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Dec. 9, 2024 - Ron Paul Liberty Report
26:56
Sharia Law In Syria?

In the fog of war it is difficult to see where Syria will be when the smoke clears. What we do know is that Islamists whose origins are in al-Qaeda have taken control of the country. What does it mean for the region and for Syria's former allies? Also today, Rand has a warning for D.O.G.E.

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A Mess in Syria 00:09:32
Hello, everybody, and thank you for tuning in to the Liberty Report.
With us today, we have Daniel McAdams, our co-host.
Daniel, good to see you this morning.
Good morning, Dr. Paul.
How are you this morning?
I'm doing well.
We're trying to catch up with affairs going on in that country of Syria.
And I guess there's a mess there.
But this broke out, you know, what is it, 48 hours or something ago?
Yeah.
I had an immediate reaction, like all of us do.
And my immediate reaction was that, I wonder where the CIA is.
How are we involved?
Because we've been conditioned.
And I think rightfully so, we've been conditioned because when you look at history and recent history and the things that we've had to talk about over these last several years has been what is really going on behind the scenes, what's doing secretly, and who's representing the United States.
And you say, well, the president is.
We have a president.
Listen to him when he'll say, we'll have a report on it and tell us what to do.
I guess you realize that's a bit cynical.
We should pick on old people.
So I'll tell you, it's really a mess trying to figure out exactly what's going on with Syria, because if you isolated your thinking on Syria, you might look at it and say, yeah, they have a problem over there.
They're not perfect libertarians at all.
But if you compare it to what, I mean, they weren't the worst country in the Middle East and how the people were treated.
But there's been a lot of factions in Assyria and a lot of fighting.
And I've always noticed over there, the last go-around with this, this was even under with the previous administration, is that oil plays a role in this too, and it probably still does.
But this many, many countries are involved and Russia is involved, Iran is involved.
So all I can say is it is a mess.
And there was something about it that it was pretty slick, you know, the transfer of power or getting rid of Assad, because, you know, for years, the slogan was that we made fun of it.
Assad has to go.
Assad has to go.
Well, it looks like right now, Daniel, that he is gone.
And what this means, because there's a lot of opinions, but I think it'd be safe to say from my viewpoint, Daniel, there's a lot I don't know about it.
But I also simplify that by saying, yes, my suspicions are right.
We're involved.
We probably didn't smooth things over.
We have to maintain an empire, don't you know?
And how's the empire going to do on this?
So this is something that that's about as much as I know and understand.
But there's a lot more because there's not one faction.
Oh, it's ISIS.
We've got to just get rid of ISIS.
Well, we've been getting rid of the jihadists and ISIS for years, but it seems like you get rid of one group or damage one, you get four more.
So keeping up with this is something else.
They don't have a central theme, you know, to say, well, these are the freedom fighters and truly be freedom fighters.
And then there's another group called the authoritarians.
Unfortunately, there are a few people over there that still would like to have freedom.
But unfortunately, the many factions over there, including the United States, accept the notion that authoritarianism is what we need to get this thing over with.
Daniel.
Yeah, the situation is bizarre, Dr. Paul.
And, you know, watching Foreign Affairs for the better part of three decades or so, I don't know that I've ever seen something so dramatic.
And I think just a quick turn around the timeline will give hopefully our viewers a little idea of what happened.
You know, last week, there was a ceasefire, a little over a week ago, a ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon.
And I think that's what set events in motion because for many years, I would say a decade in the Idlib region of Syria was where the jihadists were kind of kept in a cage.
That's where they were located.
There was kind of a tense ceasefire with the authorities in Damascus, the Assad authorities in Damascus.
And that was kind of a slow boil, slow burn.
And all of a sudden, when this ceasefire hit, the jihadists in Idlib started breaking out and they started taking over a good deal of the country in Syria.
It was pretty incredible.
A lot of people have suggested that this was an operation.
And I think the fact that it went so smoothly suggests that it was an operation to eliminate the supply lines from Iran through Syria into Lebanon to resupply Hezbollah while the ceasefire happened.
I think that's a reasonable explanation.
