The Last American Vagabond - Vanessa Beeley Interview - The Truth About What Is Happening In Syria

Episode Date: December 1, 2024

Joining me today is independent investigative journalist, Vanessa Beeley, here to break down the situation in Syria, wherein a renewed effort appears to be underway to destabilize and possibly further occupy the country. Vanessa and Ryan discuss the recent events in Syria (and Georgia), currently being described by many online as an "invasion" or a "coup", and Vanessa (reporting from Syria) reveals that the truth on the ground is quite a bit different, as tends to be the case in today's hyper-propagandized world.Source Links:(100) Vanessa Beeley | Substack(21) Vanessa Beeley (@VanessaBeeley) / XNew TabSyrian rebels enter Aleppo for first time in eight years during shock offensive | CNNMilitant groups launch large-scale offensive against Syrian army(42) Vanessa Beeley on X: "Information on #Aleppo from 25th Brigade soldier now in New Aleppo. 1. Videos were made by terrorist sleeper cells already in #Aleppo 2. The 25th Brigade under General Saleh Al Abdullah are reassuring Syrians in Aleppo that the few terrorists who managed to enter will be https://t.co/LR9qj0qZcc" / X(54) Vanessa Beeley on X: "A doctor affiliated with the terrorists posted a video from the University Hospital in Aleppo City begging for help after the hospital was overwhelmed with dead and wounded HTS terrorists. #Aleppo #Syria https://t.co/gBPwjVpsqr" / X(45) Vanessa Beeley on X: "Central Damascus. No "coup". Calm and peaceful. #Syria will never fall https://t.co/takewXzlG3" / XNew Tab(54) Vanessa Beeley on X: "This image of a dead Jolani is AI generated. There is still no confirmation of his death in a bombing of a central command HQ for the terrorists. From last night ⬇️ Special sources in Idlib: - A central command headquarters of the terrorist organisation "Jabhat al-Nusra" in https://t.co/eNGUmeYSiP" / XNew Tab(50) Patrick Henningsen on X: "Lord help us - the notorious “White Helmets” agitprop theatre group is back in business. Looks like their production budget has been cut, not as many extras as usual on this scene…" / XFalse Flag Fail: How Syrian Civilians Derailed White Helmet 'Chemical' Stunt in Eastern Ghouta - 21st Century WireYou searched for white helmets - The Last American VagabondNew Tab(29) Rania Khalek on X: "Here are some supporters of the Syrian opposition in conversation with the Israeli Arabic spokesperson Avichay Adraee. One of them is heaping praise on him. This is the man who tweets our displacement orders before bombing our homes in Gaza and Lebanon. Painful to watch. https://t.co/EB5BHGvfTv" / XSyria's Rukban Now Little More Than a US-Controlled Concentration Camp - and the Pentagon Won't Let Refugees Leavegreater israel - Brave SearchFalse Flags: A Secret History of Al Qaeda - Watch Along and Q&ABitcoin Donations Are Appreciated:www.thelastamericanvagabond.com/bitcoin-donation(3FSozj9gQ1UniHvEiRmkPnXzHSVMc68U9f)The Last American Vagabond Substack is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to The Last American Vagabond Substack at tlavagabond.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome to the Last American Vagabond. Joining me today is Vanessa Bealey, and I would honor to point out that she is not, if not the most, one of the most recurring guests on this platform. I was looking back at how many times we spoke with her. And I think it just speaks to the amazing wealth of knowledge that she brings to the table. And today discussing Syria in particular with, I hope many of you have seen the interesting series of events and the mixed information flying around online about what's going on there. And so I wanted to invite her on to discuss about what's going on in Syria, how this relates to the larger conversation.

somebody who was actually broadcasting at the moment from Syria. And in my opinion is, if not the one of the most, one of the best voices to talk to, to discuss, to speak to, I should say, around this topic. And if you have not looked into her information, her work going back decades, I highly recommend you do. So Vanessa, how are you today? Thank you for joining me. Decades, Ryan, I think you've just aged me about to be.

Well, you've done so much, you've done so much amazing work on this and many other topics for such a long time. I just think that's important to point out. And again, I was really, the reason I noted that as I was looking back before we got started to it, I was like, wow, I think you wanted the more than anybody else, other than maybe a couple, if not the, I didn't get to go through everything, but we've had you on more than just about anybody. And it's interesting because so much does swirl around, not just the Syria topic, but a lot of what we've discussed over the years, even current, you know, domestic policy, it seems in a lot of ways. So that's, let's get into that in general around Syria itself and what's going on there.

So let's start with, you know, what's the general story? Because here, like, so here's what people are seeing that, you know, just don't look at anything other than the corporate media, right? Syrian rebels enter Aleppo for the first time and the story becoming this kind of invasion, conversation, a coup, occupation. So let's start with that in general and let people know what's really going on. Because even myself, I'm trying to get caught up with how much is going on in the world. Yeah, I mean, you know, what has been going on for the last, what is it, three or four days, they've kind of all. become the same, none of us have really had much sleep here, has been really a very well-organized psychological warfare operation with some elements of truth, but what has effectively happened

is there's been massive amplification of certain elements of the story. And I do have to say, why was it successful? Because even people in Syria were panicking. You know, when the images that were being generated allegedly inside Aleppo were actually reaching people in France, in Famos, in all areas of Syria, including Damascus. Everyone was freaking out, you know, like Aleppo is fallen again, because of course this is to a degree also playing on the repetition of history. What happened in 2012 when the Turkish proxy armed groups entered. Eastern Aleppo invaded and took over and then for the next four years incarcerated the Syrian civilians in districts surrounding Aleppo, not in central Aleppo or what was called then Western Aleppo. That was still under the government protection and that's where the majority of civilians

were living. Of course, Western media didn't give you that side of the story. They just told you that all Aleppo was being deceived and starved and so on and so forth. And so I'll try to condense it. It is pretty complicated what actually went on. But I think what's probably better is to look at how the army is now managing it, because this is kind of what is going to give the key to what is going on. Because when suddenly we started to see all these images of the terrorists inside, the city and taking selfies in front of certain artifacts and buildings and institutions.

