New Ceasefire Set As Civilians Face Slaughter in Aleppo
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening. Thanks for joining us. We begin tonight with the dying cries from a city once as large as Houston, Texas, as old as human civilization, and sadly as familiar with civilization's capacity for inhumanity as any place on earth. They're the sounds these days of Aleppo, Syria, dying cries and pleas for help. The cease-fire that was supposed to give the civilians there a safe way out has collapsed. The new one is set to take hold. But past experience does not offer much hope it will last and the carnage directed at civilians -- well, that goes on. In the face of it all, America's U.N. ambassador is speaking out against Syria, against Russia and their allies, Iran.</s>SAMANTHA POWER, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE U.N.: When one day there is a full accounting of the horrors committed in this assault of Aleppo, and that day will come sooner or later, you will not be able to say you did not know what was happening, you will not be able to say you are not involved. We all know what was happening and we all know you're involved. Aleppo will join the ranks of those events in world history that defined modern evil, that stain our conscience decades later. Halabja, Rwanda, Srebrenica, and now, Aleppo. Are you truly incapable of shame? Is there literally nothing that can shame you? Is there no act of barbarism against civilians, no execution of a child that gets under your skin that just creeps you out a little bit?</s>ANDERSON: Well, her words were powerful, but bear in mind, they came against the backdrop of the U.N.'s top humanitarian official accusing countries, including the United States, of collectively wringing their hands in the face of what he calls the crushing of Aleppo. Now, as we'll discuss, this is current administration's responsibility and the next one's as well. We begin, though, with the voices of Aleppo and CNN's Frederik Pleitgen.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I didn't know really what to say. Words can't go out now. I hope you can -- something -- some unexpected (ph) massacres. Just yesterday, like the next door exactly, all the buildings collapsed, many people are being killed. Many people now are being killed and just kept in the street and their buildings. No one can help them.</s>FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIROR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): Countless stories from within the rebel-held territory in Aleppo, Syria. It is by all accounts an unmitigated humanitarian disaster.</s>BILAL ABDUL KAREEM, JOURNALIST: You may be thinking this is an old video, but it's not. It's a new one and it's taking place right here, right now, on the day when there was supposed to be an agreement.</s>LINA SHAMY, ALEPPO RESIDENT: To everyone who can hear me, we are here exposed to a genocide in the besieged city of Aleppo. This may be my last video. More than 50,000 of civilians who rebelled against the dictator, al-Assad, is threatened with field executions or dying under bombing.</s>PLEITGEN: Bana, a 7-year-old living in east Aleppo, with the help of her mother, has been tweeting. Her most recent message a cry for help. Her mother following up with a message of her own. Today from a rooftop, sounds of conflict can still be heard.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE (translated): This could be my final appeal. I am hoping it will find listening ears of the people making decisions around the world. Everybody who can, please speak to your government, to his country to put pressure to stop the aggression. To stop the killing, to stop the war.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At least we know that -- we were free people. We wanted the freedom. We didn't want anything else but freedom.</s>COOPER: Fred Pleitgen joins us now. He's reporting from inside Aleppo throughout the Syrian civil war. Joins us from Beirut, Lebanon. So, the cease-fire, it seems to be back on. What happens next and can it actually succeed this time?</s>PLEITGEN: Yes, you know, that's going to be the big question, Anderson. We're going to see that in the next couple of hours because about three hours from now is when buses are supposed to pull out to that rebel enclave that still exists in Aleppo and they're supposed to bring the first people out of there and bring them to safety to other rebel-held areas in Syria. The first people who are supposed to get evacuated are the most vulnerable. The sick, the</s>COOPER: Fred, there have already been reports of Syrian government forces and others coming into Aleppo and executing civilians, correct?</s>PLEITGEN: Yes, there certainly have been. The U.N. says they have reports of about 82 civilians who have allegedly been executed. They say they got those reports from people who have been credible in the past who have given them information in the past that was true. They haven't, however, been able to independently verify that. However, there is a grave concern as pro-government forces, and it's not just the Syrian military, Shiite militias as well as Iranians, the Russians also as they move through that atrocities could be committed and that's why the U.N. and U.S. say it's on the Syrian government but especially also on the Russians to make sure that no other atrocities are committed as the Syrian government will most probably take over all of Aleppo very soon.</s>COOPER: Fred Pleitgen, appreciate the reporting. As we said, this will soon be the Trump administration's crisis. Here to talk about it, CNN political commentator and "Daily Caller" senior contributor Matt Lewis, CNN political analyst and "USA Today" columnist Kirsten Powers, CNN political commentator and senior writer for "The Federalist", Mary Katharine Ham, and CNN political director, David Chalian. David, I mean, obviously, it is a horror what's happening in Syria right now in Aleppo. For the Donald Trump administration, do we know how a President Trump is going to handle this?</s>DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: We really don't. It's been really vague and it's astonishing when you look at Fred's piece there and you see what's going on and the cry for help that this wasn't more central in a U.S. presidential campaign, but it wasn't. And his policy has been pretty vague. What we do know is this. He does not -- he, throughout the whole campaign, said Assad was really somebody else's problem. He just waned to focus on ISIS. He believed in creating some safe zones but he wanted other people to pay for them. And that one moment, you remember in the debates because it happened in the debate you were moderating where he disagreed with Pence when his own vice presidential nominee said, well, with Russian provocation, we may have to use military force and Donald Trump shut that down. So, it's very clear that he really sees this as other people's problem, not his and we don't at all have a clear strategy going forward.