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Aug. 28, 2024 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
37:45
Scott Ritter: US and MSM Are Alien to Truth on Ukraine
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Hi, everyone.
Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Wednesday, August 28, 2024.
Scott Ritter will be here with us in a moment on just how far removed from reality is American foreign policy and the mainstream media that supports it.
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Scott Ritter, welcome here, my dear friend.
There's a lot I would like to discuss with you emanating out of Israel, Gaza, and Ukraine, Russia.
And I want to focus for a while on propaganda and delusion.
So first question is, in modern warfare, has propaganda itself become an end result?
Well, I mean, this has been this way for some time.
If we go back to the First World War, I mean, one of the main reasons why the United States ended up fighting on the side of Great Britain against Germany was because of the effectiveness of the propaganda that was used to demonize the German Empire and the Kaiser.
you know in the second world war propaganda played a huge role you know but the the Especially in the Second World War, we didn't really need to be propagandized.
I guess in a lengthy war where you're calling upon people to tighten the belt and make great sacrifice, you need to keep things simple, black and white, good versus evil.
And so there were big efforts to keep the home front motivated about how bad the enemy was and how righteous our cause was.
But it was a righteous cause.
I mean, at the end of the day, We did the right thing in defeating Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.
Today, of course, information warfare, propaganda, whatever we want to call it, it is an essential part of how we wage war today for many of the same reasons.
We have to dumb down the argument at home, making sure that people don't ask the inconvenient questions, while motivating The nation to support conflicts which may not be supportable if it weren't for the propaganda.
This is no longer about good versus evil.
This is about implementing policies which, if they were exposed to the daylight that comes with good journalism, So I think the difference is today that the propaganda is being used for nefarious purposes to deceive the American public about the reality of the policies that they're being asked to underwrite.
Let's start with Israel.
Does it surprise you that mainstream media is almost universally behind the Biden administration financing of genocide?
And the only place where you get the other view is places like this and other podcasts that have people like you and those who agree with you as guests to explain another version.
And the mainstream media has become an outlet, the Washington Post comes to mind, for the American intelligence community, for the lies that they want to be spread as if they were truth.
Well, look, we know that the mainstream media has been corrupted for some time.
I mean, just the whole rotating door that takes place where people leave military service or government service and they become talking heads on various networks or writing op-ed pieces for the New York Times, Washington Post, or becoming sources.
And their value...
So they're a conduit of information from the government to the mainstream media that delegitimizes the notion of independent journalism.
These outlets have become nothing more than stenographers of government policy or video producers that create a new digital reality.
So we know this.
The interesting thing is, you know, I've been criticized heavily for my stance on Israel and on this conflict.
You know, one of the places that I go for information is Haaretz.
It's an Israeli newspaper.
And the irony is that the Israeli press will publish things about the truth regarding this conflict that the American press won't touch out of fear of being called anti-Semitic.
I mean, this is the ridiculous hold that the pro-Israeli lobby has on the United States, a nation that's supposed to be founded on the principle of a free press, of free speech, that we self-censor to the extreme, and we actually censor out the truth as recognized by the Israeli media.
Interesting observation.
And, of course, there was an op-ed in Haaretz over the weekend.
In which retired Major General Yitzhak Barik said things like Israel will collapse in a year.
Netanyahu has decided to die with the Philistines.
He has lost his humanity, morality, norms, values, sense of responsibility.
At the same time, Ronan Barr, the current head, not retired, of Shin Bet, referred to Ben Gavir's folks.
In the West Bank as stirring up Jewish terror.
You couldn't get away with that in American media without them trying to tarnish you as being anti-Semitic, period.
One of the great ironies in this, and I say this with a smile on my face, is I have, through my analysis, not as a propagandist, By record as an analyst, have been saying that Israel is in an advanced stage of collapse and left unchecked, the collapse is inevitable.
I've even used a time frame that mirrors to some extent that of the Israeli general.
But when I put it out there, I'm a mouthpiece of Hamas.
I'm a mouthpiece of Hezbollah.
I'm a shill of Iran.
But, you know, that's, again, shows just how...
We have good analysts here in the United States, I count myself as one of them, who are capable of doing independent, unbiased examination of the facts and come out with predictions or assessments that are reasonable.
If they don't go with the narrative as dictated by the pro-Israeli lobby here in the United States and as echoed by the mainstream media and indeed the government, then it's simply you can't allow these voices to be heard.
And I thought the whole concept of free speech and free press was to give voice to opposing points of view so that there can be debate, dialogue, discussion for the benefit of The American people, we the people, who are, I think, able to discern between fact and fiction and decide which argument is best stated.
