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Sept. 16, 2024 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
28:01
Ray McGovern : Will Putin Be Provoked?
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Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Monday, September 16th, 2024.
Ray McGovern will be here with us in just a moment on why?
Why is the West trying to provoke Vladimir Putin?
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Ray McGovern, welcome here, my dear friend.
I want to spend some time exploring with you whether or not President Putin can be provoked and why the West is trying to provoke him.
But before that, it appears that a missile fired by the Houthi group over the weekend struck its target in Israel.
I say it appears the Israelis want to admit it, but prime minister, uh, I don't know if he would have been as animated if they hadn't struck the target.
How serious is the Houthi threat for Israel?
Well, something in the nature of 75% of the commerce going through the Red Sea there has been prevented.
So it was a serious threat economically to Israel.
Now, not only the Russians, but the Iranians have hypersonic missiles.
I'm told that this was a hypersonic missile that got through, and I see this not only as a Huchi operation, perhaps it was kind of done as a warning that this is the kind of thing you can expect if NATO, on the one hand, ups the ante in Ukraine.
Putin has already said pretty explicitly, and Lavrov as well, That we can retaliate in all manner of ways, including against U.S. or British assets around the world.
This may be sort of a forerunner, a predictor of what may come, and it may be done with not only Iranian, but Russian blessing.
Here's a brief clip from a Houthi brigadier general.
I don't know, the image in the West of the Houthis is that they're ragtag and wear flip-flops.
This guy's got a uniform on with internationally recognized insignia.
Maybe you can tell us about it.
But here's his threat toward Israel.
Cut number two.
The Israeli enemy should expect more strikes as we approach the first anniversary of the blessed October 7th operation.
These include continued support operations for the oppressed Palestinian people.
Operation for the oppressed Palestinian people.
Well, I think it would come from Iran if it was hypersonic.
That's what the report said that I read.
Yeah, the Houthis are a menace.
You know, maybe they have flip-flops instead of the bare brown.
We used to talk about in South Vietnam running through the jungle, talking in a demeaning way about how they couldn't possibly cope with the United States Air Force and armed forces.
So it's part of this kind of disengagement.
And the proof is in the pudding, as Larry Johnson has said several times, that we can't beat the Houthis, should tell us something about U.S. naval as well as U.S. military capabilities at large.
Over to Israel, the commanding general of CENTCOM, General Corilla, was in Tel Aviv twice, physically there twice last week, once with General Brown, who's the chair of the Joint Chiefs I think it does.
Meanwhile, one of our aircraft carriers has been withdrawn from that area, going out to the China waters.
I think that the U.S. is counseling caution.
When I say the U.S., as I've said many times, there's a divided leadership in our country.
The military is coming through pretty strong now.
And I would imagine that the military leaders, the top generals, are telling Tel Aviv, look, we don't want you to go have a big war with Hezbollah.
And if you do, we're going to counsel President Biden not to jump in with both feet militarily.
And we've had some success in doing that recently with respect to Ukraine.
So if you want us to explain that to you, we can talk about long-range missiles that are not going to be put.
And not going to be authorized for use in Ukraine, according to the latest reports.
The military succeeded in that.
We can succeed again in preventing the president from doing something really stupid, like getting involved in an open war in the Middle East.
Why does the West want to provoke President Putin?
Again, I would say it's a divided leadership here.
There are the Victoria Nolans and the other neocons that really want to take a risk of war with Russia.
They don't really understand the dimensions of what might happen, okay?
And I just have to say that when you look at Mr. Putin, he was asked yesterday, what about, you know, can you spell out how you would react if the U.S. authorized the use of these longer-range missiles?
And Peskov, his spokesperson, said, look, Mr. Putin, I'm reading here from Peskov's remarks, that Mr. Putin is very, very deliberate, very, very deliberate with respect to his responses to these things.
I think we're not going to go into much detail just now about the possible And then he says, look, Karaganov, there's an intellectual leader, so to speak, a Sergei Karaganov, who keeps saying, we should use nukes preemptively.
We should be the first.
