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Aug. 26, 2024 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
27:03
Pepe Escobar : How Strong Is the Resistance?
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Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is August 27th, 2024.
Pepe Escobar is back with us on just how strong is the resistance to Israel.
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Pepe, welcome back, my dear friend.
We missed you.
You were traveling.
You're always a wealth of knowledge and information.
A lot of things happened while you were away.
I know you were in Iraq, and we are very anxious to hear about that, and particularly your assessment on the stability and plans of the resistance in the Middle East.
But before we get there, you're in Moscow.
I know you just got back.
What is the latest feeling in Moscow, if you can put your finger on the pulse, of the invasion in Kursk?
It is clear that this was a NATO invasion.
It is clear that the United States spearheaded it.
President Zelensky, I think falsely but loudly, is claiming it's a game changer.
How does Moscow view this?
Well, I'll be very...
I'm here for a little over 24 hours, but it was enough to talking to people and to feeling the pulse that we are at another cliffhanger moment.
And there is absolutely less than zero possibility of any negotiation with Ukraine, NATO, or the US.
So the Kremlin, the foreign intel agency, the FSB, think tanks, they all agreed that now there are only two options left.
Unconditional surrender of Ukraine under Russia's terms, or NATO going on an all-out war against Russia.
So this is as serious as it gets.
That's where we are at the moment.
So I'll have more in the next few days.
But, you know, when in the first 24 hours you get that feeling, why?
I have to comment because of what so many viewers are saying.
Something else happened in the past 24 hours.
You shaved.
I mean, there you are with that beautiful baby face that I've never seen before.
Well, it's good to have a lighthearted moment like this, right?
Well, my life is crazy enough.
One day I am at the Gulf of Thailand on the beach.
The next day I'm on the desert in Iraq.
And on the next day I shave.
Before we get to Iraq, can you tell us, if you're aware, if there's any extraordinary pressure on President Putin from the right, whether it's the military community, the intelligence community, the political community, or the Moscow elites, for him to come down like a sledgehammer?
Well, that's very complicated.
It's going to take another few days for us to have a clearer picture.
Okay.
There is pressure from the hardcore Siloviki fashions.
These are people who are inside the SVR, foreign intel, especially inside the FSB.
Under Bortnikov, who is a much more hardcore character compared to Putin, Bortnikov is not a diplomat with this Taoist aura like Putin.
No.
He's part of the let's go for the head of the snake.
So there is internal pressure.
Of course, we have glimpses of Lee.
Here and there.
But we don't get the full picture.
One thing is clear.
President Putin is angry.
And of course, heads will roll much later about Kursk.
But the possibility that they would go for the head of the snake within the next few weeks, let's put it this way, is not discarded yet.
But it's not a certainty.
At the same time.
So it's a very fluid situation.
It depends on what sort of provocation will come up, you know, Kiev will come up next.
And anything goes.
Another attack on Zaporizhzhye.
Zelenskyy and those crazy Podoryak and company in Kiev now want to attack.
Moscow and St. Petersburg directly.
They're seeing this on the record.
Oh, good Lord.
Really, it's completely out of control in terms of the dementia in Kiev.
And of course, absolutely no signs from Washington or Brussels to rein in the crazies, the lunatic.
Here is a very recent response to all of this.
From Foreign Minister Lavrov, which you could easily entitle, the West is looking for trouble.
Yes.
The West does not want to avoid escalation.
The West, how we say in Russia, is looking for trouble.
It is very important to understand that we have our own doctrine, including doctrine on the use of nuclear weapon, which, by the way, has been adjusted now.
And American representatives are well aware about it.
I've never heard him speak that way.
He never did, Judge.
He never did.
And he's pointing directly to this tweaking of the Russian nuclear doctrine, which is something that a year ago, exactly one year ago, like next week is going to be the same, the Vladivostok Forum.
One year ago, Sergei Karaganov was at the Vladivostok Forum and he was basically challenging Putin to alter the Russian nuclear doctrine because he said, look, these provocations won't stop.
And in the end, Karaganov was right.
The provocations won't stop and Russia is seriously contemplating a tweaking of their nuclear doctrine.
This is as crazy as it goes in a matter of only one year.
And Lavrov is the portrait of a Taoist master.
Even Lavrov has lost his patience nowadays.
Ryabkov, the deputy foreign minister, the same thing.
So it's very, very, very serious.
Kursk, in a sense, well, we are back to the original Kursk, Second World War, and this mini Kursk, Okay.
Before we get to Israel, Pavel Durov, the founder of Telegram, why do you think he was arrested in Paris?
Wow, that's a very complicated story.
My column came out a few hours ago on Sputnik in English, so it should be circulating in the US soon.
Basically, the people that I talked to from yesterday to today, some very good intel agencies, they were saying, they were giving many reasons for this, let's say, macronist offensive, in fact.