What it reminded me of almost immediately were the white helmet propaganda, stills and movies and so on, because it was the same two or three people in each photo. I think there was only one photo that had about 10 people in it or 10 or 11 outside the citadel. So I was like, okay, this isn't a mass invasion. Right. So what we then ascertained was that there were sleeper cells, remnants of the terrorist groups left behind in Aleppo.

They were basically triggered to emerge and to start taking photographs in front of all of these buildings and famous places inside Aleppo. Then we found out that there had been either a situation. security breach, or, which again is very possible, this has happened on a number of occasions during the war in Syria. There are kind of rookie soldiers who collapsed, their line collapsed at a certain point when they saw some of the art groups coming towards them. And there was a breach, right? As if people need to understand this is a war. We talk about the fog of war, but it's very true.

I think no one will actually know exactly what happens until months or years afterwards will they be absolutely kind of, you know, disentangle everything that went on. And at that point, the armed forces took the decision to evacuate everyone from a weapon. Why? Because the primary targets would be the security forces, the police, the army, government officials, people who were loyal to the government and so on and so forth, or Shia and other white communities inside the local. So they were immediately evacuated. And of course, this had the effect of panicking everyone again, because suddenly there's no army, there's no security forces, and these images of armed groups kind of marauding around

and tearing posters down and firing their machine guns. but I think this was part of a bigger strategy because by doing this they reduced the number of clashes between the security forces of the police and so on and the small number of armed group members that entered

Aleppo. So in a sense they protected the civilians by doing this although it seemed like the reverse. And as you say, minimized what would appear to be a larger siop if they had let that clash look a lot larger. That makes sense. Yeah, exactly. And so when you saw, for example, terrorist entering hospitals or entering government buildings, they were kind of acting out

because the person that was welcoming them at the desk and making it look like, oh, you know, brother, you've come back to liberate this was actually one of them. Right. It wasn't any of the actual government officials there. And then basically what happened is the army withdrew. Now, as soon as this happens, my brain starts thinking, okay, this is a trap. Because if you're allowing these on groups to come forward and you're withdrawing out, what happens? You create an area in which you've surrounded them. Right?

And not only this, when you consider that they're coming from Idlib. Idlib is under the ceasefire agreement from 2020. in Ankara and Moskru. And so therefore it's kind of hands off Idlib, it's hands off the terrorists in Idlib despite the fact that Ukraine and Turkey are arming and equipping them and building up their numbers precisely for this attack. But by drawing the terrorists up and we'll get on to where they are now and how they've advanced and how they've advanced and how they the army has again now encircled them and so on. Okay, before we get into the next start, there's a lot of things I want to flesh out for people.

So what we're talking about is, so to be clear, which I think is clear what you already said, so we're talking about an actual force that did go in. And you were already in there. That's important. Yeah, right. So there were kind of sleeper,

elements that were left behind. And I would state my own opinion that I think it's obvious. It's very clear why Syrians would fall for this, or that in the government would be very, very cautious, because they have carried out gas attacks and false flags and all sorts of stuff in the past. So then they kind of pull back and allow them to allow that to minimize what the clash there may be. So now they've kind of let them, and that's where they're getting the photos from of them invading, you know, looking like they're taking over these buildings.

And so at that point, in your mind and what you've seen thus far, where is that coming from? And maybe this is more to get into after you describe the next part. But is there what's driving this action in your mind or do you have evidence to back up who might be pulling their strings? pulling their strings. The sleeper cell earlier. Yeah, why did this start happening now? Well, this also for me is very obvious because the attack came literally hours after the ceasefire between Netanyahu and Lebanon, literally hours. And of course, the land bridge dynamic and the, you know, supply lines, this is Syria and both,

Al-Tomp and the other, very important to this, right? There's two things at play here. First of all, those Israel. And of course, Israel has historically funded and armed the terrorist groups. It's provided medical treatment. It's provided artillery cover for them, particularly in the South. It's weaponized them. And it's also provided air support effectively.

Because, for example, when the Syrian Arab army about 10 days ago was fighting ISIS in the central desert area. When they returned to the headquarters to rest, basically, after the battles, Israel from the American military base on the border with Jordan, El Tanef, fired missiles into Palmyra where the headquarters were and killed, I think it was around 90 of kind of Syrian and allied forces that had been the day before fighting ISIS. And we've seen multiple times that Israel is,

basically providing air support and coordination for previous terrorist defensives particularly from the Northwest but also from Turkey's perspective because Turkey has if you like I mean it's basically occupied much of the northern territory of Syria it is working with and collaborating with Mohamed Al Julani who's the head of called Hayatari Arashan, but it's effectively the Uffre front or Al-Qaeda. And for Turkey, of course, Turkey's ambitions were always.

That's why it was their brigades, Turkish back brigades, that invaded Aleppo in 2012. The neo-Ottoman ambitions of Edeban have been to take control of Aleppo and the entire northern strip of Syria under the pretext to provide buffer zone against what they call the Kurdish terrorists are also weaponized by the US in the US and Israel in the northeast of Syria to occupy oil resources ethnically cleanse the area of Syrians and steel agricultural resources also. So really quick on that point and I want to come back to the next stage of this but that's fascinating to me. So how do you how do you see this whole trifect what do you want to call it this triangle of you have you

Turkey who's a NATO ally, right? Who is a threat in the Kurd dynamic and the US backs this element. But then you currently have Kurds and conversations with Israel about deals with that side. Against Israel in certain ways. So how do you see that playing out? Are they, you know, go ahead. I'll let you feel it. Well, I mean, this kind of gets even more complicated and let's say more interesting.

