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Oct. 10, 2024 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
31:55
INTEL Roundtable w/ Johnson & McGovern : Weekly Wrap Up
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Hi, everyone.
Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Thursday, October 10, 2024.
Even though it's a Thursday, it's the end of the day, but not the end of the week.
Time for our Intelligence Community Roundtable with my dear friends and colleagues, Ray McGovern and Larry Johnson.
Gentlemen, thank you very much for joining us.
We have a lot to talk about.
Larry, I'll start with you first.
The latest news, I don't know if this is so, but websites in the Arab world and in the Israeli world are reporting that the Quds commander, last name Kani, Q-A-A-N-I, there he is, suffered a heart attack during interrogation by his own interrogators, suggesting he personally was involved in helping the Israelis.
I mean, this is almost unthinkable, and I wasn't going to go with it.
Our friend Alistair Crook tipped me off on it, and then he said, let's wait till there's more confirmation.
It's now all over the place.
Do you know anything about this from your own sources, or can you tell us the significance of this if it's true?
Well, Alistair's wife, Asling, sent me an additional note that The original source of this information was something called the Middle Eastern Eye.
Now, I'm not familiar with that outfit.
But the reporter claimed initially that she had 10 sources from this.
And that was, she had Hezbollah, she had Hamas, she had groups she'd never heard of.
And then she changed her story.
Did I say 10?
I meant 8. It was 8. So, I think Asleen, in sharing that information with me, is suggesting that this may not actually be true.
This could be some elaborate information plot put out, probably by Mossad, is one thing to consider.
Well, it has been picked up by a number of websites, so I thought I would ask you about it.
Ray, any thoughts on this before we get to things that we know have actually happened?
Yeah, I would say that the Middle East Eye is a reputable outfit.
That's not to say this is confirmed in any sense, but it's not surprising.
After all, there was lots of inside information as to where Nasrallah was, and all these assassinations are pretty much required up to date.
in-person confirmation.
So that they found this one particular guy, well, more power to them.
It's altogether possible, in my view, pending confirmation.
I mean, but this is catastrophic.
I mean, this would be like Chris Ray.
Spying for the Chinese and then having a heart attack while he's being interrogated by his own FBI interrogators.
I mean, that's a rough analogy, Larry, isn't it?
Yeah, but what it means is there's a new job open at the top.
There's always people below this guy that want to get promoted and want to do the job.
So, you know, this is just viewed, look at it as job creation.
Yeah, I mean, you know, if he really was recruited and, Maybe he just had a grudge against Nasrallah.
Again, if this is true.
But, you know, the different sources that are reportedly cited as confirming this, it reminds me of what happened to me with the Michelle Obama-Whitey rumor.
Because I was told, oh, there's this tape with Michelle Obama saying Whitey.
So I called two different people, one of them a prominent reporter that you know, one of them a Republican operative out in California, said, yeah, you know, we've heard the same thing.
Yeah, I've got that independent.
What I came to find out, it was all coming out of this David Brock of Media Matters.
He was leaking this and sending it.
So he was playing telephone.
That's one other way to keep this in mind.
This stuff happens that way.
It could be an effort to undo the reporters, as Brock attempted to undo this reporter, whose name I won't mention, with whom I used to work and for whom I have a lot of respect.
He didn't succeed in undoing her at that time, but he certainly tried.
All right.
Itamar, not Ben Gavir, the other fellow, Smotrich, a few hours ago called for...
Israel to conquer all of the Middle East and to move into Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia, according to a piece sent to me by Colonel McGregor.
This is insane, is it not, Ray McGovern?
Well, actually, it sounds like, who is that general?
General Westley Clark was given that list, wasn't he?
By Wolfowitz or someone like that, saying in the Pentagon, this was their grand plan of the neocons.
Now, is it realistic?
I don't think so.
But it's a plan.
This is the eventual outcome that they wish for.
And they're not going to get it.
