Ray
McGovern on Wikileaks, Israel and the Syrian crisis
Via
Facebook
On
Sept. 8, RT International interviewed Ray on Julian Assange’s new
book, “The WikiLeaks Files: The Way the World Sees the US Empire.”
The
book relies largely on U.S. diplomatic cables shedding light on U.S.
policy and actions in the Middle East, including Syria. So far, the
book has been published only in Australia and the UK.
Ray
hazarded a (pretty safe) guess with respect to what this new light
that WikiLeaks shines on U.S. policy in Syria might reveal. He
pointed to a NYT article of Sept. 6, 2013 in which bureau chief Jodi
Rudoren, apparently inadvertently, gave the game way.
Asking
prominent Israelis what Israel’s preferred outcome in Syria is,
Rudoren was somewhat take aback to hear that, for the Israelis, the
best outcome for Syria’s two-and-a-half-year-old civil war, is no
outcome. Rudoren quoted Alon Pinkas, former Israeli consul general in
New York:
“This
is a playoff situation in which you need both teams to lose, but at
least you don’t want one to win — we’ll settle for a tie ...
Let them both bleed, hemorrhage to death: that’s the strategic
thinking here. As long as this lingers, there’s no real threat from
Syria.”
Rudoren
commented that, for Jerusalem, the status quo, horrific as it may be
from a humanitarian perspective, seems preferable to either a victory
by Mr. Assad’s government and his Iranian backers or a
strengthening of rebel groups, increasingly dominated by Sunni
jihadis.
Getting
the neocons of Establishment Washington to go along with that? No
problem. Did no one think there might be a mass exodus of
refugees?
Here’s the YouTube link to the (taped) 12-min. interview of Ray on Tuesday.
https://www.youtube.com/watch…
Here’s the YouTube link to the (taped) 12-min. interview of Ray on Tuesday.
https://www.youtube.com/watch…
What
Julian Assange said the following day, speaking to RT’s 'Going
Underground' host Afshin Rattansi, supports (happily) Ray’s guess.
Assange, basing his comments on U.S. diplomatic cables, indicated
that the U.S. planned to:
“...foster
tensions between Shiites and Sunnis. In particular, to take rumors
that are known to be false... or exaggerations and promote them –
that Iran is trying to convert poor Sunnis, and to work with Saudi
and Egypt to foster that perception in order to make it harder for
Iran to have influence, and also harder for the government to have
influence in the population.”
Assange
stressed that this particular cable was “quite concerning,”
adding that while you often have to read between the lines in cables,
“its all hanging out” in that one.
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