Because actually, so if we imagine the army has withdrawn to a kind of peripheral circle around not even the outskirts of Aleppo, but beyond the outskirts of Aleppo. So that left, the outskirts of Aleppo and certain strategic areas in Aleppo, like all of the northeast, the north up to Talarifat, which is people probably won't know where that is, but it's, I think, about 12 kilometers from the Turkish border. And it's always been a target for Erdogan to take control of so that he can break the connection for the Kurds from the east to the west. Because where it's positioned, it's the main road from the northeast to the northwest.

And the Kurds want control of it because then they can actually unify their strip from the northeast to the northwest. And of course you know that. They're more trying to get their cut of Syria, it seems. Yes, I know. But what actually happened after the Syrian army withdrew, it became apparent that there must have been discussions between Damascus and the Kurds. And the Kurds took control of the areas where the Syrian army withdrew. But they took control under the command of the Syrian army. So this is where it gets very, it's not confusing, but it will be for the audience

because it's such a sort of complex kind of intricate political game that's going on, really. So just to quickly explain that, why the Kurds would agree to that. because the Kurds' nemesis is Turkey. And it's currently Turkish-backed proxy forces from inside Idlib, but also from the north, the Syrian National Army. They've been rebranded. It was the Free Syrian Army, which were the Muslim Brotherhood that collaborated

with Al-Qaeda in the beginning and the Isis. So the Kurds, the one faction that they will always fight, not ISIS, not Al-Qaeda, but is Turkey. Because they know that Turkey wants to effectively annihilate them in Syria and also preferably in Turkey. So that is why I think there was a deal done with Damascus that the Kurds would come in and would try and hold. They're not actually doing very good job, to be honest.

They're collapsing in the north and in the northeast. So there was, in my opinion, there was a lot of negotiation went on before this attack took place. And we knew it was going to happen. I remember talking to the National Defence Forces in northern Hamar, which is kind of on the border with Idlib, southern Idlib. And they told me around a month ago, yes, this is going to happen. We know we have intelligence. And I think Jolani even said he was going to attack. And then he canceled.

Now, why did he cancel? And let's look at the timing of the ceasefire, right? It's basically, so it's effectively 60 days initially. And then on the basis that it might become a permanent ceasefire, which we all know it is, it's not going to happen. They're already violating it 55 ways. Yeah. But unfortunately, I think Hasbala was very much.

into accepting the ceasefire because of the threat of the ignition of internal divisions inside Lebanon. And so they had a responsibility to try and repair the integrity of Lebanon itself. Because Israel, it knew what it was doing. It started bombing in the center of Beirut. It started hitting Christian areas, which of course would ignite the Christian Zion. factions in Lebanon to be turned against Hezbollah. We saw this happening. And the US control, of course, over Lebanon. So the US and Israel were engineering this ceasefire. And I said right from the beginning, this is because they want to pivot to Syria. So what they want to do is to

achieve at least a temporary pause. And in that temporary pause, they want to destroy all of the supply lines to Hezbollah. So Hezbollah doesn't have the opportunity to rearm and resupply. And of course, Syria is the land bridge from Iran and Iraq. But it's also one of the main manufacturers. A lot of people don't know this. It's one of the main weapons manufacturers for the resistance factions, both Palestine and Lebanon. So they want to destroy it also the manufacturing centers, the scientific research centers,

the development centers, like they've been. been targeting even in the last few months, Mesiaf, which is kind of close to Homs and Hamas. I kind of wish we had a map because then people could kind of get an idea of what this all means. But basically, these areas are relatively close to the border with Lebanon. And in a sense, if you look at where the terrorists have gone, so from Aleppo, they've come down towards northern Hamas. And there basically, I think the army has sent in massive reinforcements. And they're basically encouraging them into a basin, which has very little cover. It's flat.

The Algaab plain is very, very flat. It's an agricultural area. So this might help. Yes. I try to move this over. There we go. Yeah. Oh, brilliant. Yeah.

So if you want to just kind of, you know, I'll direct me, I can point it out. It might be a little difficult for me, but go ahead. Yeah. If you go to Homs, which is kind of in the middle, if you go to Lebanon and then north east. I'm losing this. There we go. losing the border there we go okay harms right here because you've got homes and then go up you've got hammer okay so that's basically pretty much north of hamas city uh kind of in an arc or where the terrorists are now being contained okay so they've come from aleppo if you can go north of

Hamar? Yeah. I'm missing it? It's not showing up. I imagine these maps aren't very good for Western satellites. No, I never should be there. I would agree. I'm not seeing it down. They're going to do this. Oh, hang on, maybe. There we go.

Because I just think it helps people to understand when they can actually kind of see. Okay, so. Yeah. It's weird that wasn't being shown before. right oh there you can see how how far and how fast they've traveled right so they're now to um between hammar and the border of idlidlidlidlb and you can see you can see as galbia if you just go up from hama to the northwest else sucalbia there so they're just north of there pretty much i mean they're they're kind of spread out.

But the army has sent massive reinforcements to all of that area. And for reference, here's Lebanon just to the south, for people to see, you know, kind of the, there's Israel, you know, or Palestine. Yeah. And if you go from from Homs, for example, yeah, and go down, you can see how close it is to the Lebanon border. So it goes south.

Yeah. There's Homs. Right. So it's very close. And the research and development center. and all of the supply lines are kind of in that area in the Kerserre, Homest area. So it's an important area for Israel to have control of. That's the point. And so, and this would be all Tomp right here generally, right?

This kind of, this land- Yeah, on the border with Jordan. Yeah, right. And then down more, down more. And he's not showing it. I was somewhere right along here. The point is that they're the, the one here and the one over here are the two primary. Yes.

