Rebel Roundup： Guests Ezra Levant, Amanda Head & Sheila Gunn Reid!
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
168.4787
Summary
With a simple tweet, President Trump says the U.S. is done with the war in Syria. Cue the outrage. And the little Alberta town of Nisku was ground zero for a pro-pipeline protest earlier this week.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
Welcome to Rebel Roundup, ladies and gentlemen, and the rest of you,
00:00:03.240
in which we look back at some of the very best commentaries of the week by your favorite rebels.
00:00:10.540
Well, with a simple tweet, President Trump says the U.S. is done with the war in Syria.
00:00:20.260
And the little Alberta town of Nisku was ground zero earlier this week for a pro-pipeline protest
00:00:31.320
Sheila Gunn-Reed was there to capture the anger that's now reaching the boiling point.
00:00:36.860
And some good news regarding that ongoing war on Christmas.
00:00:40.700
Some radio stations are lifting their ludicrous bans on baby it's cold outside.
00:00:53.260
And I'll share some of your responses about my attempt to get Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussain
00:00:59.480
to come clean about the U.N. Global Compact on Migration.
00:01:12.560
Trudeau abandoned combat against ISIS while it was in the middle.
00:01:25.920
While ISIS was still powerful, he quit and ran away.
00:01:31.420
When I was in Iraq last year, I met a Kurdish general who helped beat back ISIS.
00:01:36.880
And he told me that he was very well aware that Canada quit the fight right before the final battle.
00:01:44.200
And he suggested that perhaps some of the men he commanded would still be alive now,
00:01:49.700
had they been able to benefit from Canadian jets coming in from the sky to take out clusters of terrorists.
00:01:58.100
So what does the CBC say about Donald Trump bringing the troops home?
00:02:03.720
They loved it when Trudeau did so before the final battle.
00:02:08.120
Well, here's what CBC's flagship show called The National had to say.
00:02:15.920
President Trump is running his Syria policy as if it's a reality TV show.
00:02:26.540
Or was that just another anti-Trump insult spoken by some leftists at a think tank?
00:02:32.180
And so it is that the war ends in Syria, not with a big bang, but with a 240-character tweet.
00:02:39.360
President Trump is bringing home the 2,000 or so U.S. troops stationed there after the obliteration of ISIS.
00:02:46.460
Yet this announcement has brought forth criticism from the usual suspects on the left and in the media party
00:02:52.380
because it would appear that no matter what decision Trump makes with regard to just about any file,
00:02:59.000
this president just can't seem to catch a break.
00:03:02.600
And joining me now with more on this story is our very own rebel commander, Ezra Levent.
00:03:07.240
So, Ezra, right off the bat, I have to ask, is the U.S. withdrawal from Syria a good move?
00:03:14.900
And I don't think it's easy to find out what the goal was.
00:03:21.400
I'm not sure exactly why because on the one hand, under Obama, one of the policies was to have regime change in Syria.
00:03:30.160
That means getting rid of Bashar Assad, who's a Soviet, a Russian colony, an Iranian colony.
00:03:38.000
Because Russia had a lot more boots on the ground.
00:03:47.880
And if so, like America toppled Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, okay, then what?
00:03:52.280
Because it's one thing to break something, but can you, you know, the phrase you break it, you buy it.
00:04:02.080
And I don't think they thought through the second part.
00:04:09.200
So you're expecting Johnny MacDonald to emerge and say, I'm a great democratic leader.
00:04:21.040
Obama didn't go after, for example, the oil tankers.
00:04:23.520
It wasn't until Donald Trump became president that the U.S. military went ahead and crushed ISIS.
00:04:33.140
And frankly, why is America still in Afghanistan 17 years after 9-11, the longest war in American history?
00:04:41.600
Now, there could be a good answer to that, David.
00:04:44.800
And, you know, I would, that's the thing, Ezra.
00:04:48.960
I mean, there's tens of thousands of troops in Afghanistan.
00:04:52.200
Afghanistan, I don't see any hope on the horizon.
00:04:54.940
You even have Americans training people there that become cops and they end up turning into suicide bombers,
00:05:02.360
You know, that's a quagmire and has always thus been.
00:05:05.520
But with Syria, we have to ask, is ISIS truly 100% eradicated?
