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Sept. 23, 2024 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
29:55
Larry Johnson : Ex-Generals Love War.
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Hi, everyone.
Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Monday, September 23rd, 2024.
In a moment, Larry Johnson will be here with us on why do ex-generals who work for military contractors or think tanks supported by them love war?
And, of course, the latest in Israel and Lebanon.
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Larry Johnson, always a pleasure, my dear friend.
Welcome here.
We have a lot to talk about.
Before we get into this, I guess you can't call it a phenomenon, but this reality of ex-generals and their means of compensation in addition to their pensions supporting fruitless wars, let's go to the latest news from Lebanon, which is that more than 100 people were killed today, Monday.
And more than 400 were injured by Israel's latest onslaught.
Is the use of pagers and walkie-talkies exploding in people's hands and handbags and shopping carts a war crime?
I would say so.
I think it's nothing more than just another form of terrorism.
I think, as Alistair Crook pointed out in your earlier conversation with him, that the majority of these devices were in the hands of people.
They're not Hezbollah fighters.
They're not Hezbollah terrorists.
They're Hezbollah civil administrators.
Many in the West fail to understand and grasp that Hezbollah is essentially a government.
It's a government entity.
It provides social services.
Beyond being a fighting organization as it started out.
So the use of these pagers and such were hitting civilians.
You know, it's one thing to booby trap a device that's going to be targeted only at military personnel.
There is an international convention trying to regulate that.
There's sort of certain circumstances in which that can be used.
But that's not what this was.
This was indiscriminate.
There was no control over who would have it in their hands, and apparently the way it was set up was it would start ringing, and what, you know, so what do you do when you get your phone ringing?
Your phone's ringing, you go, oh, hey, hello, and boom, it blows up right there in your face.
So a lot of people lost one or more eyes, suffered severe damage to their faces.
Children had these.
So I, you know, what was sort of sickening in the West is the number of people, including Senator John Fetterman, is, oh, this is great!
No, it's not great.
And if Hezbollah turned around and did that same thing to us, or to Israelis, we would be condemning it.
And rightly so.
So just this...
I heard Senator Fetterman really going out of his way to praise this on Meet the Press yesterday.
I haven't heard anybody condemn it.
I mean, can you imagine if Russia or China or Iran or North Korea did this?
The American establishment would be full bore.
Time to retaliate.
Not a peep from Lindsey Graham, not a peep from anybody about this yesterday.
Right.
No, and again, this is the double standard that is destroying U.S. credibility around the world.
We claim that, oh, we were outraged by the attacks of Russia and Ukraine.
This can't stand.
All right.
And we're going to spend almost $200 billion now to resist that.
Well, Israel is attacking the sovereign state of the country of Lebanon, relentlessly bombing it, killing civilians in numbers that the Russians haven't killed civilians in that number in their military operation in Ukraine.
And yet we enable it.
We support it.
We facilitate it.
So, you know, the rest of the world stands there.
They see the hypocrisy.
We're the ones who don't.
Here is the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
I inadvertently identified him earlier with Ray McGovern as the UN High Commissioner for War Crimes.
I guess that's almost the same thing.
But here he is on Saturday condemning this.
Cut number four.
These attacks represent a new development in warfare, where communication tools become weapons.
Simultaneously exploding across marketplaces, on street corners and in homes as daily life unfolds.
Authorities have reportedly dismantled unexploded devices in universities, banks and hospitals.
This has unleashed widespread fear, panic and horror among people in Lebanon, already suffering in an increasingly volatile situation since October 2023.
and crumbling under a severe and long-standing economic crisis.
This cannot be the new Larry, this is what you just warned about.
Devices unexploded devices in universities banks and hospitals Those fortunate people who didn't respond to the beep On the device I guess surrendered them to authorities who are reverse But it's a front.
I mean, it looks like it's a regular Hungarian country.
It has a license from the manufacturer in Taiwan.
Taiwan shipped these things to the Mossad, unwittingly the Mossad, in Hungary.
Where they were opened up, filled with explosive material and a detonator, reassembled, and then sold to Hezbollah.
I don't know that this is of legal significance.
Maybe it is to the UN.
Aren't these WMDs?
Aren't these weapons of mass destruction?
No, they wouldn't qualify as a WMD.
Because each one is going to only be capable of killing or wounding one, maybe two people.
