Welcome to the last American Vagabond. Joining me
today is James Corbit to catch us up
on his perspective on what the hell is
going on in Syria. Obviously, there's a lot
of narratives flying around. Clearly, there's more up
in the air than there is that we
can prove. So James is somebody who has
been covering this for a very long time,
very, very insightfully, very you know, he documents
things more than anybody that I that I've
talked to in the past. So I wanted
to bring him on to give us his
his, perspective on what might have happened recently,
but also kinda the background of the story
and overlapping with some of the current conversations
of today, drones, and a lot of other
things going on. James, it's always an honor
to have you on the show. How are
you, brother?
I'm doing alright, Ryan. Thanks for having me
on.
Yeah. Yeah. Always. And as I said, I
really do think your your long term coverage
of this is is very, of the word,
I guess, intricate as one of the words
that jumped in my mind, but very detail
oriented which I really appreciate from your work.
So let let I know we got limited
time today, so let's start with, generally speaking,
the, you know, I guess, the not so
civil war of of Syria and give us
the breakdown on what that really was because
I know average people tend to still regard
it even within the independent media as a
civil war. And I I find that to
be contrary to the truth. So give us
the back the background.
Yeah. I I am very much on board
with you, on that. So if people want
the, the sort of summary of this, I
would suggest they check out my recent brief
history of, this the war on Syria,
in which I documented the 13 years of
coverage that I've been doing on this, almost
14 years at this point. But long story
short,
we can go back to 2011,
the early part of 2011, which was the,
the
part of that Arab spring that, of course,
started in Tunisia
and was sweeping across the Arab world. And
there were reports, as I pointed out, for
example, in my recent podcast, the CFR and
others were writing about, you know, things are
happening in Syria and when they do, you
know the Syrian government's gonna crack down on
this resistance.
So they were setting the, the stage for
this. And of course, inevitably, some
Facebook users managed to put cobble together some
protests, question mark. I think there are big
question marks around all of that because even
as the, the coverage of those events pointed
out, Facebook is actually banned in Syria, but
it's easily circumventable.
And anyway, these spontaneous
people protests
resulted, at any rate by the end of
I believe the end of January of, 2011
in deadly protests. And although it was framed
at the time as, you know, Assad went
berserk and started killing people willy nilly, the
even the actual reports that were coming out,
even in the establishment media at the time
were noting, no, they were
attacking police, burning down police headquarters and things
like this in the city of Daraa.
And that was at any rate the beginning
of what has been called the civil war,
but is clearly not a civil war. What
we have seen is a foreign backed, foreign
armed, foreign trained terrorist insurrection
in Syria.
Caveat as always,
and I I I know that this doesn't
need to be done, but I'll do it
anyway.
This is not to say that I think
that this the government in Syria was a
wonderful thing and Assad the Assad family should
deserve to rule over Syria and all of
that stuff.
I think an excellent perspective on that comes
from, for example, Eric Margolis,
veteran war correspondent.
He had a post that was reposted up
on Ron Paul Institute recently on death of
Syria,
where he talks about his experiences in Syria
and what he went through there, witnessing some
of the terrible things that the Syrian government
has done in the past.
And he frames that in its proper context.
He, writes, for example, what our heavily biased
media in the US and Britain don't tell
you is that the US has been trying
to overthrow Syria's different regimes since 19 fifties.
And he cites, even Miles Copeland, CIA agent
based in Syria in his book, The Game
of Nations, which documents all of this.
And he goes on to make the point,
Syria's worst years were under an Alawite air
force general, Hafez
al Assad,
who seized power in the 1971 coup coup.
And until his death in 2000, he misruled
Syria with an iron hand, battling attempts by
Islamists, communists, Nazarites, Baathists, CIA, Britain's Mi6, France's
DGSE,
Saudi intelligence, Turkey, and Israel
to unseat him. And Syria suffered 8 coups
since
1946. And these efforts led to the brutal
repressiveness of the Syrian regimes.
I was in the city of Hamas shortly
after its terror. Islamists revolted against the Assad
regime. Tens of 1,000 were killed there. Hafez
Assad
did America's bidding
when he sent troops to Iraq in 1991.
The US long sent Arab captives to Syria
to be tortured,
particularly
to link Iraq to nonexistent nuclear weapons.
And Hafez's oldest son, Basil,
who was slated to replace Hafez after his
death in 2000,
killed himself in a car crash. In true
mafia style, the Assad family forced the mild
mannered Bashar,
a British trained ophthalmologist
to become president.
His brutal brother, Mar, became the real power
behind the throne. So I think, yeah, Bashar
al Assad being this crazed
psychopathic lunatic bombing his own people willy nilly,
etcetera, doesn't even begin to scratch the surface
of the intricacies of Syrian politics and what
was really going on there, etcetera, etcetera.