00:05:14.900
And this is the other troubling thing to me, Ezra.
00:05:21.460
We sold them down the river twice with the two Gulf Wars.
00:05:26.380
And listen, a 2,000-member regiment out in Syria, that's not tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of troops.
00:05:39.240
Somebody filling the vacuum when the Americans leave and the Kurds paying a huge price.
00:05:46.160
And I've been to Kurdistan and I've seen the Christian and Yazidi minorities that ISIS went after.
00:05:51.000
And I've seen how Kurdistan is the closest thing to a democracy and the closest thing to a Western-oriented group you're going to find there.
00:05:58.840
And they have the right position on ISIS, the right position on Iran, the right position on the Turks.
00:06:05.100
I like the Kurds, at least the ones I saw in the week I was there in Erbil.
00:06:09.120
I don't want to pretend that I know everything about the place.
00:06:12.460
But if we have a pro-Kurdish mission, let's say so.
00:06:18.820
In fact, earlier this year, Kurdistan had a referendum on, or I think the referendum was actually, I don't remember exactly what it was, but it was fairly recently.
00:06:32.520
So, yeah, David, I too want America to support Kurd, the Kurds, and I think Kurdistan should be its own place.
00:06:40.680
But that's not going to be a decision based on troop deployments.
00:06:44.220
It's a much bigger political, geographic, diplomatic decision.
00:06:49.580
They're the closest thing to a friend the West has there, other than Israel, of course.
00:06:54.320
But having 2,000 soldiers, that wasn't their mission, I don't think.
00:06:57.860
And it's interesting you bring up Israel, Ezra.
00:07:00.820
Is that maybe part of the plan that Israel is going to pick up the slack?
00:07:05.400
I mean, they do have a presence there, and I mean, for self-interest in terms of their own national security.
00:07:11.060
And they certainly, I would imagine, not want what's remaining of ISIS digging tunnels to get into Israel.
00:07:17.500
So is that maybe who's going to be doing the heavy lifting in that region?
00:07:20.840
I think Israel is more worried about Iran and Hezbollah.
00:07:33.920
Israel sometimes shoots rockets or flies jets into Syria to blow things up that it thinks are a threat to itself.
00:07:40.120
But, I mean, Syria is basically a Russian colony and has been throughout the Cold War.
00:07:45.020
It's not like that was an area on the risk board that is switching sides.
00:07:50.820
They've always been in the Russian sphere of influence.
00:07:53.220
So unless, I mean, in the 2016 campaign, Hillary Clinton talked madly, crazily, about putting a no-fly zone over Syria.
00:08:04.180
That whole Russian air base, you just sort of forgot about that.
00:08:06.640
Like, you want to start World War III over what again?
00:08:08.700
And I think that policy should start with, well, what are the objectives based on national interest?
00:08:16.580
And there may be a national interest there, but it hasn't particularly been articulated.
00:08:20.500
I think maybe it needs to be refreshed because in Afghanistan, 17 years later, I don't know what it is.
00:08:26.220
What's interesting is the left has typically been the anti-war party.
00:08:31.040
And they really hate the troops also, but they pretend that they love the troops, hate the war, bring our boys home.
00:08:39.920
But here's Donald Trump, who clearly loves the troops, but he's bringing them home.
00:08:44.340
And so, so much of the dishonest left doesn't know what to do about this.
00:08:48.200
Because, in fact, Obama was a warmonger who did a lot more drone strikes than George Bush did.
00:08:58.300
Donald Trump brings soldiers home and says, Trump's not afraid to flex muscles when he wants to.
00:09:08.020
But the left shows that they don't mean a lot of their ideals because they should be rejoicing about bringing soldiers home when they're not.
00:09:16.540
My view is, if there's something that's clearly in America's interest, or from a Canadian point of view, there's something clearly in our interest, go and fight it.
00:09:23.600
Can you tell me why we have men and women in Mali, Africa right now?
00:09:32.860
And is one single Canadian life worth going to Mali for?
00:09:43.680
I know it's sort of Northwest Africa somewhere there.
00:09:49.600
And nobody, all the educated intellects that Ryerson couldn't find it either.
00:09:55.680
It's because there's 200 countries in the world.
