The UK has been less happy to welcome Middle Eastern
Christians into British territory, which is kind of
interesting. But we're too busy welcoming the
Tak fairies, yes? Exactly.
Syria was a linchpin really for the entire global resistance
axis or the remaining independent countries that
opposed imperialism and opposed the Zionist occupation of
Palestine as being a core element of their foreign policy
positions, right. And, and so that goes from Iran,
Yemen, through the whole of the Middle East or or West Asia, but
then also expands into regions of Africa, as we're now seeing
coming under attack. And of course, Latin America,
Venezuela was an integral part of the resistance axis.
So Machado is also pushing this rhetoric that Hezbollah is
establishing itself in Venezuela, that Iran is
embedding itself in Venezuela, Hamas is embedding itself in
Venezuela, and so therefore Venezuela represents a direct
threat to Israel. And of course, I'm sure that
this was discussed between Netanyahu and Trump.
Hello and welcome to Episode 8 of The Syria Podcast.
I'm joined once again by Vanessa Bailey.
Welcome to the program, Vanessa. Thank you, Mike.
And I will just say New Year because I don't think any of us
can call it a happy start to the New year as expected to a large
degree. Well, precisely.
And well, we'll call it, You know, this is the Syria podcast.
This is the continuation of a series of podcasts that we
started last year. But actually, we're not going to
be spending much time in Syria for this one at all because the
implications of what happened in Syria just over a year ago and
and the acceptance by most world leaders now of Jelani as the
head of state of Syria are having massive implications.
And that's really what we want to focus on for this program.
Yeah. I mean, there are rumours, by
the way, that Jelani or Ahmed Al Shahrawaz, he's now known, of
course, having been rebranded by particularly the MI 6, but the
entire intelligence card who waged the regime change war
against Syria since 2011. There are rumors and there are
images circulating of him after an ambush in which he was
injured. And he's now in Turkey,
allegedly. This is coming from social media
and I think Turkish media accounts and some Israeli media
accounts. Now, to some degree that
wouldn't be awfully surprising because the writing has been on
the wall and we've written about it and spoken about it at UK
column that Jolani's term in power is not going to last very
long because ultimately what's going to happen, Syria will be
carved up into spheres of regional influence.
I mean, you know, as you said, we we want to expand from inside
Syria to effectively what the fall of Syria actually meant.
Syria was a lynchpin really for the entire global resistance
axis or the remaining independent countries that
opposed imperialism and opposed the Zionist occupation of
Palestine as being a core element of their foreign policy
positions, right. And and so that goes from Iran,
Yemen, through the whole of the Middle East or or West Asia, but
then also expands into regions of Africa as we're now seeing
coming under attack and of course Latin America.
Venezuela was an integral part of the resistance axis under
Bashar Al Assad's presidency. There were flights established
with using Venezuelan airlines to effectively fly from Tehran
to Damascus and Caracas directly.
So that gives you an indication. It gives people an indication of
the importance of Venezuela to Syria and of Syria to Venezuela,
and of the connection between Venezuela and Syria with Iran
and effectively the entire resistance axis.
OK. Well, let's sort of because it's
been a few months since we've recorded one of these.
So let's let's start off in Africa actually, because
obviously since the last recording, we've had a number of
things happening, the massive ramping up of the conflict in
Sudan, We've had the attack over just around the Christmas period
of Nigeria and supposedly Boko Haram by Trump.
And but as well as that, we've got problems occurring in book
in Burkina Faso, for example. So, so why do we take each of
those? I mean, do you feel that there's
a, a connection between the inflammation of, of what's
happening in Sudan over the last six or eight months in
particular? There's a connection with that
to, to what has happened in Syria or Syria has been a, a
driver for that. No, I think for sure you, as I
said, we have to see the fall of Syria as being the opening of
the floodgates to Zionist expansion, either through proxy
vessel or client states like the UAE, which is operating inside
Sudan on behalf of Israel, but also in Yemen.
You're now seeing the effective isolation of the Antrullo
resistance government in Northern Yemen with Saudi Arabia
and UAE, UAE very much as a proxy of Israel vying for
influence in the eastern territories and southern
territories of Yemen. So again, Yemen is being
enclosed by the Zionist bloc within Yemen itself, but also
from the Horn of Africa. The fact that Israel has also
recognized Somaliland and is talking about the conditions of
this, of course, one of the conditions is that it can
establish military bases, surveillance bases in Somaliland
and on the coast. And of course, this directly
poses a threat to Yemen both now and in the future.
And then yes, you, you have the inflammation, as you said of an
already very tense situation in Sudan that again has been
fermented and stoked and maintained by a number of global
players. But particularly if we're
talking about Israel by the UAE that is extracting gold and rare
earth minerals, etcetera, other resources from Sudan itself.
