Spirit in Action

Arab Spring From the Streets & Conversations With Terrorists

Reese Erlich is an award winning journalist and author, and a frequent visitor to the Middle East over the past 10+ years. We start with a talk he gave at FNVW about Libya & Syria and the Arab Spring, and continue on to an visit with Reese addressing his goals in seeking out truth, starting from his organizing against Vietnam.

Duration:: 55m
Broadcast on:: 09 Mar 2014
Audio Format:: other

[music] Let us sing this song for the healing of the world That we may hear as one With every voice, with every song We will move this world along And our lives will feel the echo of our healing [music] Welcome to Spirit in Action. My name is Mark Helpes Me. Each week, I'll be bringing you stories of people living lives of fruitful service, of peace, community, compassion, creative action, and progressive efforts. I'll be tracing the spiritual roots that support and nourish them in their service, hoping to inspire and encourage you to sink deep roots and produce sacred food in your own life. Let us sing this song for the dreaming of the world That we may dream as one With every voice, with every song We will move this world along Today's Spirit in Action program will be in two parts, both with renowned and award-winning journalist Rhys Erlick Known for his first-hand analysis and reporting from many corners of the globe With special study of the on-the-ground reality in the Middle East Rhys dispels misinformation and tells it straight Rhys spoke recently in the Twin Cities, Minnesota Hosted by FNVW, friends for a non-violent world On the topic, Arab Spring in Egypt, Bahrain, and Syria We'll start off with that speech, then we'll get Rhys Erlick on the phone with some follow-up Get ready for no-nonsense, truly spin-free testimony about the continuing saga of the Arab Spring Including the best hopes for good outcomes in those areas I have been, in the last 18 months, doing a lot of coverage in the Middle East Going left to right, I was in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Gaza, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain And then Turkey, Iraq, and Syria And most of the coverage in Iraq and Turkey was about interviewing Syrian refugees, free Syrian army, fighters And various others involved in the opposition to Assad Tonight I'd like to talk about Libya and Syria And leave plenty of time for questions Because I know that's the most interesting part for me of these kind of talks I got to Syria after Qaddafi had been overthrown And supposedly the West had won, the people of Libya had liberated themselves from the horrible dictator And basically Libya had dropped out of the news The official story, if you listen to the Obama administration or the New York Times Or any of the people acting as the transmission belt for the people in power The people of Libya rose up against a hated dictator, Mughalar Qaddafi The fighting went on, and then it reached a critical point because the people of Benghazi were going to be slaughtered There was going to be genocide, humanitarian catastrophe And if you go back to the time, as I did, you can find statements by the opposition leader The head of their opposition coalition saying 500,000 people would be killed in Benghazi if the West didn't do something Well, 500,000 turned out to be half the population of Benghazi And while, yes, there was an attack pending, and yes, there would certainly have been civilian deaths There was no way that there was anything close to 500,000 people were going to be killed How do I know this? Because I went back and I interviewed people in Benghazi and I interviewed the fighters And they, maybe with a little bit of Braggadocia, said, "Well, we ought to flaunt them off completely" But there's no way that the kind of slaughter that the West claimed, it was the excuse It was the Tonkin Gulf made up story about it, with it got us into the Vietnam War It was the medical students in Grenada that were under threat You know, every time the U.S. intervenes somewhere, there's some excuse that makes it absolutely essential to do it Because lives are going to be lost, except for the fact that it's not true And that was the case in Benghazi, it was way exaggerated But the French, first the French, and then the U.S. came in And the U.N. resolution, in the case of Libya, was a very limited resolution That said the U.N. could take action to prevent a humanitarian crisis There's nothing in there that the U.S. could become the Air Force for the Libyan opposition Which is what it took There's the next seven months, the U.S. then proceeded to kill a lot of civilians I spend a lot of money, they claim they only spend, this is the sign of the times We only spend a billion dollars in Libya Which is a lie because what they did is they defined the money spent in a very, very narrow way Having to do with the immediate bombs and bullets and guns that they use It didn't count all the troops and destroyers that were off the shore, didn't count the radar, you know, basically There's a multi-multi-billion dollar operation And they also claimed it was a great success because no Americans died Well, there were special ops people, there were British and U.S. intelligence CIA on the ground We know that for a fact because they were bombing targets in Libya And how do you, you can't take some tailor or taxi driver who's Libyan and train him overnight To be a spotter for this kind of artillery and missile fire, et cetera They had American troops on the ground, they just weren't acknowledged And of course, they're not going to acknowledge any deaths either So the supposedly clean, less costly war for humanitarian reasons That's the Obama's administration's version of what a great success Iraq was going to be And what a great success Afghanistan was under Bush So, you know, when the Republicans invade and occupy countries, that's for our national interest Parenthesis oil When the Democrats invade and occupy countries, that's for human rights But as far as the people on the ground are concerned, it doesn't look a whole lot different You know, it's the same missiles and airplanes and troops and machine guns that both sides use They just, it's the justification that's different So the myth in Washington, and I would dare to argue, probably for most people in the country Is that Libya was a great success, not because the people of Libya particularly benefited But because it was done so cheaply and without American deaths, allegedly Not to find success The reality is that today, Libya, it has a prime minister, there were elections, there's a parliament, there's a prime minister But the real power in the country are the militias These were the militias that were armed by the United States And to some extent Qatar and France and other countries And never gave up their arms And they're aligning themselves with political parties So that you'll have warlord situations, it's either there or