You know, points. Just for people to give you an idea, America has, I think, predominantly in the northeast, around 28 military bases, unlawful military bases. Tanef is the biggest one on the border with Jordan and Iraq. It's kind of in the triangle of Jordan and Iraq. Turkey has 150. Unlawful military bases inside the north and the northwest.

of Syria and that's we're still counting actually we're still trying to identify them. The Russian bases are generally Russian Syrian bases. So even though you will see like a markation of a Russian base, it's usually a joint base, as is the air defences. Like when people speak about Russia not supplying air defence and so on, The fact is that Russia is usually involved in the air defense in some way or another. So really quickly on the Kurd point, I find it interesting. And then I want to ask you about where you think this, why this is happening. But the Kurd point is, so it seems very interesting to me, especially that you're pointing out that the Kurds are dealing to some degree with Syria,

that they seem to be kind of this central player in all of this, whoever can get them to effective. So essentially Syria, getting them to effectively not push back against them would, would, that effectively stop a lot of the efforts from at least the U.S. occupation element? Like, isn't that they're one of the main players they use to kind of facilitate that, correct? That are inside Syria. One of the signals of the Kurds negotiating with Damascus is that they think the US is going to abandon them.

Right, because they have many times, right? And of course, they've been speaking about that under Trump because Trump actually wasn't, you know, at least in his rat, he wasn't very fond of the Kurds. It's Israel that actually needs the Kurds more than America. Interesting. Because America cannot occupy the world by itself. But if you imagine the map of Greater Israel, there's a northeastern section in Syria that is not part of Greater Israel.

So why does Israel want the Kurds there? Because they're a useful settlement tool for Israel to keep control of that northeastern sector, that at the moment isn't part of greater Israel. So that's why for me, the Kurds are a bigger instrument for Israel, in a sense, than for the U.S. The U.S., even before the Kurds were being used, we're using ISIS to steal Syrian oil. Right. You know, they have enough proxies that they can organize to fund themselves by stealing Syrian oil and taking it into Iraqi Kurdistan and then selling it wherever they want.

You know, it's not. The proxy point's important, too, just to show how many different, you know, manipulative groups they're out there that they're funny. Usually the more radical elements out there in the world. But so do you think this is more distractionary from what's going on in other fields, like with the Lebanon, Palestine, or is it about, you're talking about cutting off the supply lines for the war? How do you see this?

What's the main purpose of this in your mind? The main purpose, as I said, if you look at where the terrorists are trying to go, right, they're trying to go to an area that is beneficial to Israel. Okay. Because if they made it beyond Hamar, you can imagine they would get to Homs, they might get to Masjaf, to the biggest, I think, research and development center that Israel is constantly trying to destroy. Interesting. And take control of the main supply routes to Hezbollah.

Right. And the area of Coussin, which is traditionally a kind of a Hezbollah stronghold. So I can't remember when the big battles for it were back in 2013, I think. So a perfect endgame would be for them to officially occupy and take control of all of Syria. But if not, destroy these necessary locations to help themselves in the long term. Yeah, I mean, not necessarily. I am not necessarily all of Syria. Of course, the other purpose they could be serving is to provide a distraction which diverts

all or the majority of the Syrian forces to the north and the northwest while Israel prepares for some kind of operation in the South. Right. And let me bring that map up back up again because it's important to note that, that Syria is part of the greater Israel dynamic. I mean, most of Syria, right? So it's same with Lebanon, same, all these locations. So it's not just these are coincidentally what they're holding to stop the war.

It's ultimately this is a guy, at least in one case, to take, I mean, like to point out in Lebanon, for example, they already have released maps with Hebrew names of the settlements they want to put in northern Lebanon. You know, so this is very, very on the surface. So, so. Well, and historically, they've always believed that south of the Latani, river is their territory. I mean, there's been, I think there was one article in the Jerusalem post that they quickly deleted. Maybe it wasn't the right time to publish it, where from a religious perspective, they argued that southern Lebanon is theirs. It's Israeli territory from, you know,

from a religious historical perspective, blah, blah, blah. And now, of course, through the ceasefire, the difficulty is now is they've advanced way further. than they did during the actual battles with Hezbollah and they didn't really advance. I mean, absolutely minimal amounts of territory was taken by Israel during the one month or whatever it was, 56 days or something of the battles between Hezbollah and Israel on the ground. But now because the Lebanese army, which is almost, it's fully sponsored by the United States, And the United States has deliberately kept it incapable of defending itself against Israel because they're supplying billions of dollars' worth of weapons and equipment and, you know,

sophisticated war planes and missiles and so on to Israel. And to the Lebanese army, I think they gave them two reconditioned Sessna planes that can fire, hellfire missiles, but that's it, right? So that's just to give you an idea of the kind of disproportionate sponsorship of the U.S., of Lebanon, Lebanese army and of the Israeli armies. The Lebanese army is incapable of defending itself. And that's despite the fact that Israel has been targeting them, whether accidentally or not, more than once, not Hezbollah, but the actual Lebanese forces, which is interesting, you know. Yeah. So let's bring this back to the part that, so we basically they had pulled back, right?

this is the recent iteration of this. The sleeper cell elements, took pictures and it made, you know, sold the narrative that they were taking over everything. So that's where we kind of left off. And you had posted some stuff kind of trying to walk people back from the edge, you know, saying, you know, what we just discussed essentially in this tweet. And then, and then you were highlighting what kind of the aftermath was. So go into that for me in regard to what happened with the high tier, high trial, high trial, sham elements and the reaction of the government and kind of the reality that there is no coup going on despite all the narrative. It's on the kind of social media hyper, you know, misinformation campaign. Yeah, it was just unbelievable.

I mean, last night, last night there was, what was it, two divisions basically of the Syrian Arabami were allegedly fighting it out in the center of Damascus. And there were people. There's no truth of this at all. No, absolutely not. There's nothing. That would never happen within the Syrian army, you know. And tonight we would just talk about it before I came.

But apparently Syrian rebels have stormed the presidential palace in Damascus. So my answer was really, as the Iranian foreign minister suddenly joined the rebels, because he's in the palace with the president. So I have no idea what you're talking. And that's Jerusalem Post. Right. That's a fairly well-established media outlet. You know, it's not some social media idiot that's just putting this stuff out there.

