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Sept. 10, 2024 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
27:28
Aaron Maté : Victoria Nuland War Criminal
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Hi, everyone.
Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Wednesday, September 11th, 2024.
Aaron Monte joins us now.
Aaron, thanks very much for joining us.
We have been remarking all week about the sort of confession by Victoria Nuland, and I want to spend some time with you about her.
Her role in the tragedy in Ukraine and her admissions over the weekend.
But before I do, I want to ask you about the latest in Israel and Gaza.
Prime Minister Netanyahu announced recently that he instructed the IDF to be prepared to invade Lebanon.
This is the third time he's done it.
Is this for PR purposes or is he crazy enough to think that he can invade Lebanon or has Lloyd Austin promised him 25,000 Marines?
These are great questions.
I wish I knew the answer to.
You'd think rationally he'd realize that he cannot manage a second front in Lebanon, a full-scale war there.
But Netanyahu clearly is not driven by rationality, by strategic concerns.
He's driven by political survival.
And his just profound commitment to Israeli supremacy in the region.
And fanatic Israeli Zionists have always seen not just the West Bank and Gaza, where Palestinians live, but other countries in the region.
Lebanon and Jordan is also a part of their homeland, too, that they've wanted to settle.
And certainly people inside his extremist coalition believe that.
It's hard to gauge what really is going through his head, whether this is just bluster or this is actually what he wants.
Certainly, he has a passionate hatred for anybody who can resist Israel.
And Lebanon hosts Hezbollah, which is at the forefront of resisting Israel.
So he's got a strong desire to destroy them.
And as you indicated, he does need the U.S. to back him up on that.
And then we have to think about what's going on through Joe Biden's head, to the extent Joe Biden is still involved in making policy.
Where is he thinking?
And has he promised Netanyahu some sort of support if he goes to war with Lebanon?
These, unfortunately, are questions that I believe in previous times would be pretty easy to answer.
We'd be able to say, no, these people aren't crazy enough to essentially have a regional war.
But given their behavior over the last year, we're approaching nearly the one-year anniversary of this mass murder campaign in Gaza.
We have to ask them.
Is it snarky of me to suggest, or is it realistic to offer that – Well, again, think about previous times when Israel carried out an act of aggression time to the U.S. political calendar.
When Barack Obama was first elected in 2008, the day of the election, when everybody was so consumed with Obama's election and what a historic moment that was, or believed to be, Israel carried out an attack on Gaza that broke.
A ceasefire with Hamas.
And they did so deliberately to break the ceasefire, provoke a Hamas response, and Israel then used that response to justify carrying out a mass murder campaign, which they continued right up until Barack Obama's Inauguration.
Because Obama basically indicated that he didn't want to have his inauguration overshadowed by Israel carrying out an extermination operation inside the Gaza death camp.
So it stopped then.
So certainly, Israel is very attuned to the U.S. political calendar.
And I wouldn't be surprised, certainly, if they used the distraction of this upcoming election to launch some new wave of aggression on top of what they're carrying out every single day in Gaza, which is just massacre after massacre.
Can the IDF defeat Hezbollah without the United States?
No, absolutely not.
And they know that.
And that's why there's a strong element of the Israeli national security establishment that does not want to have a war with Hezbollah.
Even with the aid of the U.S.?
Even with the aid of the U.S., it would lead to a lot of damage for Israel.
Hezbollah has developed the capacity to really do damage to Israel.
So Israel's only chance would be with US help in fighting them.
But obviously, people who with any remote connection to reality understand just what a regional catastrophe that would be.
And Hezbollah has the capacity to destroy large parts of Israel.
So there are some elements of the Israeli state that does not want this.
But again, we're dealing with people now who are not driven anymore by They're driven by hegemony and supremacy.
When they have the backing of someone like Joe Biden, it's a very dangerous combination.
I thought of you when I read recently that Iran has been shipping missiles to Russia.
So much for the US sanctions on Iran.