But what it does signal is when you disguise a device or use a device that's intended for one purpose in order to deceive people and to, you know, harming themselves, then, you know, when you're using a pager, when you're using a walkie-talkie radio to communicate with and it ends up exploding on you, you've now crossed the line because this is...
But this was hitting civilians of different types.
And we wouldn't put up with that.
It's considered a war crime.
So the fact that Israel compromised this intelligence capability, because You know, they had this front company in place for years.
Well, it's gone now.
I mean, they've made it useless.
And they've also now forced people to start looking at Israel in a different way.
You know, in the past, Israel has used an exploding telephone, but to target one individual.
You can argue the morality of that, but at least they were targeting one individual so they knew that they were hitting someone that they believe was responsible for military operations.
That didn't happen here.
They got children.
They got women.
They got physicians.
So this was, in my view, just a war crime and a terrorist act.
I wonder if it has anything to do with Prime Minister Netanyahu's cancellation of his trip to the United Nations this week.
Rumors, of course, are rampant that he's going to be indicted by the International Court of Criminal Justice.
And if he is, he can be arrested.
He can be served and arrested at the UN, which, of course, is not, even though it's in the middle of New York City, it's not the United States of America.
That doesn't mean that the arresting authorities could get him out, but it would be a severe humiliation to him were that to occur there.
And I don't know.
What is the reaction amongst the resistance for this, or is it too early to tell?
I would imagine it's one of fury and bellicosity and determination for revenge.
No, actually, you know, I've been surprised.
That the Hezbollah reaction appears to be going after almost exclusively military targets when you're looking at this barrage of rockets.
So Israel's launching airstrikes.
They are hitting civilian areas.
They're not hitting the military targets because the military targets are buried deeply underground.
They're impervious to this.
Hezbollah, in turn, is not...
I think they're actually pretty clear-headed about this, which is remarkable, given what has happened.
So they seem intent on, they're going to sit back, they're going to let Israel punch itself out, sort of like the Muhammad Ali rope-a-dope strategy, where he let his opponent just punch away until the opponent was exhausted.
They're hoping to exhaust Israel in this regard.
And at the same time, though, they're launching rocket and missile strikes at some fairly sensitive areas, military bases, airfields, fuel storage dumps.
They're not going after just neighborhood apartment complexes.
There may be one or two strikes in that regard, but what's noteworthy, Despite all the rockets that had been fired, both by Hamas and Hezbollah, there were very, very, very few casualties ever resulted from those.
The numbers, again, those aren't my numbers.
Those are the Israeli government's numbers.
If the rockets were really designed to go out and see how many civilians they could kill, there would have been an enormous body count.
But that hasn't been the case.
Here's the Chinese ambassador to the UN.
It's the first time I've heard China weigh in on Israeli war crimes.
Cut number seven.
Launching indiscriminate attacks remotely using communication tools, causing mass civilian casualties, and creating widespread societal panic are acts no one has ever heard of in history.
Such behavior is undoubtedly a serious violation of a nation's sovereignty and security, a blatant breach of international law, especially international humanitarian law, and a complete neglect and trampling of human life.
I don't know where this is going to go, because Israel, of course, believes it's a law unto itself.
I would imagine Prime Minister Netanyahu would be addressing an empty General Assembly chamber, except for the British and the Americans on Friday, if he shows up.
This is one of the clear, concrete accomplishments of Israel in terms of its reaction to the Hamas operation that was launched a year ago on October 7th.
They've managed to alienate most of the world and particularly become pariahs.
With respect to countries like China, Russia, Turkey.
Two years ago, at least, there was some foundation, at least, still, for a relationship between Russia and China.
I mean, Russia and Israel, China and Israel.
Even Turkey was not incensed.
That's changed now.
And, you know, Israel can't go it alone.
They do not have the economic foundation to operate and sustain themselves independently.
They're not Russia.
Russia can go it alone.
Russia doesn't need any other country in the world to stay intact.
Israel does.
Israel's utterly dependent on the United States.
And to the extent that the United States continues to sort of enable this conduct.
And then at the same time, be associated with these Israeli atrocities.
The rest, it's creating a real division with the rest of the world.
Transitioning to Russia and Ukraine, you have opined about this.
Why do you think well-known ex-generals like David Petraeus, Ben Hodges, Jack Keane are so...