Although, again, like everything else, Dr. Paul, we don't know.
But we do know that there was a meeting of the Astana countries, which is Russia, Iran, Turkey, and a few others.
They met in Doha.
Right after that meeting, Assad disappeared.
He wasn't seen in public.
And meanwhile, the jihadists that had breaken out of Idlib had started taking city after city.
And we were waiting.
We were told that the Syrian Arab army, which is the government army, was retreating to easily, more easily defendable areas.
They kept retreating, retreating, and retreating.
And all of a sudden, overnight, Saturday night, the army folded, Damascus folded, the army gave up without a fight, and Assad was gone.
It was astonishing, astonishing.
And who took over was this group, HTS, and they are the inheritors of Al-Qaeda in Syria franchise.
That's where they started.
They became the Al-Nusra front and they became HTS.
They're led by a gentleman called Jolani, which we'll talk about later.
But that's sort of a timeline.
The question is: did this just kind of happen out of the blue?
And I think you suggested in your opening, knowing how the CIA operates and also knowing that Israel considered it a very, very important priority to keep Hezbollah from being resupplied, that something was in the works here.
Well, there's going to be some people who are claiming, you know, victory and they're benefiting and they're going to do wonders and bring peace and that sort of thing.
I don't think anybody knows that that's going to happen.
I'm suspicious there's going to be chaos there for a good while to come.
But, you know, my suspicions about us, the United States being involved, I don't think, you know, a recognition of really great wisdom because we are involved and we, you know, there's a dominant theme in this country and it's bipartisan that we have responsibilities.
They don't call it an empire.
It's our responsibility to bring about peace and prosperity.
And we are the power.
We have the currency and we have the weapons.
So therefore, that's our obligation.
But to confirm my suspicion, it didn't take long because there was a report out.
This was on zero heads.
U.S. bombs 75 ISIS targets across Syria after Assad overthrown.
Well, you know, well, ISIS are the bad guys.
We've got to bomb them.
But when there might be 10 or 12 groups trying to vie for more authority, it doesn't settle things.
But what it does, though, it should be a very direct admission that we're very much involved.
We're using bombs and we're using money and we don't have any money.
It's part of our interventionism.
Yes, it's a mess there.
But are we going to wave a wand and bring peace out of this mess?
Unlikely.
I think it's going to cost us money.
I think it's going to linger.
I don't think it's going to be over in one month.
And as they said, so many of these wars, Daniel, that we objected to, there was always the argument, oh, this is going to be a short war.
We can take care of this.
It turns into decades.
Some of this has been decades.
So this hope it isn't that bad.
But right now, I don't think anybody can think they can sort all this out and us fade away and not be involved because we don't want to spend any more money because they think that's our responsibility.
Well, our responsibility isn't to try to bring peace to a country like Syria or any place in the Middle East.
It does not protect us.
And really, it doesn't achieve the peace that some people are looking for in the Middle East.
Yeah, and you know, one of the analysts that we turned to, Larry Johnson, a former CIA analyst, he had a good piece that came out late yesterday.
Of course, things are moving so rapidly that things are overtaken by events quite quickly.
But if we can put up that first clip, it's from his Sonar 21 blog, which I highly recommend.
And he titles his piece, Syria, Mission Accomplished.
And of course, that's a reference to when George W. Bush, then president, flew into the aircraft carrier with mission accomplished in the background, saying that we had won Syria, but that was our won Iraq.
But in fact, that was when the fighting actually just started.
Big Shift in Foreign Policy 00:13:18
So I think he's suggesting that.
And if you go to the next clip, if you can, this is what I think one of the operative statements that Johnson makes, which is that, and this is to go to what you said earlier, Dr. Paul, I'm sure there are champagne corks popping at CIA headquarters in McLean, Virginia, and MI6 headquarters in London.
I think this operation surpassed even their expectations.
But if the subsequent events that unfolded in Iraq in 2003 and Libya in 2011 are any guide, the celebration should be tempered with trepidation.
Why?
Because Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which is HTS, is now in charge.