Yeah, I haven't looked into these allegations, and I wouldn't be surprised if they're being hyped up a little bit to justify Biden giving Ukraine what it wants, which is the authorization to carry out long-range strikes into Russia, because now they might say, well, Iran is supplying Russia with this new capability, so therefore we have to grant Ukraine the permission to strike deep into Russia, or to justify increased Israeli strikes against Iran and their allies in the region.
But certainly, overall, this idea that you can constrain all these states and that they're not going to fight back when you're constantly provoking them in the case of both Russia and Iran, it wouldn't also surprise me if Iran is supplying this capability.
But I have to see more evidence of it before I totally accept the Biden administration's claim.
The recent murder of a young woman by the IDF.
this will irritate you, so forgive me, was the subject of one of those back and forths at the State Department, you know, that Max used to go to when they let him in there.
This one will get under your skin, but I'd like your comments on it cut number Do you actually condemn the actual act of killing an American citizen protesting the aggression of, let's say, the Israeli occupation army?
Condemn the act of the killing itself.
Let's just be very clear.
Of course, we would condemn the death.
The death of any American citizen is heartbreaking.
But let's be just very precise and clear that I am not going to speculate on what transpired on Friday, as those facts and those processes are still being determined and adjudicated, and we're going to let that process play out.
It is troubling, it is tragic, and certainly there is a responsibility here to share as much information as possible so that Ms. IG's family has the most appropriate accounting of what exactly transpired and what happened here.
But, Said, there is a process, and I'm just not going to get ahead of that.
And I'm not going to speak on behalf of our partners in Israel.
So you actually condemn the act of the murder of an American citizen?
Of course, Said.
The murder of any American citizen, we would take issue with.
Okay.
Would and could, but not do.
This is just pathetic, that response.
Pathetic.
He can't bring himself to condemn the murder of an American citizen.
Note how he initially starts that, but then he says actually, rather than condemning it, says it's heartbreaking.
And then when asked directly again at the very end of that cliff, he says, yes, we take issue with it.
What is the issue?
Will this IDF soldier who put a bullet in her head Well, if history is any guide, whatever happens, they'll get off scot-free.
You know, there's unfortunately a record of Israel killing Americans, including Rachel Corey, the U.S. peace activist more than two decades ago, two years ago, killing Shireen Abu Akleh, a journalist with Al Jazeera.
Has anybody been held accountable for that?
No.
And if the Biden administration's reaction so far is any indication, He told reporters that he believes that this woman, this young woman, was killed because an Israeli bullet ricocheted off the ground and accidentally hit her.
Oh, there's an eyewitness to her murder, to her execution.
Wow.
That's not the version the eyewitness gives.
Where would Biden come up with this?
His dim mind must have just concocted this?
Or would U.S. intel have fed this nonsense to him?
I think we can credit Joe Biden's dim mind for this.
After all, he's the guy who also claimed multiple times to have seen photographs of beheaded and burned babies from October 7th.
The White House had to acknowledge that that was not true, but yet he kept doubling down on that lie.
So the same mind that came up with that lie.
Has not come up with this one.
What is your understanding of the latest political standing of Prime Minister Netanyahu?
I ask you this because in glancing at an article in Haaretz yesterday, I came across a phrase I've never seen before, and this was hurled at him by an Orthodox Jewish family.
The hangman of Gaza Street.
Have you seen this phrase to refer to Netanyahu, and particularly by an Orthodox family whose son was one of the hostages that was murdered?
I have not, but I do know that there is outrage over the recent deaths of those six Israeli captives and Netanyahu being blamed for that.
And that I think is what has driven so much of the growing Israeli opposition to him.
Not unfortunately Netanyahu's murder of 10 But certainly, it's pretty clear now to anybody with their eyes open that Nanyahu is in the way of a hostage deal, and he's seeing bigger protests as a result.
Wow.
Switching to Ukraine, what did Victoria Nuland admit to over the weekend?
