Meanwhile, I just did another Press TV interview on Syria. It came out better than expected, considering that I was feeling slow-witted from fasting, had no time to prepare, and kept losing contact with Press TV due to Zionist jamming and/or sunspots.
The infrastructure of
Syria is facing dangerous levels and the fighting between the Syrian
army and the armed groups is spreading to other cities as well.
Syria has been the scene of violence by armed groups since March
2011. The violence has claimed the lives of hundreds of people,
including many security forces.
The Syrian government says outlaws, saboteurs, and armed terrorists
are the driving factor behind the unrest and deadly violence while the
opposition accuses the security forces of being behind the killings.
Press TV has conducted an interview with Kevin Barrett, author and Islamic studies expert, to further discuss the issue.
The video also offers the opinion of an additional guest: Lawrence J. Korb from the Center for American Progress.
The following is an approximate transcript of the interview.
Press TV: Why do you think Syria has come under such a fierce campaign by the West, Washington’s Arab allies and Turkey?
Barrett: Well this is part of a destabilization campaign in
the Middle East and I think there are two overall strategic reasons for
this. One is that the US empire is trying to consolidate its position
worldwide as it has been eclipsed by the fastest growing economies of
the BRIC countries and secondly I think that the hard line like…Zionist
in Israel are hoping to redraw the map of the Middle East in a way that
is more favorable to them while they have the chance in their using
American military power to do it.
And Zionists I think are hoping to break these countries
up into smaller units that would never be able to pose any kind of
strategic threat to Israel and we have seen this happen with Sudan, we
have seen it happen to a certain extent with Iraq and we might see it
happen in spades in Syria because Syria is perhaps the most right
candidate for this kind of destabilization.
There are ethnic divisions, there are confessional divisions in
Syria, they can be exploited by the masters of empire in their dividing
conquer strategy and that is what they are doing and it is a tragedy
that the Muslims of Syria in particular and the Christians as well are
falling for this and in particular that the hard line Sunni Muslims who
are sometimes called al-Qaeda, many of them are playing the game of the
Zionist-American empire.
They have done this before, these are the same people
who have run drugs for the CIA and harassed the Russians on paramilitary
missions for the CIA and today some of these same people are back, are
taking money and funding and direction from the US and Zionist empire in
this war in Syria and it is a real tragedy.
I think Muslims need to unite against this kind of imperial meddling
and against this kind of Zionist destabilization of the Middle East.
Press TV: Mr. Barrett the debate is going towards the fact
that the opposition is trying to gain the upper hand in Syria. I mean we
have referendum that was held in Syria and the reforms have been made
there, why has this gone unseen in Syria?
Barrett: Well I think that the big international media, the
Western media in particular is presenting only one side of the story
here and I would like to take issue with one thing the other guest said
which is that he is claiming that Turkey and Saudi Arabia are Muslim
countries who are presumably not acting on behalf of any outside
interest and of course that is complete nonsense.
Turkey is a member of NATO and it has been run by these hard line
operation Gladio of NATO people forever who controlled Turkey partly
through drug smuggling and criminality and yes, Turkey does have a more
democratic and Islamic government now than it did in the past but the
reason that it is taking NATO’s side in Syria is not because the Muslims
of Turkey want that, it is because NATO is leaning on Turkey likewise
Saudi Arabia is a puppet of the Zionist-American empire that props up
the Western financial system by putting all of its oil money into the
American dollar and in other ways helping to prop up the Western
financial system.
And so these actors are not acting on behalf of the global Muslim
community. They are acting on behalf of the American-Zionist empire
which is ultimately controlled by eight big banking families.
So let us be very clear about that. The plan to
destabilize Syria is a lot bigger than just the fact that asserts many
of the Syrian people want reform and I agree with them . Syria needs
reform, Syria does need a kind of a compromise between the different
factions and it needs to change but the trend towards a foreign funded
terrorist war on the government in Syria is a terribly destructive
trend.
The only possible outcome of this as President Putin recently said
is eternal civil war in Syria and this would be a horrifying prospect,
anybody who cares about the outcome for the Syrian people. It might be a
good prospect if you are somebody like Netanyahu who wants Syria to be
taken out of the equation, wants Syria to not have any kind of military
strength or unity with which it could confront the stolen Golan Heights
and demand the rights of the Palestinian people.
So I think if the opposition in Syria had made the smart move and
not accepted all of this military help from the outside and turned to
terrorism, if instead they had bravely continued to demonstrate
peacefully and they were brutally suppressed a couple of times but they
should have kept with that high road as to the people of Tunisia and
Egypt, and when certain groups in Syria did not and decided to join with
this terrorist version on behalf of the Zionists and the Americans,
this was a terrible, terrible mistake and I hope that it can still be
rectified.
Press TV: Mr. Barrett, we have the West, the Arab League is
in Turkey obviously seeking a regime change in Syria. Why is there this
obsession with getting rid of the Bashar al-Assad government? Let me put
forward the quotes to you by Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, he says
that ‘we fear that if the current government is toppled by
non-constitutional means, the opposition and the current government
might simply swap places’?
Barrett: That is a good point and then there will be a civil
war in the future. It is a terrible situation and you ask why is there
this dedication to destabilizing Syria and pushing for regime change in
Syria? And the answer is that these outside powers that are arming the
armed gangs that are fighting against the Assad government in Syria are
not interested in democratic rights of the Syrian people, they are
obviously not interested in democratic rights of the people of Arabian
Peninsula either.
Instead what they are interested in is destabilizing
Syria, it is a thorn in the side of Israel and they are also interested
in getting Syria out of the way of a perspective war on Iran or at least
military pressure on Iran.
So it is a strategic move, it is certainly not any genuine concern with human rights and democracy.
Press TV: Mr. Barrett, the West says it is concerned
according to Mr. Korb [the other guest of the program], the West is
concerned about Syria but why isn’t it concerned about Bahrain or Saudi
Arabia?
Barrett: Well again it is a strategic thing. I do not really
believe the other guest is completely convinced by his own rhetoric, I
am sure that he has gone to school long enough to learn that
international strategic relations are governed by matters other than
sort of concern with democracy and human rights for the Syrian people
that he professes.
In fact the regimes in the [Persian] Gulf oil states are at least as
oppressive and unrepresentative of their people as the Syrian
government and the West is far from trying to push for any kind of
democratization in those countries particularly Bahrain which is the
base of US Fifth Fleet I believe and there it is the Khalifa regime is
being propped up by the West in the face of a genuine peaceful popular
uprising whereas over in Syria we have what may have begun as a peaceful
popular uprising quickly morphing into a terrorist war against the
regime supported by outside players.
And this is pretty outrageous. I mean if here in the US
we had other countries funding terrorist attacking the US government
that would be universally reviled and likewise I think that if outside
Paris were meddling in any other country it would likewise be reviled.
I am not really sure where these masters of empire in places like
Washington DC ever got the right to decide which nations can be
destabilized by terrorism, by outside players and that is okay whereas
other nations would never allow that to happen and I think ultimately it
is just a matter of power, it might make rights and that is what is
really going on and what I am hearing from this other guest really I am
sorry to say, it sounds like just rank, it is admitting the stench of
rank hypocrisy just like almost everything else we are hearing from the
Western capitals these days.
Labels: Kevin Barrett, Press TV, syria