The fact that Telegram is used in the Sahel against French interests by absolutely everybody.
The fact that the French cannot control the narrative on Telegram in terms of the Ukraine war and more and more people in Europe and even in France are starting to pay attention to what goes on on Telegram.
But the more complicated scenario which I'll try to put together in this column is that this is a European They commissioned Macron Offensive to try to get control over Telegram.
So basically, they set up a trap to Durov.
The most important thing about his arrest is that he didn't know that he would fly to France and be arrested because the arrest warrant was issued when he was on the air.
And after his pilot has already, the flight plan was already on.
So the French knew it.
They got a hint from somebody.
Their ample speculation could have been his Instagram addicted, Durov's Instagram addicted lover, which was posting everywhere where they're going together.
So they said, okay, let's set up a trap and let's get him.
Because we want something from him, considering that three years ago, Macron gave Durand French citizenship.
Because, and this is very, very important, this was a personal intervention by Macron to give Durand a French passport in the name of our values, freedom of speech, etc.
And now the whole thing turned upside down.
Because what they really wanted from Durand from the beginning is some sort of control over telegram.
Now, will he be released on bail or is he locked up for the duration of this litigation?
We don't know, Judge.
Apparently, it stops on Thursday, the legal period that they can keep him under interrogation, let's put it this way.
I wonder what kind of interrogation this is.
After that, the judge has to press charges or...
We don't know what's going to happen.
When you look at the communique by the French prosecutor of the Republic, it's an absolute joke, in fact.
This has been circulated in English as well.
Basically, he's being accused of being complicit with everything.
You know, money laundering, drug trafficking, pedophilia, etc.
So he's being blamed by people who use the platform, which is completely absurd.
We will encourage people to look for your column.
Thank you.
And we'll monitor this and we'll look for you to let us know what's going on with it.
What did you discover?
what is your impression from your trip to your recent trip to Iraq?
Well, I was there last week and it was For me, at the same time, it was quite emotional.
I worked a lot in Iraq, before shock and awe, afterwards.
I came back many times afterwards.
I was there in 2002 during the axis of evil period in the last year of Staddam, in fact.
So this was extremely emotional.
And at the same time, my first impression was an enormous shock.
Yes, this is the famous literary cafe in one of the streets of old Baghdad, which preserved miraculously from everything.
There was a lot of bombings, shootings, etc., in this particular street.
Now the street is more or less rebuilt.
It looks great.
The owner of the cafe, I can't believe that he recognized me.
He said, yes, you were here 20 years ago.
I said, I can't believe you.
Was that before or after you shaved?
Exactly.
Maybe because of the beard, right?
But because no Westerners were visiting Iraq in 2002, before shock and awe.
And then there were different layers of the trip.
We were invited by the Prime Minister's office.
So this was a very serious trip, extremely well organized.
A small group of bloggers and influencers from the Arab world in general, very popular.
and a few foreigners, including myself.
There was a conference on Palestine on the first day, which was when the
They linked the pilgrimage to Karbala last week on Arbaim, commemorating the fourth year's day of the martyrdom of Imam Hussain, which is a very sacred date for the Shiites.
They linked Karbala.
In terms of resistance and martyrdom to Gaza.
So, you know, it was amazing.
This is our Soviet ride with Commander Tashin, who took us from Baghdad to Karbala.
An absolutely amazing trip because he instructed the pilot to follow the road above the pilgrims.
So while we were flying, we were looking down and we will see this mess.
Of pilgrims, absolutely amazing, walking from Baghdad to Karbala.
And this is only one of the many accidents where people actually walk.
There are people who are walking from the Iraq border all the way to Karbala for days on end.
Something absolutely extraordinary.
And then we learned by the end of the week that there were 21 It's the largest urban movement on the planet.
Is it fair to conclude that the Iraqi people, and I'll ask you about the government in a minute, are furious at what is happening in Gaza?
Absolutely correct, Judge.
And for instance, I'll give you an example.
We couldn't get close to the shrine in Karbala because it was absolutely packed.
So we were like five kilometers away.
But we were very lucky because we were in a sort of mini Al-Aqsa.
There was a mini reconstruction of Al-Aqsa on the way to the shrine with an exhibition about Al-Aqsa with Palestinian martyrs and the fact that many Iraqis support them.
They were collecting funds to send to Al-Aqsa as well, food, etc.
The people that we were talking to over there, pilgrims from not only from different parts of Iraq, but from all over the lands of Islam.
There were people from Azerbaijan, from Pakistan, from Iran, from Central Asia, from the Persian Gulf.
Absolutely outstanding.
And this mini Al-Aqsa compound was a discussion center on the ramifications of the genocide in Gaza and the fact that Iraqis not only support Palestine as a whole, but they support the government's position on Al-Aqsa and on Palestine.