But then if you come into Burkina Faso and Nigeria, as you
mentioned, there's also issues of course in Eritrea and in
Mali. And of course that is also Mali
is also connected into Burkina Faso.
Because with Ibrahim Traori, you effectively have a second Thomas
Sankara, who of course eventually was assassinated by
the imperialist bloc, because Traori represents a new wave of
pan Arabism, a new wave of African unity and independence
and resource nationalization. So again, this aligns with this
entire resistance block of what had left of independent nations.
And very recently, I think it was in the new year, Traore gave
a speech to his people about the incoming dark winter where they
had to prepare to unite against the forces that we're going to
try and again break apart the the rising pan Arabism that that
he is trying to foster in Central Africa.
And of course, that followed on from, as you mentioned, the
Trump rhetoric of we have to save the Christians from
genocide in Nigeria. Of course, they've done nothing
other than drive out Christians from the Middle East for, for
decades through their various colonialist, imperialist
projects. So I, I have very little belief
in any statements from them claiming to defend Christianity
in any way, shape or form globally.
But actually when I looked into the areas they actually bombed,
so they claimed they were not bombing Boko Haram, they were
bombing ISIS in Nigeria. So they are kind of two separate
entities, but cohesive in some of their operations and so on.
But the reality? IS to Syria again then.
Yeah, exactly. It's, it's just a branding of
the various terrorist factions that of course the US is
sponsoring in these countries to create division and, and
terrorism. And in fact, the area that they
bombed was in the north and northwest of Nigeria, which is
actually, if you like, I don't like to use the word stronghold
because that immediately creates a negative impression, but it's
the area where the majority of the Shia Muslim communities
reside. And that means Sheikh Zakhzaki,
who's been persecuted by the Nigerian government, the
Nigerian government, which of course is is a proxy of the
United States interests very much in Africa, have been
murdering the Shia Muslim factions in Nigeria for some
time because of their stance on Palestine.
There has also been a historic campaign by Christian Zionists
to infiltrate the Christian communities in Africa because of
course, you know, historically Africa has been converted to
Christianity and there are various papers and documents
detailing the fact that Zionist influences spreading into Africa
through Christian Zionist influence and and policies.
Boko Haram and that whole insurgency in that part of
Africa is again parallels to Syria because we have here, we
have Islamic extremists created and and funded and armed by the
West. And then we use those as an
excuse to, to carry out our policies in in that region.
But it's very much the same. It's always the same modus
operandi operating in these places.
And in the meantime, in the Western press, we're bombarded
with the narrative that of, of Christian versus Muslim and the
Muslims are genociding the Christians and, and we've got to
hit Muslims. And, and so you know this for,
for the, the, the powers that are, that are manipulating this
situation. It operates on many fronts.
Definitely. And I think, you know the
clearest example of that is in Syria where the war that was
wage to change regime ended with the emigration of a huge
percentage of the Christian population, massive percentage.
And now of course, under Jelani or Ahmed Al Sharad, the HTS and
Takfiri forces and ISIS elements are carrying out ethnic
cleansing again of the Christians or putting them in
positions where they feel so threatened within their very
isolated communities now that they're leaving voluntarily.
And of course, it's always been made very easy for Christians to
get visas to Canada and to even to the US and so on.
The UK has been less happy to welcome Middle Eastern
Christians into British territory, which is kind of
interesting. But we're too busy welcoming the
tax fairies, yes? Exactly.
That's that's the whole point. This, this was something that I
wrote about for some time while all successive British
governments were saying we're in Syria to protect the Christians.
But hold on, you're actually preventing them from coming to
Britain to to as refugees, but you're both fostering, creating,
radicalizing and exporting tech theories.
And then you're giving them amnesty, if you remember in
around 20/16/2018 to return to Britain.
So, yeah, you know, it's it's sort of extraordinary.
But this historical cleansing of Christianity in the region has
been has been a strategy for some time.
Because ultimately what they want is a war between the
resistance Muslim factions and the GCC block, which of course
is very much aligned with the Zionist block.
They were created by the British in order to effectively protect
the Zionist entity and to act as almost outreach agents for the
Zionist entity. I mean, David Miller sent me a
document that the UAE has released, or it's a secret
document that has been released in which they're complaining
that, well, why did we sign the Abraham Accords?
Because Israel treats us like a, like a servant.
They don't ask us to do things on their behalf.
They basically are ordering us to do things.
And as I said to David, well, they it's a bit late now to cry
victim because this is 1, why you were created.