But the government and the mainstream media don't want to engage in that debate because they can't stand toe to toe with people like yourself, the guests you bring on.
I'll even put myself in that.
I challenge US government on a regular basis.
You are foremost in that group.
Well, how's it going for Israel?
Who's winning the propaganda war?
Israel's losing.
I mean, the sad fact of the matter is you can't point to a single facet of this conflict that has Israel winning.
Everything they do only digs this hole deeper for them.
Every military engagement they go in is now being looked at in a new light as oppression of the Palestinian people, a continuation of the genocide.
There's a growing debate inside Israel right now that Netanyahu has abandoned the north and that he is focused on defending with air defense the center, Tel Aviv, in the center part of Israel.
And the northern settlers, tens of thousands of them, are saying, hey, we live here.
We're getting bombarded.
You're not defending us.
You've abandoned us.
The Israeli government can't even win the propaganda fight at home.
So, you know, Israel has not been served by seeking to deceive its own people and the rest of the world about what's happening.
Again, I come back to the ability of the average person, whether it be American or not American, to discern the difference between fact and fiction.
We know genocide when we see it.
How is Israel doing in its war against Hamas?
They're losing.
Again, this is something that an Israeli general has said recently, that you can't defeat an ideology, and Hamas is an ideology.
It's like the standard arguments made in counterinsurgency or low-intensity conflict.
you know you have to win the hearts and souls every every action by Israel Hamas is getting stronger, not weaker.
Israel's fighting over the same terrain over and over again.
They go in.
They bomb the rubble into more rubble.
They work their way through it.
And suddenly, out of the ground, out of tunnels that Israel didn't get, the Hamas fighters spring up and start inflicting casualties on the Israelis.
This is a recurring base.
This is why Israel's running out of spare parts for their tanks, their armor-fighting vehicles.
This is why their troops are exhausted.
And they just went into the West Bank, again, disregarding the advice of active duty generals responsible for that area, saying that if we go in hard to the West Bank, if we commit to a major fight, we will be strategically defeated, that we will end up creating another front that we can't afford to be fighting in.
Colonel McGregor, who actually said you might know the answer to this better than he, opined the comments by this General Yitzhak Barik.
We're actually reflecting the comments of on-duty full-time generals who can't or are afraid to speak out.
In other words, he's expressing, he's reflecting the views of a lot of IDF leadership.
This is standard practice.
it's been the standard practice in Israel for some time now, dating back to at least my personal experience in the 1990s.
You know, active duty, Israel operates like the United States with civilian control of the military.
But retired military personnel, retired security personnel, can, with some limitations, speak out.
And the fact that this man is speaking out and is not being suppressed by the government is indicative of the fact that he is the chosen mouthpiece of An active duty force that would otherwise be silenced.
So his words need to resonate even more.
And I'll also say this.
The Israeli press is a very savvy press.
They are loath to give voices to isolated opinions.
If they make a decision to publish the words of a retired general, it's because they know that he is speaking on behalf of an entire echelon of active duty.
Officers, senior officers, who feel that this opinion must be heard by the Israeli people.
Israel does have a very vigorous and responsible fourth establishment.
I wish ours mirrored that.
Yeah.
Let's segue over to Ukraine.
What is the status of the incursion into Kyrgyz?
It must have been orchestrated with approval of MI6 and CIA.
It was certainly funded by the United States, and we believe that European officials were involved as well.
Where does it stand now?
Well, first of all, let me go back, because I've been talking to people who are on the Russian side.
Please tell us what you can.
Yeah, reconstructing.
Well, I just want to be honest.
When I say talking to people, I'm talking to Russian sources.
Who are on the front lines doing the fighting, etc.
They have said a couple things.
One, this is a very big incursion.
Very big incursion.
And the Ministry of Defense of Russia was not prepared for it.
So the Ukrainians were able to come in and seize a chunk of land.
But the Russians were able to respond to blunt the attack, and now they've basically...
Have they surrounded it?
No, because the Ukrainians still have, in the border with the Sumy regions, the Ukrainians still have some lines of communication, but these lines of communication are susceptible to interdiction.
So the Russians are hitting them with artillery, hitting them with air power, hitting with drones.
And it's become almost impossible for the Ukrainians to supply or resupply the forces that are...
And so what's happening is they're running out of ammunition, they're running out of fuel, and they're just slowly being ground down.
There's only one outcome, and that's going to be every Ukrainian in Russia is either going to die, in Kursk, is either going to die, be wounded, retreat, or captured.
They're not going to hold on to this land.
But Russia's in no hurry.
And one of the reasons why Russia's in no hurry is, you know, it's one thing to have a strategic reserve that hasn't been It's still there.