00:09:57.920
And Mali's a small country that has almost no connection to Canada.
00:10:05.460
We have no cultural, linguistic, historical connection to Mali.
00:10:09.300
It would be like Vanuatu or Nauru, those teeny tiny islands in the Pacific Ocean.
00:10:16.380
You're not dumb if you don't know about them because they're completely irrelevant to us.
00:10:23.400
There may well be a national objective for having American troops in Syria, but I haven't heard it in the last few days.
00:10:31.860
And more to the point, Donald Trump campaigned.
00:10:39.240
And you might not like that promise, but it was a promise he made in the campaign pretty clearly.
00:10:51.240
Defense Secretary James Mattis tendering his resignation to take effect in February.
00:10:55.680
And if you read his resignation note, it's basically, I thought it was kind of passive-aggressive and a scathing attitude that clearly I, you know, a 40-something-year veteran of the military, don't know as much as you, so I'll let you run the show.
00:11:12.500
What do you think the unspoken strategy here is in his resignation, Ezra?
00:11:18.460
Well, look, he obviously disagrees with this, and that's fine.
00:11:23.040
In America, as in Canada, we have civilian oversight and direction of the military.
00:11:27.980
And maybe Mattis is right, but the president is the commander-in-chief.
00:11:32.920
And this really shouldn't have been a surprise because Trump did campaign on crushing ISIS and getting out.
00:11:39.300
I think it's too bad because Mattis seemed to be a real serious military man, and Trump could use someone with experience and competence and a track record.
00:11:47.400
But I think Mattis was also, I mean, don't think he wasn't, Mattis was a part of the Washington establishment, the foreign policy establishment.
00:11:57.980
And for 20 years, they've had this idealistic dream that they can nation-build.
00:12:03.020
And, you know, after the Second World War, the Marshall Plan was an economic and political rebuilding.
00:12:09.520
I mean, the United States drafted Japan's constitution after the Second World War.
00:12:13.900
In fact, it was an American general, MacArthur, who was the governor, if I'm not mistaken.
00:12:21.560
America helped rebuild Japan, Germany helped fund it.
00:12:24.940
So America did nation-build, which was amazing because America was attacked by these countries, yet rebuilt them and helped them.
00:12:38.880
Japan was a little different because it's not Western and has a different tradition.
00:12:42.480
But Japan has grown into a wonderful, liberal, democratic, civil ally.
00:12:54.500
And Hong Kong had roots in the U.K. as part of the British Empire.
00:13:09.360
Can you really nation-build in Afghanistan, which has no history of liberalism, democracy, high-trust society,
00:13:18.100
you know, the kind of Magna Carta, the traditions of the West.
00:13:30.780
And that's actually what's scary to me is that, and I'm sorry I'm going on here,
00:13:35.300
but let me say one last word about Bashar Assad and his wife, Asma.
00:13:42.680
She was the subject of a beautiful vogue spread, the Desert Rose.
00:13:48.080
That's my nickname for you, but that's actually what it was called.
00:13:50.940
And what's striking about Asma Assad is she doesn't wear a veil, like not even the hijab.
00:14:02.480
And if you look at family pictures of Bashar Assad's dad, the dictator Hafez Assad, and his wife,
00:14:10.920
And they're Alawites, which is a kind of Muslim, but not really the kind that we're used to.
00:14:34.680
But in that neighborhood, he's the closest thing you're going to find to a stable, predictable tyrant
00:14:43.780
as opposed to a zombie-murdering Islamic jihadist tyrant.
00:14:49.880
And you can knock off Bashar Assad like we knocked off Gaddafi, then what?
00:15:00.580
He knocked down the plane over Lockerbie, Pan Am plane.
00:15:09.300
After Bush invaded and talked to Gaddafi, he said, oh, I'm going to change.
00:15:18.600
He gave up his weapons of mass destruction program.
00:15:21.580
He paid more than a billion dollars in reparations to the people he killed on that plane.
00:15:26.640
Have you ever heard of a terrorist paying reparations before?
00:15:30.340
When the Obama administration went in to remove him, that was a declawed cat.
00:15:35.620
And when he was gone, Libya became a cesspool of terrorism.