</s>COOPER: Mary Katharine, I mean, Assad gave an interview on Russian state television today he said that essentially he seems to think that Donald Trump is a more natural ally to the Syrian regime.</s>MARY KATHARINE HAM, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: So, so much of this is unknowable because he is Donald Trump. But if you look at the picks and rhetoric over the campaign and tried to form some idea where he might head, I think there's evidence he's a guy that wants to be more friendly about Russia, has a more sanguine view of Russia. But also a guy who's picked all these hardliners on Iran, who are very hard on -- the trick for him in Syria, they're working together.</s>COOPER: Right.</s>HAM: So, can he drive that wedge by working with Russia in a closer manner? I have no idea if that's the strategy or if he's thinking that far but that's what's --</s>COOPER: Right, a victory for Assad in Syria is a big victory for Iran, so it's contradictory.</s>KIRSTEN POWERS, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I think what we do know about him is that he has a sort of affection for strong men, so he talks about in the Middle East, Mubarak, for example, I think he analogizes to Syria in a sense if you overthrow Assad, then you don't know what's going to happen and it could create a power vacuum and terrorists could take over. But, you know, all authoritarians are not created equal. A Mubarak is very different than an Assad who's slaughtering his people and there's a genocide going on.</s>COOPER: And his father slaughtered people before him.</s>POWERS: Yes, it is a very different situation. And the other thing for people hoping maybe he could potentially rethink the Russia stuff is if you look at Condoleezza Rice, one of the people who made the recommendation for his current secretary of state nomination, and other sort of, you know, mainstream thinkers in the Republican Party who really are not on board with his view of Russia and are saying, look, Russia is not trying to fight ISIS. They're just trying to protect their interests in Syria.</s>COOPER: Yes, one of the things, Matt, that Donald Trump has said about Syria, he said "Our current strategy of nation building and regime change is a proven absolute failure." It's one thing, though, when somebody is running for president, it's another thing when you are actually the president and the pictures are on the evening news and people are talking about it and you hear the cries for help. We've seen it time and time again, whether Somalia, Rwanda, Sarajevo --</s>MATT LEWIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: This becomes a vicious cycle because what happens is we see horrific images and now, with technology, images immediately in our homes.</s>COOPER: More than ever before.</s>LEWIS: Tweets from victims. And then the American public, I think rightly out of moral indignation, begins to clamor for us to be involved and then we get involved. And then it goes bad, and then people, the same people, the same public that was clamoring for involvement then say why are we messing around over there? That's not our business.</s>COOPER: Right, the famine in Somalia led to humanitarian intervention, Black Hawk Down</s>LEWIS: So, we're isolating -- and you could look at George W. Bush as an example of the intervention gone wrong and I think you could look at Barack Obama and that red line and the failure to intervene. Possibly in this, the other end of it. I think Donald Trump, we -- it's time for a coherent strategy and maybe the talk to the American public about this new world we live in where the media is really -- I mean --</s>COOPER: But it's interesting for --you know, President-elect Trump continues to say, look, America first, jobs, jobs, jobs. It is very easy to get sucked into foreign issues. I mean, every president often comes in saying, look, I'm not interested -- I'm focusing on America, you know, infrastructure, nation-building at home. But then world events overtake presidents, we've seen it time and again.</s>HAM: Right. I do think this is where Matt is right, there's clamor, but there's not appetite for actually getting involved.</s>LEWIS: Or for any endurance. I mean --</s>HAM: Right.</s>LEWIS: So, when we actually get involved and something is going wrong.</s>COOPER: The world has been watching this for years and there hasn't been a clamoring --</s>HAM: What I'm saying is that a larger political landscape I think might be more forgiving to Donald Trump even though there is this huge moral problem. But many people think, yes, let's focus on jobs at home, and, no, it went badly when we've done this in the past.</s>CHALIAN: And he was really clear throughout the campaign that this getting drawn into this kind of event, it did not interest him at all. This -- he -- I thought he made that sort of a rallying cry. And I think his supporters give him that breathing space on this, despite the horrific images.</s>MOORE: I should point out the quote I read was not on Syria in particular from Donald Trump. It was on just sort of nation-building as an idea. So, I don't want -- I think I said it was about Syria. I was talking just in more general. But yet, at a certain point, the policy -- I mean, this is a policy which has not been made clear by President Obama which has bedeviled him. And, you know, he did an interview with Fareed saying, you know, he essentially missed a lot of this and that it haunts him to this day. Does a President Trump have to say, look, we aren't getting involved or does he just let it kind of percolate along?</s>POWERS: Well, look, I think he's surrounded by people who are going to want him to do something. I mean, the Republican Party -- a lot of the Republican thinkers were the ones who were saying, let's arm the rebels. He met with Tulsi Gabbard also, who is a Democratic member of Congress from Hawaii, who has been very outspoken on this issue as well and I think, you know, I think that it's possible that he will get pressure from a Mike Pence or from other people around him to do something. And it's also different when it's on your watch. It's one thing if you're sitting here talking in a campaign. It's another thing if you are watching a genocide unfolding and you're not doing anything.</s>COOPER: There's a lot more to talk about, including the continuing role of Donald Trump's grown sons are taking in government business even though they're supposed to be the ones running the president- elect's business empire instead. We've got a prime example of that tonight. When will that happen? When will they take over? We'll talk about it, next. Also later, for the first time, the DNC hacking story, all of it, beat by beat, how Hillary Clinton's campaign manager ended up unknowingly giving Russian-connected cyber thieves the keys to the kingdom. A fascinating inside look.