Victoria Nuland admitted to exactly what every guest on the show has been saying for a long time now, which is that the US blocked a peace deal that was reached in April 2022, the early weeks of Russia's invasion, that could have ended that war on totally reasonable grounds and saved hundreds of thousands of lives and how many billions of dollars and all the other damage and consequences of this war.
That deal has been discussed on this show at length.
The basic premise was Russia would withdraw to its pre-invasion lines.
Zelensky and Putin would meet to flesh out an agreement on the future of Donbass and Crimea.
And most importantly, Ukraine would declare neutrality, which is not, contrary to how it's portrayed now, a radical demand.
That's the same principle that Ukraine had enshrined in its founding state constitution.
That was the deal.
We all know what happened.
The U.S. and U.K. stood in the way.
And Newland newly confirmed that by saying that very late in the process, The U.S. had concerns that, in her words, the agreement would leave Ukraine neutered.
And what did she mean by that?
She explained that there would be limits on what kinds of weapon systems Ukraine could have.
So for the sake of Ukraine not being neutered, Nuland and her colleagues ordered Ukraine to basically destroy itself, because that's what's happened ever since.
Hundreds of thousands of people have lost their lives because the U.S. could not accept.
that their proxy state, which they created in 2014 by backing a coup, would be limited in its offensive weapon system pointed at Russia.
And since they see Ukraine not as a country worth having They refused to let Ukraine agree to this peace deal because Ukraine asked the U.S. for security guarantees to underpin that deal.
And Nuland and her colleagues rejected that.
So that was the reason she gave.
Now, what's really important about this, obviously, her admitting this is not news to an What's new, though, is actually, for the first time, I believe, she's given the real reason why the U.S. opposed this deal.
So previously, they've acknowledged that, yes, they opposed the deal, but they've given different reasons.
The first reason we got, if you remember this, was the discovery of the alleged Russian atrocities in Bucha.
That after those atrocities were discovered, there's no way Ukraine could make peace with this.
Murderous state, so they had to walk away.
Now, there's reasons to doubt that, because even Zelensky himself at the time said, and again, I'm putting aside what actually happened in Bucha, because I don't know, I wasn't there, and to me, it's not the real question.
Zelensky said, the way to prevent more atrocities in Bucha is to end the war, which is true.
If you want to end the war, if you don't want to have more atrocities, reach a peace deal.
So this excuse that Ukraine walked away because of Bucha, it never held water.
To begin with.
Then we got a different excuse more recently from the New York Times, which is that Russia tried to insert a last-minute clause that would have essentially allowed it to invade Ukraine at will.
As we've discussed previously on the show and I've written about, that excuse also doesn't hold water because the whole premise of the treaty was that Russia would agree not to invade Ukraine.
And so therefore, this claim that they were trying to insert some sneaky clause to let them invade Ukraine was just ridiculous.
Now we get, I think, from Newland an honest answer, which is that This would have prevented Ukraine from hosting advanced U.S. weapon systems.
And because, in the eyes of U.S. neocons, that cannot be allowed, this war had to continue, and so many more people had to die.
And hence your public reference to her as a war criminal.
Well, yeah, and this goes, extends to her record, not just in Ukraine, but across the spectrum.
She used to be a top advisor to Dick Cheney.
She has a distinction of being one of the few people to She worked first for Cheney, then went on to be an aide to Hillary Clinton at the State Department, which underscores how bipartisan this neocon consensus is and what a disaster it's been for everybody, except for the members of that club.
Secretary Blinken, just about an hour and a half ago, Aaron.
Made the incredible statement after spending all day or most of the day with his colleague from Great Britain and President Zelensky in Kiev that Ukraine will join NATO.
If you can imagine, that's not poking the bear.
Watch this, cut number 19. It's important that the Ukrainian people continue to hear directly from us.
We remain fully committed to Ukraine's victory, to not only ensuring that including the European Union and NATO.