in the process of forming Depending on the party and the part of the country And there is no functioning national army of police When I was there, a dissident militia group took over the Tripoli airport Tripoli is the largest city, it's their main international airport Because one of their people had been arrested by another militia So they seized the airport in order to get their guy freed Now what did the government do? Did the government call out the police? Did they call out the army? No, because they haven't got any They called out their militias And their militias went out to either fight it out or negotiate with the militia who had taken out Now luckily in that particular case One militia negotiated with the other and they pulled out and the guy was freed And it was solved without gun check But another time I was there, there was a similar dispute between a militia That felt it hadn't gotten paid enough by the government And they besieged the prime minister's office And when they didn't get what they wanted, they just started shooting up the prime minister's office with machine guns Again, it was a big international incident at the time You may or may not have read about it at the time, but it's kind of faded from view And if this was an anti-US government in power, it would be called a failed state But since it's pro-US, it's an emerging democracy So you have to understand these distinctions if you're in Washington The next time we heard anything about Libya was after the horrific attack in Benghazi Where the US ambassador was killed The debate in the US media and the debate in the US government was Was this a spontaneous attack as a result of this racist anti-Arab video That was produced in LA and was on the internet, you remember that one? And therefore, people got mad and they attacked the consulate in Benghazi Or was this a terrorist attack? Remember that debate? And you were a dove if you thought it was spontaneous and you were a hawk if you thought it was a terrorist attack Now, what do we mean by a terrorist attack? Well, obviously, people came and they shot up the embassy, that's not in dispute But what that really means is this was some kind of a part of an international conspiracy By al-Qaeda or other unknown terrorists And that the Obama administration had really underestimated and hadn't provided enough security, Baba That's kind of a hard-line Republican view and some Democrats, but mostly from the Republicans The reality is very, very different Because first of all, there was never any evidence made available to show that this was anything other than a local attack This was not planned by anybody in Pakistan or the closest they have is after the event took place There was a phone call, allegedly, to someone in the al-Qaeda of the Maghreb Which is a group operating out of Algeria and that part of North Africa And for all we know it was like, "Hey, we did it, guys!" But there was no indication that there was pre-planning or anything else by some other groups Everybody acknowledges it was done by Libyan militias What came out in the process of these congressional hearings and other half-esitions, back and forth Is that in the consulate three-quarters of the diplomatic personnel in the U.S. consulate in Benghazi or CIA Three-quarters Now, what do consulates usually do? Consulates, they stamp. You want to be a tourist? Sure, I'd suggest San Francisco in New York If you've got time stamp, "Oh, you want to invest in business?" or "Here, here's a brochure" That's what consulates do But if three-quarters of your people are CIA, that should tell you something And what they were really doing, and this is my best informed speculation as it were The CIA was negotiating with the various militias Trying to win some over to our side, trying to isolate the ones that we don't like And they ticked off one of the militias, or one or more of the militias And they opportunistically took advantage of the situation to attack them Now, you notice that nobody's been apprehended for this And the guy who was the head of the militia that the U.S. accuses of leading the attack Was having coffee in Benghazi and was interviewed by a New York Times reporter So this should tell you something, that if, in fact, and I don't know this for fact But if, in fact, this guy or his militia was responsible for the killing of a U.S. ambassador You think the U.S. would go after him But the situation is so dicey for the U.S. in Libya that even in the face of a murder of an ambassador You can't go after certain militias because that would be too destabilizing And the U.S. would be even worse situation So I don't think anywhere you look at it, that defines victory The U.S. has, as a result of its actions, created a failed state And the people of Libya are very glad to see that Qaddafi is gone It's not like they liked him, it's not like I thought he was some kind of a great democratic leader or anything else He was forced for stability that he imposed with an iron fist And he was massively corrupt, massively corrupt But by intervening militarily in a situation where the people were rising up I'll be with difficulty against their own leader The U.S. introduced a new dynamic that made the situation much, much worse Syria, we're seeing a similar situation developing in Syria I've had a chance, I've been to Syria five times And I interviewed Assad twice My most recent trip was after the uprising, it was at the end of 2011 So it was after the uprising, but before the armed groups had become as much of a force as they are And since then I went back to the, to Antakia Turkey, which is in the southern part of Turkey More or less on a straight line with Aleppo, so it's right at the border So a lot of Syrians come back and forth And I was also up in Iraqi Kurdistan where the Kurdish forces are crossing back and forth into Syria So Syria has become extremely complicated, and I want to try to sketch out my views of what's happening there The uprising in Syria, like everywhere, like Egypt, like Tunisia, etc began as a spontaneous uprising of people without a particular religious or political agenda They wanted an end to the dictatorship Now it was not a Gandhian style, strategic non-violent movement, it never was The people, from the very beginning, when the police fired tear gas or came in to beat up crowds People threw rocks, they fought back, so it was not a Gandhian movement But neither was it armed struggle It was basically unarmed people marching very bravely in peaceful demonstrations out into the streets Often leaving from the mosques, starting on Fridays, who confronted horrific force by the Assad government And they defended themselves when they, when they could That movement lasted for roughly ten months And the Assad government brutally repressed its own people Some on the left like to argue that Assad was some kind of an anti-imperialist and a bulwark against Western influence, etc I think they're sadly mistaken Assad was