And two, you've benefited from this partnership to expand your
own reach, both in the region, but also now more extensively
globally with the backing of the Zionist entity and the movement,
the entire Zionist movement, which of course then is backed
and supported by much of the Western Hemisphere.
Obviously this having a massive impact in North Africa.
Why? What is the, what is the reason
for that? Why is the why is there interest
from Zionism and from the West in this in this region, do you
think? I think there's a number of
aspects to this, of course. First of all, as I said, it's
Yemen positioning Israel to effectively both be able to
intimidate Yemen, but also to eventually attack Iran.
Because if Israel has, they already have put air defence
onto the island of Socotra, South of Yemen, which is sort of
under the control of the UAE. But effectively that means
Israel and it's US air defence systems.
Having control of the Horn of Africa means of course that they
also have control of the bubble Mandeb Straits which Yemen has
been using to blockade shipping to Israel resources.
From an American perspective, having control again or or not
losing control in some instances in Africa generally means
excluding China from its soft power, power expansion.
And that is also mirrored in what's happening in Latin
America. We can come on to that because
of course, China to a large degree has a greater foothold
now in Africa than the United States through its soft power,
Chinese government subsidised expansion campaigns, right?
And so much of this move by the Zionists and by the US.
How I see at the moment is pox Americana, as I call it, Of
course, Pax Americana is definitely on the decline.
But what's happening in my opinion, is we're seeing coming
up behind it and almost in a parasitic way, rioting the dying
empire in order to expand their own influence.
Is Pax Judaica the, the Zionist movement expansion economically.
I know when people think about expansion, they, they think of
settlement and and military takeovers because that's what
we've seen for 200 years with the United States, right?
My belief and my understanding with the with the Zionist
movement is it's looking to effectively in in it not in the
same way as China. It is expanding in the sense of
wanting to settle and impose its policies on those countries
where it is now increasing its influence.
But it's also to have economic structures which are to its
benefit. It's kind of a mix of of I
wouldn't say soft power because I don't think the Zionist
movement ever uses any degree of soft power, but let's say
economic blackmail and capture, right, not necessarily force
because it relies on the US for the force effectively.
I mean, if we look at what's happening in Israel now, sorry,
in Syria now or even in Lebanon beyond bombing, it's very
unlikely that they're going to be successful in any kind of
ground invasion. They're only succeeding in
southern Syria because they have some kind of backdoor agreement
with Jolani and they always have had that.
The South would effectively be handed over to Israel.
The David's corridor would be established up the eastern
border of Syria, connecting with the Kurdish autonomous state in
the northeast and then eventually into Iraq also.
So I, I think we're seeing a massive change in the world
order, not necessarily of course, an advantageous one or
far from it. And I think speaking to people
here, people that, you know, study strategy and so on.
And and they've said we're going to see some very odd
partnerships turning up, particularly in Syria, like
right now Russia, for example, although it is very partnered
with Israel right now, it's aligning itself and its policy
more with Turkey and France. So you know what I mean?
So we're going to see some very odd strategies, alliances and
partnerships coming up. And I think people need to
almost sort of strike a line under the geopolitics that we
know and understand because it's very fluid at the moment.
It's very volatile and it's going to change shape multiple
times. Let's move on to, to Latin
America then, because obviously the big news over the the New
Year period was Trump's removal from Venezuela of Maduro and his
wife to stand trial on drugs charges, allegedly.
But that's not the only thing that's been going on in Latin
America. The Isaac Accords deal seems to
have been done between Argentina and Israel.
And what fascinated me about the rhetoric around that from, from
the, from the the Jerusalem Post in particular, was the
suggestion that this actually was a Latin American accord
rather than just an Argentinian accord.
So there's clearly something bigger than just a single
country going on here. Yeah.
I mean, first of all, just quickly to go back to Burkina
Faso, because while everything was happening in Venezuela, of
course, a lot of people were not seeing or not having it reported
on that France attempted a coup in Burkina Faso, which was
actually put down very quickly by the people recognizing what
was happening and rushing to the defence of Traore.
So, you know, as I said, since Syria, the entire imperialist
block has been emboldened to to implement its strategy for for
global dominance. And if we look at just quickly
also the connection between Venezuela and Syria is not only
through the resistance access, but in the late 1900s, I think
there's now something like between 700,000 to 1,000,000
Syrians living in Venezuela, many of whom emigrated during
the Ottoman period, when again, the region was struck with
poverty and lack of future, no jobs, unemployment, etcetera.
There was a mass emigration to Venezuela.
But if we look at Argentina, what I find fascinating is that
Argentina has generated under Mile, who is known to be a
Zionist supporter. Argentina has generated the
Isaac Accords, which are the equivalent to the Abraham
Accords in the Middle East or in West Asia, which of course are
intended to capture states into the Zionist sphere of influence.