And the to-ing and fro-ing of the last few days have been quite remarkable.
Will the defense minister come to Washington or will he not?
And will Netanyahu talk to Biden on the phone?
Will he not?
Well, a lot of that stuff is very complicated, but I take a rather optimistic view here that finally our military and maybe the Israeli military are getting to the policymakers and saying, look, if we do something, which I suppose we must against Iran's October 1 onslaught, Let's keep it simple, guys.
Let's keep it simple because the U.S. cannot be trusted to back us full bore.
A lot depends, of course, on what Biden told Netanyahu yesterday.
Today, I suppose it's all over.
The Israeli cabinet is meeting and deciding what they're going to do.
Will Defense Minister Gallon come to Washington?
Not known just yet, but a lot of this is very complicated, and even as we speak, one doesn't know who's going to prevail, whether it's the Blinkens of this world or whether it's the U.S. military saying, this is crazy, we don't want to get involved in another regional war.
Larry, if Minister Smotrich did say this, he's the finance minister.
He's the equivalent of the Secretary of the Treasury over here.
Or the head of the Federal Reserve, or both.
I don't know how much power he has.
He is far more of a fanatic and a crazy person than we ever imagined for him to make a statement like this.
Well, you would think this would be an isolated incidence or isolated example, but unfortunately it's all too common right now in Israel.
This group of Zionists, ardent Zionists, who back the illegal settlements in the West Bank.
And you're already talking, I think, around 700,000 people that are violating international law and resolutions.
They really, genuinely believe this.
They believe that they are special, that they are selected by God.
In a category that exceeds everybody else, that everybody else is not as good as they are, and not as entitled as they are, and therefore, of course they can take this.
These Arabs, these Muslims, they need to be wiped aside.
Now, I just note that Smotrich, he has done such a fantastic job in his current role as the economic minister that they've downgraded Israel twice by It's bond rating, and it's just one more step to go to be junk bond.
So good job, Smutrich.
Adding to the crazy events of the day, Ray McGovern, is a request by the IDF for an Irish peacekeeping force in Syria to leave, and a response by the Irish, no surprise, telling the IDF to go take a hike.
Whereupon someone I never heard of, but I think you know of him, by the name of Matthew Brodsky, a former White House official in the Biden White House who enjoys American and Israeli citizenship, told his former colleagues in the IDF that they should carpet bomb the Irish.
What the heck is going on here?
Corporate bomb and napalm, the Irish, after they got finished corporate bombing.
Well, Judge, I think we put our finger on how very crazy the Ben Gaviers and the Smutrichs and the Netanyahus are in this world.
Add this fellow Brodsky.
Well, now I'm saying taking on the Irish?
Come on!
There are only 300 of them in that little UNIFIL, that UN group.
They're peacekeepers, right?
And what, six or seven Israeli tanks roll up and say, get out of here.
We're taking this place.
And the Irish commander said the equivalence of nuts you are, nuts.
Call our president.
And the president got really, really enraged and said, this is absolutely unacceptable.
Stand your ground.
They stood up down, and the IDF went away.
It was only then, after this Philip Brodsky, who was head of some prominent Jewish group, as well as, at least according to his website, involved for 20 years advising various administrations, only then that he said, yeah, those Irish, they're like anybody.
Corporate bomb them and napalm them.
Well, you know, if you need further evidence that those Israelis are crazy, then you have it right there.
Take it on the Irish.
Adding to the mania of this afternoon, four journalists have been detained by the IDF in the past two days.
One is an American by the name of Jeremy Lafredo.
Jeremy works for our friends and colleagues at the Gray Zone, Max Blumenthal, Anya Parampel, and Aaron Mate.
According to sources at the Gray Zone, Jeremy received the standard beating that detainees receive.
He's still alive.
He's an American.
He's as American as the three of us are.
What will Tony Blinken do about this?
Absolutely nothing.
Quote the old song, War.
He's going to do absolutely nothing.
