Michael Moynihan
Appearances
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
They're looking for answers. You describe in your book, and I've talked to you about it in the past, is... They're looking for a very specific answer and they'll beat you until they get it. So is the purpose just sadism? No. Because if they're looking, I mean, you can say no, no, no. And then when you say, yes, I'm a spy, they couldn't possibly believe that. Yeah, of course they can. They do?
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
For decades, the Assad dynasty ruled through unimaginable violence, launching chemical attacks on civilians, silencing dissent with mass imprisonment and torture, and presiding over a civil war that killed an estimated 600,000 people and drove 13 million into exile.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
But no one knew that when you were in captivity, right?
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
That's right. If these guys were halfway clever and not just sadistic, they could get on Google and probably figure this stuff out pretty quickly, right?
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
Do you get defiant at a certain point where, I mean, there's so many times that you've recounted in your book that they said, take a look at the sun. This is the last time you're going to see it. Yeah. Last time you're going to ever see this. And that's pretty convincing when these ISIS, Al-Qaeda guys there. I mean, do you get defiant in the sense that What do I have to lose at this point?
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
Was there any indications of that?
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
In cities across the world, jubilant Syrians have celebrated the regime's downfall as one of the world's most oppressive dictatorships has now collapsed.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
Like, yeah, yeah, I did it. And they were masked the whole time? Always? Always.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
Thinking that you didn't know.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
It was just the condition in general, the whole thing.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
They bring little kids into the torture?
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
You were tortured by children, too.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
And the chief torturer says to the kids... Cables, meaning they were hooked up to a car battery.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
They were six years old in 2011.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
We know that torture exists and has existed throughout humanity and adults do it. I just don't have any frame of reference for children doing it. So it must be a pretty surprising thing when you see that.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
Is it so deranging in the sense that you're in a dark cell and you don't know when you're gonna be pulled out and tortured and beaten, and you don't know when, if ever, or how it will end, that you start kind of thinking of these things you know, the way that they want you to think about them. Because it's the only kind of reference that you have to anything, right?
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
Was any of that real? I mean, did you develop any affection in some kind of twisted way because that's the only affection you can develop in a situation like that?
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
You talk to... I talk to these people because... The ones that tortured you and imprisoned you.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
By the way, you know, this jihad- In an interest in them personally or just in a journalistic way? Both. Okay, both.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
But not everyone is celebrating. Or at least some people are saying there's reason for caution. That's because the Coalition of Rebel Forces Taking Control of Syria is led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, a militant Islamist organization which originated as an offshoot of al-Qaeda. Its leader is a Saudi-born Syrian who calls himself Abu Muhammad al-Jolani.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
So when you hear there's a call that was captured by Shin Betar Massad on the day. And it was played ad infinitum. We saw it everywhere, heard it everywhere. A guy calling his family saying, I killed Jews today. Aren't you proud of me, dad? That makes a certain amount of sense to you that it wouldn't make to other people, right?
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
In the sense that you understand that how people get to that point, it's not just you're going to have some virgins go.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
And even though- And is everyone that you have kept in touch with, who were your captors and torturers? Are they all still in the cult? Yeah.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
I don't have any problem... This is a regular thing for you.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
They call you on the phone? Yes. Like on WhatsApp or something? They're lonely. They're lonely young men. Why do you do this, though? I mean, isn't it... I mean, it's kind of like... You understand how it's kind of a weird thing to hear, right?
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
But not for Christians and Alawites and Kurds.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
So when you talk to somebody this morning who is a member of this group and, you know, whether they were at Jabhat al-Nusra or ISIS or something, what is that conversation? Like, what are you talking about?
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
It's not ironic or anything. I miss you. I mean, you don't miss them.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
Yeah, no, that's what I assume, yeah.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
But the guys that you talk to and the guys that, you know, you develop some relationship with, I mean, would you want to see them on trial too?
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
Yeah, but do you have that and also want them to be in front of a judge?
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
You had a number of cellmates over your time there. How many of those people survived? Very few.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
You would wake up one morning and they were gone.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
Christians have a place in that, but Alawites don't. Shia, no. Definitely not. Definitely not. But there's no way. So we can expect, despite what they say, that a small Shia public will be pushed out entirely or killed or whatever.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
A 21-year-old al-Jilani left Syria for Iraq in 2003 to join al-Qaeda and fight against America. There, he was captured by the U.S. and put into Bukha Jail, which housed some of the most notorious al-Qaeda prisoners. But since emerging on the world stage in the last week, Jelani has indicated that he's a reformed man, leading a moderated organization.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
It's the amazing thing that you survived for a number of reasons, but to point something out, I mean, you escaped and were caught twice.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
Tell me about the second time.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
There isn't a prize for them of money? It's just the kind of psychological fear that's instilled in the people that they're ruling over.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
Which is what Islam means.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
You escaped and you were caught a second time. When you come back at that point, you must be girding yourself for something really bad.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
But you were a bank card for them. You were an ATM card.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
He insists his al-Qaeda days and their methods — the detentions and torture and forced conversions — are over, and HTS is not going to persecute religious and ethnic minorities. But is it true? Few people in the West might know the answer, as well as journalist Theo Padnos.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
Yeah. People like Austin Tice, I mean, their presumption is that it was the Assad regime that took him in 2012. Yeah. And his family has said recently that we have it on good authority that he's still alive. Right. What do you know about that case? I mean, it's probably something that I imagine you look into because it's a similar... It is a similar case.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
How is it that all the narrative has been for as long as he's been gone in the mainstream media that he was captured by Assad and that now that Assad has fallen, there's an opportunity To find him, which you presume that would be quite easy, just walk out, now I'm free, as so many of these prisoners have actually experienced this.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
But what you're saying is that the same people that kidnapped and tortured you are holding him currently. No. Or it's some kind of affiliate group, though.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
Why do you think that is? Why can't we see something that seems, you know, you spell it out pretty quickly and pretty easily.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
In October 2012, Padnos ventured from Turkey into Syria to report on the Syrian civil war. There, he was captured by HTS, then known as Jabhat al-Nusra, and held captive for nearly two years. Throughout his captivity, Padnos endured relentless torture at the hands of his captors.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
What is the biggest sort of mistake and misconception that journalists who typically don't travel even to the region and write about this stuff, what is the mistake that they make that you see pretty consistently that drives you crazy?