And Argentina was actually considered as a potential State
of Israel venue by Theodore Herzl in the late 1800s.
Argentina was considered and in fact the the Jews established
huge agricultural colonies in Argentina in the 1880s and
there's an area of Argentina called Moises Ville, which is
known as the Jerusalem of Argentina.
There is also consideration that they were looking to establish
some kind of sphere of influence in Patagonia and Chile.
So the fact that that the Isaac Accords emanated from Argentina,
it should be no surprise really when one considers the history.
The fact that just as with Cyprus now, where Israel is
expanding again it's reach and influence in competition with
Turkey, it's using Argentina, which was it's already
historically considered area of interest, to expand Zionist
interests into Costa Rica, Uruguay and Panama who have now
also all signed up to the Isaac Accords at the same time. the US
of course is working in its usual election interference,
most recently in Honduras where they definitely interfered in
the election to ensure that a fascist right wing government
was brought to power to counter the remaining socialist
Bolivarian governments in Latin America.
So it becomes very clear that this is a campaign to drive out
again independent countries. Whether you, you know, are a fan
of socialism, it doesn't matter. These countries are independent,
they are anti imperialists, they are pro Palestine.
They are a threat effectively to the Zionists.
And not forgetting that American think tanks, Israeli think
tanks, have been putting out this rhetoric for years now,
being mirrored by Marina Machado, who of course received
the Nobel Prize and is not at the moment being supported by
Trump to replace Maduro. I think that might change at
some point, but WHO has openly voiced support for Israel.
So Machado is also pushing this rhetoric that Hezbollah is
establishing itself in Venezuela, that Iran is
embedding itself in Venezuela, Hamas is embedding itself in
Venezuela, and so therefore Venezuela represents a direct
threat to Israel. And of course, I'm sure that
this was discussed between Netanyahu and Trump when
Netanyahu came to to Washington just before the kidnap of
President Maduro. Yeah, I'd like to, I'd like to
sort of consider this possibility of, of Latin
American countries being a direct threat to Israel, exactly
how intercontinental ballistic missiles, what, what threats,
what possible threat is there to Israel directly of, of an
independent state in Latin America?
What I mean, you know, is this, is this about economic power?
Is it, is it just about having the support in the United
Nations for, for their policy in the Middle East?
What, what's, what's the desire for from Israel's point of view
to to have this blanket support in, in a, a continent that's
halfway around the world? Well, I mean how they're selling
it of course to the US is that be careful, you know, Venezuela
is in your backyard and now Hezbollah and Iranian proxies,
etcetera, etcetera can now attack mainland US, right,
That's number one. But the other threat, of course,
they, and, and it's been talked up by organizing like by the
Atlantic and, and West Point and all of these major think tanks
is that Venezuela is providing drone manufacturing facilities
for Iran, it's providing training camps and so on for
Hezbollah. So the thought is they will be
trained and, and recruited and empowered in Venezuela and then
sent back to fight against Israel, which, you know, if if
you consider that the world is at war at the moment, it's not
an unreasonable expectation that members of the resistance axis
are going to collaborate and cooperate to, for example, end
the genocide in Palestine and the Zionist occupation of
territory throughout the Middle East.
Now it's not only in Palestine. They've extended into Lebanon,
into Syria, as we know, they're putting pressure on Iraq.
They're extending into Africa and into Yemen through proxies
or directly. And so even if this were
happening, why wouldn't it happen?
Why wouldn't these countries be defending themselves potentially
against what just happened? Because it was actually Cuban
special forces that took the brunt of the attack.
I think there was something like around 40 Cuban special forces
that were killed in the attack. Let's, let's just broaden the,
the, the discussion a little bit because it's, it's something
that I'm not clear about is, is what are the, what are the kinds
of discussions that are happening between these
countries that would consider themselves to be in the
resistance axis? And the reason I ask that is
because I, I couple of over the Christmas break, I was watching
the HBO series John Adams again. And of course, that's talking
about the the War of Independence and we're just
coming into the 250th anniversary, the Declaration of
Independence and whatnot. But some of the, you know, the
conversations that were going on between the original colonies in
the United States in their, in, in approaching the decision
about whether to oppose Britain and they were sort of saying,
well, you know, Britain wouldn't do that.
And this these kinds of conversations.
And I just wonder, I just wonder, are there parallels to
be drawn here between conversations that might be
going on between within and between the, the, the countries
that are that that we would consider to be in the resistance
axis? Because it does.
