Useful Idiots
Politics • Comedy
“Rampage in Syria” – Dennis Kucinich and Joshua Landis on Massacres Under New Al Qaeda Gov’t
What happens when the US forces regime change
March 14, 2025
post photo preview

Subscribe for the full episode at the bottom of the page. Watch a free preview here:

“There have been widespread massacres along the coast of Alawites,” reports Professor Joshua Landis, Director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma. “This is a religious minority in Syria. They're also the community that backed Bashar al-Assad's regime. Most of the top officers in his security forces and intelligence service were Alawites. And so for that reason, the entire Alawite community has been labeled as guilty and is accused by these Jihadi militias of being guilty.”

We don’t show the videos coming out of Syria this week in this episode, but Professor Landis describes the disturbing footage he’s seen.

“They just slaughtered every Alawite male they could find along the coast. And not just men, although the vast majority were men. But in many instances, entire families were killed in their apartments. And we have a number of videos of mothers showing you their kids and their entire household who have been shot. A hundred and forty people were just slaughtered in the main town on the roads and the square. And you can see just horrible videos.”

The narrative that we've been told in the west is that regime change is necessary to promote democracy around the world. But, Landis explains, though many Syrians justifiably hated the Assad government, the results of US foreign policy make things worse.

“Americans believe that when they overturn dictatorships, they're going to get a democratic outcome. We convinced ourselves of this in Iraq, in Libya, in Afghanistan, that we could somehow mold these societies in our own image. And we've discovered that time and time again: we're wrong. And what has happened throughout the Middle East, whether it's the Taliban or Al-Qaeda or ISIS, is you're going to get these extremist militias.”

We’re also joined by former Congressman Dennis Kucinich, who has visited Syria over a dozen times and studied its history.

“This was so predictable,” he says of this week’s massacres. “The US has been involved for thirty years in an effort to take over Syria.” Kucinich explains the US role in Syria since his time serving in Congress, when he saw firsthand how Bush administration officials focused on helping Israel by employing disruption tactics throughout the Middle East.

“The ongoing humanitarian crisis and severe sectarian violence in Syria are direct outcomes of policies dating back to the Clean Break doctrine of 1996, by a D.C. think tank which counseled Benjamin Netanyahu.”

Share

“The Clean Break doctrine laid the groundwork for aggressive policies toward Syria which emerged through an effort coordinated by the Bush White House as several authors of the Clean Break strategy ascended to federal government policy-making positions.” And as always, this was a bipartisan strategy. “The "Clean Break" approach was further advanced by Hillary Clinton, who, as Secretary of State, together with CIA Director David Petraeus, proposed arming Syrian rebels.”

This, Kucinich explains, led to the CIA’s plot to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad, replacing him in 2024 with a new al-Qaeda-led government.

Subscribe for the full interview with Dennis Kucinich in which he recounts his trip to Syria with now-Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, what Elon Musk should be doing with DOGE, and how he would end America’s debt crisis.

Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Aaron Maté DEMOLISHES Rabbi Schmuley on Piers Morgan

Thanks for supporting independent media. Subscribe for the full episode here:

Only for Supporters
To read the rest of this article and access other paid content, you must be a supporter
0
What else you may like…
Videos
Posts
Articles
Sanctions Are a Form of Warfare

“Sanctions are a form of war. They’re economic warfare. And they destroy people’s lives.”

Joshua Landis (https://twitter.com/joshua_landis), Sandra Mackey Chair in Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, is one of the foremost experts on Syria. This week, as Syria, along with neighbor Turkiye, grapples with the aftermath of the devastating earthquake, Professor Landis joins the Useful Idiots to explain the deadly consequences that sanctions pile on to the damage.

“America likes to talk about all its precision bombing and hitting someone with a drone to avoid collateral damage,” Landis explains. “But sanctions? It’s all about collateral damage. Very little of it is targeted.”

But if you read corporate media outlets like the New York Times or Washington Post, you’d find a much different story. Both papers this week published headlines that were hastily changed when they realized they were being a little too truthful. See if you can tell the difference:

The ...

00:01:17
"Shameful" New York Times Changes Headline to Protect Sanctions

“Sanctions are a form of war. They’re economic warfare. And they destroy people’s lives.”

Joshua Landis (https://twitter.com/joshua_landis), Sandra Mackey Chair in Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, is one of the foremost experts on Syria. This week, as Syria, along with neighbor Turkiye, grapples with the aftermath of the devastating earthquake, Professor Landis joins the Useful Idiots to explain the deadly consequences that sanctions pile on to the damage.

“America likes to talk about all its precision bombing and hitting someone with a drone to avoid collateral damage,” Landis explains. “But sanctions? It’s all about collateral damage. Very little of it is targeted.”