It's available.
It's a possibility, a potential to send things here, there, and everywhere.
The Strategic Reserve is now firmly located in that blue spot on your map.
The Russians know where it is.
They have it stuck, trapped, and they're going to destroy it.
they're gonna kill it.
And from the Russian perspective, I'm sure at some point in time, somebody's heads are going to roll.
From a military standpoint right now, Russia is actually in an extraordinarily advantageous spot because the strategic reserve has not only been committed, but it's stuck in a trap and it can't get out to where it's most needed, which is on the front in Donbass, where the ukrainian defenses are collapsing as we speak the russians are just rolling They needed these people to be there to plug the holes.
And we're looking at the total collapse of the Ukrainian defenses in Donetsk.
And in a very short period of time, it's estimated that the Ukrainians will have no choice but to abandon their positions and fall back behind the Dnieper River.
And one of the reasons why this will happen is because the Ukrainians sent these troops as a curse.
Now, according to the Russians, This force is one of the best-trained, best-equipped forces that Ukraine has ever put together.
These guys are making use of cutting-edge technology.
They have command and control capabilities that are the equivalent of the best NATO forces.
They integrate artificial intelligence into their scheme of operations, meaning that there is Satellite imagery coming in, intelligence coming in.
It's creating a picture of the battlefield that allows predictive analysis using artificial intelligence about where the Russians are, where they're not, where you can get the best exploitation.
And this is why they exploded in there.
They came in and they were able to shoot the gaps, exploit the weaknesses, and make advances.
But, you know, the Russians eventually...
The Ukrainians went stupid, and when they went stupid, they lost their advantage, and the Russians now have successfully contained them.
This force was trained to carry out offensive operations against Russia, but the training that was conducted was focused on the Zaporizhia area.
This was a strategic decision made by Zelensky to take this NATO-trained force, which was supposed to be fighting down in the Zaporizhia-Dombas region, and instead diverted into Kursk.
The Russians now are of the opinion that NATO may not have known.
I'm not sure about this, that the U.S. and the British were supportive of this after the fact, but that the initial incursion into Kursk probably took NATO as much by surprise as it did the Russian Ministry of Defense.
Isn't it inconceivable that the...
Well, now we're getting into intelligence connectivity, and yeah, I mean, I think the CIA and MI6 knew about it.
What I'm saying is that this was not, unlike the 2023 counteroffensive, which was planned in Ramstein, You know, they trained up in Grafenweir.
NATO was involved in every aspect of it, up to including micromanaging the day-by-day actions.
This cursed concursion was run without that kind of NATO connectivity, at least at the start.
NATO then adjusted, and for instance, the satellite feeds and everything else were opened up.
And it became a NATO operation.
But from a military standpoint, the NATO military hierarchy did not appear to be aware that they were going to move into Kersk the way they did.
Had they been, they probably would have strongly argued against it because this operation has no chance of succeeding.
Never did.
Were NATO forces, including Americans, by forces I mean, Civilian intel, contractors, soldiers of fortune, like our friend Matt Van Dyke, and maybe full-time military, active duty but out of uniform, involved, physically involved in the incursion?
There's, in terms of, you know, actual NATO forces.
their sheep dipped there were units comprised of nothing but Polish troops troops that had been serving last year in the Polish military but now are part of the International Legion of the There were lots of French volunteers.
There are units in the International Legion of Georgians and of Americans.
There is one unit in particular called Forward Operation Group, FOG, which appears to have Greater connectivity with the United States government than one would expect from a mercenary outfit.
And they appear not to have been involved in the initial phases of this operation, but were brought in after the fact, almost as if the United States and NATO were saying, oh, well, we need to come in and exert a modicum of control over this, or all of our investments are going to be gone.
Because that's what happened.
They poured billions of dollars into creating this strike force.
And it's gone.
All the M1 Abrams tanks, the Challenger, the Chieftain tanks, the New Leopard tanks, they're in Kursk.
They're being destroyed.
These were tanks that are supposed to be down fighting the battle in Donbass, and they're all being destroyed.
The Martyr Infantry Fighting Vehicles, the Bradleys, the Strikers, they're all being destroyed right now.
This was a huge investment by NATO and the United States, and it's now being squandered and cursed.
And so I think we now are seeing...
But they're in a quandary right now, the Ukrainians.
This map that we have on the screen, which is courtesy of the Daily Mail, purports to show European forces.
The Russians leaked that their intel detected, their linguists that work for the intel, detected American accents among the troops.
They're saying they weren't in the initial foray, but they were eventually there.
Well, there were American accents in the troops, but these were the mercenaries, the Van Dykes of the world.