But what this sincerely was not was a
spontaneous people's uprising of just people, just the
Syrian people
making their democratic voices heard. That's total hogwash
nonsense
because when you start to look at it,
it was a smorgasbord
of players outside regional global superpowers coming in
to arm, train, fund, equip, and supply fighters
for this
civil war? No. This terrorist insurrection.
So the main players at the table have
always been the US,
Israel,
Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia,
and assorted NATO members and other other has
beens and also rants as well. But those
have been the main powers that have been
licking their chops in various ways for various
reasons
to get into Syria. And we can get
into that and start breaking down who the
players at the table were and what their
reasons are. But I think that's the way
we have to understand what has just happened
in Syria. And at the very bottom line
of all of this,
this is not good for the Syrian people.
Right. Syria
was at least a functioning state in which
you did have these different factions. An Alawite
minority, but you had Druze, you had Christians,
Arab,
Muslims,
Shia, and Sunni.
And they all existed together in Syria,
which had high literacy rates, good medical system,
etcetera. It was not
the failed state that it is now. The
complete mayhem and chaos of a smoking battleground
which it has been turned into because of
this foreign armed terrorist insurrection.
Right. And as we now see, if we
can get into the moment, there's there's
widespread evidence that that is exactly, I mean,
no longer the case, where you have religious
minorities being persecuted all over this country right
now. But so that that's interesting. In a
general in a broad sense,
I I'm I'm really this is, again, like
I said in the beginning, why I appreciate
your work so much is is the objective
perspective around this that clearly,
from my perspective, any government. I I'm never
gonna be the one going that government's but
I I I think governments are the problem,
quite frankly. But I the the point being
is that the claims about him, by and
large, have been fabricated. Lie doesn't make him
a good entity necessarily. So but in a
broad sense,
with what you laid out, which is perfectly
stated right there, do do you see Assad
in this context as somebody who was necessarily,
I guess, hated by the majority of the
people of Syria? It's a broad question. But
I think the reason I'm asking that is
because I I tend to think that he's
not just lied about chemical attacks and everything
else, but also broadly misrepresented
whether or not he committed lots of crimes
like plenty of governments. Like, where do you
place him in that kind of spectrum?
Look. I'm not going to pretend to be
an expert on the intricacies of Syrian politics
because I have never lived in Syria. So,
I will defer to Vanessa Bili and Syrians
and other people to give you that kind
of, perspective. But something that rings true to
me is that Bashar al Assad was the
face
of the government. But the real power behind
the throne being his brother seems like it
is the kind of setup we see in
a lot of different places, where the person
in front is the mild mannered ophthalmologist who
I
do not believe for a second he was
a crazed
genocidal maniac who wanted to kill people. I
think he genuinely believed what he was saying
and what he was doing in, Syria was
for the best of the Syrian people. But
I think there were other forces behind that
throne as there always is in every country,
in every context. And we would be naive
to think otherwise. So the Assad family
may be more of a power than Bashar
al Assad himself. At any rate, you are
right.
The chemical weapons lies and all of the
other lies that we have seen over the
past decade, provable demonstrable lie after provable demonstrable
lie again and again and again and again
to make Assad
the new Hitler
slash the new Saddam, the new the new
boogeyman of the week was a ridiculous and,
propagandistic effort. But unfortunately, worked on enough of
the population for, I think, a lot of
people to just go along with that narrative.
Yeah. Yeah. Most definitely. I I think that's
the you know, also, I think it's easy
for people who have a partisan reason to
maybe look at it one way or the
other. That I mean, that's kinda how our
system tends to work more than anything today.
But in general, I think that the the
the main thing that jump jumps comes to
mind outside of I mean, obviously, there's a
1,000 directions to go in around the background
and that. And we we had we had
17 hours. We could get into it. But
so from that point forward,
you know, why in your perspective, your research
around this, why now? What what do you
think was the changing factor? Because you you
really did a great job outlining that in
the work around this that there was clearly
this time frame that didn't like, you know,
it was 13 years and then it just
on a on a dime, all of a
sudden, it just rapidly happened. So what do
you think changed?
One thing that's quite obvious that we could
point to is that it was literally what
hours after the the ceasefire in Lebanon that
suddenly
Syria just completely changes on a dime. So
I I think there has to be some
relation between those events. And that makes sense
because as I say, one of the main
powers and players at the table whose interest
in all of this is just so absolutely
blatant that I don't think anyone could even
seriously deny it is Israel, obviously,
has a strategic interest
in the collapse of the Assad government and
in the destabilization of Syria. Again, this isn't
theorizing. This isn't we don't have to go
out and eliminate. We have 1980
I wanna say 83. At any rate, 1980s
Oded Yunnan plan. We have the clean break
document that was, put together by the proto
neocons before
neocons were even really a thing, but they
were already working for then incoming Israeli prime
minister in 1996 writing his Clean Break, a
new strategy for protecting the realm document which
talked about the destabilization and containment of Israel's
regional
foes including Syria. And why Syria in particular?