a dictator to his own people He had a working accommodation with the Israeli government that was a peaceful border along the Golan He had done nothing to retrieve the Golan from the Israelis And the reforms that he made had nothing to do with bringing more people and having more representation from the people Or giving justice to the Kurds, but he did implement neoliberal reforms In other words, he took state-owned industries and privatized them to his cronies So they developed a cell phone industry in Syria Now, pretty much everybody's got cell phones or cell phones, all over the place The owner is his cousin, just one typical example So, ironically, the one set of reforms that he actually did push through Were very much in keeping with the kind of privatization, breaking unions, neoliberal policies That the US and the IMF and the World Bank push all over the world Which is one of the reasons, in the very beginning of the uprising, that the US and Israel, by the way, were very reluctant to support the opposition Because they knew Assad, that was the devil they knew And they didn't trust the uprising because they were afraid more militant forces might come to power And that is the irony of all of the Arab Springs Which is that if you had governments that were genuinely representative of the people If you could somehow wave a magic wand and you had free press and parliamentary fair parliamentary elections And all the other things that we attribute to a parliamentary system And it actually represented the people, they would be really anti-US They would be really pro-Palestinian They would want the Golan back, in the case of Syria They would want nationalized healthcare, they would want all the things that the US is opposed to So when the US and various others claim to be in support of all of these uprisings And claim to be for democracy, they don't really mean it They want strong men loyal to them to be in power They're not really interested in popular movements expressing their will in the region So, the popular movement developed in Syria At the same time Assad did have a certain amount of popular support I wrote some articles for the Christian Science Monitor You can see them on my webpage, especially in the beginning roughly the first six months The businessmen still supported him because he had done a lot of good things for wealthy businessmen And some of that had trickled down to other businessmen Although there was a split, the kind of bizarre merchants and the smaller business people were already Even at that time opposed to Assad Some of the Christians, some of the Shia Muslims And the Alawites is a separate religion That's many centuries back I split off from Shia Islam And the Assad family are Alawites But basically the large majority are Sunni Muslims in Syria But the other minority religions were worried Because a combination of Assad government spreading a lot of propaganda That if these Muslim extremists come to power, you're dead meat And some extremists in the opposition So there was this Saudi cleric who was broadcasting on satellite TV He came into Syria and he put forward the slogan "Christians to Beirut, Alawites to the Tabut" Which means to the coffin So the idea is you're going to get rid of or kill all the minorities in Syria And now obviously didn't go over real well It also didn't represent the views of the opposition But just like in this country, you can find a few extremists who are saying anything And suddenly blow up out of proportion And pretty soon you've got one ethnic minority Or religious group worried about what's the other really up to and so on So Assad was quite skilled at doing this And as the battle went on, and I write about him in my book Conversations with terrorists He was a secular dictator And he is a secular dictator That is, he wasn't ruling on religious grounds, he was a Pan-Arabist He came from his dad and he came from the old school of 50s and 60s Arab leaders Who were dictators but they were not basing their rule on religion But as the battle wore on, he could see that the Sunni Muslims were turning against him And Alawites and the Chias and Christians were backing him And he played the religion card and he played the ethnic card And people turned with unable to develop, there were no serious splits within the Syrian military And people turned to armed struggle So opposition groups took up arms And other powers started getting involved So I just came back from Saudi Arabia The Saudis are sending fighters into Syria The Turks are taking former military people, training them or putting them into special camps at least And then sending them back in to fight in Syria Qatar is funding some The US is supposedly giving non-lethal aid And the Europeans are supposedly giving non-lethal aid What does non-lethal aid consist of according to the Europeans? Oh, armored vehicles, bulletproof vests, helmets Now, if Iran was sending that to Syria or to Afghanistan or someplace Would we consider that non-lethal aid? I don't think so And besides which the US is lying through its teeth anyway Because what they're really doing is the CIA is along the border Vetting various guerrilla groups If they make the cut, then they tip off the Saudis and the folks from Qatar It's okay to give these guys arms So the US is arming that they're just not doing it directly It's through the back door US policy The US, according to Republicans, back to the Hawk vs Dub thing The Obama administration has just been diddling around They don't have a policy in Syria We should be arming the uprising We should be sending up a no-fly zone And we could have knocked Assad out of power months ago Well, that might be true, and then what? And the Obama administration are certainly no doves They're smart enough to know That you've got these competing factions Who do you are? You say, yeah, arm the rebels, who do you arm? Because there has been a development of this extremist trend A quick footnote here Sometimes we use the term Islamist or jihadis or whatever There are people who use Islam Who have ultra right-wing policies Using the cover Islam to put themselves in power That's who those folks are And they make no mistake about it The Muslim Brotherhood is right of center Groups like Al-Nusrah And other extremist groups are ultra right They're not leftists, they're not anti-imperialists They are right-wingers Who are based among Muslim capitalists That's their basic support On all kinds of issues from women to human rights To trade unions, you name it They have right-of-center views In fact, they line up much more closely with right-wing evangelical Christians In this country than they do with anybody else So make no mistake about it That these folks are right-wingers And you've got right-wingers and then ultra right-wingers And then out the lunch completely whack-o right-wingers If I may And then of course there are people Those are not the only folks in Syria You've got secular and leftist