Instead of bringing peace and reconciliation, HTS will impose strict Sharia law, which they've already announced that they're doing, and will punish those guilty of heresy, which means large segments of Syrian society are likely to be purged.
HTS itself will become a target of terrorism.
The most likely fate for Syria, at least for the next decade, is chaos in mayhem.
And it's good that he points out that he mentions Libya because that's exactly what happened when we overthrew the dictator, quote unquote, in Libya.
It's become an absolute hellhole since that happened.
So unfortunately, that's the prediction for Syria.
And I did watch Dr. Paul over the weekend, several Christian churches being ransacked by the new leaders of Syria.
So that's certainly something to be concerned, but I don't think you'll see the State Department being too worried about it.
Well, there were a few people in leadership in this country, our country, that was saying that, you know, Russia is now weakened.
They would have no clout.
How often had they said about Ukraine?
You know, they'd have to roll over there and not be able to fight and that sort of thing.
So that is another thing.
The propaganda machine is working.
You know, and it is, I think it has to get worse.
There's too many factions there and there'll be new people coming in.
And I think that it's going to be very, very difficult for everybody to figure this out.
But the smoothness on which this occurred, I think, is a very big issue because they achieved something and people really were caught off guard.
But that doesn't mean that there will be a regrouping.
And I think that's what's going on now.
So, and some people point out that, you know, the treatment of, take, for instance, the treatment of Christians in Syria happened to have been better than in some of these other countries.
But my point is, of course, the old-fashioned point about the constitution and what non-interventionism could lead to, like more peace and more prosperity, and that a foreign policy of that nature would not be such where something like this breaks out.
You say, how much is it going to cost us?
What is this going to do?
How many people are going to die?
How long is it going to last?
Well, you know, it's lasted now for many, many years and it's going to continue.
I don't think this is going to go away and there's going to be one person unify this with a reasonable government.
Yeah, it's important that you mention Russia, Dr. Paul, because I think you can't begin to understand what happened in Syria without it being in the context of Russia and Ukraine.
Certainly on the surface, and Larry Johnson makes this point in the latter part of his article.
Certainly on the surface, Russia and Iran have taken a big hit.
Russia has taken a big reputational hit because they invested a lot in saving Assad.
Last time he was almost overthrown by Al-Qaeda.
And this time, Russia did not step up to the plate.
They did not protect their ally.
And they will be, again, in world opinion, it will lower their status, no question about it.
The same with Iran.
Iran relied on Syria.
They were part of the axis of resistance against U.S. and Israeli interests in the region.
They will take a hit.
They've lost an important partner.
They've lost the ability to resupply Hezbollah.
So it's a big problem.
But what Johnson made a very good point, which is in the short term, yes, both of these countries have taken a hit.
But when you look in the longer term, they may actually be happier to be disentangled from Syria and leave this entire smoldering cauldron.
And it is.
These groups have already started fighting with each other.
It's not just HTS that's in charge.
There are many factions, including Kurds and anti-Kurds and Turkey, all vying for power in Syria right now.
It may end up, as Johnson says, and I think he's right, it may end up being more of a nightmare for Israel and Turkey to have this kind of boiling cauldron right in their neighborhood than it will be for Russia, who is back out and gone.
They may even leave their bases there.
It's hard to say.
So they may end up being the winners in this at the end of the day.
Certainly the Syrian people aren't the winners, though.
You know, I think the military bases are important.
And, you know, you can read reports that said, you know, the people in control or claim they're in control of Syria aren't that anxious.
They were not saying, we're going to get them out of here next week.
The Russians are going to go.
And even the Russians have taken a position.
It doesn't look like they're packing their bags.
So I think that's a big issue that will be resolved.
And it just could lead to a lot more violence.
But there's also the issue of oil because over the last decade, there was this complaint, and I helped complain about it.
And that was some of our foreign policy dealt with Syria because we were maintaining troops or at least personnel in the eastern part of Syria where the oil was.
And right now, it's sort of up in the air.
So we have the military bases of the Russians.
That has to be dealt with.
Somebody will want to know who's going to control the oil wells.
And we'll be in the middle of all that.