Which is part of it too. But so are we about videos or are these just? just like written narratives that are being shared, you know, sort of like manufacturing fake that. Tonight that was a written narrative, but for example, they managed to take the video of all the Syrian army tanks and Armid Khars arriving in Homa. And they flipped it to make it look like they were heading south and then dubbed in someone going, oh, wow, not even in a Syrian accent, I don't think.

or you know, Syrian Arab accident, saying it was the terrorists heading for homes. Sounds very much like Mayanish-level propaganda that we've seen over the last year. You know, it's no different to COVID, is it? Right. You know, suddenly everyone's terrified of a virus. It's the same thing. It's the same manipulation, minds manipulation.

And, you know, unfortunately many Syrians, they've lived through 14 years ago to suddenly see that Aleppo, the city that was liberated in 2016 and the countryside was liberated, I think 2020, it was fully liberated. I had fallen in what appeared to be minutes. I mean, it was, I can honestly say people were calling me crying. It was horrible. It was really horrible to see people being absolutely messed with psychologically in that way after everything that they've gone through. That is actually pure evil, in my opinion.

I agree. It was awful and shocking, and it was really difficult to even deal with. I don't mean that from my perspective, but it was just. you know, horrible for them. So what's happening now is sorry, because you must me. So the armed groups basically are mostly on the, on the kind of outskirts of the left boat inside the city, but on the very furthest suburbs.

Out of the armed being the Syrian forces or the- No, no, no, sorry, the terrorists. Okay, got it. Paiet, Italian, Schram. So what's happening now is Russia and Syria are bombing. Like, the civilians have had instructions to basically stay away from large gatherings of Nusra Front or whatever you want to call them. Al-Qaeda, let's call them that because that's what they are, basically.

And mostly foreign mercenaries, you know, Uzbeks, Uyghurs, Albanians, less than 50% I think is Syrian to be quite, one is. And of course, Ukraine also. You're framing them as resistance forces from within Syria fighting for freedom, right? That's kind of the usual frame. So just make clear that's why she's pointing that out, that these are foreign entities in the framing from like the U.S. Western narrative is usually that they're Syrians fighting for freedom for their government or for their country, which is obviously not the case. I just want to point that out.

No, no, I mean, they're foreign mercenaries from multiple countries. Of course, the Uyghurs from China, Chechens, Uzbeks, Afghans, all of them belonging to extremist fanatic sex. There are actually even Salafist Kurds in the Northwest. As I said, you know, when you're going to it in depth, it just becomes insane. Right. But Ukrainian military special forces

and intelligence have also been in the North the armed groups for some time on the basis that it was negotiated with Jolani that they would come and they would provide training and weapons in return for Jolani choosing which of his terrorists he would send to fight in Ukraine against Russia and we know already that we've seen the ISIS patches in Ukraine. And also now again in Syria as well, right? We're seeing that same Yeah, yeah. The fortress they're sending and it's being denied. Yeah, exactly.

So basically those large gatherings are getting bombed and they are getting obliterated, right? Because we come back to this ceasefire agreement from 2020 between Moscow and Ankara, which meant that effectively Idlib was a protected area north of one of the main roads from Aleppo to the Takia on the eastern coast of Syria, north of that line was a kind of protected area occupied by turkey patrolled the road itself was patrolled or should be patrolled by russia and turkey of course there have been ceasefire violations but you know russia has respected the ceasefire not always in agreement with damascus for obvious reasons but now what has happened one thanks to to kind of turkey's precipitous attack

And Israel pushing them to attack. Of course, they've broken, they've massively broken the C-spine. So that should be null and void. Should be. We'll see what political shenanigans go on over that. But ultimately, of course, what's happened is huge numbers of the terrorists have left Edmund. And the more they're drawn out, they're more, they're legitimate targets. Yeah.

Well, and that's a positive in the end game for possibly retaking. Syrian territory, right? Because I think, I guess obviously the state forces that are keeping that occupation going would be the main point. But I think the terrorist forces being gone is an obvious positive, right? Yeah. And of course, that also then, someone described it very well. They said Netanyahu's thrown a boomerang to Netanyahu.

Sorry, Erdogan has thrown a boomerang to Netanyahu. Let's hope it comes back and cuts off his head. And the point is it probably. probably will because look, where will those terrorists go? They will go to Turkey. Suddenly Turkey will be inundated with all of these terrorist groups that he's managed to contain in Syria and kind of feed them, you know, give them electricity and water there. But they're in Syria.

They're not a threat to Turkey itself. Secondly, what was I going to say? The fact that they've exited Idlib, the fact that Turkey has actually triggered his own proxies, Erdogan's own proxies from the north, the Syrian National Army, to get involved. So in a sense that there's a two-prong attack going on from the north and from the northwest. This is completely exposed Erdogan. Right. And you know what it does in a sense, I think he was doing this to one,

remind everyone that he's here because there's deals going on kind of all over the place and Turkey is very much getting left out on it, both with the US and with Russia and even with Israel. Because if you look at the India Middle East economic corridor, there's no Turkey involved in that. So, go ahead. Yeah. No. Well, I was just going to say this is, again, the same point from the Turkey elements always stood out to me as such an interesting anomaly as a NATO ally.

yet seemingly kind of never really scoot like they kind of act their own way and do their own thing you know and so in this case how do you how do you see the over like with what you just described and then the weird at least forward facing resistance to Israel on a way is that net and that i mean he's even come out with all the genocide so how so if it seems that they're actively kind of on the same side with this whether that's by design or not how do you see that fitting in is there more connection between erdogan and yeah absolutely they're two peas and a pod that's important But the thing is they have their own agendas as regards hegemony and empire. So in some ways, they're rivals, in other ways, they're allies.