people who are involved They're simply not as strong as the conservative forces So the Obama administration was smart enough to know That to overtly supply arms were set up and no fly zone Could get the U.S. involved in yet another third war in the area Despite what they say publicly They know that Libya is a disaster And they could see another one coming in Syria But that doesn't mean they're doing nothing Or that what they are doing is arming the opposition by covert means And I had a really fascinating conversation in Istanbul, Turkey With the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood Which is probably the strongest of the various factions And what they told me, what they've said to others And I think is accurate I think they would be willing to participate in a parliamentary system And extend basic democratic rights to all Syrians In the sense of having a relatively free press Free campaigns for elections That doesn't mean a democracy And it means that they would want of course to be in power But that's a big difference from the ultra right-wingers Who say we need to caliphate where we're in power No elections, no parliament, no free press, et cetera So that's an important distinction And I asked this guy from the Muslim Brotherhood I said why hasn't the U.S. intervened so far? What's his view? And he says oh! Because they haven't found the right leader to back What the U.S. is waiting for is a Karzai or an al-Maliki That they can say aha! Here is the new knight in shining armor He supports free market policies And he won't be too nasty to Israel and blah blah blah blah And now we can finally intervene if they have some confidence That this guy is going to take power Or people around him, et cetera And they haven't found that And they're actually having a very hard time Because there's not a lot of Syrians with any popular base Who actually believe that So the fighting goes on What are some possible outcomes in Syria? Anybody who tells you they know what's going to happen They're blowing hot air, they're blowing smoke Because it's extremely complicated And the nature of the struggle has changed a lot Since the opening months And it's continuing to change all the time You have all these outside powers Each trying to back groups that they like I would say the best possible outcome Would be a defeat of Assad Some kind of a split in the military Where you don't have the general seizing power But they're willing to stay around And provide some kind of stability The Muslim Brotherhood and the secular forces and others Organize they have something approaching For parliamentary elections And the differences, the very real differences that exist Between the secularists, the leftists Right-wing and the ultra right-wing Muslim forces Can be resolved without shooting each other Without assassinations, without bombings, et cetera If that kind of a government could be established It would be a huge step forward Because it then allows some room for the secular forces to organize And we've seen in Tunisia and Egypt There are trade unions There is a small but active left in the Arab Spring They need room to organize Because they've been crushed by the dictators in their countries And then slapped upside the head by these conservative Muslim forces So they need time to organize and build a base So the option number one would be the most favorable For stability in the country For a general well-being of all Syrians And a chance for people to organize Another option could be Where the Muslim Brotherhood and the more right-wing forces Kind of coalesce They have a parliament But there's not any genuine civil liberties and human rights So their press is dominated by the parties in power The security forces have a heavy hand Whether it be the army and the secret service, et cetera, et cetera And you have a conservative but possibly pro-US Or at least willing to agree with the US on certain policies That they would be in power And then the third option and the least desirable would be a failed state Where the militias continue to fight each other Even after the government falls And they can't agree amongst themselves You have a great deal of instability And the greater likelihood of foreign intervention Particularly from Israel So I think those are the three possibilities I can't tell you which one is going to be Maybe you can bring me back next year if there were so good I am writing a new book on Syria So I'll be happy to come back and share my conclusions Based on future developments when that book comes out But just a final word Everybody had very high hopes for the Arab Spring when it took off Because in Tunisia the government fell very fast In Egypt the government fell very fast And then suddenly all it seemed like they were in Jordan and Syria And even in the Palestinians that were demonstrating Not against the government but for unity of Hamas And the West Bank leadership of Fatah So they were really very exciting times and a great deal of hope And I've talked to people and some people Oh my god, look at all the killing and mayhem And look what's going to happen in Syria But you know, look back at what happened in the 50s, 60s, 70s When there were anti-colonial struggles and anti-imperialist struggles Remember the old French Empire and the British Empire were collapsing? You know, you had some countries that had really positive steps forward You think about Algeria and Tunisia, you know, in Tunisia In 1958 they passed a women's rights law That among other things legalized abortion for women And a time in the United States when it was illegal You know, so the Tunisians were way ahead of us in women's rights At least in terms of what it was written in their laws So you know, there were lots of positive examples Ultimately South Africa and so on But there was also horrible failures You know, in some cases the anti-imperialist leaders like the Belgian Congo Was assassinated and horrible, dictators stepped in And there was run as a dictatorship Nigeria was a military dictatorship, you know So there were lots of newly independent countries that had failures That didn't live up to the anti-colonial hopes that people had But nobody suggests today that we have to go back to the colonial system But the Belgian should go back running in Congo However bad the Congo is, way better off than when the Belgians were running and so on And I think that's ultimately what history is going to say about the Arab advisers We don't know exactly how they're going to turn out what every country is going to look like But we're going to look back at this as a historic epic in which changes And it set the basis for positive change throughout the region Thank you all very much You were just listening to a presentation by award-winning journalist, Reese Erlich The topic, Arab Spring in Egypt, Bahrain and Syria Hosted by the friends for a non-violent world in the Twin Cities I'll get Reese on the phone for follow-up in just