Go to our sponsor https://venice.ai/useful and use code useful to enjoy private, uncensored AI. Using our code will get you 20% off a pro plan.
This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at http://betterhelp.com/USEFUL and get on your way to being your best self.
Check out DeleteMe and use our code IDIOTS for a great deal: https://joindeleteme.com
Support local jobs and get variety of high-quality clothing and activewear at https://www.american-giant.com and get 20% off your first order with promo code USEFUL. Thanks to American Giant for sponsoring the show!
Check out Avocado Green Mattress: https://avocadogreenmattress.com
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Click here for the full interviews with Dennis Kucinich and Joshua Landis: https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/rampage-in-syria-dennis-kucinich?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
Follow Professor Joshua Landis: https://x.com/joshua_landis
Follow Congressman Dennis Kucinich: https://kucinichreport.substack.com/
Watch this week's Thursday Throwdown: Aaron Maté DEMOLISHES Rabbi Schmuley on Piers Morgan https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/aaron-mate-demolishes-rabbi-schmuley?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
For $6 a month, become a Useful Idiot! Get extended interviews, Thursday Throwdowns, and bonus content at http://usefulidiotspodcast.com
Join us LIVE on Youtube every Monday at 10am EST for Monday Mourning, where we watch the Sunday morning news shows so that you don't have to.
“There have been widespread massacres along the coast of Alawites,” reports Professor Joshua Landis, Director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma. “This is a religious minority in Syria. They're also the community that backed Bashar al-Assad's regime. Most of the top officers in his security forces and intelligence service were Alawites. And so for that reason, the entire Alawite community has been labeled as guilty and is accused by these Jihadi militias of being guilty.”
We don’t show the videos coming out of Syria this week in this episode, but Professor Landis describes the disturbing footage he’s seen.
“They just slaughtered every Alawite male they could find along the coast. And not just men, although the vast majority were men. But in many instances, entire families were killed in their apartments. And we have a number of videos of mothers showing you their kids and their entire household who have been shot. A hundred and forty people were just slaughtered in the main town on the roads and the square. And you can see just horrible videos.”
The narrative that we've been told in the west is that regime change is necessary to promote democracy around the world. But, Landis explains, though many Syrians justifiably hated the Assad government, the results of US foreign policy make things worse.
“Americans believe that when they overturn dictatorships, they're going to get a democratic outcome. We convinced ourselves of this in Iraq, in Libya, in Afghanistan, that we could somehow mold these societies in our own image. And we've discovered that time and time again: we're wrong. And what has happened throughout the Middle East, whether it's the Taliban or Al-Qaeda or ISIS, is you're going to get these extremist militias.”
We’re also joined by former Congressman Dennis Kucinich, who has visited Syria over a dozen times and studied its history.
“This was so predictable,” he says of this week’s massacres. “The US has been involved for thirty years in an effort to take over Syria.” Kucinich explains the US role in Syria since his time serving in Congress, when he saw firsthand how Bush administration officials focused on helping Israel by employing disruption tactics throughout the Middle East.
“The ongoing humanitarian crisis and severe sectarian violence in Syria are direct outcomes of policies dating back to the Clean Break doctrine of 1996, by a D.C. think tank which counseled Benjamin Netanyahu.”
“The Clean Break doctrine laid the groundwork for aggressive policies toward Syria which emerged through an effort coordinated by the Bush White House as several authors of the Clean Break strategy ascended to federal government policy-making positions.” And as always, this was a bipartisan strategy. “The "Clean Break" approach was further advanced by Hillary Clinton, who, as Secretary of State, together with CIA Director David Petraeus, proposed arming Syrian rebels.”
This, Kucinich explains, led to the CIA’s plot to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad, replacing him in 2024 with a new al-Qaeda-led government.
Subscribe for the full interview with Dennis Kucinich in which he recounts his trip to Syria with now-Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, what Elon Musk should be doing with DOGE, and how he would end America’s debt crisis.
00:00 Intro
00:42 Chuck Schumer slanders Mahmoud Khalil
08:32 Mike Johnson and Republicans gloat about arresting Mahmoud Khalil
19:04 Trump's racist insult to Schumer
20:36 Katie's shark-infested travel experience
22:40 Joshua Landis interview
23:02 What happened in Syria this week?
24:36 Was this started by Assad-regime loyalists?
31:37 Obama's Syria lie
36:20 Will the al-Qaeda leader condemn these massacres?
39:05 Is this what Israel wanted?
43:11 Will sanctions finally be lifted?
45:56 The Balkanization of Syria
48:41 Dennis Kucinich interview
49:03 The genesis of sectarian death squads in Syria
52:20 Congressman goes to Syria
55:12 Israel's Clean Break policy
58:23 Tulsi Gabbard on Syria
1:04:10 Trump's foreign policy
1:07:34 What should Elon and DOGE really do?