It does strike me that that maybe Venezuela should have been
a bit more prepared for what happened than they appear to
have been. Yes, I mean, it's kind of
interesting to me that it's largely I, it's the British
press that are that are like the Telegraph that are pushing this
idea that he was betrayed from within, which to me completely
mirrors the narrative on Syria. I'm not saying that there wasn't
betrayal from within in Syria, but there's this parallel
narrative that in Syria, the Syrian narrative army collapsed
completely and surrendered. And, and so then why should
Russia or any of the other allies fight, right?
The same narrative is being put across now immediately in
Venezuela, but literally 48 hours after the event and Syria
one year on, although it's much clearer as to what happened,
it's still not. We don't have full
clarification, but one thing I would say in Syria and now what
is coming out through interviews with former Syrian Army officers
and soldiers is they didn't surrender.
They fought to the last man. But what happened on the field
basically put them into disarray and isolated various brigades,
right? Even the Jolani 2 hour
documentary detailing their campaign to reach Damascus,
which by the way, in my opinion was entirely strategized by the
British because there's no other country on the planet that would
have come up with the strategy that Jelani used.
Nor if you see him in the operations room, I mean, it's
something that that British military would be proud of,
right? So this was a massive operation.
And in my opinion, just as the British were behind the strategy
of the Hagana terrorist forces in Israel when they conducted
the Nakba, the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, they were
behind Jelani's operation entirely.
But even in that documentary, they talk about the fierce
resistance from the Syrian Arab Army in all cities and and areas
that they attacked. So they didn't surrender.
They were still fighting long past, you know, when they were
overwhelmed basically by Jelani's forces and by the drone
attacks that were not being intercepted, etcetera.
So I see parallels in this. It's almost like an absolving of
any responsibility because the army stood down.
Maduro was betrayed. So no one wants him anyway.
The same and and the same kind of rhetoric that's been used
also by by Russia largely regarding Syria and is now being
used again in in reference to Maduro.
And so I I find it very interesting this seems to be now
the new MO is to effectively create a situation which it
looks like Maduro has been betrayed.
I'm not ruling out that he was, by the way, but I'm just saying
it's we need to be very careful about rushing to judgement and
saying, well, yeah, you know. But coming back to your point of
should they have been better prepared?
I think it's very difficult to put yourself in the shoes of
someone in the position of former President Assad or even
of current President Maduro and the pressures that that they
were under and and how they read the situation.
But I would say that both presidents, as far as I know,
received warnings and and both presidents maybe didn't do
enough or maybe didn't expect or were maybe led to believe that
nothing was going to happen. I find it quite interesting that
the Chinese delegation were there the day before.
Now, I think my my interpretation of that is, and
maybe it's what led to Trump's operation literally the day
after was because in my belief, China was trying to capture
Venezuela in a sense. It it was trying to say, OK,
look, we'll, we'll deal with you.
We'll take the oil against U.S. sanctions, of course.
And China has the processing capability for Venezuela's heavy
crude oil. So, so does the US.
That's why the US needs Venezuelan oil, because the oil
that the US is producing, as someone described it, it's a bit
like putting champagne through a diesel plant.
It's, it's, it's too light. They actually need the heavy
crude Venezuelan oil, but so does China.
And so according to some reports, China was saying, look,
we'll start dealing in alternative currencies to the
dollar. We want to become a partner of
Venezuela in the oil industry. And perhaps they were offering
investment and so on. And and this because what Trump
needs is, is that those collateral resources, they're
worthless at the moment to the US because I think it needs
something like 40 billion investment into the Venezuelan
oil industry before it can be viable as as a, as an operating
oil provider for the US, right? But from AUS point of view, it
needs to secure that collateral. It can't see it disappear off to
China, right, Or even to Russia, but kind of to a lesser extent.
I think with Russia, I think China was the big threat and
China is the major threat in Latin America also.
So again, like with Africa, this is also about suppressing
Chinese influence, and particularly in what the US
considers to be its backyard. OK, Now, I wasn't suggesting
any, any direct criticism by the way, in, in what I said earlier,
but the reason I asked the reason, but the reason I asked
that question was because, you know, we're talking about a
resistance axis. But what I'm not saying in that
resistance axis, and correct me if I'm wrong about this, is
coordination collaboration in the sense that there that they,
that there's a recognition of a common.
I mean, they obviously recognize there's a common, a common
threat, but they still seem to be operating relatively
independently and, and which allows the common threat to pick
them off one at a time. And, and I just wonder, I'm just
wondering what the conversations are likely to be that are going
on between them and why they're not cooperating in a much closer
way. I think geographically for many
of them it's difficult. I mean, you know, if you look at
the distance between Iran and Caracas, Venezuela or Cuba, and
also another aspect which we shouldn't forget is of course
the power of sanctions. You know, the the fact that it's
very difficult for them to communicate or even, I mean,
there was an air embargo on Venezuela, there was a shipping
embargo on Venezuela. There was something very similar
on Syria and of course on Iran also.