And I just don't know why we need to have another problem to worry about.
Because overall, when you look at this, we spend more money, we make more enemies, and we have to borrow more money for it.
And we do not bring peace.
We've usually hurt the American people more than we help other people.
Well, we've done a couple of shows, Dr. Paul, where we've talked about the transition period.
And I know you did a column a week or so ago about this, about how, you know, these transitions are supposed to be times of quiet where the new administration gets ready to come in.
And I think you can't discount the possibility that the deep state, whoever's behind Biden, was involved in launching this to give yet another headache to the incoming President Trump.
And in fact, if we can skip ahead a couple of clips to the one that's from the U.S. Embassy in Syria, it's the wanted poster.
I know it's tough.
Here we go.
Now, this is what's fascinating, Dr. Paul.
This was put out by the United States Embassy in Syria in 2017 when President Trump was in power.
It's a wanted poster.
Stop this terrorist, Muhammad Al-Jolani, up to a $10 million reward.
We remain committed to bringing the leading al-Qaeda figures like HTS to justice.
This is the U.S. embassy.
Now, fast forward to the next one, Brandon Weichert's tweet, and he has a long thread that makes a point just to be clear.
The Turkish and U.S.-backed leader of Hayat Tahir al-Sham, a 42-year-old man pictured named Abu Muhammad al-Jolani, likely killed and maimed scores of U.S. troops during the insurgency in Iraq between 2003 and 2006.
So this is a former, I would say, wanted terrorist by the United States government, $10 million bounty on his head.
This is the person who is now in control of Syria, a person that has killed many Americans, but a person who is probably helped into power by the CIA.
We know that the CIA has been trying to overthrow Assad for a long time.
So it's one of those things, Dr. Paul, where the U.S. is backing both sides.
We're backing the terrorists, and we're bombing the terrorists.
I guess it's just good for business.
Well, maybe he took a course in refreshing his memory about how to live in a free country.
And now he passes the test.
We gave him that test.
And he believes in democracy.
And the whole nonsense goes on.
But I think that's such a demonstration because one thing I've noticed in recent weeks that in talking about foreign policy, a lot of Americans are sick of our foreign policy, especially when we're going broke and we talk about more money.
So if we look at this, this looks like, well, what do we do?
We sent 75 missions over there.
We bombed a couple people.
And that's not a big deal, but it is a big deal.
Because if it's a million dollars or $2 million, we had to borrow it from somebody.
And that means the deficit, the debt is increasing.
But the American people are getting sick and tired of this.
So even though this can be panned off, it's very, very important that we help.
We have to help our allies.
We have to help Israel and that sort of thing.
But if the help that we send backfires and actually makes things worse, that's one argument against it.
But the other argument, I think, is it's a cost to the American people.
And over the years, if you look over the decades, two or three decades, a lot of Americans die and a lot of innocent people die.
And yet onwards they march and they never look and say, well, what is the policy that we should follow?
Is it complicated?
Yeah, it's real complicated.
Just look up the word non-interventionism and you and apply that to foreign policy.
You know we give you a lot of answers.
Absolutely well, here's this is in the department of probably the most predictable thing on earth.
If we can fast forward the clips to the one from End Wokeness it's a tweet from End Wokeness and put that up, because this is probably the most predictable thing on earth, dr Paul, and I think you can see it, but i'll read it for our audience, Breaking Biden pledges to send aid to the new regime, to rebuild Syria.
So this is on a number of levels.
This is absurd, Dr. Paul.
First of all, we're sending aid to a recognized terrorist who's on our own terrorist list, okay, number one.
And number two, we're going to be spending money to rebuild Syria.
So it's absolutely absurd, but very predictable.
We paid to break it.
Now we pay to fix it.
Hey, Daniel, does that mean he wasn't tuned in when I just gave him my little spiel about it?
He must not have been listening.
Not watching in our show.
Maybe he was resting.
Resting, yeah.
Well, let's, we have to do a quick second topic really quickly, which is if you put on that Zero Hedge article, if we can put that one up about someone you know, Dr. Paul, with someone we both know.