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
Did you ever think that these people that were holding you would be in this position today in Damascus?
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
Do you have any sense of what happened? I mean, obviously, so many people saying Ukraine has a lot to do with it because of the Russians. Israel taking out Hezbollah commanders and Hassan Nasrallah, etc.,
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
They dissolved immediately. There was no fight for Damascus.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
They just surrendered. And these guys who held you have an infinite will to fight. That's right.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
Americans and people in general who are trying to figure out what's happening in Syria, if we were to assume that these guys, despite the name change, the Jolani's moderating rhetoric and everything, if we were just to take them as Jabhat al-Nusra, Can you explain to people what the difference between Jabhat al-Nusra and ISIS was?
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
Because you said there's some people that would flow between these organizations.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
A theological distinction, perhaps, but do you think that if you were actually in Raqqa, in the possession of ISIS that you would have survived? No, no. So there is some difference in that sense.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
And so they were like... So if they were flush with cash, you were a dead man.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
And I mean this, and I apologize for asking the question, but psychologically, how do you think you came out of it?
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
There's no people involved in those things in the sense that it's life-affirming. Yeah, well, I mean, it could be a rainy night. It could be just bad luck. It could be smoking cigarettes that gives you cancer. But in this sense, to have a renewed spirit and faith in humanity, even.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
Yeah, but I would break my faith in humanity and break my spirit, I would imagine.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
When you were getting tortured?
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
But there was no rage or anything like that.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
And the worst bits of that... you came out of this thinking kind of the same thing. Not right away. Not right away. That's a transformation that happens in America or during your captivity?
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
He was savagely beaten into unconscious, given electric shocks, and forced into severe stress positions for hours at a time. That is to say, nothing of the psychological torment inflicted upon him. Today, he joins me to discuss his herring experience, the psychology of jihadists, and what the future of Syria will look like under the leadership of his former captors. We'll be right back.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
You're not being tortured. You're in the middle of the day. You've maybe just eaten. No one's bothering you in your cell. What are you thinking? What does the brain do in that period? I remember, I think that you told me one time you were writing in your head. Yeah. That you were writing novels in your head.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
Were you writing in a sort of code or just anything?
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
So you didn't know, this is a couple of hours, maybe an hour, a couple of hours before you released and you had no idea. Right. None.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
And so they drove you to the border?
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
The people that drove you were the people you knew, the captors that you saw all the time.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
Let me ask you one more thing about the future of Syria. I mean, I'm blown away that we started talking and you told me that you've seen your captors on CNN, people that you saw in your torture cells that are active in the current, shall we say, interim Syrian government. That must terrify you in some ways.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
And you think that this current iteration of the Syrian government, whatever it is, that this is a bunch of spin propaganda lies that Jalani and the al-Nusra people have reformed? How much faith do you put in that?
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
Well, it's hard to say. But you don't expect that... what we saw in the worst parts and the depths of Islamic State and Raqqa is going to be recreated through the entire borders of Syria?
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
So they're rational in a way.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
Theo, thank you for joining us. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. Thanks for listening. If you like this conversation, please share this episode with your friends. And if you want to support the work we do here, go to thefp.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. See you next time.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
Theo Padnos, welcome to Honestly. Thank you very much for having me. You were a captive of Jabhat al-Nusra, a Al-Qaeda affiliate, and you were released in 2014. Pretty soon after you got back, I met up with you. That was 10 years ago. What is your life like now?
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
I mean, the interesting thing now is that people are watching, I'm reluctant to call it the liberation of Syria, but I mean, getting rid of Bashar al-Assad is a liberation. Regardless of who does it, we'll see what happens. But the people who are doing the liberating. are the same people that held you captive.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
You've actually seen on video people in Damascus who are now in control of Syria that held you and tortured you.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
I mean, you've seen this, you know their psychology very well. I mean, you spent two and a half years, right?
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
Let's go back to that to explain to people how you got in that situation in the first place. You're on the border of Turkey trying to get into Syria at the pretty much at the beginning of the civil war when we consider that it's been going on since 2011. And you get across the border. Tell me what happens when you get into Syria.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
From the Free Press, this is Honestly. I'm Michael Moynihan.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
And so you're... beaten, hooded, shackled... Not right away. Not right away.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
Last week marked a historic turning point in Syria.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
Did you know where you were?
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
And for people to give them context and if they remember this, the Free Syrian Army, which was promoted by people like John McCain and people going to visit and said, this is not necessarily a secular army, but these are the good guys.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
So speaking Arabic that well worked against you.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.
And so they delivered you back to the kidnappers.