Hey. You know what? Broken clocks can be
right, a couple of times a day. So
I will point people to a cfr.org
post
from, last week about Syria after Assad. What
to know about HTS, Hezbollah, and Iran where
they don't hide the fact that, yes, clearly,
Israel is a big winner in this destabilization
because it severed that Shia Crescent land bridge
between Iran and Lebanon. So Hezbollah has been
severely weakened
as a result of what has just happened.
And,
so clearly, I think that there's that the
timing on that, the Lebanon ceasefire and then
immediately transitioning into let's bomb the hell out
of Syria
seems to be, related.
But there are other players at the table.
As I say, the Israeli slash US side
of it is I think quite obvious and
blatant. But there are other sides of this
that I think deserve mention. Saudi and Qatar,
as I mentioned, have been heavily involved in,
arming and training some of these terrorists and
supplying and equipping and sending them across the
border, etcetera.
But actually, I think Turkey,
may be
potentially in a position to to be one
of the big winners from what has just
taken place. Because, Erdogan,
no fan of Assad and the Assad government.
And more specifically, the Turkish
power behind the throne.
Who could that be? Well,
you could get an idea,
of that. For example, from a, a recent
article. It was up on Global Research. Arab
countries will work to prevent the Muslim Brotherhood
from long term rule in Syria. And it's
an interview with Tarek Hajib who notes,
it is important to know at the beginning
that the ideology and doctrine of Hayat Tarir
al Sham, h t s, which are, of
course, now the ruling clique, I guess, in
Damascus
or seem to be.
The HTS is very close to the ideology
of the ruling justice and development party in
Turkey.
And during the years of the crisis, Turkish
intelligence was able to attract it, reformulate it,
and adapt it, that is HTS, to serve
it, as in to serve Turkish intelligence. And
it seems that it has moved to the
bosom
of the Muslim brotherhood.
So you get the specter of Muslim brotherhood,
participation
in what's going on in all of this.
And that should be ringing bells for people,
for example, who remember my false flags documentary
where
Muslim brotherhood was, certainly a part of that
mix. And this is an organization that rose
up in Egypt under the British protectorate, military
protectorate post World War 1.
And transnational
Sunni Islamist movement
that
was,
on its face, was against British colonialism in
Egypt and was working against the British. But
the British used that that didn't stop the
British from using Muslim Brotherhood, even covertly funding
them documentably in 1942,
as a bulwark against the nationalists and the
communists and pan Arabists and Nasser and people
like that. The enemy of my enemy is
my friend. So where where have we seen
this before? Well, exactly what's been playing out
in Syria. So there's a big playbook,
that they're working from here. And how does
this play into what's likely to come next?
How about this just come coming from the
cradle? US officials say massive ISIS jailbreak possible
if Turkish backed offensive
continues in North Syria. Because,
yes, the Syrian Democratic
Forces, the SDF, are the Kurdish
militia,
which the US has been supporting in the
oil rich northeast Syria.
So that they've had control over that since
2015.
But now HTS has talked about we need
to get rid of these
Kurdish groups and Turkey is going after the
Kurdish groups. But the Kurdish militia control dozens
of makeshift prison camps Mhmm. That hold tens
of thousands of ISIS members and their families.
So now that they're going after the Kurdish
the Kurdish militias, well they're gonna obviously the
ISIS guys are gonna get out and then
all hell breaks loose. And they they've called
this essentially a,
essentially a terrorist army in detention
according to a retired US general who led
CENTCOM from 2016 to 2019. So, oh my
god. What Pandora's box are they about to
open?
But again, as we've seen time and time
and time and time and time again throughout
the entire war of terror, not just the
last 20 years, but the last 100 years
of the use,
formulation,
and sponsorship of radical Islamic terrorism.
This always plays into the hands of the
manipulators who are the ones who foot the
bill for this at the end of the
day. And who can direct these terrorist boogeyman
armies as chess pieces on the board. They
can move them into a country to
to completely destabilize a government that they don't
like. And then when that government gets destabilized,
they can go, hey, look. The terrorist boogeyman
is there. Now we need to go in
after them. Etcetera etcetera.
Unfortunately, you and
probably your audience know how that game is
played.
I'm sitting here thinking about what you're highlighting.
I'm thinking to myself, maybe save for some
remnants of of the actual Syrian army that
may still be there, which doesn't seem that
way.
What parts if of this dynamic are not
funded by US and Israel right now? Pretty
sure it's everything happening in Syria right now.
Am I correct? Literally every part of it.
In a sense because remember,
and I even cited the LA Times on
this in my recent article that,
this was not, you know, conspiracy news. Remember
when the state department funded terrorists were fighting
against the CIA funded terrorists in Syria. Remember?
So they yeah. They've been funding all sorts
of
different different factions that are now fighting each
other which gives this bizarre thing. But yes,
of course, what is the bottom line of
this? HTS has,
and specifically Al Jalani or whatever he's calling
himself this week, has specifically come out and
said, we will not be launch using Syria
as a launch pad for attack against Israel.
