Sputnik: So UK Prime Minister Theresa May has received the backing of her cabinet for what they have described as "the need to take action to deter the further use of chemical weapons," but it appears that she's likely to try and avoid consulting with parliament on this, as is customary. Why do you think that is?
Godfrey Bloom: Well of course, it's whether we accept or not that there has been any use of chemical weapons. Of course there is no serious evidence to suggest there has been any usage of chemical weapons any more than there was last time. The American State Department have already admitted that they have no hard evidence of the Assad regime using chemical weapons, so the whole preface I think is wrong. The reason she does not want a parliamentary debate is because I think it would soon be very clear in parliament, and clear therefore to the public, that there is no evidence at all.
Sputnik: Yesterday the US government said that it has concerns that any military attack on Syria could cause a conflict that might, in the words of Secretary of Defence Jim Mattis, "escalate out of control" — obviously alluding to a confrontation with Russia. Do you think they're only now starting to consider the ramifications of what any strike on Syria could lead to?
Of course we learned that, or you would've thought we'd have learned that, in 1914 in the Balkans, with the cost of certainly the British Empire, one million dead, one million more dead, and one million maimed. So, we don't seem to learn the lessons, do we, and I don't quite understand why.
Sputnik: Finally, why is it that the West continues to contemplate this, despite the absence of bona fide evidence and the known risks associated with a strike on Syria, namely the possibility of an escalation of the conflict?
Godfrey Bloom: Well, one of the problems I think that we have, and I don't quite know how we overcome this, and we were warned by general Eisenhower — or President Eisenhower as he was then — in his excellent autobiography, that of course the power of the military-industrial complex in America is huge. In life generally, and in politics, if you follow the money that's where you get you answer. We're dealing with trillions of dollars budgeted, not just for the military and military machinery, but of course CIA budgets as well. It's a really serious problem that you have a huge vested interest in the continuance of the Cold War and even perhaps a shooting war, because people make so much money out of it, and that's the danger.
So, we were warned of this by President Eisenhower and indeed we were also given the heads up in a speech much later by President Kennedy, who was complaining that the CIA really calls the shots in America these days. Trump, in his manifesto, promised to pull the troops out. He was quite clear on that, on his campaign trail. But he's been switched by the war supporters, the permanent cold war supporters, in deep state in Washington. He's losing that battle, it's a great shame and it's very dangerous. Where is it going to end? I think there's an absolute determination now to get things into a shooting war — very frightening!
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