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Radio War Nerd #88 — Iraq & Syria Wars, with Elijah Magnier (Patreon)

Published:
2017-06-13 16:14:27
Imported:
2026-06

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Content

Guest: Elijah Magnier, journalist

Elijah Magnier, chief correspondent for Al Rai, joins us from Damascus to help us make sense of the fast-moving developments in the wars in Iraq and Syria, and the cynical (and often insanely stupid) strategic thinking of the sponsors of these wars . . . 

Afterwards, the War Nerd talks about the DUP  and its violent, racist settler politics . . . 

Read Elijah Magnier's articles in English at his blog here 

Total time: 2:21:54

Direct link to this episode's mp3 here 

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Comments

realBriannaWu

Anyone know the name of the group in southern Syria that John was talking about at 26:00?

Avery

The town of al-Tanf. <a href="https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/06/08/world/middleeast/syria-drone-shot-down.html" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/06/08/world/middleeast/syria-drone-shot-down.html</a> Btw I'm so confused by this -- CIA was training its moderate rebels in Turkey in the past so that they wouldn't be invading Syrian territory. Now they have covert boots on the ground in Syria? What's stopping Russia from blowing them up?

Avery

I guess it's related to the ceasefire with the rebels that Elijah discusses.

xnfec

Excellent show! I would have liked you to have asked Elijah about the most recent chemical attack which resulted in Trump pretending to bomb that air field. I ask because in a previous episode someone said that sarin can only be delivered by air and it occurred to me that it must be impossible to fly in Syria without someone tracking you and possibly identifying you yet so far, no evidence has been presented which could settle the matter. Also, regarding the Russian intervention, I remember a time when the Russians seemed to be trying to co-operate with the West. For example, they did not use their veto in the UN to block the no-fly zone in Libya which was intended as a gesture to stop Gadaffi from bombing civilians in Benghazi and ended up as the means of assuring regime change. Earlier, Putin had met with Merkel and agreend to use his influence to secure the release of the Gas Princess in Ukraine. Qatar has pursued it's interests contrary to the Saudi/Gulf's interests before, notably in Egypt where it kept supporting Morsi and the Muslim brotherhood long after that particular stable door had closed. It would be good to hear where this rift will lead in the future.

xnfec

With just 2000 more votes in a few constiuencies, Corbyn would have won. The Labour executive fought a defensive campaign which looked to shore up votes in safe seats. For example, rather than send people to Battersea, they wanted people to go to Tooting which is super safe. Momentum organised and sent people to Battersea where Labour actually won. It looks like the executive wanted to lose so they could get rid of Corbyn. Other consituencies were begging for help but none came. In Kensington, I know of one guy who went out to a Student hall, grabbed 13 students and said "right, you're coming with me to vote!". Labour won there by 20 votes.

Tapan Pandita

Noon question, how do I get access to the RSS feed to use in my podcast app?

hispeedboats

I have been enjoying the new weird ambient music between segments.

Fercinha

If you are a subscriber you get it in the newsletter I think.

eh

Have you thought about doing an episode on the nationalist Chinese revolutions? I feel like they sort of get lost between the Boxer rebellion and the later conflicts between the communists and nationalists but what little I've read is fascinating, and there are some traditions from the left wing of the nationalists that it seems like the CCP picked up once the Kai-Shek faction won out and banned dual memberships and started the purges. The failure of the Boxers meant that they were explicitly setting out to be martyrs in something like the early Irish revolts in military formations called the "Dare to Die Corps", and the essay I read claimed there was a heavy participation of women, exemplifying it with Qiu Jin, who is a pretty interesting figure in her own right. If anyone has any book recommendations about the period I'd also be interested as my knowledge is extremely cursory.

grey

Hi Gary, Ive heard you mention that gulbuddin hekmatyar was once a maoist. As an Afghan the only thing like that i know like that was that he once murdered a maoist in kabul university. Im wondering if you know where i could look to find more info on that. Thanks.

AG

Me too!

