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Aug. 13, 2024 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
27:24
Matt Hoh: The Israeli Torture Regime
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Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Tuesday, August 13th, 2024.
Matt Ho will be with us shortly on the Israelis and torture and the Americans and torture and the Geneva Conventions, which we wrote.
But first this.
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Matt Ho, it's a pleasure, my dear friend.
You have a great piece out on the unmentioned 75th anniversary of the Geneva Conventions.
With comments in there about Benjamin Netanyahu was correct when he told Congress that this is a war between barbarism and civilization.
He just forgot which side he was on.
But before we get to that, the latest breaking news is Russian reports from Russian surveillance that the Ukrainian invasion of Kurtsk in Russia,
and some were identified by Russian surveillance as having American accents, as they call it, and some of them are dead.
Does any of this surprise you?
No, that sounds all correct, Judge.
That sounds all correct.
And thank you for the kind words and thank you for having me back on.
And yes, certainly the surveillance is there.
We know that the United States provides all kinds of intelligence to Ukraine regarding Russia.
I mean, you can't argue that at all.
That's just the way it is.
The training is there.
We know that the United States and NATO have been conducting all levels of training.
At various places throughout NATO, including here in the U.S., for Ukrainians who either as individuals or small units or large units are going to fight the Russians.
And we've also known for the entirety of this conflict now, even predating Russians' invasions in February 2022.
Westerners were going over to fight for Ukraine.
There were Americans who were going to fight in the Donbass against the Russians.
That's been known for more than a decade now.
What we're seeing here is it all put together in one nice display of where this war is heading towards.
When it is put out this clearly, as the Russians are doing.
So logically, so flows in such the manner as we just described it.
That information is dynamite.
It's dynamite.
It might not be dynamite to us here.
It might not affect, you know, as Larry Wilkerson calls him, the wooden heads at the State Department of CIA and National Security Council of the Pentagon.
It might not affect, you know, Trump.
But it will have an effect on the Russian people.
And that's what we have to always remember.
A lot of times we think they're talking to us, and many times they're talking to their own folks.
So you as a Marine and a former State Department official, as a very keen observer of all this, are not surprised that Americans were involved in this invasion.
Who or what would they have been?
U.S. Army, CIA, outside contractors?
All the above.
All the above.
And whether they work for an American contractor or a foreign contractor, you know, you throw that in there.
and at all levels uh so at the most senior levels uh because the our senior leaders Now, by law, they can't talk about it, so they're afraid.
And by law, they're actually able to lie about it.
So they say, no, we're not giving that to the Ukrainians.
And the training level, same thing too.
It's a mix of active activities.
And then in terms of on the ground, helping fire missiles.
We've talked about this before.
A lot of these weapon systems can't be operated and maintained.
They can't find the targets to shoot out, especially over the horizon targets, without targeting help from the Americans, the British, the Germans, etc.
And we've seen all kinds of evidence to that as well.
And then on the ground, which I think is probably the most prescient or the most explosive of this, is this reality that there are Americans, there are Brits, there are Germans, there are a lot of Poles.
There are South Africans fighting with the Ukrainian army.
The numbers have gone down.
At one point, two years ago or so, it was estimated maybe between 10,000 and 20,000 Westerners were there fighting with Ukrainians.
That number has, as far as I'm concerned, greatly diminished.
So you have actual volunteers who show up as a form of foreign legion, but then you have the, the, If they want to get in a fight, if they want to kill people, they can do that in Africa and in Iraq and Syria.
You know, the U.S. launched just this year so far, so eight months into the year, the U.S. military has launched 200 raids in Iraq and Syria.
So if these guys want to pull triggers and kill people, they can do that in the Middle East or Africa.
It's also too much of an issue for one of our folks to get killed fighting over there for reasons that's easy to understand.
But what you have, though, is you have contractors.
And whether they are just one degree removed from the CIA and the Special Operations Forces, or whether there is a subcontracting upon subcontracting upon subcontracting of the Ukrainians to bring these guys in.
The reality is, Judge, is that they're Americans.
They more than likely have served for a number of years, either with the active U.S. military or with the CIA paramilitary forces.
And at the end of the day, who's paying for it?
So these guys are basically contractors for the CIA and JSOC, or whether they're contractors for the Ukrainians.