a moment But first, I want to remind you that this is spirit in action I'm your host, Mark Helpsmeet for this Northern Spirit Radio production On the web at northernspiritradio.org Where you can listen to and download almost eight years of our broadcasts You can also find links to our guests, like to Reese Erlich, at recerlich.com There's also a place at northernspiritradio.org to post comments And we'd love to hear from you, please do go to northernspiritradio.org Post a comment, while you're there, consider giving a donation We need your help to keep this service going We also want to encourage you to support your local community radio station A very important function, it's news and music that you get nowhere else So please do make a donation to help support your local community radio station Again, this spirit in action, right now we're going to go to the phones To speak with Reese Erlich, author of, among other books, Conversations with Terrorists Reese, I'm delighted to have you here today for spirit in action My pleasure to be here When do you have time to go over to Syria and to all the places around the Middle East Considering what you're talking and writing schedules like Well, it sounds like or may appear from the outside That just running around madly from country to country And never time to be home with my wife But the reality is, I make these trips for one, two, maybe three weeks at a time I come home, I write for several weeks And then we'll have a longer project, I'm working on a book on Syria And then I go back again So actually, as reporting goes, it's not terribly hectic schedule I usually go to a country, do the interviews, write some of the stories Finish them up when I come back and gonna get a little time off There's a lot that you said in your presentation you gave to the friends for non-violent world That I'd like to follow up on, but there's also just a whole lot of general questions I have About what the mission of your work is I mean, maybe it's to get a paycheck or maybe there's something larger than that Could you talk about what the overall ideas? Well, you know, I got into journalism I was an anti-vietnam war activist and a anti-draft activist and supporter of civil rights and so on Abby Hoffman once famously said that We organized demonstrations and then write about them So that's how I got my start in journalism It wasn't exactly balanced mainstream journalism, so-called objective and so on But I learned a lot from that and I learned the importance of actually looking into the best arguments of the other side As well as whatever particular views I have But I think my current mission, if you would, is to shine lights on parts of U.S. foreign policy That don't normally get illuminated, interview, and talk to people who don't normally get quoted Represent the views of ordinary people in a lot of these conflicts around the world You can leave the New York Times or watch the TV networks to find out what the elite and the top political and economic and business people think But all too often you don't hear what ordinary people think and that's what I would like to do I guess right in line with that I was wondering what you think is the view that's propagated by our media Some people, you know, the lamestream mainstream media, the left-wing media, the right-wing media People have different ideations about what it is How do you see media as functioning currently? Well, obviously you have to make a big distinction between popular media and the mainstream media Or whatever term you want to use to call them You know, people like New York Times and Washington Post, CNN, AP, etc Are corporate entities whose purpose is to make money They are very much subject, they both promote the views that come out of Washington and New York And are subject to pressure from the military, the politicians, the economic elite and so on And so you get a very narrow perspective on what's going on in the world if that's all you read Thanks to the internet, but even before that There's lots of alternative media, but there's lots of foreign media where you even get a very different perspective Even things like BBC or the Guardian and Britain They are mainstream media for their country But because they're not part of the American Empire, they're part of the British Empire They have a different perspective on things, for example going on in the Middle East Similarly, there's alternative media in the US Everything from India to a host of websites and aggregators and so on So it's possible with some work to triangulate and figure out by reading a number of different sources The mainstream media, the foreign media and the alternative media To kind of figure out what's really going on And then I like to do things that I like to get out and report events first-hand So that there's not reported by the mainstream media and usually out of the ability of alternative media To cover because it's too difficult or expensive or whatever That's where I can't fit in Do you think that there's been a change in journalistic standards since, you know, 30, 40, 50 years ago Walter Cronkite times to today? Or is it just a change in the times that's happened as well? You know, I actually am friends, I was friends with Walter Cronkite We worked together on about five projects And I had a chance to chat with him about the old days And I think it's a myth, frankly And let's take the 50s and 60s There were far fewer media, there were three national television networks, two wire services And they pretty much went in lockstep You look at the coverage of the coup against the Shah I'm sorry, it brought the Shah the power in 1953 against the democratic government in Iran You look at the beginnings of the Vietnam War Pretty much any US military adventure abroad was widely supported in the media And actually it was more difficult to get out of alternative view Because there were fewer media willing to criticize the US government But somehow that's been turned into the golden age of American media And it's true, there wasn't as much celebrity coverage Or at least it was isolated to like movie fan magazines It wasn't mainstream news to figure out who was sleeping with who And who was having a mental breakdown this week in Hollywood So there's a lot more tabloid style news that's made into the mainstream media But that's kind of a secondary factor The main problem with the media, the distortion of coverage of labor People of color, of gays, of women, of what's going on with wars abroad All of that, I don't think it's fundamentally changed We tend to forget that Walter Cronkite was a supporter of the Vietnam War Right up until the Tet Offensive And when he made his famous commentary on CBS He didn't say the war is lost or the US has to pull out of Vietnam He said it seems to be a stalemate in the Quagmire Which was probably accurate at the time and had a huge impact But it was not some kind of radical statement against the Vietnam War