Why is the US building more military bases on Syrian territory without permission? Why is it funding and training a 30,000 strong border guard for Syria's borders with Turkey and Iraq? With ISIS defeated, does the White House really believe it has legal authority to keep US troops in Syria to "deter Iran"?
Why is the US building more military bases on Syrian territory without permission? Why is it funding and training a 30,000 strong border guard for Syria's borders with Turkey and Iraq? With ISIS defeated, does the White House really believe it has legal authority to keep US troops in Syria to "deter Iran"?
Why is the US building more military bases on Syrian territory without permission? Why is it funding and training a 30,000 strong border guard for Syria's borders with Turkey and Iraq? With ISIS defeated, does the White House really believe it has legal authority to keep US troops in Syria to "deter Iran"?
Hello everybody and thank you for tuning in to the Liberty report.
Once again we will be doing this under audio because we're still suffering through a mini ice age in Texas but we'll be back in order soon.
But we did want to visit with you today on some issues and Daniel's with me today.
Daniel, welcome to the program.
Good morning, Dr. Paul.
We have our sweatshirts on.
Yes, right.
I want to start off, Daniel, a little bit differently this time and talk about what we talked about yesterday and that has to do with too many nukes and why are they building more nukes and why are we stirring up trouble?
We have 7,000 of them.
How many more do we need?
But there was a story that came out and we didn't include that in yesterday's program and the headline said the Pentagon suggests counting devastating cyber attacks with nuclear arms.
I consider that another danger signal.
I don't think we should be fighting cyber attacks.
Maybe we ought to get smarter or something and have more cyber defense or something.
But the idea that you're going to defend our country by nukes to fight cyber attacks, it seems like miscalculations could be very, very easily done under cyber attacks.
And even purposeful ones, if you think about this whole idea that the DNC was hacked by the Russians, but then the FBI never got to look at the evidence and this and that.
That seems pretty frightening.
National security helped the military-industrial complex build more nukes.
But do you have anything on mind that maybe we can say something more positive in a recent program we've had?
I do have a good news story.
We've done a lot on the Koreas because it's a huge pressing issue.
But I'm sure you saw the headline this morning, Dr. Paul, as did I, that North and South Korea have announced they're going to march together under a unified flag into the Olympics.
And that, I think, is a really important development.
And unfortunately, we didn't get an invitation.
We could have gone there and shaken hands with these people.
But anyway, it is a good sign.
And I've always argued that the people don't start the war as it's the idiot government officials that do.
U.S. Credibility in the Middle East00:11:16
And the old ones at that point.
But Daniel, I want to go over a little bit more about what's going on in Syria because there's more activity there.
And right now, we're in a contest with the Russians in building bases.
They're building bases, and we are too.
But ISIS is theoretically supposed to have been defeated in spite of us not knowing which side we were on.
But now, who's going to maintain and how is the country going to be split?
Some people think that we're on the wrong side.
Once again, I can't imagine that happening.
That we're on the side that says we should go with the Kurds and others and control the eastern half of Syria.
And it's not going all that well.
And besides, there are stories out now that the Syrian people and the Syrian government, they don't even want us there.
I don't think they ever want us there.
And they're saying, why don't you go home?
And you say, well, should we send the Russians home?
Yeah, I think that it'd be better, at least a number of Russians, the better.
But they happen to have a treaty with them.
They've had a base there.
To me, it's somewhat like us saying a foreigner coming saying, well, I think in order for us to have these things worked out, I think it's up to the United States within six weeks to get out of Guantanamo.
Something like that.
But it is the dust hasn't settled there.
Maybe it's changed.
Maybe ISIS is not a threat.
I don't happen to believe they're ever defeated.
They go into hibernation.
And as long as we occupy countries, we have to always be concerned about terrorism.
So they're lining up, but there's a couple hot spots right in Syria, especially, I guess, the big contest is in the eastern part, in the northeastern part.
Yeah, and this is an article that caught our attention from DefenseNews.com, I think.
And it was an interesting article because it mentioned a race for bases between the U.S. and Russia.
But the article never mentioned the fact that Russia is there legally.
They have a treaty with the internationally recognized government.
Whereas the U.S. is essentially squatting.
It's put military bases on Syrian territory.
They're illegal in any stretch of international law.
But so the two bases that the U.S. is building, it has a strong military presence near Raqqa, and that is where they're training the Kurdish groups.
And this is supposedly the 30,000-strong border force.
The U.S. can't do anything about our borders, but they're training 30,000 border patrol agents for Syria, even though they're there illegally.
And the other one is in Al-Tanf, which is a border town, and the U.S. is building a base and maintaining its presence there to keep the Iranians, Syrians, and Russian troops from crossing the border and having any cross-border contact with Iraq.
So both places, a real stretch of the imagination, especially after ISIS is defeated, a stretch of the imagination to wonder, what the heck are we doing building bases on someone else's land that doesn't want us there?
It seems to me that the greatest danger is where the Turks are now threatening to be involved, where the 30,000 troops are that we're training, and that's in the eastern part.
But the people who want to, the countries that want to maintain this has actually had an agreement and help bring the heavy fighting to an end.
And that's the Russians, the Turks, and the Iranians came together and had this agreement.
I think it was in September of last year, and they're just following through.
But that's done in a more deliberate fashion.
It isn't done with us invading the country.
And that's why, when you think about it, our overall policy was established, I guess, under Obama.
No, Bush, more Bush.
We had to remake the Middle East.