But they do find ways to communicate.
I mean, for example, Iran is still in communication with the
various members of the resistance axis in West Asia.
I'm quite sure that Iran is in touch with elements in Africa
and even in Latin America. But I think a lot of it goes
below the radar and it isn't reported on because to a degree
it shouldn't be. It shouldn't be visible because
then it's it's very easy for what is a predatory imperialist
complex to to interfere with these communications and also to
survey these communication. I mean, not forgetting when one
talks about these kind of intelligence operations and, and
someone said to me, you know, Trump won't do anything.
He's too much of A narcissist to do something if he thinks it's
going to fail. Well, that's not true.
In 2019, he sent the US Navy Seals to North Korea.
It's an incredible story. And they were supposed to
install the listening devices prior to Kim Yong UN's meeting
with President Putin on nuclear development.
And what happened was they were supposed to land from the sea.
It was a complete mess. They ended up murdering Korean
fishermen who who saw their lights because they'd parked the
submarine, one pointing forward and one pointing back.
And at one point, they tried to move one submarine to be level
with the other one, but they'd left their lights on and, and
the bubbles from the submarine moving went to the surface mixed
with the lights. Then the fishermen saw them, so
they killed the fishermen. They got out of there, but the
submarine had to come in even closer to to pick them up.
And then the Korean security services were swarming in the
area. That's a bit of a diversion, but
I'm just saying, do you know that there is communication, but
the problem is that. These countries or states or non
state actors are constantly under threat of assassination,
of kidnap. There was 1 Iranian military
official who came out and said we know that they were planning
the same thing during the 12 day war that they've just conducted
in Venezuela. So they're consistently under
threat of this kind of attack. So the communications have to be
kept to the minimum and below the radar, but it doesn't mean
that they're not ongoing. But in that situation, they're
they must be in a relatively weak position and or is that, is
that unfair? No, it's not unfair.
I mean, of course they are. They don't have the resources,
they don't have the power, They don't have the military
industrial complex supporting them that the Western
imperialist powers, colonialist powers have and that the Zionist
block has basically because they have the backing of that
military industrial complex and they produce their own, of
course, also with investment from members of that complex.
So they are to a degree in a commercial military economic
basis. They are in a weaker position
from an ideological position. No, they're much stronger
because they're fighting for for for their homeland, for a
belief, for their ideology. They're not fighting for
supremacy or dominance. They're just fighting to protect
their own sovereign interests. Let's sort of come back to our
own countries then for a second, because obviously what happened
in in Syria and with every regime change operation that
we've seen in the last 40 years, but particularly with this
absolutely blatant Venezuelan operation, we see the West yet
again trampling all over international law.
And, and, and really, OK, there's been some kind of outcry
from, you know, people on the, the supposedly global S.
But for our own populations, it seems that that we are willing
to accept this kind of behaviour from our leaders.
And we have been pretty much since Tony Blair in particular.
So the fact that he's not in prison indicates to me that that
perhaps it's a lack of awareness on on on our own population's
part point of view. But but you know, is is the
first step in fighting against this to to try to educate what
international law is, what it represents, and why we shouldn't
be allowing our leaders to just trample over it in the way that
they are. Yeah.
I mean, my view to a degree is that the entire international
law, institutional body, including the UN, including the
ICJ, the ICC, et cetera, are all captured.
They're toothless, effectively. And so, you know, when people
talk about, let's call an emergency meeting at the UN
Security Council, what does it mean?
Did it manage? Did the UN manage to bring an
end to the genocide for two years?
No, of course it didn't. And so in my opinion, what
actually needs to happen and that it needs to happen both on
a macro and a micro level is people need to start those
people who are genuinely aligned in their ideology.
In other words, anti imperialist, not necessarily pro
multi polar, but multi nodal where those countries have
sovereignty and they have control over who they do trade
with, who has any influence within their country, etcetera.
So that there isn't this governance by either a unipolar
or a multi power, sorry, multi polar still to a large degree
superpower, which isn't necessarily going to take into
account the sovereign peoples, the working class and the
populations of the countries in which they want to gain sphere
of influence, right? And so those countries that
genuinely believe in equity and equality globally, an end to
oppression and so on, should create an alternative
environment in which they conduct what should be known as
international law. So they run parallel to the US
version of international law, but they form a body in which
they create the environment in which they can talk about
actions to be taken in response to violation of the
international law that they could create.
I know that this is kind of a far off vision, but it's still
something that we need to look at.
