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Sept. 23, 2024 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
24:45
Ray McGovern : Is the Pentagon Against Expanding Ukraine War?
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Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Monday, September 23rd, 2024.
Ray McGovern will be here with us in just a minute on this.
If the Defense Department is against expanding the war in Ukraine, why isn't it against expanding the war in Lebanon?
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Ray McGovern, welcome here, my dear friend.
Always a pleasure to chat with you and a gift to be able to pick your brain.
Let's start with the breaking news today.
Even though I want to spend a fair amount of time on Ukraine, the breaking news is from Israel, where the Lebanon Health Ministry reports that just today, Monday, the Israelis have killed more than 100 Lebanese and injured more than 400.
I guess this is getting out of control, and Prime Minister Netanyahu is going to get the wider war that he wants.
I think he'll have to get the Israeli military to buy into that.
I don't think they have.
And in your introduction, Judge, you said, if the US military can prevail in preventing Biden and Blinken and Sullivan from doing stupid things on Ukraine, why can't they prevail in Gaza or in the Middle East generally?
I think they can.
I think there have been various signals.
There have been two four-star generals visiting their counterparts over the last 10 days.
There was the ostentatious move to remove a sitting duck aircraft carrier from the region, put it back toward China.
There are little signs here that the Israeli military, the last thing they want to do is invade Lebanon.
Will they bomb the hell out of Lebanon?
They're already doing so.
Will they do everything short of invasion?
I think they will.
But whether they will start a major regional war, I think they can't do that unless Biden says, okay, please do it.
cool it, this is not your war.
Tell those guys to tamp it down.
Not all of our on-air guests, and for all of whom you and I have a lot of respect, agree that it was the Defense Department that persuaded Joe Biden to back down.
or let me put it a little bit more delicately, that it's a permanent back down.
I mean, is it likely that this is a political move, or is it likely that this is permanent?
And what I'm talking about, and what you're talking about, is American and British permission to use American and British weapons to strike deep into Russia.
And to compound the question, if Biden said yes, how deep into Russia could these weapons strike?
Well, there's ample evidence that even as Putin spoke about, We have the Pentagon spokesperson, General Pat Ryder, getting up the same day that Putin spoke after, I suspect, classified message exchanges between Secretary Austin and his counterpart,
the Usoff in Moscow, okay?
And what Ryder said is, "Look, Secretary Austin already said, That's what Austin said a few days ago.
That's what I'm saying now.
This is September the 12th.
An hour or so after Putin made those very pointed remarks, and it was on the 13th, of course, that Blinken was told, sorry, no dice.
We're not going to buy into this wider war.
We're not going to buy into deep strides into Russia.
Forget about it.
were persuaded Biden not to do that.
With respect to the range, again, the range is not adequate to hit Moscow.
The attackums and the storm shadows that the British have, they're 300 miles at most, okay, and they can't reach real sensitive sites.
The last thing I'll say is that Ryder himself and Austin said, look, So the evidence to me is conclusive that this went down when the Pentagon said no.
Now, was this forever?
Forget about it.
I mean, Biden changes his mind, right?
And look at him yesterday.
He couldn't even remember who he was supposed to introduce next.
So he gets to the UN.
So let's see.
Talks to him and does he change his mind?
McGovern's not going to say this is permanent, but it was a very hopeful sign.
It was very clear that Blinken was blindsided.
So was Stormer, the British prime minister.
He didn't learn until I got together in the White House that this was not going to happen.
He was not going to get authorization.
That's a good thing.
Whether the military can do that in the Middle East?
Well, I think they can reason that our interests in the Middle East are even less, if you look at the whole strategic picture, than they are in Ukraine.
Let's get back to Israel and Lebanon for a minute.
Is there any question but that it was Mossad or a Israeli intelligence agency project that produced these exploding walkie-talkies and pagers?
That killed and maimed and blinded all of these Lebanese civilians?
No.
There's no question but that it was the Israelis.
Is there any question but that this is a war crime?
No.
Everyone has admitted that indiscriminate killing of civilians in this brutal way I mean, people lost their eyes, right?
I mean, I think it was, yeah, the Iranian ambassador lost his eye.
You get a call, you put it up there, and you lose your eye.
I mean, this is really bad stuff, okay?
So one question is, who else know about it?
Most I know about it.
Are they really, really so close to people that we know here in Washington or maybe Langley that know about it?
I don't know, but I suspect the answer to that is yes.
Did the Israeli defense forces know about it?
That's an open question.
If they didn't know about it, they will see this as a very crass way of trying to get them involved in a struggle that they won't win without U.S. support.
And for once, U.S. support is in doubt.
Is there any question but that something of this nature would have to have been authorized by Prime Minister Netanyahu himself?
You know, we have something called plausible deniability.
In other words, was Netanyahu told right before the attack, well, okay, you know about this capability.