And it's a good article.
I recommend people to read it.
Rand Paul warns Musk and Ramaswamy about the swamp's upcoming Doge Dodge.
And if you look at it, we can't play the video, but if you look at it, he was on the Laura Ingram show.
And he was talking, if you go to the next clip, he was talking about the budget reconciliation that Republicans are proposing.
And they say it's going to bust the Pentagon spending caps.
They're going to go through the roof.
And Senator Paul makes a great point.
You cannot talk about eliminating government waste if you don't, if you take the Pentagon, not only take it off the table, Dr. Paul, but give it another huge injection of more and more money.
Well, Daniel, that's confusing now.
We had an election.
A lot of people were complaining about these kind of things.
They put in a new, getting ready, at least elected.
And the message is that we're not supposed to be doing this, sneaking in more money and deceiving the people that we're supposed to be cutting.
So, but as I recall this, you know, short period of time, it's hard to forget what happened at the campaign, you know, the election.
I think the Republicans took over the House.
They have something to do with spending money.
And the Senate, too, that's Republican.
And I think the new president's going to be Republican.
You'd think this would be smooth sailing.
And we have this special committee set up with Ram Swami.
And that, I think, is an indication that they're not listening yet.
We need to get their attention.
We'll keep trying to get their attention because I think the American people, if we had a secret poll, even if it was 10 billion people, I think we'd win the poll and say, yes, we think we should cut back on this and they should sneak in things and they shouldn't deceive us by saying, what's national security?
You know, it's national security.
It's your safety.
We're protecting your freedom.
Funds Raised: 40 Million 00:03:57
Well, I think those lines are wearing wearing thin.
And nobody's believing that anymore.
And they're looking for options on finding their information other than the major networks.
That issue is clear.
Yeah, absolutely.
Well, I'm going to close out, Dr. Paul.
And if we can actually put up that next clip, because we were talking about the Department of Government Efficiency.
And this is kind of a nice little good news story.
Over the weekend, you put out a post on Twitter X where you talked about, look, we have got to get rid of foreign aid.
And it was picked up everywhere.
was picked up by Fox and Friends.
Someone emailed us and it was retweeted.
Doge advisor Ron Paul has announced that one of his recommendations will be to totally eliminate foreign aid, to which Elon Musk reposted saying, Ron is not wrong.
And that little repost, Dr. Paul, got 40 million views and counting.
So obviously the idea of cutting it is resonating.
But my final closing.
Comment if you put on that very last clip.
Uh please uh, and this is to remind you that we are at the end of our year fundraising drive.
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Over to you, Dr Paul.
Good, you know when um, I see the numbers of people who will look, look into a posting talking about, you know, not tinkering with foreign aid, but getting rid of it.
Oh, that sounds too radical.
Maybe I shouldn't say that but uh, I think that uh, the people are ready for that.
When I saw that 40 million.
I and I still think, are you sure, are you sure that's a lot of people, and but that's a reflection of our optimism that the people's minds are changed.
And you're right, somebody has to speak out and get that message out.
And fortunately, we've been able to do that to a certain degree.
But unfortunately, you keep pointing out that it takes a little bit of money to uh continue with our programs and all so uh.
But uh, i've been taught over the years to be optimistic and work hard and do it and people will respond and uh I I always think that if they don't, uh I I, there's not a lot I can do it other than do what I do.
And so far over the years uh, it's fortunately it's been helpful in raising the funds necessary and, and that is essentially how we were successful through the presidential campaigns.
That always amazed me too, that a lot of funds were raised.
But you know campaigns, it's a little easier to raise money than uh, than a political campaign.
It's a little easier to raise money for that than it is for so sort of an academic approach And defending things, defending items on principle, defending monetary policy on principle.
But there's still a lot of people out there that are looking for this.
And I think that there was a time when I thought 100, 200 people, if I got an audience like that, that was, well, it's growing, it's pretty good.
But now I think that we have an opportunity to even reach more people.
So I want to thank everybody who contributes and participates and invites other people to find out what we're doing and come to our program of the Liberty Report.
We deeply appreciate that.
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