30:46 No, not that I know of. NBC says well you know right now the story is oh I was hoaxed! I was indeed kidnapped Now later in I think the fourth when they bring up They bring yeah, he's hanging in there But they bring on this guy who we now have to begin to follow and you'll hear him it later in these series a guy called The Angry Arab That sounds like a top 40 morning zoo guy who calls yeah, and he runs He's the angry Arab angry Arab news service. He's actually a professor of Middle Eastern studies at California State University in Stanislaus Okay And so he's got credibility But he's hilarious to watch and listen to you can look up his website lot of good stuff on there He's apparently from the very beginning was
31:37 on to the scam that was—and he'll talk about it a little bit, the scam that was the Syrian episode. Let's listen to Engel too. The New York Times investigation also raised questions about Richard Engel's rescue. Engel originally said he was rescued by Sunni rebels after his captors accidentally drove into a checkpoint Wait a minute. Let me hear that again. I just want to hear it again. The New York Times investigation also raised questions about Richard Engel's rescue. Engel originally said he was rescued by Sunni rebels after his captors accidentally drove into a checkpoint. OK. I missed part of that clip, but it goes on and tells about two of the guys were killed and all the rest turns out to all be fake. So let's just move on then—because they didn't clip this properly—to angle three with the—and here we introduce the angry Arab who really lays all this out pretty nicely. Let's begin with what has been revealed now and what you were saying, Saad Abul Khalil
32:36 then, at the end of 2012, after the newsmen were released? Well, Amy, I was early on skeptical not only about the conditions in which he was supposedly released and the statements that he made at the time. But I was skeptical about the entire enterprise of Western journalistic coverage of Syria, particularly by American correspondents in the region. There's a lot of stuff that is being told and transmitted that contradicted the realities on the ground." Now, also I want to point out here that we early on identified the Syrian observatory in the UK where most of this information that the media parrots comes from—it's one guy in an apartment
33:17 who's connected to the opposition forces. It was one guy! And we also, during this period... there were a couple of French journalists that were floating around doing reporting in other media outlets and we were following them and they were saying that all the reporting that we're getting in United States was all bullcrap And there's a number of them. And, in reality, we knew at the time that what is so-called the Free Syrian Army is no more than a coterie of criminal gangs and thugs that were running amok throughout the area of the so-called liberated sections of Syria. And they were engaged in sectarian kidnapping, ransoms, murder, indiscriminate shelling. And they would sometimes kidnap people and then sell them to other gangs and so on.
34:21 But there is also something political, as Glenn mentioned. Which is there was a war lobby—there were people edging at the time in order to get the United States to intervene militarily on the side of these rebels along with Saudi Arabia—the same allies that we now have in the so-called war on Yemen. And at the time, the statements that Richard Engel made—and I should mention what is…I mean, there's a political story and there's a journalistic story. The question is to be raised not only about the credibility of Mr. Engel, but also about bad judgment. And this is a correspondent—one of the few who's fluent in Arabic. He can speak it fluently and understand it. And yet upon his release he taped a video in Arabic for the propaganda arm of the Free Syrian Army, in which he made fantastic claims.
35:10 And I went and watched it yesterday to my amazement. I mean, he admitted yesterday to The New York Times that in fact he may have lied when he said he witnessed at the time of his rescue dead bodies. Now he's saying you didn't. But if you watch the video he taped for the Free Syrian Army benefit, he in fact claimed he saw more dead bodies upon being captured He should get much more angry if he wants a career. He's not doing a very good job there. He is not suitable for broadcasting, you haven't seen him. I'm sorry, the point now he's got one more point here that i thought was kind of interesting and when you see the video they show the captives supposed to capture in some barn somewhere. And there is Engel and 1 2 3 4 5 other guys if im not mistaken and they're on the ground sitting there and behind them Is a wall that this guy points out rightly has been recently painted
36:06 Bleach white it's perfect. It's not like any you know beat-up looking area and then on the wall is in In Arabic green spray painted Arabic is a bunch of anti government stuff stuff that is just obviously the whole scene was stages bullcrap and It's he questions whether angle was in on this thing from the beginning He thinks maybe wasn't maybe it was but you should have noticed that this was a fake They still must've smelled like fresh paint And he played the reed. He, in fact said that their demands were the release of four Iranians in Syria as well as two militiamen from the Amal Shiite Lebanese militia. But why did he invoke Amal? If it was really Amal, why did he invoke Hezbollah? And then you would say repeatedly with a straight face that we knew they were Shabiha because they told us—the word Shabiha is colloquial Syrian for thugs, so this is the name that is given to pro-Amal
37:06 pro-Assad regime militiamen by their opponents and the armed rebels. So imagine somebody identifying himself or herself as a thug, and that's the story we were led to believe. Plus there was footage of the actual room in which these hostages were held. You look at this old room with old paint, and suddenly you see fresh paint of clearly explicitly identifiable Shiite slogans. Plus, he said they were—he said that in the segment which you aired. In fact, he said they were explicitly worshipping in a Shiite manner. I mean, didn't he in any way question why that was the case? I mean, look, I am not naive. Many of these Western correspondents are engaged—have been engaged and part of the war lobby and propaganda effort to
37:52 champion the cause of the Free Syrian Army. This Free Syrian Army not only kidnapped these journalists, at the time they were kidnapping innocent Lebanese on the basis of their sects some of them they were selling and some of them when they were exchanging there are two missing bishops from Aleppo that nobody talks about Not only is this embarrassing for NBC News but listen to this list of awards this guy has Edward R. Murrow Award, News and Documentary Emmy Award, Peabody Award Alfred DuPont Columbia University award three Emmys for news and documentary in 2008 the George Foster Peabody award in 2009 again the Edward R. Murrow Award the Professional Journalism Award in 2009 then three more Emmys in 2009 two and ten The Gracie Award The OPC David Kaplan Award for spot news reporting
