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Dec. 15, 2024 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
22:14
[NEW GUEST] : Kevork Almassian :
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Hi, everyone.
Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Monday, December 16th, 2024.
My guest today is known to many of you, but is new to the program.
Hopefully it won't be new much longer.
Kavork Aslanian, who is an Armenian-Syrian refugee from Syria.
escaping the monstrosities in Syria, only to be attacked and almost killed in Germany, which is where he is now.
Kevork, give us a little bit of your background before we start discussing the collapse of Syria.
Thank you very much for having me.
It's a really honor to be on your show.
Actually, I was born and raised in Syria.
My grandparents survived the Armenian genocide 100 years ago.
So they found a shelter in Syria.
I was born in Syria.
I went to Syrian schools.
I went to Syrian universities.
And I worked in Syria as well.
So I'm Syrian.
I feel Syrian.
My belonging and my heart, let's say, now hurts.
For what's happening in Syria, so I felt it's a responsibility for me to create a YouTube channel.
This was seven, eight years ago, and to speak about what's happening in my country after I fled Aleppo, my city, which was occupied by Al-Qaeda back then.
And I received a refugee in Germany.
And I started my YouTube channel in 2017.
But only two years later, the German mainstream press, they came after me.
They smeared me.
They called me all sorts of names, like I'm a far-right activist.
I'm probably a spy for Assad.
So they really put my life in grave danger.
And the government came after me.
They revoked my asylum, basically.
And they said I could be deported back to Aleppo, which is now occupied by HDS.
And I wonder if I was deported to Aleppo and HDS conquered the city, what would have happened to me?
I think I would have probably ended up on some video of them decapitating me or hanging me.
Because I rejected the notion that this was a grassroots insurgency.
And from the beginning, I really went deep inside to look into the role of the CIA, the Turkish intelligence, and also the Israeli intelligence in igniting the insurgency in Syria.
And accordingly, you will be called an Assadist.
If you reject foreign intervention, they say, because people usually, many of them think in a binary way.
So if you reject foreign intervention and...
What happened to you in Germany?
Did somebody, before we get into your analysis of Syria, did somebody try and kill you?
Actually, I came under multiple attacks in Germany, physical attacks, one of which was on my birthday.
Basically, I was celebrating my birthday.
And one of the times I was walking in the street and somebody approached me and started talking to me in a very aggressive way.
And I saw that he's carrying an object in his hand and he was running after me.
So I saw it with my eyes that he was carrying an object and running after me.
So I escaped for my life.
But then, because the laws are very loose, I would say...
I mean, if you don't have an evidence that he was carrying a gun or something to hurt you...
You cannot really sue this person.
So this person either has to stab you, so that's an evidence, or you have to take a photo of the person that he was trying to basically harm you.
So his lawyer basically argued that he was carrying a smartphone in his hand and he was running after me.
He was not intending on harming me.
Sorry all that happened to you.
You're fairly safe and sound in Germany now, are you not?
Are you finally a citizen of Germany or at least have permanent residence there?
No, actually.
I have only a resident permit because I married a German.
Otherwise, I would have been deported back to Syria, which is now under the rule of people who would like to kill me, basically.
And one of these groups called Islam's Army in 2020, they issued a statement and they named me and they said that I'm spreading propaganda from Germany.
And they called me a spy for Assad.
So imagine that if these people capture me.
And all I do is, as you may know, Judge, I have a YouTube channel.
I have my webcam.
I have my microphone.
And I truly just try to explain to people what's happening from a different perspective, you know?
Because if you put the lens of the U.S. neoliberal democratic lens, everything...
That you read and want to understand in the Middle East or West Asia will be that it is a democracy versus a tyranny.
But if you put a geopolitical lens and try to dig in and understand why they are destabilizing Syria and why they have destabilized Iraq and why they have conquered these countries, you understand there are deep geopolitical reasons, financial reasons, and also the interests of Israel,
which is something that is so missing in the discussion, why all this destabilization happened.
I would say the United States doesn't have a strategic interest in Syria.
Syria doesn't pose any danger on the United States.
And it doesn't even pose a danger on the supremacy of the US in the region.
But it used to pose some...
Create an insurgency that the US...
Claims, in fact, was a grassroots liberation movement, whereas in reality it was a gaggle of terrorists doing the bidding of the U.S. and Israel.
Actually, at the beginning, I was also caught into the hype.
I mean, we were all thinking this is a democratic movement.
And there were so many genuine people protesting and demonstrating against Assad.
We cannot really dismiss their demands.
And people wanted reforms.
People wanted more political liberalization.
People wanted better job opportunities and investments in the country.
I totally understand, especially in terms of improving the human rights conditions in the country.
But we are talking about an insurgency.
Insurgency needs weapons.
Insurgency needs logistics.
Insurgency needs supply chains.
Insurgency needs intelligence.
And these groups didn't have any local, let's say, supply chains or local financing for their operations.
All came.
Through intelligence apparatuses, the power which funneled the most money in Syria was Qatar.
Qatar is a very rich country and they have funneled tens of billions of dollars into this insurgency.