Which is weird. Right? Because the entire backstory
of Al Galani was that his grandfather was
kicked out of the Golan Heights in 1967
by Israel.
He was energized and radicalized by the 2nd
intrava in in Palestine and he was thinking,
you know, how how can I fight for
the oppressed, etcetera? That's why he went into
Iraq
where he was then,
he,
sponsoring,
suicide bombings and and participating
in torture and what have you in Iraq,
gets caught by the US, put in Camp
Bucca along with
Baghdadi,
the future
commander of ISIS. Right? And that's where they
meet. And then, of course, when he eventual
Jalani eventually gets out and from this terrorist
incubator,
which
the Camp Bucca story is this whole other
story. But anyway, when when he gets out
from this terrorist incubator, he meets up with
Baghdadi and sends him into Syria with,
whatever it is. Several $100,000
to start wreaking havoc and carnage in 2011.
And that's exactly what happened. Now he is
the man in charge
of Syria, presumably. I mean, he's not the
prime the provisional prime minister, but he's the
one calling the shots. And he has been
very clear. We're not going after Israel. We're
not gonna attack. Isn't that strange?
Now why would that be? But again, it
has to do with, okay, is HTS a
proxy for Turkey and how will that because
Turkey doesn't wanna fight Israel, that's for sure.
They wanna they wanna be a regional power
that shares with Israel,
etcetera. So there's some strange strange
political calculations that are going on right now.
And I don't know. These these are some
of the biggest moves I I've probably seen
in my lifetime in terms of the rejiggering
of the Middle East.
Yeah. Well, when when when I was first
talking to Vanessa about this on the first,
it, you know, it was and and she
did make some very good points that I
still think stand about how this started as
more of a psychological manipulation that might have
been taken advantage of. But ultimately, that we
just kind of like, are we sure this
is actually happening? Like, you know, it was
you're right. It was such a dramatic and
rapid move that it just wasn't sure if
this was, like, you you know I mean,
as you pointed on the article, this is
a a a not just a regional, but
a world changing event in a lot of
ways. You know? So you you mentioned the
ISIS element of this. What just really quickly,
I I want your opinion on it. Well,
about the the,
people in the in the prisons and so
on, and you made the point about whether
or not this could then become the justification.
I'm really just highlighting what you said in
there about whether they can either keep them
and support Jelani as sort of the new
leader or rather use him as the scapegoat
for why they're out and then use it
for the ongoing, you know oops.
Hold on.
That's frustrating.
I'm not even sure where that's coming from.
Oh, there it is. It seems to do
that to me often these days. I mean,
that was the middle of the show it
starts playing in the background. Anyway,
so anyway, so the point was that being
stated as the possibility on that goes forward.
I I wanted your thoughts on on very
quickly on the
how this before this
before this caught to this point, do you
think that Russia and Iran in some way
might have double crossed
sir Assad or Syria? Or, like, how do
you think that played out, like, with that
looming point about knowing that there are terrorist
forces both in these prisons, that there are
groups that are funded by the outside? Do
you think that's possible that they might have
decided to kinda let this all go? I
I just what are your thoughts on it?
Because I I'm juggling that right now, whether
I think it's possible.
It is it is certainly possible. And I
have no insight into this that I'll be
able to say definitively one way or another.
But it certainly
it is does not strike me as beyond
the pale. Now I know that the rah
rah, Russia is the wonderful cheerleader,
of the world. We're gonna you know, Putin
is is great.
Are saying that, no, Putin saw that Assad
wasn't gonna stand up. He wasn't really gonna
defend himself. So they they had to protect
their interests and get out of there. But
that seems to contradict that statement that Assad
has released where he was saying, no, I
was right to the last day and I
wasn't told that there was there was not
gonna be a defense and that, you know,
they evacuated me. So
I don't know. I can't really sort that
out, but I, I did see, Syrian girl,
I believe, on x was posting videos of
Syrian,
army soldiers
frothing at the mouth, apoplectic
that they had been abandoned
by Assad and Russia and Iran. Just everyone
had just abandoned them and so
who knows exactly what happened. But I could
definitely see that there was,
clearly, Russia and Iran have been propping up
Syria for many years now and have been
holding these forces at bay and they aren't
they they didn't in the past few weeks.
So what deal was cut by whom and
when? Not exactly certain. But certainly there was
the Astana peace talks and things that were
going on in Doha,
right before as this was happening and they
were they were talking about it and they
even came out with a statement saying Assad
is gonna have to negotiate with the rebel
forces. They weren't even calling them terrorists. So
clearly there was some sort of backing away
from Assad that was going on at that
that time. Why at that time?
Well, one okay. Here's one possibility and I'm
just thinking off the top of my head
so I I again, I have nothing to
back this up. But we do know that
Russia did come out and say,
Ukraine
is helping to,
sponsor and train these HTS terrorists in Syria
and giving them drones and and teaching them
and instructing them about that, etcetera.