We're going to do it because we're afraid it's been compromised.
I don't know.
It doesn't matter.
It's sort of like JFK, sort of Sofio Boche saying, well, you say you want to get rid of Castro?
Well, that would be a good thing, I suppose, you know.
Plausible deniability usually obtains in these cases.
In this case, I suspect that Netanyahu actually knew chapter and verse, but can claim to have been uninformed if he so chooses.
The Israelis haven't even owned up to it yet officially, but everyone knows they did it.
Israeli former IDF and former intelligence have spilled the beans to It is a war crime to commit violence intended to spread terror among civilians.
I call again for an independent thorough and transparent investigation into the circumstances of these explosions.
Those who ordered and carried out these attacks Must be held to account.
Ordered and carried out these attacks must be held to account.
Ray, can you imagine if this had been done by the Russians or the Chinese or the North Koreans or the Iranians?
The American government would be all over them.
I haven't heard anybody in the American government condemn this.
Have you?
I have not, no.
And, of course, the Chinese, the Russians and the Iranians, they're the bad guys, remember.
We're the good guys.
And what we do or what we allow to be done, including genocide for God's sake, what we enable, well, that's somehow still under our white hats.
It's unbelievable that more American citizens aren't up in arms about this.
Back to Ukraine.
Does the West believe the Kremlin's threats that if we, the Kremlin, perceive Ukraine, We will react accordingly.
Well, I believe they take it seriously.
As a matter of fact, that's one thing that John Kirby said an hour before Biden meeting with Prime Minister Stolmer said, I don't care about what the Russians say.
Okay.
John Kirby, his spokesman, said.
We take them seriously.
And that is why there will be no announcement of authorization for storm shadow firings or vessels into deep Russia.
He said that.
It was right there.
It was two hours before Biden met with Shama.
Biden was visibly angry.
I mean, he really lost it.
Anyhow, so it's...
Yeah, what's going to happen in the future again?
You know, it's really hard to tell because Biden has changed his mind every time.
I think that's why a lot of my colleagues here are saying this is bound to change.
I mean, if you look at past precedent, it always changes, right?
I don't think this time, this time it's too serious.
Last thing here, Lavrov over the weekend said, you know, it's mistaken to assume we're talking about nuclear weapons, okay?
We got plenty of other weapons, okay?
So if it goes down, if you shoot these things and fire them into deep pressure, we got ways to cope with this.
Short of nuclear weapons, it's not automatically nuclear weapons.
So calm down, please.
We don't say nukes.
It's you that's saying nukes.
Sure, we have them, but there's no reason to suggest that we would use them immediately.
Are the Russian nukes in full combat readiness, or would it take some period of time to get them there?
I hope to hell they're not, Judge.
I don't think they are.
Putin is more discreet than that.
That would put our forces themselves up to DEFCON 4 or 5. In other words, that would, a tripwire, some sort of accident or whatever, unintentional exchange, which would destroy all of us.
I think that what we have in Belarus, for example, are some warheads and we have some And we have exercise.
That is, we have the Russians and the Belarusian, Belarus, exercising these things together.
That was just two months ago.
So they're there, but we have ways of finding out if they're on high alert.
And I hope we have found out that no, no, it's not DEFCON 3 or 4 or 5 yet.
They're just...
They're together, but they need to be put together onto the aircraft and so forth.
It would take some time.
You don't have to immediately retaliate to perceived attacks.
Wouldn't U.S. intel, CIA, or Defense Intelligence Agency know of the level of readiness of Russian offensive weaponry?
Whether it's nuclear or something else?
Yes, yes, we would.
That's why I'm confident that the Russians would know that we would know if they went to high alert.
Now, ironically, this happened.
This happened back in November of 1983.
I was serving.
I was on active duty with the agency at the time.
We came close to a nuclear exchange then.
It was only because of a couple of my colleagues in the Russian Analysis Division that went to Casey, bypassing Gates and said, "Mr.
Casey, the Russians think this is the real thing.
Will you please tell the White House to knock it off, to not let the Vice President participate in this?" And he did.
He did.
Casey did.
And the White House did.
And that spared us.
We know from a spy that the British were running, that the KGB was convinced this is a real thing.
This came right after Reagan called him the evil empire.
Who was the vice president about whom they complained?
George H. W. Bush?
The president?
The vice president.
Let's see.
Must have been George H. W. Bush.
Well, when, let's see, this is 83, sure, yeah, H.W. Bush was the, did I say vice president?
Yeah, the vice president was involved in the exercise, right, it was Bush, and it was really the most intricate and high-level exercise of its kind yet.
Back in 1983, we have my friend Mel Goodman and his associates who had the guts to bypass Gates, who was saying, don't worry about it, don't worry, and go directly to Casey.
Didn't make them any friends, and Mel had to leave the agency shortly thereafter.