Then Saad had to go, but it continues on and on.
And I think the continuity of what we see is a reflection that maybe the deep state is more consistent than the rest because they're determined always to file things out, destroy a country in order to rebuild the country.
But they want to rebuild the Middle East, but I think it's one of these things where you have to destroy the village to save the village under their conditions.
But I think this represents a battle between neoconservative warmongers on our side and what's going on over there.
But there's not much respect for borders.
It's amazing that Syria as a country still exists.
Yeah, and the countries that are involved in this, it's the Astana agreement, named after the city in Kazakhstan where they made the agreement.
These are all countries that are in the neighborhood.
Russia is in the neighborhood.
It borders Iran.
Same with Syria and Iran and Turkey.
So they essentially have a say because it's their neighborhood.
It's not ours.
But the whole idea that this alliance is something that we need to break up, you know, in the neocons, you mentioned the neocons.
This is a classic example.
They're considered the experts.
They're always on TV.
But everything they touch just turns to garbage.
They wanted to remake the Middle East to reduce Iran's influence.
Iran is stronger and more influential in that part of the Middle East than ever.
They wanted to reduce Russia's influence by doing this nonsense in Syria.
Russia is now more influential in the Middle East than it has been at any time since maybe at some parts of the Cold War with the USSR.
Everything they do has the opposite effect, yet somehow they're still the experts.
And the Iranians are doing pretty well, too, and establishing their controls.
But you know, there's another effort they're doing right now, and once again, they have a lot of failures to try to hide, and that's the CIA.
Now, the CIA, and it wasn't how many just several months ago, where they got caught in channeling all these weapons to the rebels.
No, it wasn't outwardly terrible.
Shock, shock.
I'm just shocked.
A lot of those weapons ended up in the hands of ISIS.
And then it ended up that when the ISIS was trying to escape, it was escaped under our guidance.
So I think the hypocrisy of our government pretending that everything is determined to stop those jihadists from coming to get us.
And yet, at times, we're always dealing with them.
Right now, they're talking about sending weapons again, even though they were caught on this.
And they look so foolish, but they're going to do this once again.
At least they're trying.
Not that I ever thought it completely stopped anyway.
I mean, that's just the way they work.
It's almost like we're back to 2013 again.
And I wonder if Trump even has any idea the history of the U.S. backing.
You know, the Free Syrian Army sent a delegation to Washington to start begging for weapons again.
These are the guys we armed.
The porous arming of FSA, that the weapons ended up with Al-Qaeda and ISIS.
It's well documented.
And they come back with their hands open saying, hey, give us more weapons.
We're going to counter Iran's influence in the region.
So the question is, will Washington bite on such an outrageous, outrageous request from an absolutely discredited source?
It's probably dumb enough that they'll bite on it instead of war.
You know, if our statement of this out, come on, bring them home.
So many Americans, especially if they're conservative neocon types, they're going to say, yeah, but what's going to happen?
Won't Russia take over and have all this control?
They probably would have a little bit more influence.
But the demagoguing that goes on and the reporting that anything Russia does is absolutely wrong.
Nobody gives them the defense of treaties and acting with an unreasonable sense about borders and this sort of thing.
But right now, it's very easy to demagogue.
And anything that Russia wants is bad now.
They've really done an unbelievable job at undermining the so-called peace dividend where we actually talked and worked with Russia right now.
But right now, they always say Russia is going to be in charge.
They're the monsters.
And how many newspapers, a significant newspaper?
The Washington Post, the New York Times, they're Russia bashers too.
I mean, it's systematic.
So that's all part of the strategy of the neocons, I believe.
But if they didn't want Russia to have more influence in the Middle East, then why on earth did they destabilize Syria to the point where the Syrians had to ask the Russians to come in and defeat ISIS and Al-Qaeda for them?
If they didn't want Russia to be strong there, they shouldn't have set them up to be the saviors of Syria.
Would that be called an unintended consequence?
Or what would you want to call that one?
It depends on how deep you are into conspiracy.
Because it certainly keeps the military-industrial complex alive to have this.
But, you know, I just want if we're closing up here, there's a couple of, I think, bright points.
We always want to end on a high note.
But there were some recent hearings in the Senate where the White House is talking about how we want to stay in Syria even though ISIS is defeated because we've got to counter Iran.
And believe it or not, some senators are sketchy about this or skeptical on both sides.
Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Corker, said this won't pass muster, this new plan.
Chris Murphy, Senator Murphy, who's often good on these things, said this is a fool's errand to try to do this.
And even Senator Ben Cardin, who is a very, very hawkish Democrat from Maryland, he says Trump does not have the legal authorization from Congress to keep troops in Syria beyond the defeat of ISIS.
So maybe they're waking up.
Sometimes you have to wonder whether it's just a partisan thing that they'll oppose this president for partisan reasons.
But some of those men you just mentioned are thoughtful people, and hopefully it is their firm belief.
But certainly it makes good sense to do it.
But I think good sense also tells us that this is doomed to fail.
It's doomed to fail.
It does not serve our interests.
I think the biggest thing to take away from this on what is happening there and is the lining up of the Russians and the Turks and all against it, I think our credibility continues to go down.
The foolishness that we do and what the results are, whether it's the results with the Iranians or with Assad or whatever, there's no evidence that we have a successful foreign policy.
So the sooner we change it, the better.
That's why it'd be nice if they all get a good picture of the North Koreans and the South Koreans marching together.
And fortunately, even our government said they would suspend military maneuvers during the Olympics.