Welcome to Pushback. I'm Aaron Mate, here with Max Blumenthal. He is the senior editor of the Gray Zone,

author of many books, including his latest, The Management of Savagery. Max, welcome. A major theme of your work,

of your new book, is the Syria Proxy War. You just returned from Syria for the first time.

Talk to us about what you found there.

Well, there were a number of impressions that were sort of new to me or were striking.

And I understood the basic outlines and a lot of the details of the conflict in Syria.

And my book focused especially on the Washington's role in fueling the conflict and then

the repercussions in the West.

But what I came to understand from being in Damascus and really from spending time pretty

much on my own after attending a labor conference for two days, which was overseen

by the government, which gave me access to this territory, to an area that is pretty much

off limits to most Americans and most people in the West who just can't get visas, and

the government's very paranoid about that.

You know, just having, being able to spend several days in the old city in Damascus, staying

in a Christian area called Bab Sharkey, at the eastern most gate of Damascus' old city.

So sort of facing towards what are considered the eastern suburbs of Damascus, being in this historic area,

which is very culturally liberal. People go out and there's a big bar scene at night.

This is where Christians fled Roman persecution. It's where Saul became St. Paul.

There are Greek Orthodox churches that are hundreds and hundreds

of years old there, that, you know, when I was able to walk out across the highway outside

the Eastern Gate and get into those neighborhoods, which are very sensitive areas.

There are military checkpoints around them and when they saw a foreigner

...