I mean, after all this...
What does he expect will be the response to that?
I'm not talking about American politics domestically.
I'm talking about in the Kremlin.
Well, as the New York Times admitted about a year ago, the more the U.S. And the fact that Russia doesn't want to leave millions of ethnic Russians living in a NATO state where, you know, if conflict continues, they would be compelled to intervene once again.
This is basically the scenario that William Burns, the current director of the CIA, warned about in his famous memo.
to the Bush administration back in 2008 when he was the ambassador to Russia.
But Blinken's comments are cynical on multiple levels here.
First of all, he says that this is the path that Ukrainian people have chosen.
If you look at the polls going back many years, you did not have majority support for NATO.
In fact, one U.S. specialist wrote years ago that the biggest obstacle to Ukraine joining NATO is Ukrainian public opinion.
This includes on the eve of the Maidan coup in 2014 where On this issue of joining the European Union trade agreement, the country was split.
And that's why when you have a split country, it's suicidal to try to force them into one camp.
But unfortunately, that's been the US policy.
And that's why we had the Maidan coup to overthrow Yanukovych, who was calling for neutrality, not joining a Russian military bloc, but also not joining the NATO military bloc, which So Blinken claiming this is the path that the Ukrainians have chosen, Ukrainian people have chosen, omits what public opinion has shown in Ukraine for years now.
And also the fact that the way that this path was taken was by overthrowing the elected government that rejected it.
Okay, so that's the first part that he admits.
But there's something even more cynical here.
Because they keep promising Ukraine the path to join NATO.
Right?
Blinken, I believe, today said that Ukraine's invitation is irreversible.
But note that every time Ukraine says, okay, what can we do to actually get in the door?
We have the invitation.
We appreciate the invitation.
But what can we actually do to get into NATO?
Notice how the Biden administration says you're not ready.
Joe Biden recently said that Ukraine is not democratic enough to join NATO.
And what does that tell us?
It tells us that this whole invitation of Ukraine to join NATO has just been used to basically give The U.S. a backdoor through which they can fight Russia.
By giving an open door to Ukraine, they can use Ukraine as a backdoor to fight Russia.
Never actually admitting Ukraine, but using the promise of future NATO membership to integrate Ukraine into NATO's military infrastructure militarily, and then use that to bleed Russia.
Use it as bait, which they knew it would cause Russia to react.
So it's even more cynical than it looks.
Here's more cynicism.
This is Sir Peter Moore, the head of MI6 at the Financial Times Conference.
Seated next to him is Bill Burns.
He is being asked first what he thinks about the invasion of Korsk, and then he goes on to say something that is beyond cynical.
It's outright lying.
I think you'll agree.
Cut number nine.
Typically audacious and bold on the part of the Ukrainians to try and change the game in a way.
And I think they have, to a degree, changed the narrative around this.
The Kursk offensive is a significant tactical achievement.
It's not only been a boost in Ukrainian morale, it has exposed some of the vulnerabilities of Putin's Russia and of his military.
One more, Aaron.
Cut number 10, Chris.
And it's important to remember how this started in this phase with Putin mounting a war of aggression in February 2022.
And two and a half years later, that failed.
It continues to fail.
The Ukrainians will continue to fight.
We will continue to help them to fight.
And it's difficult.
They're not only liars, they're terrible actors.
I saw the look on your face when he said it started.
In February of 2022, terrible actors.
Well, on the latter point about this started in February 2022, we have a high-level person to refute that in the name of Jens Stoltenberg, their colleague, the Secretary-General of NATO.
Who admitted recently that actually this started back in 2014.
And we all know what happened in 2014.
There was a coup back then where the U.S. helped install a government that basically declared war on millions of ethnic Russians inside Ukraine.
And that is what started this war.
And rather than implement the peace agreement, the Minsk Accords, that could have ended that war, far-right, alternationalists in Ukraine, backed by neocons in Washington, decided to keep it going.