When I spoke with him later in life, he wishes he had said more against the war earlier But he was pretty much captured by the same thinking in Washington and New York That everybody else was at that time In some ways, because there's more diversity of views and ability to get out views and quicker time today I think this is a very exciting time in terms of media One of the things that I've been impressed by when I've heard you speak is You don't allow for many sacred cows You can say, yeah, the liberals, they're looking like this And they've got this dirt on their nose and the conservatives have this And they've got their head in this place where the sun don't shine You seem to be an equal opportunity truth seeker And when you talk about shining light on, is it also some kind of pursuit of truth specifically? Yeah, to the extent that I can, I let the chips fall where they may You know, a lot of people, including myself, voted for Obama Because we thought the Republican alternative was a disaster But that doesn't mean you look uncritically therefore what Obama is doing I mean, basically Obama's foreign policy is a continuation of what Bush was doing in his second term Not the first term where the neocons were in power, but the second term where the so-called realists were doing So Obama has actually expanded the drone attacks He continues all the repressive policies from Guantanamo Keeping it open to serving the right to torture, the CIA can torture not the army The right to kill American citizens anywhere in the world if they're declared an enemy combatant All this bogus stuff completely violates the constitution that people were outraged when Bush was doing it Obama is continuing, so yeah, when the liberals engage in war and illegal and unconstitutional activities They have to be as criticized and as heavily if not more so than the conservatives In your talk that you gave at the Friends for Nonviolent World presentation One of the things you said is one of the parties over in the Middle East I don't remember if it was in Syria or whether it was in Libya That that party was more or less equivalent of Evangelical Christians Or maybe fundamentalist Evangelical Christians in this country Obviously we've seen the rise of the Evangelical right in this country over the last 30 years Has it been the similar growth in those countries? A lot of them were secular democracies at one point Yeah, I think the analogy I make because I think a lot of people in the US are not familiar with Islam So we get a lot of propaganda about Muslim fundamentalists and terrorists And creating all of Islam with terrorism or the myths that the Shia and Sunni have been fighting each other for centuries And therefore what can we do when we get involved in these places And there's just all these age old conflicts that are rising to the surface and blah blah blah This is all the logic of people who have managed to muck up and interfere with and destroy lives and cultures in the Middle East And the result is a disaster and so you have to come up with some kind of an excuse to justify it What I was saying was that a good way to think about Islamic movements is the same way you would think about Christian movements In Europe, South America you have Christian Democrats Christian Democrats are generally allied with the Vatican They carry out the social policies and hold the social views of the Catholic Church You have evangelical Christians who believe deeply in God but have a social mission You have evangelical Christians who are extreme right-wingers And you have some who kill abortion doctors who engage in terrorist activities Islam is no different It's all done in the name of Islam but just because somebody kills an abortion doctor in the name of Jesus Doesn't make him a Christian and someone who blows up civilians in the name of Islam is not a Muslim So I think that's the point I was making about the role and on a political level Conservative Islamists have much more in common with conservative Christians than they do with secular forces So if you kind of scratch away some of the rhetoric look at the attitudes towards women Which is basically their right should be limited, they should not have the right to abortion There should be limits or controls on divorce and child custody and so on If you look at the role of who should run the society Islamic capitalists That's what these conservative Muslims believe in Christian capitalists are on the other side In other words, you go down a whole series of lists of political stands They actually have a lot in common One of the points that you mentioned in previous question I think it was You mentioned about Guantanamo that essentially Obama has continued the previous policies about Guantanamo I find that to be true also and it's been something I've been critical about But I also in doing some checking I finally found a case where President Obama made the comment that You know he really wants to close it down but that they're not letting him They can't in order to close Guantanamo you have to relocate things somewhere else Have you heard this from the inside? Have you heard politicians talking clearly about this? It doesn't seem to be get the front pages in any case No, I think that's true I think you remember his first day in office President Obama signed a paper that was going to close Guantanamo And then there was an immediate reaction from the right in the Republicans Who basically never accepted his election in the first place Who then threatened legislation to bar people from Guantanamo to be held in the United States And basically the Obama administration backed down But you learn a lot about a president whether it's Bush or Clinton or Obama By the issues they're willing to really fight hard on You know the easy issues don't tell you much The ones where they can get passed with relative ease But obviously on the case of healthcare Obama went to the mat on that And it was a very close fight and a very close vote and a Supreme Court decision Et cetera cetera, but he came out triumphant By basically placing all his bets and pushing and pulling out all the stops to make that happen He didn't do that with Guantanamo They made a decision that it wasn't worth it That the principle involved here was not worth a big fight And I think that was a mistake And it tells you a lot about what his weak commitment to civil liberties is I'm particularly interested in religious and spiritual issues as relates to whatever's going on in the world And obviously in the Middle East there's a significant element of that One of the things that you talked about in terms of the dictators in the region Like Assad for instance is a secular dictator As opposed to a religious dictator like maybe Iran has So my question is from your perspective what you've seen in the world What's your perspective on whether a religious or a secular dictator is better or worse? You know a dictator is a dictator man But if you