Because, you know, Judge, what we're witnessing, you know, you, Ray, and I, we grew up with what I call the Exodus story, the Exodus culture.
Paul Newman, Eva Marie Saint.
That cute little girl, Karen, who those nasty Arabs raped and murdered at the end of the movie.
But, you know, this land is our land.
And they even managed a way to make the Irgun or the Stern gang look honorable.
And so we grew up with this poor little David Israel fighting against the beastly Arabs and managing to hold them off and upholding justice and truth.
Okay, that was then.
Now we're seeing the reality.
Now we're seeing them murder children, murder women, beat up Americans, kill journalists, kill aid workers, kill their own soldiers.
All for what?
They want to be completely in control of this land without any regard for the people who actually lived there before they got there.
And they want to push the myth that they've been, oh yeah, this has been our land for 3,000 years.
Sorry, you didn't have a ruling presence there for 2,300 years.
Before 1948.
So don't give me this.
This was our land for how many thousands of years ago.
If we're going to make that argument, I've got some land in Ireland I want to go back and lay claim to for my Irish ancestors that came over in 1728, okay?
I mean, it's just nonsense.
And so now we're watching them unmask themselves and the, and the level of evil and disregard for the law.
And at some point, Israel is probably going to wake up and find the entire world arrayed against them, simply because of their inhuman, illegal actions.
Ray, I agree with everything Larry just said.
But this is going to get worse, not better.
Trump will give Netanyahu even more.
than Biden has.
Harris will give him almost the same as Biden, maybe the same.
There doesn't seem to be any relief coming from the West.
The only relief will be if the resistance comes together, McGregor predicts this, and poses massive military resistance to the Israelis.
George, I have this feeling that there's only us.
You know, there never has been any other.
I think we're making progress and getting the word out.
I think the pictures of those little Palestinian children shot.
Right through the head by Israeli snipers.
The Zoom I saw last night where a doctor from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, okay, he's there ministering to the people in Gaza, and he said, on one night in the ER, six children between the ages of 5 and 12, each with a single shot, a single gunshot wound to the middle of the temple, to the skull.
Those kinds of wounds, shot in the chest as well.
The difference here is that there's a new technology.
It can't be hidden anymore.
And revolutions happen when there's a new technology.
Think about Khomeini, okay?
The new technology then was...
He recorded these tapes and they were played from every minaret in Iran, okay?
And they got the word out.
So now I think the iPhones and everything else are going to turn this around.
I don't know how many Palestinians need to die.
I don't know how the election is going to impact on this, but as you point out, it's the neighboring Arabs.
Maybe, just maybe, they will take an example from those Irish peacekeepers and face Israel down once and for all.
You'll like this young man's name, Ray, Liam Cosgrove, who also works for the Gray Zone, who just tore this clown, Matt Miller, the State Department spokesperson, another you-know-what.
Forgive my crudeness, but you have to listen to this.
Even if you've seen it and heard it, it's worth listening again.
This is two days ago at the State Department, cut number seven.
So, Israel is still poised to strike Iran.
And in July, Blinken said that Iran was one to two weeks away from developing a nuclear weapon.
So, I guess for all we know, they might have one by now.
And meanwhile, in Ukraine, They've struck deep within Russian territory several times, as deep as 300 miles from the border.
And in that case, we don't have to guess.
We know that Russia has the largest nuclear arsenal on the planet, as many as 6,000 warheads.
And so one of the risks of arming militaries that are striking in the territories of nuclear powers is that one of those gets deployed, and then it could escalate very quickly from there.
So it's rarely discussed, but it's important to address that the nuclear risk is real.
It could very abruptly mean the end of what humans have worked for thousands of years to collectively achieve.
And us today are very lucky to live with the fruits of that achievement, and I feel like we're treating the risks kind of brazenly.
So my question for you is, you know, we often hear in response to these concerns that, well, Putin, Khomeini, you know, they're war criminals, they're terrorists, as if they're too inherently evil or immoral for us to negotiate with.