So Peskov says, what about Karaganov?
Peskov says, look, we have all kinds of specialists.
President Putin talks with all kinds of people.
Experts.
They're quite competent.
And we know what Khareganov has said.
And we know about his line.
And we take that into account.
But again, I will emphasize that Mr. Putin is very, very, what's the word here?
Deliberate in the way he reacts to these.
Well, that happens to be at the risk of agreeing with a Russian spokesman.
I say, well, all evidence suggests that he is, and the more so since he's in the catbird seat here in Ukraine.
Why would he want to rise to the debate here and be provoked into something that might not end well for anyone?
Here's President Putin himself addressing these issues.
It is not about allowing the Ukrainian regime to strike Russia with these weapons or not.
It is about making a decision about whether NATO countries are directly involved in the military conflict or not.
If the decision is made, it will mean nothing less than the direct participation of NATO countries, the United States, and European countries in the war in Ukraine.
This is their direct participation and this, of course, significantly changes the very essence, the very nature of the conflict.
This will mean that NATO countries, the United States and European countries are fighting Russia.
And if this is so, bearing in mind the change in the very essence of this conflict, we will make appropriate decisions based on the threats that will be created for us.
Very, very calm.
Soft-spoken, mild-mannered, but does the West understand that more likely than not he means what he says?
A judge on Thursday would have said no.
On Friday, the next day, Friday the 13th, I would have said yes because the West blinked.
Blinkton was overruled.
The Defense Department finally showed a little cojones, okay, a little guts.
And they said, do you know what's going on here?
Do you know what might happen if we authorize these long-range missiles into the heart of Russia?
You don't know.
Well, let us tell the president.
I think that to the degree that Biden is still approachable, still willing to listen.
The military got to him on that day, Thursday, and on Friday, and said, look, the British are coming, the British are coming, the British are coming, and they want authorization to use their long-range stuff.
Don't give it to them!
Now, what was my evidence?
It was just what happened.
The decision was not to make any decision on that.
But then I saw that Tusk carried a report, not in the Western media.
About Pat Reiter, General Reiter.
He's the Defense Department spokesperson that same day.
Let me just read two sentences, please.
Pat Reiter told reporters at a regular briefing, quote, I would point you to Defense Secretary Austin's comments at Rammstein last week.
He highlighted that there is no capability, no silver bullet that's going to enable Ukraine to succeed.
Reiter added that in Washington's opinion, Ukraine should focus on employing capabilities currently at their disposal in a way that gets them a stronger hand at the negotiating table.
So here's what you got, Ukraine.
You ain't getting any more.
And that's the way it came out.
Stromer came perhaps expecting authorization to use those storm shadow missiles.
They can't be used without U.S. technology.
He was told no.
We'll talk about it at the U.N. So that's a bright spot in an otherwise very dismal outlook.
What do you think Intel, British and American, is informing Prime Minister Starmer and President Biden?
Is it counseling against the authorization?
For the use of long-range missiles, or does it not get into ultimate recommendations?
does it only describe facts on the ground?
Well, Judge, I know a little bit about MI6 and CIA intel.
Right.
And it has been corrupted over the last two decades plus, where the directors sniffed the prevailing political winds and trimmed their sails accordingly.
Therefore, weapons of mass destruction in Iran Well, on Thursday, after Putin spoke, and on Friday, they got to the president.
That is, the military got to the president, or they got to Jake Sullivan.
The London Times is blaming all this, blaming the sensibility in this case on Jake Sullivan.
So the military goes to Sullivan.
That's one of their avenues to the president.
They say, look, this is really crazy.
Blinking is out of his gourd.
For God's sake, don't let this happen.
Don't authorize this stuff.
And that's the way it turned out.
So I had speculated on that before.
Now I've seen Pat Ryder's statement.
And now I've seen what the London Times has said.
It was all Sullivan who said, look, Tony, forget about it.
We're taking we're taking Putin seriously.
And again, last thing here is that when John Kirby at a quarter to 12 in the morning of Friday the 13th announced to a press, you know, open electronic press conference.
