentile authority

in Washington, where his lobby enjoys omnipotent status. Then back home, Netanyahu's coalition is stronger than ever. After replacing his defense secretary, Yoav Golant, who is kind of the Biden administration's favorite chess piece. Now Netanyahu has the obsequious Israel Katz in that position, along with other sycophantic figures in the coalition. So his coalition is stable. And as long as that remains the case, he's not going to be prosecuted for corruption. And he'll probably stay in office for a long time. Meantime, they're still slaughtering Palestinians in Gaza. Well, there's a shocking, I wouldn't call it shocking, honestly, a significant piece in Haaretz everyone should read. And it is about

a division that had controlled the Netzerim corridor. This is the seven kilometer corridor that cuts across the Gaza Strip to sever the north as part of the plan to ethnically cleanse the north. And Haaretz got access to numerous reservists as well as local commanders in that division who described hideous war crimes, including a contest on who could kill the most Palestinians. They said that if one company would kill 150, another would come in and say, we need to kill 200. And they estimated that out of every 20 they killed, only one had any affiliation with Hamas. There are discussions of drone strikes on civilians, children for no reason, helicopters attacking children who are seen crossing the so-called

kill zone, waving white flags, and endless stories of snipers killing people for fun, torturing people. It's just sort of like endless savagery, but it's all on the pages of a paper that publishes in Hebrew. All of this had to clear the military censor, and it all focuses on one figure, Golan Vach, who was the commander of this division, someone who clearly isn't fit to command a platoon, and who is going to be installed again in this very same area in March. And if you remember, Golan Vach was one of the key figures after October 7th, recorded on camera by US and Israeli media, spinning out the lie of 40 beheaded babies and babies being hung

from laundry lines in order to justify the coming genocide that he would carry out, largely as his own initiative. So it's all continuing. There are hideous horrors that have taken place in the last 72 hours. Tents torched with people set on fire by Israeli drone strikes in areas that are supposed safe zones. Airstrikes, I can't even keep track of the airstrikes. And nobody cares right now. Western media isn't even reporting on this. They've just decided that this killing is acceptable well into the foreseeable future. We don't even know when this genocide will end. We're talking about 444 days of unrelenting genocide. And for the families of the hostages and captives,

there doesn't seem to be any hope of them getting them back. Max Blumenthal, it's a pleasure, my dear friend, no matter how bad the news is or how horrific it may be. Thank you for letting me pick your very fertile and fruitful brain. Have a great holiday and I hope you can come back and join us on a regular basis in 2025. It's been a marvelous year with you this year that is now ending. Well, being on your show, Judge, has been a highlight in an otherwise pretty bleak year. So thanks for that opportunity and happy holidays to you and yours. Thank you. All the best to your family. Thank you. Sure. Coming up tomorrow, Tuesday, our last live day this year, although we have a lot of surprises coming during the holiday break. Surprises for all of you. Dr. Gilbert Doctorow

at eight in the morning, Professor Jeffrey Sachs at nine in the morning, Aaron Maté at 10 in the morning, and last but certainly not least, the cleanup hitter at 11 in the morning, Scott Ritter. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. Big shout out to you for making it through the hectic holiday season. This new year, get clean, quality pregnancy nutrient support off your to-do list, including Ritual's best-selling Essential Prenatal Multivitamin, designed with 12 traceable key ingredients to support a healthy pregnancy. With big changes coming up, take the small steps now and start today with 30% off a three-month supply at ritual.com slash podcast. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat,

cure, or prevent any disease.