It doesn't really matter because at the end of the day, The money they paid for these guys comes from the U.S. So the American government has provided intelligence, equipment, money, expertise, and American human beings all in pursuit of an invasion of Russia.
How far up the food chain would this have to have been approved?
Would this have gone to the president himself?
You know, if we weren't living in such a corrupt world, If the American Empire was something reasonable and logical and halfway honest, you would imagine this would have to go to the Oval Office.
There's no way it could.
But, you know, the way the U.S. Empire is set up, the way the CIA and our covert and clandestine actions are written into law, this whole idea of plausible deniability.
That's written into, basically, the 1947 National Security Act that creates the CIA, that creates the National Security Council, that creates our modern-day foreign policy and military infrastructure.
That basically allows, it pushes plausible deniability.
So while you would think, my God, this has to have come from the desk of Joe Biden, or at least gotten his stamp or whatever, it's very possible.
Maybe it didn't go up that many levels.
Maybe it stopped at UCOM or at the CIA Special Operations Division in Europe.
I don't know.
But if so, what you're getting at though, Judge, is the key point.
How much this matters, how significant this is, and what this can open up.
What this can allow for.
This is the things we've been warning about for two and a half years.
This idea of gross.
We've just saw horizontal escalation, right?
The war has gone into another country.
It's gone into Russia.
And so we're already, we're examining what's going to come from that.
But then the vertical escalation as well.
How are the Russians going to respond to this?
I actually think.
Acknowledging all the risks involved in this for Ukraine, this was a fairly smart move, a good move for Ukraine to do.
I actually believe that.
Come from this, of course, though, is a massive Russian response.
I think most people will agree, who are objective, that on a dial 1 to 10, Russia has been running this war at about a 5 or a 6. And so does this now cause the Russians, force the Russians to amp it up to a 7 or 8, right?
You know what I mean?
So what is coming from this operation, very reckless, runs completely parallel with what we've been warning about.
But I also have to say that in terms of from Ukraine's position, this may have been a smart move.
It may be a complete disaster and catastrophe, but I think it's a smarter move than some are saying.
So what would you expect the Russians to do in retaliation against the countries that funded and sent troops there?
And can you imagine what we would do if a Russian militia invaded El Paso, Texas?
Or someplace in Alaska.
We lived it, Judge.
We saw it.
I took part in it.
We would launch a massive war crime that would demolish an entire region of countries like we did following 9-11.
That's what we would do.
The pressure on Vladimir Putin at this point has to be immense, right?
I mean, there have been Ukrainian attacks one after another against Russian infrastructure, assassinations, terror attack.
Let's not forget about that attack on the concert hall in Moscow that killed, what, 200 people back in March.
I mean, one thing after another.
Where the Ukrainians are pushing the Russians to expand the war, both in its size and breadth and where it's taken place, as well as the volume of it, the firepower of it.
So how do the Russians respond?
One thing they can do, one thing they have to do.
The Russians, and this is why I think this is a smart move for the Ukrainians, and I agree essentially with what Putin has said and Zelensky and others about this is all about negotiations.
The Russians cannot allow the Ukrainians to hold any inch of ground.
It's anathema.
It's not possible.
It cannot be allowed whatsoever.
And so they will have to throw everything they can to removing those forces.
That upsets any plans of the Russians in the East for the next several months.
The idea that Russia also doesn't want to fall into a trap of sinking forces and overcommitting itself.
So was this a way by the Ukrainians to get the Russians?
Or I shouldn't say it this way.
This may cause the Russians, is what I should say.
I shouldn't imply the Ukrainians in this.
But this may cause the Russians to open up a northern front, essentially, extending the front lines.
The thing that's most important for us, though.
In terms of how they respond to the United States, NATO, the West, launching these attacks, you know, using a proxy force.
That's all this is, a proxy invasion of Russia.
And remember, we invaded Russia 100 years ago following their revolution.
So there's, you know, as well as all the other invasions of Russia, right?
Yeah.
Go back to Charles XII, right?
So anyway, what they would do, finally getting to your point, Judge, your question, what they would do.
And what we should expect them to do is what they've already said they will do, which is arm nations and groups that are involved in the fight against the American empire.
So we should expect to see weapon systems going to Hezbollah, weapon systems going to the Yemenis, the Houthis, right?
So can you imagine what happens then if Hezbollah has S-400 anti-aircraft missiles and is able to shoot down Incoming Israeli missiles and drones and their aircraft, right?