We're taking Putin seriously.
Maybe someone has an ounce of sanity.
Maybe they're listening not only to Putin, but to our military and the British military.
And maybe they might even watch our program.
Who knows?
Well, they're certainly not listening to Tony Blinken.
Here's somebody that doesn't want Blinken even to speak in Europe.
Here's the Polish.
Member of the European Parliament.
I don't know if you saw this.
Even if you have, it's worth watching because it sounds like he's imitating George Galloway, so stern in what he's saying.
Cut number four.
Blinken, go home.
Go home.
As soon as possible.
Get lost.
Get lost.
We don't want you here.
We don't want...
We don't want Polish people paying and dying for your wars.
I'm your first.
He even sounded like he was imitating the way Galloway talks.
I never heard of a pole with a Scottish accent, but whatever.
It's worth listening to.
I'm wondering if maybe Blinken is being pushed aside in light of the observations you just made about the now primacy of the Defense Department.
In Biden's thinking.
Well, in this most recent decision, God knows what will happen this week.
Right.
In other words, it's whoever gets Biden to sign up.
One thing I point out is it's not only the polls.
It's the Germans.
No more money, nothing for Ukraine.
It's the Slovakia people.
It's the, to an extent, the French.
It's the Italians for sure.
They don't want any part of this sort of stuff.
So when the people are talking about how NATO is united in such a way as never before, that's what, that's a balderdash, to use a common expression.
How close is the Ukraine military to utter defeat on the battlefield?
It's become clear over the weekend that they are very close.
Now, a lot of these fortifications take weeks to overcome.
A lot of the Ukrainian forces are running away.
The Russians are going at a pace two or three times as fast as it was before, after the Ukrainians took out their best troops and their only reinforcements and put them in Kursk, of all places, okay?
So there's no telling how quickly the Russians could go to the Dnieper River.
Most people are saying that it might be after the election, but they have the capability of doing it before the election, in my view, and they will be sniffing the political winds to see if that plays best with whoever the candidate, whoever they want to win, if anyone.
I guess you're of the view that President, well, he's the former President, that Zelensky's Well, he must be worried.
They must be worried sick.
Because not only what Trump is saying, it's what G.D. Vance is saying.
They're spelling out an agreement that Zelensky would have to move to one of his chateaus somewhere.
There's no future for him there, okay?
And now the prospect of this guy coming in, Trump, I mean, that's really dynamic, and who knows what will happen here.
Maybe he will.
Maybe people keep shooting at him at the golf course, and he's a hands-down winner.
It's just crazy, isn't it?
Here's President Alinsky over the weekend.
This is almost delusional, but you can comment on it as you see fit.
In an interview with Fareed Zakaria at CNN, cut number one.
He afraids only one thing.
No leaders.
No countries.
No, nothing.
He afraids of his society.
Russian people.
And if Russian people are in danger, if they don't have comfortable life, And they will be not happy with it.
And they will begin to influence on him, on Putin.
That's why I said, make Ukraine strong.
And you will see that he will sit and negotiate.
Sounds like it's going to be one of his last interviews, but what do you think?
Well, it is delusional.
He gets that stuff from people like Victoria Nuland and Blinken.
Why they think Putin's going to fall or the Russians going to fall apart is beyond my imagination.
Now, the important thing is that interview took place eight days ago.
I looked it up this morning.
I saw that last night.
I looked it up eight days ago.
So it was before all this stuff went down on Friday the 13th.
The Americans made the decision not to approve these long-range missiles.
So he's whistling in the dark.
But there are a couple of real good details that he revealed to Farid Zakharia.
And what he said was, you know, in comparison with us Ukrainians, the Russians have a 12 to 1 advantage in shells.
And, you know, they're really kind of so, so 80%, 12 to 1. My God.
I mean, okay, he's appealing for Western health, but even our military is saying, you know, striking deeper than Russia is not going to change a damn thing on the forward edge of the battlefield.
Where the battle is taking place.
And there, the Ukrainians have shot themselves in the foot by sending their best troops into Kursk, where they're all going to be captured or killed within the next three weeks.