00:15:39.180
And that's my point, is that Bashar Assad would not want to live under him.
00:15:42.240
But I know he's better than the alternatives there.
00:15:46.420
And Donald Trump knows he doesn't have an alternative.
00:15:53.080
You know, the first time I ever heard about ISIS, and I don't propose to show the clip here because it's too terrible.
00:16:12.460
And he said, because, of course, there was Russians there, and they have Russian bases.
00:16:22.780
That is so radical that when they would kill a Syrian soldier, they would take out his heart and eat it.
00:16:30.800
This sounds like some zombie movie or some witchcraft.
00:16:33.480
But actually, this ISIS soldier, soldier terrorist, videoed himself on his cell phone eating the still warm heart of a Syrian soldier.
00:16:43.480
And Vladimir Putin said, this is the depravity we're fighting.
00:16:53.520
And I saw the video with my own eyes, and I still remember it four years later.
00:16:57.840
Because it's shocking to see a human eating another human's heart.
00:17:05.040
And you can say what you want about Putin, but he kills guys like that.
00:17:09.060
You can say what you want about Trump, but he kills guys like that.
00:17:11.880
Whereas Hillary Clinton and John Kerry and even John McCain try to, well, we'll broker and we can work with them or whatever.
00:17:19.120
I think that Americans should focus on America.
00:17:26.500
If there's some good people there, let's help them.
00:17:33.440
Well, Ezra, we're going to have to leave it there.
00:17:35.860
And, you know, folks, I guess that's the Middle East.
00:17:38.220
It's one of those neighborhoods just when you think, you know, all the answers, somebody comes along and changes the questions.
00:17:44.760
Hopefully, this doesn't create a vacuum for ISIS to get emboldened.
00:17:51.940
They are ferocious fighters on the side of righteousness.
00:17:58.180
I hope this isn't a third time we've let them down.
00:18:04.920
Organizers of today's event say they are anticipating a 22-kilometer-long truck convoy
00:18:20.860
that will leave the staging area here at Black Jack's and will continue through Nisku, loop back, and finish at the Enzyme drilling yard,
00:18:30.620
where Conservative Party leader Andrew Scheer will be speaking later on in the day.
00:18:35.020
Now, Nisku has really been ground zero for many of the layoffs in the oil patch in the Edmonton area.
00:18:41.980
This industrial park is situated directly between Leduc and Edmonton.
00:18:46.900
It used to be home to trucking yards and drilling yards and fabrication facilities.
00:18:51.040
But now it sees some of the same levels of vacancy and unemployment as the office towers of downtown Calgary.
00:19:01.400
The staging area for the truck convoy is right behind me.
00:19:08.200
I'm a reporter for the Rebel Dot Media, but I'm also an oil patch wife.
00:19:14.240
So why did you come down to the Truckers for Pipelines event today?
00:19:18.120
I just wanted to show my support for oil and gas and Alberta as a whole and the Canadian oil and gas industry.
00:19:25.420
Our industry seems like we always get to be kicked down, and we always complain about oil and gas pipelines.
00:19:32.980
So it's time we stand and rally, and hopefully it does something here today.
00:19:37.640
30 years in the oil patch, we can't let this go.
00:19:40.480
Like, we've seen the ups and downs, but this is terrible.
00:19:51.380
This here, it's a killer on our economy in Alberta.
00:19:58.180
It's causing everybody to be losing their jobs and getting laid off.
00:20:03.540
Well, to quote the chorus from that great C.W. McCall Trucker song,
00:20:08.700
Because we got a little convoy rocking through the night.
00:20:16.200
Oh, but that was no little convoy that rolled into the town of Nisku, Alberta.
00:20:24.720
It was all part of a protest regarding the federal government's outright incompetence
00:20:34.000
And our very own Sheila Gunn-Reed, host of The Gunn Show,
00:20:50.700
At least I didn't call you the other character.
00:20:54.200
But Sheila, in all seriousness, getting away from 70s CB radio music,
00:20:59.980
first of all, that must have been one hell of a sight to take in.
00:21:04.120
I mean, more than 2,000 trucks in that little town.
00:21:12.480
To be honest with you, it ended up being far greater than 2,000
00:21:16.600
because those were all the trucks that they could get into the staging area.