And even while Erdogan has been putting out all of this rhetoric and claiming that he stopped training with Israel and so on, he hasn't. He's continued supplying oil from Baku in Azerbaijan. He's supplying materials for weapons, manufacturing. steel and so on. And he just diverts it. He diverts it through, you know, NGOs in the occupied Cyprus territories or whatever. But he's never stopped. And what's happening now, he's working hand in love with Israel. It's a pincer action, potentially, because if Turkey is coming from the north and the terrorists are heading north to south, that leaves the terrain open for

Israel potentially to take territory in the South, either through proxies, because of course, Israel's behind the separatist movements in Sweda in the south east, and also has control to some degree over the terrorist factions that remained in Dada, south of Damascus, and so on, right? So, you know, Syria is fighting right now a pretty major war again. But Iraq is sending its mobilizing forces. I think it's probably going to be the PMU, the popular mobilization forces and some of the resistance factions, I think. So we can imagine that this is going to immediately become the Iran dictating the entire thing narrative from Israel. and the United States with the PMU overlap, which is usually what they go with.

Yeah. That immediately justifies, you know, I'm just guess, in my opinion, obviously, where this goes next, where it will be that now this is the multi-front war, you know, which they've already kind of included Syria in, which will just justify. I mean, how long until we start seeing the tunnels under homes and Human Shield narrative shuffled over to Syria, you know, and I think that's where this seems to go. Would you, is that a fair statement? No, no, no, no, it's absolutely correct.

I mean, it's kind of. I mean, after the first two days, I just sat down a couple of people that I, you know, usually brainstormed with. And we were all kind of, you know, how do we make sense of all of this, everything that's going on? I just know if it makes sense in the strategic way either. I mean, other than obviously, shutting off the supply lines, it just, it seems like a desperate flailing act. Because at this point, even if they succeed in all of these actions, how do they ultimately come out of this? You know, it's like they're trying to dig their way out of a hole with the genocide. I'd revelate people are aware of what's going on.

The Western politicians, the media, they're just falling apart with all this right now. So it just seems like a rash decision to lurch into some new, you know, even though it hasn't really stopped, as I'm sure you'd point out. But I don't know. I mean, I just don't see how this plays out.

Other than that, how do you fit that together? Also, I mean, for me, it's quite interesting because, you know, I sort of try to stay off X and social media because it does my head in. But what I am saying is, Most of the kind of, what I say, pro-regime change idiots are coming back out of the woodwork. But they're getting slammed. What I'm seeing is really the reaction is, like, what are you talking about?

So it's not working. It's not working like it did when people were kind of really didn't have enough information, and they were being confused and got slated by the narratives about a sad barrel, warming everyone and gassing his own people and so on. Right. So they're basically re-rolling out the carpet, the regime change carpet, but it's not working. Yeah. I understand why too.

I mean, this is why I see a lot of this going on is that they're, I think they just have lost control over these narratives. And I think this is, that's why my point about the desperate kind of reaction. You know, so we have, so we have the, the action of Russian and Syrian forces against the people on the ground. Before we move past that, where is that at currently? Are these forces now destroyed?

And that's, this is over? Or where is this going from today forward? I mean, this will take time. So basically, again, if you imagine the advance of the terrorist forces, the army moved back to within a certain perimeter around 11.

So the area in which really the terrorist groups can operate There's not enough of them inside Aleppo to occupy the city, by the way. I want to be very clear about that. Whatever they say, there's just scatterings of them. They can't set up any kind of military occupation at the moment. But the ones that are kind of stuck between Aleppo and the Syrian army positions are getting heavily bombed. And remember that, for example, some of the towns within that perimeter also have been fully evacuated. That was really the biggest number of people that you saw evacuating from Aleppo city.

So it wasn't, you know, some people were saying huge numbers of people had left Aleppo, but actually the majority were from the Shia Muslim towns, Novol and Zara, in that area that had faced massacre by the terrorist groups back in 20th. 16, I think it was. And so within that perimeter, they're getting pulverized. And then what's happening is Russia is bombing all of the supply lines to them. So it's bombing behind the Syrian army positions to the south and to the east of Idlib City. And it has been attacking Idlib City itself, which is, of course, their headquarters.

there were reports that Jolani had been killed in an attack on the command's headquarters. But we don't know if that's been confirmed. Yeah, well, that's what I would say you had said this was an AI image, but we don't, is that. So the actual confirmation is not in yet, but this is confirmed to be a fake image that was circulating? Yeah, a number of Syrians told me it was fake. So, you know, I think there's high potential that it is. I can't say really one way or another.

people are saying look it's not confirmed I wouldn't sort of use this image as evidence and so that's fair enough we'll wait to see you know the proof will be is he going to appear again as he did in one of the videos showing him getting out of his car in Aleppo city which I think wasn't a lapar city so so basically what Russia is now doing is bombing the the supply line the support system behind those supply lines and the drone manufacturing sites, the ammunition and so on. And that will be ongoing. But what people also need to understand is that a lot of this is underground. So are we getting the same claims? Sorry, go ahead. No, go on. I'm sorry, I just

want to ask, but are we getting the same claims of, you know, Russia bombing civilians in Idlib like last time. Is that actually happening again? Yeah, I'm sure. I'm sure the white helmets are on high alert right now to roll out all of there. It's funny to bring that up because even Patrick Kennington was doing the same thing. Hey, look who's popped out of the shadows again, you know, even though they weren't around for the longest time. And I'll include one of your discussions as well, by the way, I'll grab the five different times we've talked about this on our platform around white helmets and different lies around that. Yeah. So basically that's it. And Russia has, I think, I think, think in the last 72 hours they've been sending weapon systems into Syria.

They've changed the head of the Russian forces back to who was here before. I think in the kind of, I'm trying to think around 2020. So he was involved in some of the kind of toughest battles actually to liberate northern Hamar and southern inland. that's commander who I assume is general Chico So he's come back

He's been reappointed to Syria So they're obviously You know this kind of means business From Russian's Yeah Russia's perspective And I'm personally quite sure That Putin and Trump will already be talking

And you know I think we agree You and I that real politics is that's what it's about. It's just about dealing and kind of, you know, reaching a satisfying agreement between enemies, basically, at the end of the day. And so I think the deal that might be on the table is to do with Ukraine. I mean, obviously Trump got elected on he's going to resolve Ukraine.

