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memri
Oct 13, 2015
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MEMRI Vice President Alberto Fernandez: We Need an Alternative to ISIS and the Al-Assad Regime

#5151 | 04:36
Source: Al-Jazeera Network (Qatar)

In an Al-Jazeera TV show, MEMRI Vice President Alberto Fernandez said that both ISIS and Bashar Al-Assad's regime were criminal regimes and that an alternative to these two bad choices was needed. Speaking on Al-Jazeera's "Opposite Direction" show on October 13, Fernandez said: "A tyrant must not be replaced by another tyrant." Also participating in the show was Swedish-based Iraqi researcher Nuri Al-Muradi, who said that ISIS was not a terrorist organization and that Bashar Al-Assad was engaged in freemasonry.


Following are excerpts:


Moderator: Didn't the terrorists reach the heart of America before, and destroy its towers? Isn't there a consensus, even among Arab countries that oppose the Syrian regime, that confronting ISIS must take precedence over confronting Assad? Most of them participate in the anti-ISIS U.S.-led international coalition, don't they? Have the Arab peoples staged revolutions only to replace a Fascist, secret-service regime like the Syrian regime with a religious Fascist regime like that of ISIS? Wasn't America right in its decision that fighting ISIS takes precedence over fighting the Syrian regime? What have our peoples gained from these filthy ISIS zombies, someone has asked.


I will present these questions to Iraqi questions to Iraqi researcher Nuri Al-Muradi, who is with me, here in the studio, and to Mr. Alberto Fernandez, in Washington DC, Vice President of the Middle East Media Research Institute.


[…]


Alberto Fernandez: Bashar Al-Assad is an archmurderer and a catastrophe – for whom? For the Syrian people. He concentrates on the Syrian people.


[…]

The Bashar Al-Assad regime is a criminal regime, and ISIS is also a criminal regime. This is the reality. Countries like the U.S. and countries in the West and in the Middle East react in different ways [to ISIS], according to their interests, priorities, and so on. This is only logical.


[…]


Nuri Al-Muradi: They have ganged up against ISIS and not against Bashar Al-Assad, because Bashar Al-Assad is their student and their guard dog. He is the ugly miniature-scale model of themselves.


[…]


Bashar Al-Assad has converted to freemasonry, and he is currently the head of one of the lodges. The only reason that he does not practice the freemason rites is that he is in a state of war.


[…]


Is that he is in a state of war.


[…]


Alberto Fernandez: ISIS says that the Assad regime is Zionist, and the Assad regime says that the ISIS is Zionist. What about personal accountability? I think that the Arabs, the Arab regimes, and terrorist organizations like ISIS are perfectly capable of "creative anarchy" all by themselves. They don't need America, people from the Moon, Jews, Christians, or anyone else. This is one of the reasons for the problems and catastrophes in the Middle East: There is no personal accountability. Always blaming the others. The Arabs do not see themselves in the mirror. Bashar Al-Assad is 100% Arab production. He is the product of the Arab Baath Party. This is only natural. If the Arabs do not acknowledge that in essence, that the catastrophes lie with them, with their history, in their practices, they will never emerge from this trap.


The same people who cursed the U.S. for its military intervention in Iraq are shedding crocodile tears today in favor of an American military intervention in Syria. I don't understand these double standards. I too am a refugee, but my people's suffering the diaspore did not lead the U.S. to attack Cuba. Those [Syrian] refugees and displaced people are lucky to have the compassion, openness, and solidarity of the West – the same West that you are cursing, calling it "Zionsit," "Freemason," "infidel," and so on… The West has tried to help these innocent people, but helping refugees does not mean that the West should start a war elsewhere.


[...]


Nuri Al-Muradi: ISIS has emerged as a result of the injustice from which the region has suffered, and a divine decree about the establishment of a caliphate. This is fate.


[…]


Moderator: Is ISIS a terror organization or not?


Nuri Al-Muradi: As far as I'm concerned, it is not.


[…]


Alberto Fernandez: There has to be an alternative to those two bad choices. A tyrant must not be replaced by another tyrant.


[…]

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