And that was later confirmed even by the
establishment media. Yep. Ukraine was
in Syria helping. Why is Ukraine in Syria
helping terrorists
undermine Assad
unless, of course, it's a ploy to get
Russian military attention away from the Ukraine front.
Right? So this is why this really is
already world war we are in a world
war. I mean, it's just a question of
the proxy forces in but clearly, if you
have Ukraine in Syria
trying to draw Russian and military attention away
from Ukraine, Clearly, there is something much, much
broader than regional war going on. So,
hey, you Putin cheerleaders who think he's gonna
save the world, I'm not one of you,
but I'll give you I'll give you this.
Maybe Putin saw that and said, you know,
okay. Nice try Ukraine, but I'm not gonna
do that. I'm I'm gonna concentrate on Ukraine.
That's more my strategic interest. So maybe he
said,
let's withdraw from Syria. I don't know. Again,
there's so many possibilities and
it it seems like the type of thing
we probably, at our level of the information
pyramid, won't be able to really sort out
for decades to come. Right. If ever, like,
a lot of these, you know, kind of
central moves in the past. But, you know,
I I so I think I'm glad the
way you frame that is good. I think
that, you know, I
don't know. Right? The obvious information is up
in the air. But it the the the
way that it all comes together just does
not make sense, which is obviously kind of
what a lot of us are highlighting
that, you know, why they would have all
surrendered, why it was such a rapid, you
know, removal.
And this is the timing is interesting. This
is on the 8th December. This was, Sputnik,
so
reporting that he had resigned and called for
peaceful handover, which nobody else seemed to report.
Like, the timing is just you know, and
none of it really lines up for me.
And so one of the things I consider
is that that really, I guess, one of
2 things. Like, as you're highlighting that they
either just made the decision that this is
no longer worth it for them, which just
doesn't make sense for the long term, or
that maybe there's a long term play here.
Like, why Assad hasn't said anything? Why, you
know, maybe the the play is for the
larger long term resistance element? I mean, that's
maybe a little more wishful thinking. I think
day by day, that becomes less likely. But
it's nonetheless very interesting to see how this
has played out. And, sadly, I think we
see that the worst elements are now in
control. And I'm and I am speaking about
not just the people on the ground. Right?
The elements that are doing this inside of
Syria. So I want to talk about
the app the aspect of these actual elements
and and
give us, you know, a background, but also
what we're talking about with not just Hyatt
Yal Shahm, but, you know, Nusro that comes
from, like, the reality. I guess, like, taking
it back to this point, which you've done,
which,
where is that? Here we go. Your amazing
work on the history of Al Qaeda. Like,
the history of what this is kind of,
I guess, a rapid course from the origin
point to where we are now for the
average person for, you know, what this really
is? Because I think even to this moment,
people are very confused about whether these are
terrorists. He's in a suit now. You know?
So what is this group, and
are the origin point to Al Qaeda and
ISIS? And and do you would you argue
US and Israel are ultimately behind all of
this?
Sorry. Can you repeat that last part?
Well, I get the general point is the
history of what we're looking at. And then
do you feel that the US and Israel
are responsible for for what these groups are?
There's no doubt that
the
again, if people look at the history of
the development of Islamic terrorism, there is no
doubt that there has been Western involvement in
that since its inception. And there is no
doubt that Israel has been using,
the the front of Islamic terrorism for its
own purposes.
I
mean, as far back as Israel goes. And,
so, yes, there's no doubt in my mind
that there is clearly a US Israel
interest in
in not just in this particular aspect of
the operation, but in the greater Middle East
rejiggering plan
that we talked about. And as as I
know you've pointed out, as I've pointed out,
of course, we had the 7 countries in
5 years plan, which is twenty
plus years later and it still hasn't, you
know, all taken place. But clearly, there there
is a target list. I just don't think,
you know, it's gonna the pieces were gonna
follow like the NeoCons hoped they would.
But
given that calculus,
the real question is, okay, what comes next?
And does this set up
the possibility for the attack on Iran?
That still seems like a crazy
absolute
no doubt
hot world war scenario to me.
But maybe this is part of the complete
containment of Iran, or maybe they're gonna try
some sort of other operation within Iran to
get some sort of regime change going
there.
But now, anyway, now that Trump is,
in power and along with Netanyahu,
I think it's all on the table.
Well, let let's talk about that. Since, you
know, the the,
one point that really stood out to me
in your article around this is something that
I've, you know, it almost bothers me that
we can't address how obviously
based on every metric we ever used to
to to frame the previous wars as world
wars that we've been in a world war
since I mean, you can go back a
long way. Syria, even before. Right? Multiple countries
involved in multiple not even this one field,
but multiple fields of war in multiple places.
So by any metric we've ever used, we've
been in world World War 3 for I
mean, why don't you tell me? How long
do you think that's been the case? And,
you know, why I guess, first point, why
do you think it's why do you think
they don't want to frame it as that?