Okay, that's going to happen.
And what are they going to do?
Well, the Russians are going to keep going, but as Peskov said, no, no.
Our president is very cautious, very measured.
He doesn't jump to things.
So he'll weigh what's going on here between now and November 5th, and he'll proceed accordingly.
I suppose that he'll just keep chipping away, and it'll become obvious to everyone, perhaps even Blinken, that this is a no-win situation and that they can't make up rhetoric.
They can't give Zelensky any more reason to believe that he might be able to prevail.
Here's someone who actually makes Secretary Blinken and former President Zelensky seem rational by comparison.
It could be anyone.
Watch this, cut number seven.
As for the role the Ukrainians could themselves play in stability and security in the Euro-Atlantic area, it's obvious.
Heroism of the Ukrainian armed forces.
They've been fighting for more than two years, almost three years.
They are the most accomplished armed forces in the whole continent.
And it's easy to see how they could play a very, very important role in peace and stability on the European continent.
One of the arguments I think we should make to our American friends is if they want to take back some US troops from the European theatre and save a few billion, a lot of billion,
Anyway, those are some of the things, some of the ways in which I think Ukraine can be a force for stability.
Right before he said that, he said he was sure that Ukraine would join the EU and NATO.
Go ahead, Ray.
Someone give him a comb, for God's sake.
You know, I'm tired of looking at this thing.
Let's realize this is the same fellow who acted as an instrument of the U.S. and the U.K. going to Kiev on the 8th of April, 2022, and putting the kibosh...
There were restrictions on the armed forces of each side.
It was all agreed on.
It was agreed on by Arachamia, one of the...
They were both involved in it personally.
It fell apart when Boris Johnson arrived.
And further proof, if further proof were needed, we have the chief Ukrainian negotiator saying that on the record.
Well, Victoria Nuland, about 10 days ago, with a smirk on her face, says, yes, we discourage that.
They asked for advice both internally and from people outside, and we counseled caution.
We told them, no, that's not a good idea.
Hello?
So she's confirming that this whole thing could have ended in April of 2020, about six weeks after it started, for God's sake.
And it was she, Boris Johnson, that clown.
And other people within the administration that said, no, we want to give Russia a bloody nose.
That's the name of the game here.
And just a week or two later, our defense secretary admitted, oh yeah, the purpose of this thing is to give Russia a strategic defeat.
That's why we're in it.
To hell with the Ukrainians.
They can die.
We'll fight to the last Ukrainians.
To make statements like the most effective fighting force.
inches of annihilation.
I said clown, right?
According to their own statistics, they've lost now 600,000.
600,000 young men.
Yeah, I said clown.
The coincidence of Truth and Boris Johnson is just that a rare coincidence.
He is, well, He doesn't, he's bright enough to know that it's a bunch of lies, but up till now he's been able to get away with it because he'd had support of other clowns like Tony Blinken, okay?
Now, well, Stormer is learning a better lesson.
I don't know why the British are way out in front wanting to use their storm shadow missiles.
I don't know.
I can't figure that out.
I've asked several of my British friends.
They can't figure it out either.
But he's way out on a limb.
The Germans, the French, the Italians, even the Danes and the Dutch are against it.
So this is not going to work.
And the next couple of weeks, we're going to see, I don't think, any terrific bombshells as Putin continues in his very deliberate way to move to the east easier now because of those reserve troops that were pretty good, wasted in Kursk.
One of the viewers picked up on your comment about give him a comb, for God's sakes, and said Boris Johnson looks like he combs his hair with a balloon.
Just a little lightness at the end of this serious stuff.
Ray, thank you very much.
We'll see you again at the end of the week on Thursday for the Intelligence Community Roundtable this week to accommodate my crazy schedule.
But thanks for your time, my dear friend.
You're welcome, Judge.
Of course.
And that Intelligence Community Roundtable is with Larry Johnson, as always, who will be with us at 11 o 'clock this morning Eastern, and at 4 o 'clock this afternoon, Scott Ritter.
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