And I think, you know, we all knew that Zelensky at some point was going to be thrown under the bus. And by the way, I am not going to give any credit to Trump because I just see it as a tag team. Biden did his bit. Trump's now going to come in and, you know, manage the next section of the roadmap. And that's it. That's how I look at it. So there's no way that I'm going to be accused of being a Trump supporter or Trump's bringing peace or anything like that. It's just this is the next part of the game, right? I wholeheartedly agree with that. But I'm sure we both agree that regardless of who and how if it did come to an end, even if used for another lie later, it will be a good thing, right? So we're both, you know, I have a hard time out there that would

like not want this to stop because that would look good for Trump. I mean, those people don't care about positive. No, no, no, no. No, I know. I know. Yeah. But so, but then you mentioned Georgia because I find it interesting that the whole Georgia thing now is kicking off just as maybe Ukraine will get settled down. And maybe there will be some agreement on Trump withdrawing from the northeast of Syria, but not from Al-Tanif. That would be my reading of that, because Israel isn't going to allow the US to step out completely, right?

But it's interesting for me that suddenly Georgia is kicking off again. Because historically, Georgia has been weaponised against Russia. So the fact that that is that put pressure on Russia to make a deal about Syria and Ukraine, maybe. Well, I'm also worried about the possibility and the idea that it's hard to see, you know, who to know, how to know what, it's hard to tell what player is making what move and how this all plays out, right? So like to me, from the serious side of it, it's, I think it's obvious that this is more so the interest of Israel and what the, in the ending. And hopefully on a side note that this may be. inadvertently lead to the end of that occupation because of how belligerent these moves are.

That might be a good thing, even though it's causing, you know, killing. But then at the same time, like with Georgia, it might even strike me as it makes sense more so that this might be a US move to maintain something that is in their benefit or like, as opposed to that's what I mean. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I mean.

So it's in a sense, it's like, okay, we'll do a deal on Ukraine. Mm-hmm. But just in case you get complacent, we might kick something off in Georgia. Right, but what I mean is almost to the detriment to Israel's agenda. Like, you know, see, I'm saying like, because there might be, that's just my thought that that might be playing out. So I guess the point would be we should always consider that. There's multiple players in these things.

Yeah, yeah. In a way, it's interesting that Georgia is spinning off and like somebody made the joke about Newland packages coming in there. Here's cookies and a gas mask and it just was so strange, you know, and so the worry is that there's the fake color revolution, kind of pro-democracy protest popping off again. You know, so do you think that is one and the same? Is this part of your opinion? This is part of the same kind of distraction area or destabilization?

Yeah. Yeah. Well, of course. Yeah. I don't think it's genuine at all. I mean, I haven't because, you know,

it's been so intense here. I haven't been closely following it. I've just been. And what's interesting is a lot of the terrorist channels on telegram in particular. I've been sharing information about Georgia. Okay. Yeah. And pro uprising.

So that immediately I clicked. Okay. Right. this is connected. As is Ukraine, because of course, Ukraine is now dipping into the Northwest. And the funny thing is a lot of the armed groups, I've noticed they're wearing yellow, bright yellow, Ukraine yellow ribbons around their arms to identify and run their helmets to identify themselves. So I've never seen that before from them because has the Lari's the yellow flag.

So it's very unusual that they would use yellow. all seems reminiscent of me sort of you know the Israeli yeah that also yeah yeah that's just an overlap who knows if that's the case or not i mean ukraine is a massive overlap anyway absolutely you know that's and we've talked about that actually about the

possible long-term point about zion and you know there's all there's there's one of these overlaps specifically with ukraine but so what i what i think is interesting with the georgia part as well is that it It could very well be like with Trump during his last administration. There was all these molding, I think twice, if not more than twice. It was we're going to be out of Syria. That's my promise. And then, oh, you know, we're bound by the fact that we have to fight terror, bad guys.

We have to go back in because Assad carried out a gas attack. So I wonder if that might be how that plays out with Georgia, you know, that this becomes, you know, oh, Russia did this here. Now we can't leave. And that's why they rationalized why he didn't do that. That would make more sense to me. But I do see things shifting in very different ways today. So it wouldn't be surprising if they kind of rolled this out, as you said.

that we knew Zelensky would eventually get thrown to the bus to rationalize some new step or to make them look good. But again, ending or not, however it ends, I think that's a good thing for Ukrainians in general. So I guess, let's kind of put a cap on it here.

Because I do think this is important as its own topic. So where do you see this going in the long term? And we don't have to get into the depths of Gaza and that. Because we've talked about that as well. But, you know, I just don't see how this comes to an end. Even as,

I mean, I've never seen a more visible, proven, documented reality, whether it's about Gaza or other discussions coming from Israel in the United States and what they're doing. And yet it just keeps going. And now they've shifted into Syria as well. And so it's like, how do you see this kind of ending? You know, and like whether there will ever be accountability, especially coming from

Syrian perspective. Like, I forgot about accountability because I have absolutely zero faith in any kind of international law institutions. You know, they've proven themselves to be utterly too. and compromised and corrupt and under the control of the powers that are actually committing the crime. So, you know, I've just put that out of my mind. For me, it's kind of different, I guess, because my perspective comes from living here. So I'm very kind of immersed in the resistance culture.