Is it because of who pays them?
What do you think it is?
I don't know.
Because they're not men who are uneducated.
They're educated.
They're not men who are mentally retarded.
And by that I mean they have IQs below 80. I mean, so these are men that, you know, have some intellectual capability, and yet their grasp on reality is not there.
And I watched, I wrote a piece last week reacting to Ben Hodges was interviewed by Danny Davis on his podcast.
And Hodges genuinely believes some of the most abject nonsense.
That's out there.
For example, he said, oh, Russia's economy's in trouble and they're just the size of Spain.
No, they're not.
No, they're not.
International Monetary Fund and others have now identified that Russia's economy is in the top five in the world in terms of measured by gross domestic product purchasing power parity.
That's a far cry from being Spain, who's not even, I don't even think they're in the top ten of those countries.
The failure to recognize that a country like Russia, which is rich, you know, overflowing with gas, oil, uranium, other precious metals, and rare earth minerals, and has an intact industrial base.
You know, to not take that seriously is one thing.
The other thing Hodges did, which I found shocking, because Danny was trying to press him on, why did you guys let Ukraine run that counteroffensive?
And on the one hand, Davis would say, well, I mean, Hodges would say, well, you know, we would never, we would never send U.S. forces into an offensive without air power.
Okay?
And you knew Ukraine didn't have air power, so what the hell were you thinking?
And he comes in and he does the tap dance like Bill Robinson from Bojangles.
He's just tap right, tap left.
So it's appalling, but it's not just him.
Petraeus says these things.
Keene says these things, and their refusal to acknowledge what's taking place on the ground right now is going to lead to one of these moments where people wake up and go, what the...
You told us we were winning.
We just lost.
You know, it'd be like those investors that put all their money with a Wall Street fraudster and then one morning wake up and find out all the money's gone.
They thought they were making 20% a year.
Here's the most delusional of all.
This is a former Ukrainian president still claiming to be President Zelensky in flight.
To the United States, not to New York, but to Pennsylvania.
Cut number two.
We are starting a visit to the United States.
We are now flying to Pennsylvania.
A special visit.
Then New York, Washington.
It is this fall that we'll decide what will happen next in this war.
Together with our partners, we can strengthen our positions as necessary for our victory, our common victory, for a truly just peace.
Ukraine will present the victory plan in the United States, and the President of the United States will be the first to see it in full.
Of course, I will present the victory plan to all leaders of our partners' countries who, like President Biden, are leaders of the world and can become leaders of peace by helping us with the victory plan.
The visit to Pennsylvania, not far from where I am now, is to a military-industrial complex in Scranton, Joe Biden's hometown, where some sort of munitions are manufactured.
Larry, what the hell is he talking about presenting a victory plan to the United States?
What could it be?
Well, the factory he went to visit makes the 155-millimeter shell for the M777 howitzer.
And as far as his victory plan, I just, again, I keep coming back to the Grateful Dead, riding that train high on cocaine.
He's out of touch with reality.
What is transpiring on the ground right over the last three or four days is Russia is exhilarating its capture of territory, its capture of towns and villages.
That the Ukrainian military is in a very desperate situation.
They're surrounded and trapped and cursed now.
They can't get out.
And they're going to lose the critical logistics center of Pokrovsk, which is really going to upend their entire ability to maintain any credible defense and keep the Russians from going all the way to the Dnieper River.
So it's against this backdrop that he's making these claims.
And it's not all his fault.
He's being enabled by the United States and by the Brits and by others in Europe.
They keep wanting to tell him, oh yeah, we've got your back.
They say it, but then when it comes time to actually deliver it and put the real goods on the table, cough up the money, they're not always there.
You know, we saw Joseph Burrell of the European Union.
He admitted that the other day.
Yeah, we promised him all this money, and okay, yeah, we didn't deliver.
Like I said, this is like one of those Wall Street scams where you promise that you're making 20%, 25% return on your investments, and you get an occasional check, which makes it appear that way.
Then all of a sudden comes the moment of reckoning.
The money's gone, and you've been had.
And that's where the West is going with this.
They've been sold a bill of goods.
The Ukrainians are losing and losing badly, and that loss is only going to accelerate in the coming days.
Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov has made some rather serious statements of late.