And that's why we had Russia's invasion.
Their comments there about this is a significant tactical achievement by Ukraine, the Kursk incursion, it's so striking because what do they immediately say to justify that statement?
They talk only about narrative and psychological factors.
Correct.
That this has exposed Russia's vulnerabilities, so it's embarrassed Putin, and it's changed the narrative.
Since when is changing a narrative in a ground war a significant tactical achievement?
I'm not a military expert, but I think I know enough to know that to have a significant tactical achievement in a ground war, you have to have a significant tactical achievement on the ground where the battle is happening.
And what's actually happening on the ground?
Well, last time I checked, Russia had recently retaken some territory.
And Ukraine is facing real problems.
How are they going to resupply all these troops?
How are they going to keep them incursed?
So yes, they did embarrass Vladimir Putin.
But unfortunately, in war, there are bigger things than embarrassing the adversary.
There's actually the task of defeating the adversary.
And on top of the fact that Ukraine has been stopped and its advance is encouraged, Russia continues to advance in its main tactical goal, which is the Donbass, which is at the heart of this entire war.
So how they can sit there and say that these two intelligence professionals, uh, it's beyond me.
It often makes me wonder why, These guys that are supposed to be so secretive, appearing together in the same room at the same time, before an audience, answering questions, and lying through their teeth.
Bill Burns, who used to be a very well-respected diplomat, at least when he gave that famous cable that you referred to earlier, yet means yet.
Yet.
No means no.
Obviously, Bush, Cheney.
Trump Biden didn't follow him on that.
Maybe that's what he's going for, and so that's why he continues to lie through his teeth to play ball.
Well, Tony Blinken has already said he's going to retire no matter who wins in November.
Same excuse that everybody gives to spend more time with his family.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, good riddance to him.
I think, you know, as Jeffrey Sachs has talked about in your show, one of the worst Secretary of State in history.
Yes.
Charles Freeman agrees.
John Mearshamer agrees.
Mirshemur goes so far as to say Netanyahu's lawyer.
I don't know if Blinken is actually a lawyer, but...
He also announced in this same press conference a billion and more aid, 617 million in cash for various rebuilding and supposedly humanitarian purposes, a humanitarian crisis that he caused.
And are you ready for this?
The U.S. will guarantee...
Aaron, do you want to invest in Ukraine?
Because if you do, Tony Blinken will help you do it.
Well, I'm on a kill list there, so I'm not sure if people on a kill list in Ukraine are allowed to be investors, but I guess they can use my tax money for that.
I have no choice.
And Blinken, the question over Blinken is, is he going to follow the pattern of authorizing a measure that had previously been ruled out as too escalatory?
The question now hangs over the question of Ukraine's request for long-range strikes with U.S. weapons into Russia.
We've seen so many times the U.S. rule out a step like attack arms or cluster munitions or F-16s or striking across the border, only to later say, you know what, actually, Ukraine can go ahead.
So now the question is, and there are some indications that Blinken will actually indeed give the green light for Ukraine to use U.S. weapons for long-range strikes into Russia.
History is in a guide.
He will actually do that.
And we're waiting to see what the decision is.
But it just underscores how desperate these people are to prolong this proxy war that they have provoked and prolonged by rejecting the reasonable peace agreements that were reached more than two years ago.
And it's a dangerous time because proxy warriors are desperate.
And that's a precarious situation for the world to be in when we're talking about two opposing sides with the world's largest stockpiles of nuclear weapons.
Aaron Monte, thank you, my dear friend.
Always appreciated.
Love to pick your brain, whether it's about Ukraine or Netanyahu.
Thanks for all your time.
Thank you, Judge.
Of course, all the best.
Coming up tomorrow on Judging Freedom, at nine in the morning, Professor Gilbert Doctorow.
At noon, Ambassador Charles Freeman.
At three in the afternoon...
And at 4 o 'clock tomorrow afternoon, the always worth waiting for, Max Blumenthal.
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