You can imagine what could happen more for the US if the Houthis get Zircon cruise missiles, you know, and a guy like Scott Ritter could tell you why that would be so dangerous better than I can.
But essentially, you could have the situation where you've lost an American aircraft carrier, 5,000 young men and women.
Shredding water in the Red Sea or the Arabian Gulf or wherever, the Persian Gulf, because those missiles can reach quite far.
And the Houthis have shown that they can fire missiles at extended ranges.
Let's remember just the last month they hit Tel Aviv with a drone.
So that's what I would expect, is that the dial gets turned up in Ukraine by the Russians, but also, too, they turn up that dial.
Around the world.
And the United States, its allies, its proxies are now facing weapon systems that are the equivalent or better than Western weapon systems.
And of course, that makes then that just one more step, one more escalation, right?
So how do them respond?
And this is why, whether it's the Middle East or Ukraine, Russia, negotiations are paramount.
Ceasefires are absolutely what's needed in the moment because we have to arrest this escalation before it leads to that top rung of the ladder, which is nuclear war, which is something that is a possibility.
The United States wrote the Geneva Conventions.
Does it comply with them?
No, it does not.
No, it does not.
like so many other aspects of international law.
And this is why the United States government doesn't cite international law.
If you hear from the white house or the, the Ness security or the state department spokespeople, if you hear from people like Jake Sullivan or Tony Blinken, they will talk about a rules-based order as opposed to referring to international law.
And the rules-based order is just something that they've made up.
It's just basically rules are, it's like playing a monopoly with a, How can the United States government look the other way?
When the IDF engages in the most horrific torture imaginable, a gang of thugs, Israeli settlers, breaks into a jail to get the IDF soldiers who committed the torture out, and then the Prime Minister's party in the Knesset tries to give them amnesty and affirmatively authorize this torture, which is male-on-male rape.
Right.
And you also have an Israeli citizen that, according to Israeli television channel news, television 12 channel news, a plurality of them, almost a majority, a plurality of Israelis believe in the idea of raping Palestinians, right?
So that doesn't say how many actually support the genocide.
You can support the genocide without degrading yourself to supporting.
But I mean, in today's, it's hard to keep up, right, Judge?
So in today's news from it, and where we get so much information from is from the Israeli press itself.
So you can't accuse this being an anti-Israel narrative.
It's coming from the Israeli press.
But the news today from Haaretz was that, you know, they have evidence, something that's been suspected, it's been reported, but Haaretz has evidence that the Israelis, the They use them to set off any booby traps or mines or IEDs that are in the tunnel.
They use innocent Palestinians in that manner as human shields.
And of course, when it gets brought up, and this is in the Israeli media today, and this is something we've known about, on top of all the other war crimes, what you see at the State Department, I watched part of the briefing today.
At the State Department.
It is just the same excuse, the same trite statements, the same BS that they've uttered.
I'm struggling to find the right words because this is so infuriating, right?
Because you're being lied to.
You're being lied to in the most disrespectful and insulting way.
So what they'll say today, what they said today, what Vendid Patel, the deputy spokesperson said today, was when asked about War crimes, particularly about the bombing of the school this past weekend that killed 100 people, mostly women and children, while they were at prayer.
And then Israel says it was because Hamas is using it as a command and control center.
And they said, these are the Hamas people we killed.
And immediately, all throughout media, people with any connection to this knew a lot of those people and said it wasn't true.
They were already dead.
They were, you know, all kinds of things.
So when Benedict Patel is questioned about this.
At the State Department's press briefing, what he says is what they always say.
Well, we've asked the Israelis about this.
We want the Israelis to conduct an investigation.
And then when they get asked, following up weeks, months later, about what's the status of the investigation, they say, we haven't got that information yet, but we trust the Israelis are doing it.
If you had a friend or a family member that behaved this way, you would keep yourself away from them.
So this year is the 75th anniversary of NATO and the 75th anniversary of the Geneva Conventions, both allegedly crafted in order to enhance a humanitarian world post-World War II.
NATO has failed miserably, but had a huge three- or four-day celebration two or three weeks ago.
There wasn't a peep about the Geneva Conventions.
Although Secretary of State Blinken did issue a tweet, which I know will get under your skin because you pointed it out to us.
Sonia, please post the tweet and I'll read it.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken, this is dated today, August 12, 2024.