do it in the name of Christianity or you do it in the name of Islam Or you do it in the name of some kind of secular principles or a dictator is a dictator I think what Assad you have to understand why when the Arab Spring broke out in 2011 Assad confidently predicted that there would be no uprising in his country Because he was a staunch opponent of Israel in support of the Palestinians And he was a Pan-Airist and a nationalist and his country was going to be immune From Arab Spring uprisings like at that point had happened in Tunisia and Egypt Well how wrong can you be? This country has been in war for two years now The particularities of the dictatorships depending on how they operated Might determine how difficult it is to overthrow them So I've talked to Iranian people opposed to the Iranian government And especially in the 80s from 79 to the 80s It was really hard to oppose the clerics because they had not only the traditional tools of a dictatorship You know repression and jail and torture etc But they had the ideological backing of the Islamic clerics who basically made it a sin to oppose the government They didn't use that terminology But ideologically it was very difficult to organize people during that period Now that has changed and particularly in 2009 when there were massive demonstrations There were breakthroughs against their clerks and the military and the intelligence services that run that country But when you know push comes to shove the dictatorship of a Mubarak, of a harmony and Iran, Assad and Syria are no different The point you make though about the tools that you have I guess whenever you got the mass populace from the pulpit or from a significant place of influence in this society Able to push people in a certain direction I guess you're saying that it does enhance the power of the dictatorship Sure, and the dictatorship will always, a secular dictator will always try to get religion on his side If you can't look at the current controversy about the Pope and he's from Argentina There was a dirty war, it was a coup by the generals Argentina ran a horrible right wing dictatorship, torturing people, drugging them and shoving them out of planes kidnapping their kids and raising them as their own It was horrible human rights crimes Where was the Catholic Church? Most of the bishops supported the dictatorship They had close ties with the military And the dictatorship in turn could claim Catholicism as an ideological backstop You know, this is all very well documented So even secular dictators or people were kind of mildly involved in religion, if you will Use religion, if they think it's helpful One of the things that you mentioned along the way, talking about Syria Even though their protest started out peaceful They responded with rock throwing to tear gas So it wasn't a Gandhian form of nonviolence is what you said I interviewed someone year to ago I'll also happen to present at Friends for Nonviolent World Alfred Jalabi and her uncle, she's from Syria, her uncle is one of the proponents of nonviolence And I think actually Gandhian nonviolence And he's been one to interpret it for that society How much did those elements present themselves? Was it just a minor part of the resistance movement there? Or what did you see on the ground? I didn't see any signs of that, of a Gandhian style nonviolent movement I have tremendous respect for people who can have that kind of discipline And are able to actually organize people along those lines But it also runs counter to much of the common thinking Certainly in the Middle East, I would argue in much of the world Which is most people are perfectly happy to start off in a peaceful march or demonstration or rally And if it's not a tack, they keep it peaceful But if they're a tack, most people are going to try to defend themselves if they're able to And I make no claim to have done like widespread survey or talk to a lot of you I just think of the people I talk to who are involved in the opposition, both Muslim, Brotherhood and other Islamic forces As well as their kind of secular and left and progressive people who were active at that time I didn't know anybody who was committed to a Gandhian style of nonviolent tactics Can we talk a little bit, Reese, about your views, your opinions You were opposed to Vietnam War, did you file as a CEO back then, were you on that side of the thing, or was it just a specific war? It was better than that, I volunteered to go and help organize soldiers against the Vietnam War And for some reason, they rejected me It was a very famous case, we set up a picket line, I was called down to the induction center, this was 1968 At that time, I hadn't even turned 21 yet We had set up a picket line in the rally and I went in and I was interviewed by the news media by phones From inside the induction center, it was front page news in the San Francisco Chronicle They decided they didn't want me to go in to the military I was a leader of the anti-Vinam War and anti-draft movement at that time The military was having enough problems as it was And I continued, I served my country nobly during the war period by any opposing war What did that grow out of? I think you mentioned in your talk the whole way that they manufactured a reason why we had to go into Vietnam Was it because this stuff was all crooked from behind the scenes, or are there higher moral imperatives that you're following? Well remember that the revelations about Tonkin Gulf not really being attacked on US warships didn't come out until the Pentagon Papers And that was many years later, so at the time in the 60s, certainly as best as I can remember People accepted that there had been some kind of an incident, but that it was then overplayed by the US And it was not an excuse to go to war Only later did we find out that the whole thing had been made up It was a combination of a moral imperative and a political imperative Morally what the US was doing in Vietnam was in my view no different than what was happening with Jim Post segregation in the south Which was happening to women and so on And then politically it was part of a much wider movement that was developing in the 60s That I was very excited about and very young and very naive and very committed all at the same time It was a wonderful era And did that come out of some part of your background where you just raised a liberal family or a religious family? No it wasn't a religious decision at all, I was raised Jewish and was by Mitzvah and confirmed And by 1967 when the Israeli Arab War broke out I had my first break with Zionism and I said this is not right And of course it freaked out my parents and the rabbi and the rabbi took me for counseling and didn't do any good And this is a major leading liberal rabbi and ally at the time So it wasn't a religious based opposition, it was political and what humanists did moral objections Does that mean you do or don't continue to practice your Jewish? No I've