Saudi Arabia was the same thing until 2018.
The US only spent one billion dollars per year on the covert operations, but the rest were via the allies of the US.
In Turkey, there was a We have seen groups,
for example, funded by the CIA fighting against group...
Funded by the Pentagon or groups funded by Qatar fighting against groups funded by Saudi Arabia.
Therefore, now that Assad is gone and he fled the country, this is going to be another debacle.
It's going to probably start for another type of conflict in the country, an inner conflict, in order to create divisions in the country.
And this is something that Israeli press is now speaking out loud, that they say we shouldn't think big in Syria.
We should think small.
And by small, they say that we have to divide Syria into ethnic and religious lines.
So we give the Kurds a country, a Druze a country, probably the Alawites and the Christians a country, and then a Sunni country.
And this serves the interests of Israel, because if Israel is going to be a state only for the Jewish people, they need their neighbors to be also.
Surely the HTS group cannot be fond of Israel, can it?
Do you mean fighting against Israel, HTS?
They can't be a long-term friend of Israel, can they?
Now they are under the control of Turkey.
And I think at any point in the future, if HDS poses any security threat against Israel, Israel sees security threat as an opportunity, not as a problem, because Israel has a superior military.
And when HDS poses any threat against Israel, then Israel will expand further into Syrian territories.
Now that Israel destroyed...
All of Syria's air defenses, all of its strategic...
Weaponaries, depots, long-range missiles, Navy, everything, basically tanks.
Syria is basically castrated at the current moment.
So even if HDS in the future wants to fight against Israel, they cannot fight with the pickup trucks against the Israeli occupation forces.
They would be hunted like rabbits.
Therefore, if any sort of such threat arises against Israel, they will expand further into Syrian territories and try to open a corridor to the areas controlled by the Druze and by This is how they see.
This is their thinking.
This is not my wishful thinking, but I'm analyzing what the Israelis hope and wish to see.
But just for an example, the HDS, they were formerly known Al-Nusra Front.
And when they, in 2014 and 15, they occupied the borders with the Syrian Golan Heights.
This is occupied by Israel now.
And when they were injured by Syrian army bullets, they used to go to Israeli hospitals and get medical treatment.
And Netanyahu shook hands with them.
And then they gave them not only medical support, but logistical support, money, and light weapons.
So Israel was at some time in the same bed with HDS and al-Nusra.
And this was confessed by the former head of the Mossad and al-Jazeera.
And many, the former Defense Minister of Israel and the Israeli press, they all acknowledge that they have supported al-Nusra in Syria, which is now rebranded to HDS.
And HDS is officially designated by the U.S. State Department as a terrorist organization.
The head of HDS has a U.S.-guaranteed $10 million bounty on his head.
It is a federal crime for anybody, whether it's the Secretary of State.
Or a car repairman to provide any material assistance to a terrorist organization.
There are people, Americans and Arabs, in federal prison for long prison terms for providing material assistance to organizations that the government says is terrorist.
But there's no morality here.
There isn't even any rationale here other than an endgame, which in this case is the U.S. pleasing Israel.
I mean, the goals justifies the means here.
And in this case, Jolani is, as the former special envoy of the U.S. to Syria called James Jeffrey, he said Jolani's army has been An asset of the U.S. strategy in Syria.
And Jake Sullivan, in 2012, when he used to work for Hillary Clinton, he sent an email in February 2012 to Hillary Clinton saying that Al-Qaeda is on our side in Syria.
In 2011, the Defense Intelligence Agency of the U.S. sent an investigation report to Obama telling him basically the driving force behind the insurgency against Assad were these...
Islamist militants.
And despite knowing it, he put his signature on Timber Sycamore, the CIA covert operational secret program in Syria.
So they knowingly supported these Islamist groups in Syria because they were the ones who were ready to fight against Assad and they had a cause, they had an ideology, and they were craving for death and martyrdom.
For the sake of the cause.
And the cause is to establish an Islamic state.
So this is going to be different from caliphate because ISIS was more like a caliphate.
Now in Syria, it's going to be more like an Islamic light version of a state.
But on the longer run, when the HDS...
It gets a strong grip over state institutions.
So they control everything you see, you listen from news, press, drama, education curriculum.
So they will brainwash the people to accept an Islamic state in the future.
And I'm not against Islam itself.
But we have to be honest.
If you're going to say this was a democratic insurgency, but the result is an Islamic state, then this wasn't a democratic revolution from the start.
This is my argument for it, and this is why my graduation project, Master Thesis, has been rejected at my university, because this was my expertise.
And I wanted to reach to the conclusion that, yes, it is an uprising, but it's not a democratic uprising.
This is, for me, it's a regressive uprising, and we are taking a few steps back and not ahead.
Is it fair to say?
That this is not a takeover of the Syrian government, this is a destruction of the country, that in fact Syria exists no longer.
Judge, Syria doesn't have a sovereignty any longer, because if you don't have an army...
You no longer have a sovereignty.
And if you don't have a sovereignty, then every regional power will meddle in your internal affairs.
This is just basic logic.
And on the short run, we will see many, let's say, regional and also Western investments in Syria.