All right, but let's get back to today.
In your opinion, based upon your years in the intelligence community, Is it more likely than not that U.S. intel, whether CIA, DIA, or whomever, is aware of the current state of readiness of Russian offensive weaponry aimed at the West, whether nuclear or not?
Judge, 10 years ago I would have said 100%, 100%.
But when you look at the...
The technical devices we have are extraordinary, and they're multiple, and they're redundant, and we know about this stuff, okay?
So, yeah, it's still pretty formidable.
I'd say 90% assurity.
Okay, back to Israel and Lebanon.
Alistair Crook told us earlier today that one of the tests of this war would be which country has the greater level of endurance to endure the offensive attacks of the other.
In his opinion, it's not even a close call.
Hezbollah has it genetically.
The belief that they should suffer and endure for a greater cause, and the Israelis do not have, in Alistair's view, having lived and worked in that part of the world for much of his career, that level of cultural, military, and economic endurance.
Do you agree?
I do.
I always agree with Alistair.
He knows a heck of a lot more than I do about these things.
But on the face of it, that's completely true.
The Israelis don't have the capability to do what they want to do unless the U.S. comes in militarily, okay?
That's the biggie.
And if Biden makes it clear, or our military makes it clear, this is a doubtful thing now.
It's a doubtful thing.
We've got other commitments, and we don't really want a wider war there.
Then the Lebanese are just going to hang tough.
And actually, they'll be exacerbated by these little pagers and all those kinds of things.
You know, it makes them more resilient.
It makes them more adamant in securing what Hezbollah.
And what Hezbollah, on behalf of Hamas, don't forget, Hezbollah says, we're going to do this until Hamas gets you out of Gaza.
It's going to go on for a while.
What I hope is that the U.S. doesn't do anything really stupid between now and November 5th or January 20th.
It appears that Prime Minister Netanyahu has canceled his trip.
To the United Nations in New York, which originally was scheduled for Thursday of this week.
And his request was moved for Friday.
Now it appears it's been canceled.
I don't know.
He could still show up anyway.
Maybe he doesn't want his adversaries to know that he's going to be flying across the Atlantic.
If it is canceled, what do you read into that?
Netanyahu could be, let's say his plane developed technical difficulties and had to land in He could be served papers.
The International Criminal Court is right on the verge of doing indictments on Netanyahu and his defense chief.
What's his name?
Gallant.
Gallant, yeah.
And so this could be a real factor.
This happened to George Bush.
After his presidency, he had to cancel a big speech he was making for the equivalent of AIPAC in Geneva.
He got word of the fact that he was going to have papers served on him when he arrived at the airport and he canceled his trip.
It happened to Rumsfeld when he went to Paris.
So this is not a small thing.
So Netanyahu is at least getting Mossad and everybody else to look really close at his mechanical, at the freight that they...
Well, you know, if Netanyahu is indicted by the International Criminal Court, he can be served and arrested in the United Nations because the United Nations is not part of the United States.
I don't know how they would get him out, presumably, in the New York City police, the federal government.
Would extricate him from the powers arresting him, but he could be arrested and served in the UN.
Maybe he's been advised of that.
I hadn't thought of that.
All the more so.
He's well advised to be very cautious as to where he travels.
Right, right.
Can Israel stop the Houthis using hypersonic missiles?
Can anything stop missiles that travel this fast?
No.
There was a time about 18 months ago when the President of the United States admitted that.
He said, we have great Patriot missiles, we have Iron Domes, but we can't down hypersonic missiles.
that happens to be the case.
For those who don't know, they fly between six and 12 times the speed of sound.
Remember, they cannot be intercepted.
I'm amazed that this one got through, but there are several more, and where they come from, It's irony in the extreme that we can't produce hypersonic missiles, although the Russians have had them almost for a whole decade.
What is your view about the likely response from the resistance?
Whether the elites or people in the street, the countries around Israel and in the Middle East, to the exploding pagers, I would think it would be a reaction of fury and determination, wouldn't you?
I would too, Judge.
And I would look toward all those revolutionaries, so to speak, in Iraq and in Syria, where U.S. troops in the hundreds.
Are not invited.
They're not invited into Syria.
They're not welcome there and they're not welcome in Iraq either.
So they're sitting ducks and one wonders what logic remains in the minds of people in the Pentagon to leave them there.
Are they sort of left there on purpose so Americans can be killed so that would justify further escalation?
I don't know, but that's one logical.
Otherwise, they're just really stupid.
Ray McGovern, a pleasure, my dear friend.
Thank you so much for your time, and we'll look forward to seeing you with that youngster, Larry Johnson, at 4 o 'clock Eastern on Friday afternoon.
Thanks, Judge.
All the best.
Okay.
And coming up at 11 o 'clock this morning, the aforementioned Larry Johnson, and at noon, Scott Ritter on fire again.
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