00:21:20.680
But there was such a traffic backup on Highway 2 just outside of Nisku
00:21:25.760
that it backed up just about all the way to Edmonton,
00:21:28.960
and it caused a traffic snarl for about six hours.
00:21:33.680
There were that many trucks from all over the province.
00:21:36.080
So, you know, best estimate, say, somewhere around 3,500 trucks at the end of the day
00:21:43.220
But to answer your question, what was the mood like?
00:21:52.940
You know, like, how do you describe the mood of people who are ready,
00:21:56.920
willing, and able to work, are the best in the world at what they do,
00:22:03.180
and there are no jobs for them because of federal government
00:22:08.100
And, you know, when I saw you interviewing these men, Sheila,
00:22:19.280
And even though the anger was at the boiling point,
00:22:26.840
vandalizing or starting fires or, you know, doing graffiti.
00:22:30.460
They were very angered, but they made an impassioned and very reasonable plea
00:22:35.220
that they just want this government to get going on this file.
00:22:39.180
And, Sheila, there was a lot of blame to go around for the Justin Trudeau government.
00:22:44.360
They have so many tools in their arsenal that they can employ,
00:22:53.940
These guys are, like you said, the salt of the earth.
00:23:06.960
They've never taken a penny from the government.
00:23:09.980
All they want to do is keep working and keep fueling the Canadian economy.
00:23:13.880
And, you know, it's so heartbreaking to see these guys
00:23:16.780
who just want to work really, really hard, and they can't.
00:23:20.360
But these are the same guys that Justin Trudeau said are a potential threat
00:23:28.000
And I'll tell you, I never felt safer than I did amongst all those truckers that day.
00:23:35.540
And certainly, I think one of your best commentaries of the year was from a few weeks ago
00:23:40.720
where, you know, talking about your husband who is in that sector
00:23:45.480
and how you felt personally maligned by Trudeau's comments,
00:23:50.180
it's a different issue than the pipeline thing.
00:23:56.480
especially since you were completely immersed in all these so-called predators,
00:24:02.960
and yet, like you just said, you never felt safer?
00:24:04.980
Yeah, I'd have a real problem heading into a left-wing protest of 2,500 people.
00:24:14.480
and probably not just one security person, but two.
00:24:17.180
But when I was there, you know, it was very friendly.
00:24:19.680
A lot of people telling me to say hey to my husband.
00:24:23.000
And these guys are just doing what they can to send a message to the government.
00:24:27.340
I mean, these are people who've never attended a protest in their entire life.
00:24:31.940
And in 36 hours, they managed to stage what could be the world's largest truck convoy.
00:24:38.840
And if this had happened anywhere else, in any other country or jurisdiction in the world,
00:24:44.020
there would be political resignations because of the message that was sent that day.
00:24:48.280
And yet, Justin Trudeau hasn't even commented on it.
00:24:52.620
Yeah, you know, and by the way, you raise a very interesting point, I guess.
00:24:55.820
You have to worry about your personal safety at a feminist rally
00:24:59.420
when some effeminate little man with a nose ring comes up to you and slides you in there.
00:25:07.180
But, you know, Sheila, getting back to the political issue here of pipelines
00:25:13.200
and what that means to Alberta, and I mean, for goodness sakes,
00:25:16.980
this is just about getting all this liquid gold to market.
00:25:26.040
a calamity that happened in the Quebec dairy industry or in the Ontario auto sector,
00:25:33.720
hey, what you going to do kind of laissez-faire attitude?
00:25:37.220
Or would we see action to get this problem fixed within a few days?
00:25:44.380
I said, do you think that if there were this many Quebec dairy farmers
00:25:49.340
or this many Ontario auto workers out there protesting for their industry,
00:25:55.280
and we're not asking for handouts, we're asking for market access,
00:25:59.000
which is under federal government jurisdiction,
00:26:01.220
I asked them, do you think the Liberals would move heaven and earth to help you?
00:26:10.020
They absolutely know that Alberta is being treated far differently,
00:26:17.780
Yeah, and conversely, Andrew Scheer was out there, leader of the Conservative Party,
00:26:22.620
and he delivered a speech that seemed to almost look like he was growing that,
00:26:30.680
You know, it was very, I mean, there was a little emotion,
00:26:33.500
and it almost sounded like a campaign-style speech,
00:26:36.620
but what he was saying was right on the money, as far as I can tell.