been atheist since shortly after my bar mitzvah It's uh yeah I just I haven't believed in God for a long time I have tremendous respect in those people who do believe in God who then carry out teachings to help the poor To oppose war, you know carry out the teachings of their religion in a way that adheres to the original tenets of that religion Which I believe is at their core as peace I have nothing but disgust for those who use religion and their belief in God to justify war and oppression So when you go over to the Middle East I mean majority Muslim obviously there I guess you don't carry a badge saying you're Jewish or we're Jewish Number one do you find problems with rejection? Obviously there's a lot of people who maybe for some very just reasons have a hate on towards Israel Do you find sources there that you can trust or not trust? Or does this religious mix there make most people very not very trustworthy, too biased? No, it's interesting most of the time people don't even ask it's not even an issue It's a much bigger deal than I'm an American and I'm an American reporter And they people make certain assumptions based on that If they're in government or business leaders They assume that as an American reporter I must share the foreign policy views of the United States If they're ordinary people they have the same assumption I can explain fairly briefly that I don't support Obama's policies or Bush agencies depending on what Aaron was talking about And they're presently surprised in fact they want to get into a discussion about well why is the US always supporting Israel? Why did the US invade Iraq and so on? And they actually open up to me because they would love American people to hear what their views are Speaking of talking to folks over there conversations with terrorists, that's a nice provocative name I congratulate you on picking that up How many Americans have threatened to stone you or burn you at the stake or whatever Because you're talking to terrorists isn't that beyond the pale? Well I think none of my knowledge The book is an ironic title because when you read the chapters actually none of the people possibly with one exception Well actually none of the people are currently terrorists and you could argue whether they were ever terrorists But I include some kind of usual subjects like Khalid Michelle who's the head of Hamas who certainly has been accused of engaging in and supporting assassinations and blowing up civilians and so on But I also include Dula Cohen who's name may not be familiar with your listeners but she's very well known in Israel She was a member of Lechke or the Stern Gang in the period prior to the 1948 formation of Israel And they openly engaged in terrorist activities including blowing up Arab civilians and committee massacres that they had seen and a bunch of other things like that not to mention killing British soldiers and diplomats And she continued to be a supporter of the right wing, the ultra right wing settlers movement in the 70s and onwards You can make an argument that she's a terrorist but nobody of course in Israel are certainly not in the United States where to accuse any Israeli leader of being a terrorist that's beyond the payoff because the whole definition of what the terrorists has become convoluted and basically today in the United States it means if you use violence and oppose the United States you're a terrorist if you use violence and support U.S. goals well then you're a freedom fighter that's the functioning definition One of the things I'm curious about Reese is having had a ringside seat in all of these countries and some wars that look a little bit more noble in their outcome or their intent you made a comment about World War II that that probably would be one you could fight for Scott Simon who was Quaker or maybe still is Quaker I'm not sure he created a little bit of a stir in the late 90s early 2000s when he declared that he was no longer so clear that no wars were good what he saw happen in Yugoslavia convinced him that you know sometimes you got to go in there with the bombs or the guns or whatever so have your views changed about war because of the ringside seat you've had? Actually no this is something I've been pretty consistently looking at since at least I was a teenager I've never been a pacifist I believe that there are circumstances in which it's legitimate for a country to defend itself to this one individual World War II was an example that I would not cite Yugoslavia which was basically a war by imperial powers to give Yugoslavia for their own interests which then the subsequent violence was used by opportunist leaders on all sides to create horrible war crimes etc but you notice you don't hear a lot about it there's still US troops stationed in the Balkans and in Yugoslavia and they're probably going to be there permanently so we're kind of a great piece and solution is that if not one done for the imperial powers but I think World War II was different if we wanted to discuss a greater length we could but had I been alive in a fighting age during World War II I certainly would have fought there although not necessarily agreeing with every decision made by the US military or political leaders but on the whole it was a trust war So you've got awful lot of good writings out there including conversations with terrorists what's on the horizon for you? Finally researching a book on Syria hopefully will be out next year depending a lot on what actually goes on in Syria it's very hard to write about stuff as history is being made but I'm researching the history of Syria looking at the various groups fighting Assad the kinds of people supporting Assad and the book will hopefully be out next year so for you listeners out there if you want to follow up on research like you can go to his website it is reeserlik.com pretty simple if you know how to spell Erlik you can also follow the link from NortonSpiritRadio.org in any case he's got some words of wisdom some valuable insights from the streets of the Middle East and I guess from those in America too Rees your talk was great any talk I've heard you give was great I really appreciate you taking the time to be with me here today for Spirit and Action Thank you for having me The theme music for this program is Turning of the World performed by Sarah Thompson This Spirit and Action program is an effort of Northern Spirit Radio you can listen to our programs and find links and information about us and our guests on our website northernspiritradio.org Thank you for listening I am your host Mark Helpsmeet and I welcome your comments and stories of those leading lives of spiritual fruit May you find deep roots to support you and grow steadily toward the light This is Spirit in Action With every voice, with every song We will move this world alone With every voice, with every song We will move this world alone And our lives will feel the echo of our healing [MUSIC PLAYING]