So I very much see it as being, you know, there is no way to end that. hegemony in this region unless you do it with power. And that is actually what prisoners have said after his visit to Moscow on Friday. He's, you know, like this is the only way we can deal with this. It doesn't matter how you look at it. You know, we're invaded by human waste, basically. There's no other way to describe them when you look at how they treat prisoners. Are they, I mean, you know, these are monsters that are supported.

by monsters in Israel, monsters in the US, monsters in Ukraine. You know, this is the point. Nazis in Ukraine, Zionists in Israel, Christian Zionists and Zionists in America and the UK and the EU and so on. They are their children, their spawn. Right? And as you point out, though, the interconnection between all of those. I see this very much one thing. Yeah, exactly. And so for me, you know, like the only hope, honestly, that we have here in Syria or in Gaza or in Lebanon, and I'm saying that with full cognizance of the political shenanigans that are going on, the power that the US has to manipulate, to infiltrate, not only the US, but the UK and Israel to manipulate and to infiltrate and to influence decisions within,

nation states, right? That's a given. But for example, now, we would never have seen this back in 2012, 2013, so on, that Iraq is mobilizing forces. And it is talking about coming into Syria because initially we thought, yeah, they'll mobilize and they'll just protect the border between Syria and Iraq. But the news has kind of been increasing today that they are actually going to come in to Syria to join the war. That's unprecedented. We've never seen that before. Yemen, right? Right, right. You know, Yemen, I know, would send tens of thousands tomorrow if needed.

Right. So I think really we're heading for some kind of major conflict because I can't quite see how it can be politically resolved. that doesn't mean that there doesn't exist some kind of solution. Right. You know, I sadly, oh, sorry, go ahead. No, no, go on. I just, I just, I just thinking out loud. Yeah, well, it's just such a difficult position.

I mean, look, I, my, everything in my body wants to reject the, you know, just not, not that it's the reality of the, of the, of what has to happen, but the, the, the, the, the, the, the point that we have to respond with violence. You know, just like, it's not who I am, and, but it kills me, but that does seem to be where they have created this. so damn them for making this the reality of the situation where we they you know with all the evidence if there was any justice so far and who knows that you said maybe we'll see this go in a different direction they've shown you we don't care what you think we don't care about the laws we put on

everybody else and so he's right at the end of the day that does come down to some kind of violence in response and so what kills me about this though is that you can see how this goes that this just it's the same we see with like russia and israel or anybody else where they can just relentlessly bomb syria do what they want the moment somebody defends or responds it becomes they're attacking their violence. And so I can't help but see that this will end up in the position that they've already lined out. It's Iran, right? And the moment they start responding. And I mean, let's not forget, the U.S. is illegally occupying Iraq. The U.S. is illegally occupying Syria. So the same argument applies to Palestine. They have the legal right to armed resistance, whether or not they were attacked.

And so suddenly they start attacking and the narrative spins out with the U.S. and they get the world war they've been pushing, you know? And it's not a worry about that. But again, the fault would lie with the people that have manufactured this. But I have, I have I hate to admit that that does seem to be the only way they've left us. You know, I just, there's no positive spin on that. That bothers me. The only, I mean, the only other thing that I could bring into it is, is how much does Trump want to go to war with China?

Because perhaps, you know, he wants to clear the board so that he's, he's freed up to target China. That's also kind of slightly in my head. Because obviously, they've been working through infiltrating. Latin American countries, bringing in leaderships that are far-right allied with Israel, like what's his name, Mila in Argentina. Still, Cuba, Venezuela, Brazil is still very much in their crosshairs. I mean, I've been speaking to the Venezuela ambassador here quite a lot about the situation,

because he's actually originally Syrian, because there were many Syrians that moved to Latin America. And Venezuela knows that at some point America is going to seriously try and militarily, either by proxy or by intervention, destabilize Venezuela, because they've remained part of the resistance. And Maduro has, you know, foiled attempts to lead regime change crews in Venezuela at least twice. And of course, the control of like the Panama Canal, all of this Waterway is also part of the war against China, right? Because China is starting to develop economic and trade relations with much of, let's say, the non-aligned Latin American countries. Yeah, God forbid they should make mutually mutually beneficial agreements.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's like to work with them, you know, it's crazy. So, you know, it's kind of, I don't know, it's, what is, what I think is really interesting and what maybe helps us in a way is that all of the connections are coming much more to the surface. Yes. Which to a degree makes it easier to read. It doesn't make it easier to digest, but it makes it easier to read. Yeah.

And it sure as hell doesn't make it easier to stop, it seems. But I would say that's a very positive note. That's a good point to end on that the positive note in there is very clearly that we're seeing this, right? The people out there are just seeing through it right now. And I think that's one of the reasons I point out a lot. that a lot of this stuff is trying to be kind of tied up and finished off and to drive us into, you know, what I see as the technocratic panopticon dynamic, but whatever you see them driving us into, I think it's about trying to get to a point to where it really doesn't matter anymore

that we see what's going on, you know. But I do think that's a very positive thing. I've never seen more people asking these questions and calling these things out. So I just, I think that we need to try to capitalize that on that and do our best as individuals to try to drive this into a positive nonviolent outcome, whatever that might look like, you know, whether that's ICC, ICJ dynamics, but I'm not at the moment having a lot of hope about that, but I do see small moves, you know, so I'd like to believe that we can make that difference. I, you know, I think your work and what you're highlighting for people is as much as we're talking about things that are bad, objectively bad things, that it's giving people information

to allow them to digest this and understand that there's a level of comfort in that, like to know what is going on, even though it's still happening. So thank you for continuing to do this amazing work and fill us in on what's going on. And we have to connect again, you know, probably in the near few. I don't think this is going to go away. So anything else you want to leave us with on the way out? No, I think you made a really good point though. I think information enables us to find solid ground in the middle of the storm.

Yes, well said. And social media is the storm. So I think finding that solid ground is incredibly important for people, you know, because that is what prevents that destabilization, that unsettling feeling, that feeling of panic, feeling of kind of being out of control of everything. When you have that information, you're back in control. Because even if it's bad information, you know where it's heading. You know how you should prepare.

And I think the point you made is like really important. I agree. I agree. Well, thank you for taking the time. Vanessa. It's always a pleasure to talk to you. And I'll reach out as this goes forward. I'm sure we'll connect again.

Okay. Thank you, Ryan. And thank you to your audience for always putting up with me. Oh, they love you just as much as I do. So we'll leave it there. And as always, everybody out there, question everything. Come to your own conclusions. Stay vigilant.