But if you read corporate media outlets like the New York Times or Washington Post, you’d find a much different story. Both papers this week published headlines that were hastily changed when they realized they were being a little too truthful. See if you can tell the difference:

The ...

00:01:24
Free preview: Matt Taibbi Exposes Russiagate Bots

With Matt Taibbi’s Twitter Files and Jeff Gerth’s new in-depth reporting for CJR exposing the years of lies spread by Russiagaters, bitter attacks from outed journalists are rolling in.

Gerth and Taibbi, who come from the old style of journalism where you fact check your work and don’t accept government officials’ claims on faith, have each shown clear, indisputable evidence of disinformation campaigns pushed by corporate reporters. And since the so-called journalists can’t argue the facts, they dig themselves a deeper hole with more lies and name-calling.

Jeff Gerth has been working as a reporter for decades and published, in the very mainstream Columbia Journalism Review, a 20,000-word report on his findings, only to be called a liar and misdirecting magician in the most self-important article by Mother Jones’ David Corn (“The true media failure is that Trump got away with it and that articles like this one that you are now reading are still necessary.”) And possibly worse ...

00:54:34

Emphasized "Dancing with 88

I have altered space here—   to

a rupture in the silent fabric,

where every atom reclaims its song.

A change, seen on my 90° angle,

becomes the pivot of a daring ballet,

the precise intersection where fate unspools.

In that crisp right-angle lie the secrets

of all absorbed twilight and reborn dawns,

a moment where geometry becomes prophecy,

transmuting static lines into dynamic rhythms,

inviting the cosmos to twirl in unexpected arcs.

And then—

I find myself dancing with 88,

a numeral of resonance, a muse of mystery.

It whispers in binary beats,

each pulse a portal leading into

symphonies scribbled on the canvas of space-time.

This is no choreographed routine,

but a wild, liberated waltz

where dimensions bend and merge—

where the old order crumbles

under the heat of relentless transformation

and every step unearths a layer of being.

At that 90° juncture,

the universe unfolds like a secret map,

revealing uncharted realms in every fracture,

while 88 becomes the score for a cosmic ballet,

...

Has the Gaza Pier Been Beached? | Army Watercraft come ashore off Gaza and Israel

March 26, 2024

Good to be part of the community. I think that Aaron and Katie do a brilliant job in these hellish times when such great in - depth research and reporting are essential.

post photo preview
Laura Ingraham Wants to Rip Abdul El-Sayed's Tight, Communist Shirt Off and Yell At Him All Over
Plus: "A Jew can't make a book deal!" says a Jew who got a book deal

Fox News is getting hot and bothered over Abdul El-Sayed’s $32 million upset in the Michigan Senate race. Laura Ingraham tries to keep her cool while playing video of “the socialist dreamboat” working out, describing his “gym-rat flex and his tight-fitting black tee.”

Will voters really fall for it? she asks, attempting to maintain her trademark smug sarcasm, but bursting from underneath the facade is something else…

Only for Supporters
To read the rest of this article and access other paid content, you must be a supporter
Read full Article
post photo preview
Rahm Emanual Stands Up to Zohran Mamdani in a Fake Story He Made Up About His Terrorist Dad
Plus, Energy Secretary Chris Wright says don't blame data centers for record-high electricity prices. Blame Obama.

Rahm Emanuel (whose father was an Israeli terrorist), completely SCHOOLED Zohran Mamdani! He says he walked right up to Zohran and said “I’m my father’s son,” (his father being an Israeli terrorist) “and when you chant ‘From the river to the sea,’ I say ‘Over my dead body!’”

Wow, wow, powerful! Zohran must’ve been very afraid!

One problem: Zohran has never said ‘From the river to the sea.’ He’s been pushed to many times, but has never said it.

And another, slightly bigger problem: Mamdani and his office claim this meeting between him and Emanuel never actually happened. Rahm made it up.

But luckily, not everything there was a lie: Rahm’s father really was an Israeli terrorist.

Only for Supporters
To read the rest of this article and access other paid content, you must be a supporter
Read full Article
post photo preview
Arrest Zohran? Israeli Ambassador Embarrasses Himself when Confronted on Latest Threat
Plus, Sean Hannity is now crying about an antisemitism problem...in Hollywood?

After NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani released a video this week calling for the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Ambassador Danny Danon took to corporate media with what he thought would be the slyest comeback: “Why don’t you arrest Mamdani instead!”

It immediately failed miserably.

Only for Supporters
To read the rest of this article and access other paid content, you must be a supporter
Read full Article
See More
Available on mobile and TV devices
google store google store app store app store
google store google store app tv store app tv store amazon store amazon store roku store roku store
Powered by Locals