AG

Amazing interview guys. Worth the subscription alone; so many blurry ideas about the Syrian war cleared up. Also on NI, not sure if John is aware from his time in NZ and Republican movement, but Australian history is really "interesting" on the intersection of British Protestant settler culture and Irish Catholic migration class with class and war, particularly from Federation (1901) to after the First World War. As a primer <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sectarianism_in_Australia" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sectarianism_in_Australia</a>

eh

Since you discussed the rhetorics of assigning equal guilt, any thought on the kind of people who move the discussion to specifics? I listened to an interview with Gary Kulik, whose book '"War Stories": False Atrocity Tales, Swift Boaters, and Winter Soldiers―What Really Happened in Vietnam' got some press, but his attempt to mask a quite obvious political agenda as a neutral "commitment to scholarship" really didn't impress me. By his own account the guy doesn't regret his service in Vietnam and still believes the US should have backed South Vietnam, but not militarily, and despite his claims that he wants to "attack both liberals and conservatives" (an impressively limited political spectrum) the bulk of his book seemed to deal with the antiwar stories, as he sets out to prove that a lot of the atrocity narratives can't be validated, with a special commitment to attacking Nick Turse for going against a more "nuanced" understanding of the war. What was entirely absent from the interview however was any discussion of the motivation behind the war happening in the first place or the "morality" of imperial conquest as the discussion was shifted to proving individual units actually did commit atrocities and some mention was made of US war crimes in WW2 (among others, "letting" North African colonial troops "rape their way up Italy", a pick with some obvious racist undertones), all to prove Vietnam was a "regular" war and no less moral than any other. That is, an attack on the fundamental character of the war is deflected by claiming that the war itself was more or less fought within the agreed rules of conduct, and makes the issue into a legal one by denying "criminal" conduct under the Geneva convention or the American military's own rules happened to a higher degree than elsewhere, something that might possibly be true in a legal sense but still leaves us with the massive civilian death toll in Southeast Asia and a war no one can give a justification for that would be accepted by anyone other than a dedicated cold warrior.

Carl Zha

I would envision this as the 1st episode on Chinese Civil War, it would start with the 1911 revolution to overthrew the Qing Empire, followed by Communist-Nationalist Cooperation forming Canton government and Northern Expedition against Beiyang Government in Beijing. Communist-Nationalist split, Forming of Chinese Red Army, establishment of Chinese Soviet, 1st Communist-Nationalist Civil War, then Long March. That would bring it up to the outbreak of Sino-Japanese War which should be cover in another episode. ..

Carl Zha

Haven't read the book, but it sounds like he is refering to aftermath of Battle of Monte Cassino in Italy. Moroccan Goumiers, colonial troops of the French Expeditionary Corps (FEC), commanded by General Alphonse Juin, committed mass rape against civilians. A Movie was made starring Sophia Loren about this incident. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marocchinate" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marocchinate</a>

eh

Sounds like a great set of potential episodes! Looking forward to it

eh

Oh I'm not doubting it happened (it would be weirder if it didn't, a little oldfashioned rape and pillage would probably be about the only way to motivate underpaid colonial troops lacking any personal or ideological commitment to the French state) but North African troops led by Frenchmen committing rapes while technically under American command is an odd example of an American crime, particularly when there have been some studies in recent years discussing the prevalence of rape in the American army in France and Germany. Mary Louise Roberts discusses how the liberation of France was sold to American soldiers by talking up the sexual availability and gratefulness of French women in "What Soldiers Do" and the lack of enforcement leading to an explosion in both prostitution and rape among young soldiers unmoored from any restraining factors.

Antoni Gumbau

When you talk about Paisley's show in the Europarliament, there's a 19th century turn in that when MEP Otto con Habsburg, the grandson of the last AustroHungarian emperor, punched Paisley in the face. Those Habsburgs....

Stefan

Yes! Can anyone advise whose music was played after the excellent interview with Elijah?

V. V.

RE: The civilian vs military leadership on eagerness to go to war, the Wehrmacht high command objected to more or less every belligerent move Hitler proposed from the remilitarization of the Rhineland to the attack on Poland. Most of them also weren't sold on the Fall Gelb plan for France and got it continually postponed for a while.