NORTHAMPTON — Freelance journalist Reese Erlich took a Northampton audience with him to Syria on Friday, recounting for a group of about two dozen at the downtown Friends Meetinghouse his experiences covering the ongoing conflict.
Erlich’s journalism career stretches back roughly four decades and includes reporting for National Public Radio, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Vice News and Foreign Policy.
The thesis of his Friday presentation: how U.S. policy has failed its own citizens as well as those in the Syrian people embroiled in a deadly civil war.
“U.S. military intervention doesn’t work … we went to war in Afghanistan after 9/11 and went to war in Iraq because of fear for weapons of mass destruction,” Erlich said in an interview Friday evening after the talk. “And both wars ended up disastrous for the U.S. and for the people of those countries.”
And, he continued, “we’re about to do that again in Syria … there’s a very strong anti-interventionist sentiment from both the left and the right.”
During the talk, which was followed by a brief question-and-answer session, Erlich told listeners of his experiences reporting from Syria and various countries throughout the Middle East, experiences that formed the foundation for his 2014 book “Inside Syria: The Backstory of Their Civil War and What the World Can Expect.”
Erlich took readers through several of his reporting trips, including stops in the besieged Syrian city of Aleppo and the Jordanian cities of Amman, which is the capital, and Zarqa. “My favorite city in the trip is an area known for its diplomats and spies — Washington, D.C.,” Erlich said, drawing chuckles from the crowd.
During his time in DC, Erlich recounted, he met with several former diplomats and CIA officials while researching his book.
“In the context of Washington, once a country is deemed to be of national interest … the question of military intervention becomes immediately acceptable,” he said Friday at the event. He added that most people don’t know the U.S. is spending $12 million a day on the war in Syria.
Erlich made clear during the talk he wanted to take what he’d learned from covering conflict during the Obama years and do his best to help people understand what may be on the horizon for President Trump’s foreign policy.
Erlich highlighted Trump’s well-documented admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin and how Trump has said the two will explore ways to cooperatively defeat the Islamic State. “Even if you want to negotiate with Putin, you gotta have some way to pressure him,” Erlich said.
Later, he added: “As people become aware of what Trump is up to, he’s going to run into a lot of problems from the American people,” Erlich said in the interview. “First of all, Trump’s policies are still in the making.”