And this was at the last day we were granted a special audience with the Prime Minister himself, Mohammed Sudani, which is a very, very smart guy.
Very well prepared.
He was a former minister in previous governments.
A humanist, a Shiite humanist.
And he made the direct connection, resistance, Karbala, Arbaim, Gaza.
And was outstanding.
And then he opened the floor for our observations, all of us as well.
So it was very interesting because the Arab visitors, the Arab bloggers, For many of them, it was the first time they had ever been to Iraq.
Many of them were quite young, in fact.
So for them, it was a shock.
And they didn't expect it.
So the view of an Iraqi government deeply implicated in the axis of resistance and at the same time having to maneuver very carefully.
Between the US, the EU, Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, Iran, etc.
But now under a policy that the Prime Minister of Sudan described very aptly as Iraq first.
We could not even imagine something like this happening a few years ago.
Maybe two years ago.
What is your sense of what, if anything, the government of Iraq can do or might do to resist And the people who are doing the heavy lifting are the militias, Qataib, Hezbollah, Hashdahl, Shabi, etc.
These are the people who will...
Who will know?
They are directly involved.
And if there is a lot of American support, I would say overblown American support to Israel, the remaining American bases in Iraq will be hit.
There's no question about that.
But the government, it's a very, very fine line that they are threading.
So it's diplomatic support.
As much as they can, they're trying to send in funds, health equipment, as long as it crosses the border from Rafa, et cetera, to Gaza.
And they're coordinating what they're doing with the Iranian government, with the Turkish government as well.
So it's important in terms of organizing, let's say, a solidarity corridor with Palestine.
Got it.
Where do you see the slaughter in Gaza going?
How do you see it ending?
A physical resistance of Houthis, Hezbollah, Iran, and militias?
Or the United States, which just conducted its 500th delivery of arms to Israel, continuing to arm Israel without end?
Exactly.
You just said it.
500 deliveries.
So it won't stop.
It won't stop because the United States does not, or the people in power at the US, don't want it to stop.
And they legitimize anything that this, I would say, this gang of Talmudic psychopathological genocidals in Tel Aviv are doing, supported by...
So it is an eschatological cult supported by the collective West.
This is the short headline of this whole story.
So we have the collective West basically supporting a genocide conducted by a tiny scatological cult destabilizing the whole of West Asia.
It's not only that part of So the response is going to be a gradual response.
We already had the beginning.
Nasrallah described it as stage one of the response.
Over 300 missiles, drones, etc.
Top-of-the-line missiles that Hezbollah has, you know.
And this was enough to shock the Israeli to the point that they more or less agreed that for the moment, the scene is settled in terms of Israel-Hezbollah.
Israel knows that they cannot win a war against Hezbollah.
And they know how Hezbollah is dangerous if they decide to go all out.
The problem is there's no way out for this cabinet in Tel Aviv.
Apart from, you know, over and over and over and over and over again.
The fact that they basically didn't achieve anything substantial apart from the destruction of Gaza.
And the fact that if they try anything...
This time, it won't be only from Hezbollah, but it will be the Houthis, it will be the militias in Iraq, and eventually Iran, because Iran, on the record, is saying practically every day, look, there will be a response.
We decide when and how.
Got it.
Before I let you go, Chris just informed me that in a recent, back to Pavel Durov, in a recent interview with my Friend and former colleague, Tucker Carlson, Pavel, said the U.S. government has been spying on him and even attempted to hire away his chief engineer.
Question, is the U.S. behind the arrest in Paris?
Well, we don't have a smoking gun, Judge, but let's say to be extremely diplomatic, they encouraged Macron's move.
And basically, the European Commission's move.
Don't forget that this ties in with the Neo-Orwellian Digital Services Act, which basically applies to all the big tech companies.
So Elon Musk is a big, big target for the EU.
And even to Telegram.
Telegram is not big in Europe.
Telegram has X is a completely different story.
So this could be the beginning of the EU going after Musk later on as well.
This is what they want.
This is something that I think practically nobody knows or forgets.
Europe does not have any social networks.
So they need to control at least one.
And they are picking Telegram because they think it's the easiest way to get it.
Got it.
My dear friend, Pepe Escobar, thank you very much.
I know you just arrived from your whirlwind tour.
We deeply appreciate your time.
We look forward to seeing you next week, my dear friend.
Enormous pleasure, Judd.
See you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Coming up later today at 2 o 'clock.
Matt Ho at 3 o 'clock, all times Eastern as usual.
Karen Kwiatkowski at 4 o 'clock Eastern.
The always worth waiting for, Professor John Mearsheimer.
Let me also remind you, as you know, last week at this time we had been struck.
We were off of YouTube because of something said two months earlier.
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