These statements were made after Biden and Starmer announced publicly that the United States and Great Britain would not give the Ukrainians the authority to use American and British long-range offensive weaponry that can reach into Russia.
But he's very serious here, Larry.
Cut number 10. No one wants nuclear war.
We said this time and again.
Let me assure you that we have weapons which, if used, will cause grave consequences for the masters of the Ukrainian regime.
These weapons are available and on full alert status.
What does that mean, these weapons are available and on full alert status?
Does that mean all they have to do is press a few buttons?
Essentially, yes.
And it's important, you know, there have been some people who have made comments of late suggesting that Putin is bluffing He's playing just to a domestic audience, and it wasn't really intended as a serious signal to the West.
And there are a lot of people, again, we mentioned Ben Hodges, David Petraeus, that also say that Putin's just bluffing.
No, he's not.
And what Lavrov just said there underscores it.
But it's not just Lavrov's saying it.
You've got the Russian ambassador to the United States also weighing in, saying the same thing.
Deputy Foreign Minister Rybkov, he also has said it.
So when you've got five different people in senior positions, both running the government and in the foreign ministry, that are delivering this same message to the West, The West better pay attention.
They're not kidding.
They view this fight, and rightfully so, as an existential fight, because they see the West has no intent on working with them.
They want to destroy them.
Here's Lavrov again with a very sophisticated analysis of the current state of affairs.
Cut number 11. This special military operation has worldwide significance because it upholds a multipolar world order, where all countries without exception are equal.
I would like to recall the UN Charter once again.
It states that the UN is based on the sovereign equality of states.
The United States and its satellites never respect and honor this principle.
The global majority is interested in ending the current state of things when the Americans demand that everyone respect a rules-based order rather than international law.
And their rules always depend on God's whim, as we say here.
How many foreign bases does the United States have?
How many foreign bases does Russia have?
How many foreign bases does China have?
So the U.S. bases are, according to Newsweek, more than 750 in 80 countries.
Russia has an estimated 21. Most of those, you know, 90% of them are on countries part of the former Soviet Union that are right on Russia's border.
I think Russia only has actually two that are outside of that, one in Syria.
China doesn't, they may have a naval, uh, That's it.
And yet, when you listen to what the United States politicians, pundits, former military officials are saying, Russia and China, they're on a quest for world domination.
They're on a quest to take over all these other countries.
But I step back and say, okay, wait a second.
The only country in the world That has a global military presence, that has physical bases, 750 of them or more, in 80 different countries.
That would be the United States.
It is time the United States looks in the mirror and realizes that the only imperialists running around the globe these days is us, not them.
We're the ones that provoke this entire war in Ukraine.
We refuse to take responsibility for it because we don't want to fess up to the fact that what we were engaged with was a project to dismantle Russia, take control of its resources, and ensure that the West would control the gold, the gas, the oil, the aluminum, the uranium.
We wanted it all for ourselves, not for them.
And the Russians have said, that's not going to happen.
Let's also not overlook, and your research was terrific, Larry.
You sent me this in the wee hours.
The number of American troops deployed in foreign countries, and remember, we are not at war with any country, 173,000.
Larry, it blew my mind when I saw that number.
Did that number startle you?
Yeah, it's smaller now than it was a few years ago.
Part of that is because the Army is having trouble recruiting people.
So, you know, the United States has got this, we've got a problem.
And our problem is our addiction to our defense budget.
That budget, it doesn't matter what happens in the world, it keeps growing.
And we keep finding new excuses to grow it.
And that is in the process.
It impoverishes not only the people of the United States, but it also makes the world a more dangerous, not less dangerous place, in my view.
Thank you, Larry.
Much appreciated.
Appreciate your time, of course.
We'll look forward to seeing you with the youngster, McGovern, at 4 o 'clock on Friday afternoon.
I'll be there.
Thank you.
Have a great week, my dear friend.
Thank you.
Just as a reminder, and you'll hear about this with Scott Ritter, if any of you are going to be in the Northeast on Saturday, this Saturday, September 28th, come to a rally for peace and freedom in Kingston, New York, where I will be joined by Scott McGregor, Anya Parampil, Max Blumenthal, Gerald Salenti, and others.
The rally will be zoomed around the world.
But being physically present there so the world can see the size of the crowd doing something affirmative for peace will be deeply and greatly rewarding.
And coming up at noon today, the aforementioned Scott Ritter.
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