I remember in 2014, the dissident comedian Giordano in
France, he was doing exactly this.
He was creating institutions and organizations like insurance
companies away from the established insurance companies
who were basically ripping you off.
So he wasn't interfering with them, but he was creating
something on a parallel basis. And that is it's it's some, it's
a concept which I think all of us need to start thinking about.
Why are we allowing ourselves to be captured by systems that are
there to effectively oppress us, censor us punishers for for
whatever dissident thought we might have against whatever
policy is is incoming? And you know, I think this is
absolutely right. I think, I think if you remember
a couple of years ago, Michael Gove published the new
definition of extremism in the UK.
And, and you know, this is still the definition used by the
Starmer regime. And they introduced this, this
concept of creating parallel institutions as being somehow an
extremist act. And, and that should be in that
should be an indication, you know, as to the direction we
should be thinking. But my question is, but
obviously, you know, at some point that needs to happen at a,
at an international level. And the question is, is, is the
United Nations such a busted flush that that it could never
be redeemed from this point of view?
I mean, obviously there are many aspects to the UN that that are
worthy of criticism, net zero and, and Agenda 2030 and 21
being one aspect of it. But if we just, I think with
the, with the international law aspect of it and the UN Charter
and the Security Council and so on, is that such a is that such
a compromised institution at this point that it needs to be
replaced it? Needs a major overhaul if you're
going to keep it. But I mean, you would say the
same about the BBC on a, on a lower level, is it better to get
rid of the BBC? And for a grassroots, I know
it's very difficult because then you have the issue of
infiltration and so on. But it's, it's the same issue.
Yes, if you got rid of the veto, for example, you might be able
to, to restore some of, of the kind of equity within the UN,
but that's going to be as soon as you put through a, a
resolution like that, it'll be vetoed.
So this is the point it's at the moment I, I don't see how the UN
becomes workable, to be honest, I, I really don't.
And, and I've been watching a lot of sort of interviews
talking about this very subject and even Ambassador Charles
Freeman, I was watching him yesterday.
He was saying the same thing. He said it's completely defunct.
It's, it's, it's just not workable anymore.
And even if you turned it upside down and, and rewrite all of
the, you know, the, the, the rules and regulations, I, I
don't, he doesn't see, and I don't see how it is going to be
reversed or, or renovated to be anything which is fit for
purpose while you still have the dominance of the countries
within it. But that's the thing.
That's why I think it has to be something which is actually
created in competition to the dominant imperialist book.
And that's going to be, that would be a pretty difficult
thing to do. Just just looking at it from the
point of view of, of how sort of how you know, the disparate
opinions that, that, that are out there, that it's, it's going
to be extremely difficult to, to sort of end up with getting a
path that that most people can agree to.
But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try.
No, exactly. And I think you know to a
degree, if it can succeed at a micro level, then then you can
understand the workings of it. I mean, quite a few people are
starting to do this kind of thing now.
They're starting to establish communities, starting to
establish systems outside of of the central system in order to
protect their communities, their families and their so on.
So I think you know, because the problem is you mentioned the
fact that you were watching. John Adams.
John Adams yes, sorry. And it's the fact that a lot of
the resistance countries, everyone is still reliant on
international law as it is right now.
And the problem is that creates a kind of prison because you're
you're screaming into a void. Nothing's going to be done.
I watched the speech by Vaselina Bencia, who has actually
maintained a very principled stance both on Palestine and now
on Venezuela and previously on Syria.
Great. But it's going to achieve
nothing. It's not going to change
anything. Nothing changed on Palestine
through the UN. Nothing.
Even with all of of the weapons that potentially the UN has.
I mean, why didn't it use responsibility to protect?
Because it would be vetoed by the countries that have
benefited from responsibility to protect, to overthrow dissident
nations and regimes, right? Do you think that's because do
you think it achieved nothing? Because nobody is aware of what
he said. Actually, yes, you know, that's
because because the activities on on that forum never get
reported on in the press. Nobody ever gets to hear what
anybody says or what anybody attempts to do.
There's never any criticism of the misuse of the of veto powers
in, in the Security Council, unless it's Russia or China
that's vetoing something, you know, an invasion of a country
or something by the by the US or.
Petro, for example, from from Colombia, who, who gave a very
strong speech in the UN and guess what, immediately had his
visa taken away from him by Tron, you know, so, so this is
the point. It's, it's almost like you're,
you're fighting in a gladiator forum, right?
And, and ultimately the US is the emperor that that puts the
thumb up or down. That's it.