Do you think there's an agenda there?
Yeah. That's a good question. Because there's certainly
there's a lot to be gained from the
power structure in times of war. So why
wouldn't they be
gesturing at that? I mean, one one way
of looking at this is people could say,
well, yeah, but no. This is proxy war
and that is still
a form of cold war turning hot or
something like that. It's not the full on
superpowers directly confronting each other yet.
But we I mean, as you say, it's
in so many different areas and so many
different, aspects of it are lining up that
it's difficult to deny the reality that there
is a global conflict taking place right now.
Yeah. But as I've said over and over,
I mean, World War 3 will look nothing
like World War 2. It will not be
armies lining up on battlefields shooting at each
other, or that might be one aspect of
it, but only one aspect of it. And,
this is going to be a an a
war the likes of which we've never seen
before and which we can barely comprehend at
this stage.
And so when I see you know,
remember when China was going around dragging anchor,
you know, cutting all those cables to was
it Northern Europe?
The Internet cables. And now it turns out
they were being directed by Russia to do
so, at least according to the mainstream narrative
and things like this. Those are the types
of things that to me are the sign
of what I mean, there's no doubt
who the combatants are in World War 3
at this point. I mean, we know that
the the countries that are lined up against
each other and they're rubbing up in various
different ways and permutations.
The only point is when they they start
to openly acknowledge that and call it warfare.
And when they do so, again, there will
be many, many powers that will accrue to
every power center in the in the world.
Every government will get to claim that they're,
you know, it's more time. We get to
do whatever we want and we're doing it
for your own good. So they will get
gain more power from it. Which is why
to my mind, the most important thing that
we need to be stressing right now before
all of this happens, before it takes place
is,
in fact I've been talking about this in
my bi monthly appearance with, Ernest Hancock on
the Declare Your Independence radio show. He has
this idea.
You know what?
If we see a mushroom cloud
anywhere, in any context, for any reason, whatever
they say, whatever narrative they give you, dirty,
nuke or whatever it is,
that is
the sign. It's off. Whatever social contract you
thought existed,
gone. Done. We do not comply. We do
not that is 100%.
We turn our other turn the other way
and we do not comply or listen to
anything the government says. Because right now, the
calculus is
when there is a huge spectacular
terror event or some horrible thing that happens
at 9:11 or whatever, that's a big shot
in the arm. The police state benefits. They
get more power. They get more intelligence. Military
needs to
amp up etcetera. And we give them all
this power and rally around the flag and
rah rah rah. We need to have the
exact opposite
perspective. The second that they say, it's warfare
guys, it's on. They're, oh, look at that.
A dirty nuke in New York. Oh my
god. We need world war 3 now. That
is the exact time we need to go
as hard the other way as possible and
say, nope.
Your your whole reason for existence,
government, is to protect us and
secure the social contract and whatever. And you
have failed. And until we start holding them
accountable for their failures instead of giving them
more power and more energy, and yes, please
keep us safe even though you've never managed
to do that. Until we change that calculus,
the calculus will always be on the side
of the people who want war. We have
to change that, though, that dynamic before the
next war happens.
Absolutely. Well said too. I mean, I think
this is what we're all striving for is
to kind of tip that scale because there's
so many I mean, I kinda think that's
where it's going. It's why we're getting such
aggressive, kind of partisan pushback.
But, yeah, I I think right now, the
Iran aspect is just clearly developing. I mean,
I already saw Israel. I mean, they they
weren't even I mean, they're still ongoing through
Syria, currently bombing Damascus and other military installations,
which are objectively crimes because there's nobody fighting
back. But they're already Netanyahu is already putting
out statements, you know, Iran, you're you free
yourselves from the dictator. It's already happening. You
know? And so I I see that building
as we speak. So where do you see
that going? I mean, we've got Vance and
Trump already saying that's, like,
I think Trump already actually said that he's
considering striking Iran to preempt the nuclear discussion
which always bubbles back up even though the
evidence continues to not be there and and
so on. So what do you think the
next steps are in regard to Iran from
Israel, Syria, and so on?
Well, from my understanding, Trump is the peace
president. So I think we're in for 4
years of sunshine, rainbows and happiness.
Oh, wait. No. Reality just called and the
person who has praised Netanyahu at every step
along the way helped him with his,
campaign,
his prime ministerial campaign there in Israel. He's
called him a a great leader who actually
moved the US embassy to Jerusalem.
Did did all of these things.
Could not have done more to support Israel
and what it is doing in the region.
I wonder if they're gonna if they're gonna
amp things up against Iran and other Israeli
targets in the region over the course of
the Trump presidency. All signs point to yes.
So I am not holding my breath for
the peace president to deliver us
from, what's going on over there. And I
don't know what that will look like. I
am not gonna make predictions because it could
go a 1000000 different ways, but certainly the
pressure
on Iran is going to ramp up from
here.