These are the people that have no formal connectivity with the United States.
Do they wear?
Ukrainian uniforms?
Can an American wear the uniform of a foreign military?
I mean, I guess the answer is yes.
I mean, you know, RFK Jr.'s son went and fought with the Ukrainians.
My understanding is you don't really get into trouble unless you become an NCO or an officer.
But even then, there's exceptions to the rule.
But the old the old.
That's no longer the case.
there should be laws about committing murder and things of that nature, which many of these, I mean, look, these mercenaries are not good people.
I'm not going to cast, you know, I don't know Matt Van Dyke personally, but I will tell you that the majority of the Americans that go over and fight, the majority of Americans, They're looking for adventure.
Many of them don't have combat backgrounds.
And they're lawless individuals.
And when they get out there, they commit rape, they commit murder, they commit atrocities.
And I would like to see our government hold these people accountable for what they do.
Because even though they're not there officially, when you have that American accent, when you wear that American flag on your shoulder, You know, the world sees you as an American, even if the American government didn't give the stamp of approval.
Let's go back to where we started on propaganda.
Who's winning the propaganda war in Russia and Ukraine?
Well, it's more complicated.
Look, the Russians aren't very good at information warfare.
I mean, I know everybody's like, RT is really good and all this stuff.
They can do geopolitics well, but from a military standpoint, They do a better job with a Russian-speaking audience because there's a lot of very good Russian combat reporters out there reporting from the front lines, but they report back in Russian language, either spoken or written.
And for a Western audience that doesn't know how to access that reporting, or if they did, they couldn't make sense of it.
It's lost on them.
But the other thing is that the Russians just don't care what you and I think, Judge.
They're not here to please us.
They're not here to serve our curiosity or answer our questions.
They don't care.
so we're frustrated because we're trying to serve a broader audience by providing balanced reporting based upon facts but we end up responding to the output of NATO of the United States of Ukraine they get the shape that Western We don't care.
The incursion have been planned for America, American propaganda purposes to gin up support for this support of Ukraine.
So it extends beyond November 5th.
I don't think so, because, again, let's compare and contrast with the 2023 counteroffensive, the great summer.
This one was played up.
We had a build-up.
We had the New York Times running articles about the counteroffensive.
Everybody, the Washington Post, man, it was all ready.
We were all eating popcorn, going to the movies, ready for the counteroffensive.
Curse just happened.
And everybody was sitting there going, what just happened?
That's not how you sell a concept, having people ask the question, what just happened?
Why did it happen?
There wasn't enough buildup.
So I don't think that Kursk was meant to be a propaganda ploy.
think it was a desperate gambit on the part of the Ukrainians because they are losing the support of the West Germany is no longer funding them the way that Germany said they were Ukrainians are begging for money.
They've squandered all of their military resources.
This was a desperate gambit by Zelensky to be able to say, look, I can seize the initiative.
I'm still here, guys.
I'm still relevant.
Remember, at the same time that curse took place, there were stories being bandied about in the press that put Zelensky down.
The Germans have accused him of ordering the attack on Nord Stream.
Now, I'm not buying into that story, but that's Germany accusing We also have a, you know, there's open discussion in the media today about a potential replacement for Zelensky.
They've even named somebody, the Minister of Interior, as being somebody to replace Zelensky because he has lost the confidence of the West.
So now you're Zelensky and you're looking at all this.
It looks like your allies are turning on you.
You need to do something to win back the trust and confidence.
And so you do this bold, This bold move into Kursk gets failed, and it's backfired on him.
He's even in a worse position today than he was, but I don't think this was meant to be a piece of propaganda to win over a Western audience.
Here he is yesterday, yesterday, President Zelensky crowing about his successes.
Cut number 15. One part of the plan that is already performed is in the Kursk region.
Strategically.
The second part is Ukraine's strategic place in the world's security infrastructure.
The third part is a pressure package, a powerful package to force Russia to end the war diplomatically.
The fourth part is economic.
Nonsense.
Pure insanity.
I mean, this man is, you know, I'm not going to go down...
But he's detached from reality.
This is literally his posture, his way of speaking.
Go to that classic movie, Downfall, the famous bunker scene where Hitler's surrounded by his generals who are briefing him on the bad news that the Russians have broken through and Steiner isn't coming and all this stuff.
This is Zelensky on a daily basis.
He lives in a fantasy world where he thinks that Ukraine is relevant.
He speaks of Ukraine as being The central player in the security, you know, the security conceptualization in the part of the West, as if America, when thinking about how to deal with Russia now, has to say, Ukraine is first and foremost.
We have to go to the Ukrainians.