I mean, this is completely off topic, but I'm just going to
throw it in here. But if, if anybody isn't aware
of what Trump has just done to Mark Kelly, by the way, the the,
the Democrat senator who former military man who suggested that,
you know, perhaps U.S. military personnel should not be obeying
bad orders. This is absolutely a
constitutional statement. But Trump has just accused him
of sedition. And, and so, and I mean, this
is, this is Nazi Germany style suppression of freedom of
speech. And it's quite, quite
incredible. But anyway, look, look, we got
to, we got to finish off what I'd like to, to just finish off
with is obviously Maduro is in court.
He's naturally pled not guilty to the charges.
What do you think is, is going to be the outcome of this?
And and is this is Iran next or who's next for, for, for this
kind of treatment, do you think? Well, I mean, you know, they're
they're basically denying him his right to immunity as
president. And, and this was the precedent
sent precedent set by the overthrow of Manuel Noriega in
1990, where they said basically, I'm paraphrasing, the US didn't
recognize the government of Noriega and therefore he didn't
have the right to immunity in an American court.
And so that precedent is now being used, levied against
Maduro. But when you talk about the
craziness of or how Trump is out of control, one of the
accusations is that Maduro has machine guns and under American
gun laws, this is shouldn't be allowed.
And it's just like what? But this is the insanity of, of
the Trump administration. And I think unfortunately, I
mean, I, I just had a skim through the charges that are
being brought against him and even against Killa Flores or
Chilla Flores, however you pronounce her name.
And my apologies if I mispronounced her.
They're accusing her of, of orchestrating kidnappings and
murders and so on. And they're refusing her medical
treatment, according to the Telegraph reporter who was in
the court. And apparently she's covered in
bruises on her face. She's got broken ribs from the
actual kidnapping. And they're refusing her medical
treatment. So of course, and they, they are
basically out of the norm. They're parading Maduro around,
right? Which is just disgusting.
I mean, this is reminiscent, as many people have pointed out of,
of, you know, the the ancient Roman Empire towards its ends,
where they were parading or, or massacring Christians, for
example, and putting their bodies on, on crosses in the
upper nine way and so on. This is where we're reducing
down to a level of monstrosity that, as I've said before, it
signals to me the decline of 1 empire in the rise of another.
But unfortunately, I think the rise of the other is going to be
the packed Judaica on the back of the dying American empire,
which is going to bring it again into competition, particularly
with China. Because if we come back to Latin
America, the number of investments and of course, China
risks losing all of its investments if, for example,
this strategy is also conducted in other countries where China
has increased its sphere of influence and its investment.
I mean, China today has invested around 20 billion into Latin
America, a lot of that into Venezuela.
And just very quickly to end with a point which which I think
demonstrates what I'm talking about, the Venezuela oil
subsidiary company that was based in the United States,
Citgo, which basically because the US has been putting
sanctions on to Venezuela for decades, it couldn't repay it's
loans. So it was put it into auction
November last year and it was bought up by Paul Singer under
his vulture investment fund company, Elliott Investment
Management through a subsidiary of that called Amber Energy.
Now the company is worth around 15 to 18 billion.
It was bought for 5.9 billion. But the interesting thing about
Paul Singer, not only has he supported Trump's campaign both
in 2016 and, and his recent campaign for the presidency, and
he's also supported Trump's campaigns against his detractors
like Thomas Massie, but he's also a major, I think he's #7 in
the list of donors to Israel. So again, this demonstrates very
clearly the Israeli Zionist hand on on what is going on inside
Venezuela. I think the only other point I
would make is that people have gone on the streets and if we
remember in 2002 they kidnapped Chavez and there was a mass
uprising in Venezuela and and they basically gave Chavez back.
My inclination is to say under Trump, I don't think that's
going to happen personally. Yeah.
OK. Well, let's leave it there for
today. I'm going to say thank you very
much, Vanessa, for that has been a fascinating conversation.
The world is a rapidly changing place at the moment and it's a
lot change is largely being driven by our leaderships.
And so, you know, this, this as usual, you know, lots of people
don't quite grasp why international affairs are their
problem, but everything that's going on in this world is our
problem. And, you know, I think it's
naive to think if it's that they they're they're going to do that
to those countries, but they wouldn't do that to our own.
I think we're living through a pace of change in our own
country where people increasingly don't recognize it,
but they want to strike out at the, at the immigrant or at the
Muslim or whatever it happens to be.
And, and not focusing on who's, who's driving this, these
policies in the 1st place. I think we've always got to keep
an eye on who that is. I think the point is, if all
these independent countries are bought to heal and and
incorporated into the transnational ruling elite
complex, then we're next. That's without a doubt, because
then there's nothing standing in their way.
There's no distraction from focusing in on bringing their
own populations under control. Indeed, Thank you, Vanessa, and
thanks for joining me. Thank you.