And as I say, that might not necessarily
be military confrontation. If it is, I can't
see how that wouldn't be that hot direct
superpower confrontation World War 3. The second ever
episode of The Corbett Report podcast was World
War 3 Starts in Iran. And I I
stand by that. If if they went military
guns blazing into Iran, I just don't see
how that wouldn't eventuate into world war. Having
said that, it doesn't have to be. I
mean there's all sorts of subterfuge and undermining
and whatever and oh, look at that spontaneous
peaceful protest in Iran.
Oh, and now they're cracking down on it
and who knows, Syria 2.0. There's many ways
that it could go.
But I'm just I'm unfortunately,
I see very few ways that it could
go peacefully from here. Yeah. I agree. Well,
so we got about 10 minutes left, and
I wanna talk about drones a little bit
before we we end to kind of overlap
that with all we've discussed. But before we
end this part of it, in the context
of just Israel's objective here and this is
such an interesting conversation that really deserves, you
know, a lot a lot of time to
talk about it. But Turkey and Israel and
that weird dynamic that you touched on there,
which I I just don't even think I
fully I don't think anybody truly knows whether,
you know, it seems like Turkey is more
in line with Israel than not, and it
it seems to contradict other things. But you
have the
division of Syria, right, where you've got the
United States with their controlled, you know, oil,
wheat field dynamic, then you've got Turkey that
seems to want some kind of part of
the northern area closer to them, and then
Israel has its own little carved out area.
The problem though is that they have a
map that's quite different, the greater Israel dynamic.
Right? They seem to suggest that they want
a lot more than what they're kinda parsing
out for themselves.
So I guess the point in general is,
you know, can you outline the greater Israel
dynamic and whether you think that's playing a
part here? And if so, how does that
play out in your mind with the
other allies, if you will, wanting part of
that?
So
for people who want the context of this
and understanding, as I say, I've mentioned Oded,
Yonon, and Cleanbreak.
People can look at policy planning documents like
that. I know there were, US, military college
planners and others talking about the new Middle
East back during the Neocon
era of the early 2000. So there's all,
there are several different ways that this has
been envisioned and what constitutes the area of
the greater Israel that they're going for, and
I'm sure there are different opinions on that.
But at any rate, they're going for a
greater Israel.
And part of that is just actually literally
expanding the borders of Israel as we are
starting to see obviously with the Golan Heights
and what's going on there right now.
Just saw this before we started talking report.
Netanyahu orders IDF to occupy Syria's Mount Hermon
until end of 2025.
Until, you know, some some new deal is
made. Right?
Well, holding my breath for that to happen.
Anyway, so Israel is literally expanding its borders.
But it also an important part of that
has always been
the destabilization
slash containment of any potential foe in the
region. And at this point after
Iraq, obviously, and Israel got its way with
getting rid of Hussein,
and Iraq now now having splintered into its
factions,
that again were being held under the admittedly
brutally repressive thumb of Saddam Hussein. Again, no
no apologies for Hussein or his government. But
at any rate, it was another situation of
these
vastly different,
populations that were squeezed together in in this
powder keg that has now exploded into the
different Kurdish and and Sunni and Shia factions
in Iraq and now it's a complete destabilized
mess. Is it even really a functional country?
Well, to the extent that it is, it's
certainly no threat to Israel at this point.
And that I think is the vision for
Iran. And at at the very least, breaking
that Shia crescent has been an incredibly
important part of that. Breaking the land bridge
to, Hezbollah in Lebanon has been an incredibly
important part of destabilizing
and containing
any would be opposition to this greater Israel
idea. So Mhmm. It's happening. It's on. This
is it. This is the reshaping of the
Middle East. And, you know, maybe we think
of these we think of Syria and Iraq
and Iran as these entities that have just
always existed. This is the way it is.
No. These lines were drawn on maps after
World War 1. You know, there's the Sykes
Picot and all of this carving up of
the Middle East that happened and pushing all
of these
populations into these
arbitrary, sometimes borders that didn't always reflect reality.
And maybe this is reality coming home to
roost but in the worst possible way it's
being used.
All of these powder kegs are being deliberately
lit and set off so that they can
basically fall apart and fall into sectarian violence
and people warring over the ashes of countries
that maybe don't even exist.
Does Syria even exist as a country at
this point?
Right. I guess we'll find out what what
happens from here. But to the extent that
it does, it will be some, again, hammered,
cobbled together coalition of probably some incredibly
brutal and repressive regime. And we're gonna see,
once again,
certainly who's at the bottom of this and
who's gonna end up paying for it is
the Syrian people. Right. And then, as always,
even if that's not the design now,
months down the line, they can then use
that destabilize even as you said before, the
very elements they funded into reality, they could
use that to to
begin the next agenda, to reoccupy whatever else.
Let me just underline that because that's such
an important part. All of this, it's completely
and totally narrative.