No one's going to the Ukrainians right now.
People are trying to get rid of Ukraine, dump Ukraine.
Ukraine has lost.
It's over for Ukraine.
But Zelensky can't accept that.
So he's out here drawn.
Big arrows on the map and talking about things that just aren't going to happen.
Here's the adult in the room, as you and many others and I have called him, Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov.
It's two minutes long, but it's very profound and very Lavrovian, and it too is from yesterday, cut number 14. The West does not want to avoid escalation.
Americans have this direct association, these conversations, this talk of a world war.
They think that if this happens, it would only concern Europe, which is a very showing thing that reflects the mentality of those.
geopolitical strategists in the US because they are confident that they will just be safe across the ocean.
And in this situation, one has to understand that we have our own doctrine, a doctrine of using nuclear weapons, among other things.
And we are now making adjustments to this doctrine and the American And, you know, these are Freud and sleep.
World War III is a bad thing because we do not want Europe to suffer.
That's the mentality of the Americans, mentality of masters that are sitting on the other bank across the ocean.
They are certain of their safety and security, and they are confident that there will be someone else.
To die for them, to do their dirty job for them, not only Ukrainians, but now Europeans as well.
So we heard these speculations regarding allowing to use not only the term shadows, but also American missiles, long-range missiles.
And in Washington, an anonymous source said that there is an ongoing effort, that they are looking into a request from Ukraine in a positive light.
I do not want to add anything to that.
The president has already spoken on this on many occasions, and we reaffirm this once again, that playing with fire, and they are like little kids who are playing games with matches.
It's a dangerous thing for adults who were trusted with nuclear weapons.
Accusing the United States of being like children playing with matches and revealing that the Kremlin has made, quote, adjustments to its nuclear doctrine.
How do you interpret that?
it what it means is that there's no such thing as a limited nuclear war um that in the united states um We speak of Russia using nuclear weapons against Ukraine, maybe Russia using nuclear weapons against certain European countries, but that that conflict will be limited to that.
And what Lavrov has said, and I hope everybody heard what he said, that if there's a nuclear war, the United States will be hit.
I'll say it one more time just so your audience understands what I'm saying.
If there's a nuclear war in Europe, the United States will be hit.
And now here's the thing.
We have an aging nuclear enterprise.
We have Minuteman 3 missiles, which are well beyond their life expectancy.
They're stuck in silos that are old.
The command and control is using outdated equipment.
The Russians have modernized their nuclear force.
They have hypersonic weapons that can reach the United States in far quicker times than we can.
Russia not only will hurt the United States, but if Russia makes a decision to strike, It will be a killing strike designed to destroy America's nuclear force before it launches to minimize America's retaliatory capacity.
This is what Russia will do.
I hope people will take a look at the maps of what happens when 150 to 300 megaton warheads or kiloton warheads land on American cities.
The spread of the radiation, how long the contamination will be.
Guys, it's over.
It's game, set, match.
Humanity is gone.
The Russians aren't playing around.
They understand the seriousness of this.
And they are not going to sit back and allow the United States to play stupid games that put the existential survival of Russia at risk.
If you think Russia is going to let the United States put a standoff strike weapon, American-made, on an American F-16 and pilot it with a Ukrainian and have these weapons be launched against Moscow and St. Petersburg, you're insane.
Russia will know exactly where that attack came from, from the United States, and the United States will pay the price.
This is why I say we are on the edge, on the edge of the abyss.
We are closer to nuclear war than we have ever been.
Look at the Biden administration.
How have they responded to this?
They've issued a new nuclear employment guidance.
This is the war plan, which will make it even easier for the United States to use nuclear weapons.
So we're front-loading any potential crisis with Russia with a nuclear employment.
That's a strategy that's contingent upon limiting the conflict to Europe.
This is why we have a low-yield nuclear weapon, the W76-2, so that we can send a signal to Russia.
I'm telling you right now, the Russian doctrine is clear.
If a nuclear weapon of any size is detonated on Russian soil, Russia will respond with the totality of its nuclear capabilities.
That's not me saying this.
This is Vladimir Putin saying this.
That's what LabRob is trying to remind us of.
Play with fire, you will get burned.
But ladies and gentlemen, this isn't going to be the burning of the fingers.
This is going to be the burning of your entire neighborhood, of your entire city, of our entire nation.
Tough stuff, Scott Ritter.
Thank you very much for your courageous and gifted analysis.
Very much appreciated, my dear friend.
Thanks for having me.
Of course.
I hope you'll come back with us again next week.
Plan on it.
Of course.
All the best.
Coming up at 5.30 Eastern, the always worth waiting for, Max Blumenthal.
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