It has 2.2 million views.
Today we commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Geneva Conventions of 1949.
The United States reaffirms our steadfast commitment to respecting international humanitarian law and mitigating suffering in armed conflict.
We call on others to do the same.
A bald-faced lie of the highest order.
There's no other way to describe it, Judge.
It's the same caliber of lies.
George W. Bush during the Iraq War, Iraq invasion, Lyndon B. Johnson during the Vietnam War.
I'm in the same level of deceit.
You know, we should be clear, too.
It's just not an issue that the United States has not been complicit with the Geneva Conventions with respect to Israel.
That certainly has been the case with the U.S. support of Israel going back decades.
But this has been the case.
We'll just keep it in this century.
This has been the case for every administration since, you know, in this century, in these last 24 years, that have violated routinely the Geneva Conventions, whether it was Guantanamo Bay, whether it was the Iraq invasion, whether it was Obama's drone assassination programs, the war in Syria, the war in Libya.
I mean, on and on, the harm that the United States has willingly perpetrated Provided, given the harm that they've dealt out to tens of millions of people around the world, the vast, vast majority of them civilians, when you open that harm up and look at the details, you see very clearly the war crimes that every president has conducted.
and we'll just keep it easy again in this century.
But, you know, so when you look at the United States with respect to the Geneva Conventions, and it is, it goes back to what we were talking about before about how the United States doesn't talk about international law, doesn't talk about international institutions,
But this is all dismissed because it's not helpful to the empire.
And so the United States talks about a rules-based order, as we spoke about before, where they can just make things up.
But it's clear that the United States will never support the genomic By doing so, this is hastening the American decline, not just overseas, not just causing more and more nations to try and get away from the American empire however they can, creating institutions and alliances of their own,
growing so that they can compete with and eventually counter the American empire, but also here at home.
And the example to give, Judge, just one of so many about how our militarism doesn't just hurt us overseas but hurts us here at home is, you know, a year ago was the Maui wildfires.
A hundred people were killed.
More than a hundred people were killed.
Thousands and thousands of homes and businesses and cars and boats destroyed.
This week it was put out that it's going to cost more than $12 billion to rebuild Maui.
At the same time, the United States government through FEMA came out and said, we're going to spend less than $3 billion to rebuild Maui.
And that announcement from FEMA, the announcement about the $12 billion needed from Maui, that came at the same time that the United States was giving $3.5 billion to Israel.
We have to understand how this is affecting us here at home.
Over the last year, since the Maui wildfires, again, it's going to cost more than $12 billion to rebuild.
The U.S. government is going to give less than $3 billion.
Over the last year, we've given more than $100 billion to Ukraine and Israel.
So we spend this money overseas for these wars that...
And I mean, so this decline is, I guess it runs with how empires go.
But to be living through it and to be watching it and to have to suffer through the commentary and the apologies and the lies that we get from the American government as they do it.
It's just so revolting and so maddening.
When Prime Minister Netanyahu, in that speech that was received before Congress by 58 standing ovations, told the Congress and everybody else watching were about to engage in a war between barbarism and civilization, didn't he have the roles reversed?
He surely did, Judge.
He got it right.
He was correct that it was a war between, it is a war between barbarism and civilization, but the barbarians are those of us who prosecute these wars, who fund these wars, who look back on the documents that our ancestors agreed to, who gave their word to, who bound the United States through treaty.
And this is something that our Constitution says we must respect and abide by.
So it's just not a dismissal of international law, international treaties, but also our own Constitution.
When you look at it in that sense, you look at a Congress applauding like seals for the war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu, you know, and you understand that these are men and women who willingly disavow the written agreements, the word of their predecessors while they take money, They profit off of the wars.
And, you know, as we're saying with respect to Maui and certainly other places throughout the U.S., neglect their own people.
So when you put it in that, Matt Ho, thanks very much.
No matter how troubling it is that we, what we're talking about, it's enlightening to hear your courageous and well-informed analysis.
Much appreciated, my dear friend.
Thanks, Judge.
Thank you.
We'll see you next week.
All the best.
Thank you.
Of course.
Coming up at 3 o 'clock this afternoon at Eastern, Karen Kwiatkowski on The FBI is the Deep State.
And at 5 o 'clock, worth waiting for, Professor Jeffrey Sachs.
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