00:26:41.080
And what was the, you know, reception to Scheer like?
00:26:46.600
Everybody was really happy that Andrew Scheer was there,
00:26:54.080
NISCU itself used to be one of Western Canada's busiest,
00:26:57.480
most productive industrial parks in all of the country.
00:27:05.580
where many of the drilling rigs are sitting idle.
00:27:09.280
And I think that was an important message to send to Alberta,
00:27:15.320
And it was great to finally see him with some passion and emotion,
00:27:26.380
and he needs to make some promises that he will.
00:27:28.420
Indeed. And Sheila, again, I go back to these men
00:27:32.020
that are just trying to provide for their families.
00:27:41.960
And I can't think of any other oil-producing region
00:27:45.000
on the face of the planet that this is happening to,
00:27:48.860
other than Alberta, because of spineless politicians, Sheila.
00:28:00.000
Yeah, that's government incompetence there, too.
00:28:06.280
So there's no reason why we aren't getting our resources
00:28:12.060
if not for the lack of political will by the federal government.
00:28:22.740
And all the facts line up that it seems as though,
00:28:25.580
while Justin Trudeau makes these public pronouncements
00:28:30.800
all indicators point to the fact that he doesn't.
00:28:33.560
And he's thrown up every roadblock along the way
00:28:42.620
We just saw a massive liquefied natural gas project
00:29:03.080
that indeed that is something that should be on the front page,
00:29:08.780
of all the other multi-billion dollar cancelled programs.
00:29:12.300
You know, Sheila, we're going to have to wrap it there.
00:29:19.900
that we're going to get regime change in Alberta.
00:29:22.700
I know 10 months is an eternity in terms of politics.
00:29:25.820
Let's hope there's a regime change in Ottawa too.
00:29:30.920
we can start getting some of these projects off the ground
00:29:38.100
So thank you again so much for this report, Sheila.
00:29:45.500
More of Rebel Roundup to come right after this.
00:29:47.460
The people have spoken and media conglomerates shockingly listened.
00:30:02.940
CBC in Canada, as well as radio stations here in the United States,
00:30:06.940
have re-added the popular and classic Christmas tune,
00:30:09.900
Baby It's Cold Outside, back to their playlists and rotations.
00:30:15.620
and we are very pleased to announce that even though some Scrooges out there
00:30:22.100
sales for the song have been through the roof, up on the rooftop.
00:30:27.120
so I'd like to think that I contributed to that.
00:30:30.660
their holiday digital song sales chart dated December 15th,
00:30:34.260
they had three interpretations of Baby It's Cold Outside appear,
00:30:38.700
and they make the survey's three largest gains over the cycle, respectively.
00:30:51.940
she made the role of Elphaba Famous in the musical Wicked,
00:30:58.640
and Redbone and Zooey Deschanel's version from the movie Elf
00:31:05.260
The three version sales have sent the song up the charts,
00:31:14.920
and many other versions are doing exceedingly well
00:31:21.060
It seems that if there was a bridge-too-far moment
00:31:24.460
in terms of both the never-ending war on Christmas
00:31:30.220
then it was surely the attempt by the usual suspects
00:31:39.060
After all, somehow these nattering nabobs of negativity
00:31:43.840
not as a whimsical ditty about the art of consensual seduction,
00:31:57.480
since some radio stations began banning this tune.
00:32:21.440
that was falsely rebranded as something sinister,
00:32:24.600
is our very own Hollywood conservative, Amanda Head.
00:33:06.180
the reason that I decided to do a petition about this
00:33:33.900
of the time and the place in which it was created.
00:34:16.960
you know, the woman, she's having a really good time.
00:34:33.160
is that there might not actually be anything in the drink.
00:35:07.860
I covered a story about this happening in Washington.
00:35:13.280
And it seems like it's only because it's Christmas
00:36:10.660
I mean, you mentioned the whole in-joke about the drink.
00:36:18.560
maybe then you've got something to hang a complaint on.
00:37:33.700
that listen to these people in the first place?