And people will start filling their pockets.
But this is all going to be momentary.
People need to understand that if Syria doesn't have its own national industry, its own technological sector, industrial sector, Then they will rely and be dependent on foreign investors.
And once the foreign investors invest in your country and they have a grip over the economy, then they control the politicians.
And once they control the politicians, they control the foreign policy of the country.
So Syria is no longer independent.
Syria is under occupation.
American occupation, Turkish occupation, Israeli occupation.
And even the Russians now on the coast, they have a big influence because they have their navy.
So I would argue that Syria...
Syria lost its sovereignty, and it will take long time, decades probably, to restore that.
Of course, this could go even to worse scenarios.
If the projects of partitions of Syria would be materialized, then Syria will be lost.
We're talking about 7,000-year-old civilization, which could be killed by such an insurgency.
Was the collapse of Syria a strategic defeat for Russia?
Actually, more for Iran, I would argue.
The Russians are trying to secure now their navy in Tartus.
And in my opinion, they could do it.
The Western governments are blackmailing now HDS, saying that we will not lift the sanctions unless you kick out the Russian navy.
But the Turkish side cannot go too far against the Russians now.
They are still playing two-sided, especially Erdogan.
But the Iranians are the ones who lost the most because Syria represented the strategic depth of what was called the axis of resistance.
Syria represented the supply chains for Hezbollah, and Hezbollah used to deliver the weapons, the knowledge also to the Palestinian factions.
And also, Syria was the geographical, let's say, axis for Palestinian and Hezbollah.
Or Lebanese groups to have this geographical connectivity between Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, Iraq, and Iran.
Now all these chains are cut.
We're talking about like the crumbling of the axis of resistance.
And also Iran took one step back and decided that they have to serve their own national interests.
So I would argue that the collapse of Syria would be...
Deadly for the access of resistance more than for Russia.
But on the energy sector, yes.
Now that Qatar can materialize its project of extending gas pipelines through Syria to Turkey, and Turkey could distribute it to Europe, I think this would be also for the future, 50 years from now, 100 years from now.
This is how the American planners think.
That from now on, the Europeans would...
Who gains the most from the collapse of Syria?
I think the biggest victor of this is Turkey.
And today President-elect Trump has also mentioned this in his statement that Erdogan is one of the, he has control now basically over Syria, he controls HDS.
I think Turkey will have a big leverage over northern Syria.
We're talking about Aleppo, Idlib and Homs.
Damascus will be more in the hands of the Saudis.
And in the South, it will be more Israeli and the Americans in the East with the Kurds because they are encouraging them to separate from Syria and they also occupy 50% of the Syrian...
How can the Kurds possibly coexist with the Turks?
That's a very good question.
Actually, they cannot.
And this is the thing that Trump has to solve when he comes to the presidency.
I think this is a...
A red line for the Turkish side, and they have shown that they're ready to go to war against the Kurds if they are going to declare any sort of independence or federalism in Syria.
So this is a recipe for more wars.
This is what I mentioned at the beginning of this conversation, that trying to divide Syria on ethnic and religious lines, it will create more mayhem in the country than it used to be in the past.
I'm not an Arab, but I believe that Arabic countries should Pursue economic integration and federalism could be the solution for countries like between Iraq and Syria, Syria and Lebanon.
But federalism is not a solution if you want to divide the country, because federalism should more unify the economies and on the political sectors as well, and not to divide the countries on ethnic and religious lines.
But we've been living this forever, Judge, in the region, like divide and concur.
And unfortunately speaking, many people...
I mentioned this multiple times.
Many people fall into this same trap, not because history repeats itself, but because many people do not learn from this recent history and connect the dots and realize that all this empty talk about democracy and human rights, despite that democracy and human rights are very important for the people,
but the players and the powers trying to import and enforce this type of systems on the region, it only proves that it's a failure and it's counterproductive.
The people have to develop their democracy.
I think this shouldn't be controversial.
I don't think that the Syrians should impose their rule on the Americans and the Americans cannot impose their rule on Syria because we have different experiences, historical experiences and different cultures and different norms.
Even in our societies, our society is more patriarchal and there are hierarchies.
We have different relationships with God.
It's something different in the U.S. So it cannot work.
It cannot be functional in Syria.
So insisting on this solution, it makes me think that the American planners, when they imposed it on Iraq and it failed, and imposed it on Libya and it failed, this gives me the impression that they know it will be failure.
But despite that, they do it in order to create the region in constant instability in the region.
Kibork, we have to run, but thank you very much for this.
You're a brilliant and gifted and experienced analyst.
I hope you will come back and join us again, because there'll be much more for me to ask and for you to tell us about Syria.
Judge, anytime.
I'm very honored to be with you.
It's a pleasure to be with you.
I can tell from the comments of the viewers that you're well appreciated, and you were eagerly anticipated, and you did not disappoint.
Thank you, my dear friend.
I hope we can see you again soon.
Soon.
Thank you so much.
Of course.
Coming up later today at 4 o 'clock this afternoon, Chief Dennis Fritz, and a full week coming up the remainder of this week.
Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom.
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