And we
the the absolute
clearest example of that that I have I
could ever even imagine happening has happened in
Syria over the past decade and a half
where you literally had
CFR,
fellows writing on the CFR blog saying Al
Qaeda, well we need Al Qaeda in Syria
now. And that when that was being written
was literally just a decade after 911.
And to go back to 911 and telling
people, you know, the Al Qaeda that definitely
did this all by themselves guys, totally 100%
them, and they are the existential threat to
civilization and the reason that we have to
tear up the world and completely transform our
lives
and everything
over this Al Qaeda threat. And then,
I'm telling someone from that time, you know,
10 years later, they're gonna be the good
guys in Syria.
But that just shows it can be flipped
on a dime and
absolutely, they could do that literally tomorrow. Hey,
those,
guys that we were funding in Syria, turns
out they're terrorists. Oh my god. And
they will do that at the exact point
that it becomes
politically advantageous for them to do that. And
unfortunately,
again,
people who just
absorb the news, just let it wash over
them, will just go along with it. Oh,
okay. Oh, good. Well, I'm glad they're gonna
take care of that terrorist threat now.
I mean, I've said this so many times
over the years that, you know, the boogeyman
of of yesterday is is there is there
rather the the ally of yesterday is the
boogeyman of today. It's, you know, Osama Osama
bin Laden or or Saddam
Saddam Hussein that, you know, they're allies before
they become, you know, I or even the
Kurds. Who knows when that'll happen tomorrow? You
know, just cl clearly, that's the cycle. But,
before we end with a couple thoughts on
the drones, I think it's interesting about the
World War 3 point that we mentioned. The
idea being in my mind that it's only
because it's not advantageous yet. Right? That we've
met that metric many times. It's just when
they can say now what's happening like you
just said. Right? And that's what she was
gonna drop at some point. And you've I
brought up an interesting thought to me that
you you kinda touched on there that I've
thought of before about Syria, but, like, with
Libya, for example. You know, Libya doesn't exist
right now despite it still being Libya on
a map, still having a name, you know,
and so Syria is the same way. And
so at at what point do they say,
yeah, that that's just a a balkanized area
with the people we control in 7 different
locations.
When they decide to let that be the
case, is when it will be useful for
them. You know? And that's what I think
is interesting is the maps will be drawn
the way they want them to as long
as they want them to. I just find
that to be interesting to point out. So
in going comments on that if you'd like,
but last few minutes, your thoughts on the
overlap to this because or to the to
the drone conversation. Because to me,
it just stands out as a very manipulated
and obvious psychological operation despite possibly being very
real obvious examples of drones. So what are
your thought on how this plays into what
we're talking about? We've already seen them aim
numerous agendas through this at Iran, like, through
Alex Jones and others. Then suddenly tomorrow, it's
a a sniffing drones for for nuclear aspects.
They say for Russia. You know? So give
me your thoughts on how this plays out
and, you know, why you think it's going.
Well, that's why I think it's incredibly important
that we have that idea, you know, nuclear
war comply no more or something along those
lines as seeded into the public consciousness right
now because it is certainly a false flag
card that is on the table. Isn't it?
That they could, oh my god. It turns
out they're sniffing for nukes or whatever and
that's why you've seen all these drones.
But, yeah, on the broader concept of drones
and their use in warfare, I'll just point
out that I recently very recently,
before this whole drone hysteria took off in
the way it did, I wrote an article
called,
The Drone Wars, You Are Not Prepared,
talking about the ways that drones will be
used in warfare in the coming future. There's
no doubt in my mind that that is
going to be a significant part of what
we think of as warfare
in this next iteration. As I say, soldiers
lining up on battlefields shooting at each other
with guns.
No. No. I'm looking at drone swarms and
other crazy technology like this and that is
being seeded into the public consciousness with this
as well. And of course, you know, if
it turns out it's those dastardly
whatever, Chinese, North Korean, Russian,
Syrian,
whatever. Whatever it is. Whatever boogeyman they need.
Oh my god. They're invading us with their
drones.
They will they will pull that card out
of the out of the deck as well.
So I think people need to, At any
rate, I know your listeners, your regular listeners
are well informed on this sort of stuff,
but unfortunately, it's sort of the average person
on the street who spends 2 seconds thinking
about any of this and just accepts whatever
the the establishment media is telling them. That's
where this battlefield is really located. It is
located in the space between your ears and
as long as you control that space,
then you are ultimately
winning this war.
And that's why they are spending so much
time and so much effort trying to occupy
that space.
I think we win to the extent that
we can maintain our cognitive,
territory and integrity.
Yes. Well well said, James. Always a pleasure,
my friend. And I'm gonna end with the
clip from Palantir that was played at the
Army Navy game that was talking about the
future of drones. No. Nothing to see, guys.
No connection there. Just all up in the
air. So thank you as always, James. I
always appreciate your insight. And as always, everybody
question everything. Come to your own conclusions. Stay
vigilant.