Meanwhile, this administration has financed a genocide in Gaza for the last year, and every day you're up there denying accountability for it.
So, I mean, what gives you the right to lecture other countries on their moral...
If you want to give a speech, there are plenty of places in Washington where you can give a speech.
Yeah, but people are sick of the bullshit in here.
I mean, it is a genocide.
You are abetting it, and you are risking nuclear war in Ukraine for this proxy war.
Plenty of other places to give a speech.
Go ahead.
And you are risking...
He showed more restraint and decorum than I probably would have.
Well, Larry, that's a low bar.
Absolutely.
It really was a superb summary of the defects of this administration's thinking, but also the dangers.
Of toying with nuclear powers.
This administration, and not just this one, because Obama did it, George W. Bush did it, Clinton did it.
It is not just a Republican or a Democrat thing.
The American administration had been doing it since basically Golda Meir, who, note, was born in Russia, not born in Israel.
But Prime Minister Golda Meir came to power.
The United States has been enabling and facilitating Israeli misbehavior and Israeli crimes.
And so right now, as we've had this discussion before, the United States does have the power to pull the leash and keep Israel from doing a lot of things simply by cutting off the money.
But it doesn't.
And it doesn't Not necessarily because Israel's serving U.S. interests, but because of the actual financial control and political power that the Israelis and wealthy Jewish Americans have exercised in this country, the wealthy Jewish Americans who are Zionists.
Because, as you note the other day, Max Blumenthal, Jewish, Aaron Mate, Jewish, the Gray Zone came out with the new documentary.
Video, Atrocity, Inc.
And it lays out in incredible detail with enormous documentation how Israel has lied repeatedly.
They lied about Hamas killing children and burning babies in ovens and beheading them.
And they lied about mass rapes.
Yet all of this was used to inflame a Western public, which it has done effectively.
And led the public to say, yeah, we've got to support Israel, right or wrong, no matter what they do, we've got to support them.
And so that's where we've become, the United States has become the great enabler of genocide.
Ray, everybody has their eyes on Election Day four weeks from now.
But two weeks from now, BRICS nations will be meeting, just as all this fury is bubbling over.
Might there be some indication of future events coming out of that, which would give Prime Minister Netanyahu some sleepless nights?
Yes, Judge.
That's in two weeks.
Tomorrow, Vladimir Putin is meeting with Piskashian, the Iranian Prime Minister.
My guess, it's just a guess, is that they will sign their mutual treaty, which is a comprehensive security treaty.
They don't call it a defense treaty, but it's a big deal.
It's 10 years.
It's far more strong than the earlier one.
So we have not only Russia, but we have China and the rest of the BRICS, even Saudi Arabia, for God's sake, standing behind Iran.
Let me just make a comment on that fine Irish lad, that Liam, that face down that White House fellow.
Go ahead.
Yeah, I just have to say that in a very serious note here, he raised the nuclear issue, okay?
Now, as of last March, consistently, the U.S. intelligence community has spoken out on whether Iran is working on a nuclear weapon.
Not the fissile material that would be necessary, but on a weapon, okay?
Since 2007, the judgment has been Iran is not working on a nuclear weapon, whether it's because there's a religious fatwa against it or whether the Iranians just don't want it.
Anyhow, they've not been working on a nuclear weapon.
What about now?
Well, I think if I were Netanyahu, I would be thinking, wow, you know, let's put them up.
Let's put their backs up against the wall.
It looks like they're thinking about a nuclear weapon now.
Let's make them kind of start working on that.
Then the U.S. intelligence will say, oh, no, they're working on a nuclear weapon.
Then we zap them before they get one, okay?
Now's the time.
Three and a half weeks.
This is the window we have.
We zap the nuclear capabilities, and they're shut back for many years.
I don't think that's going to happen, but I think that Netanyahu is probably arguing for that and that he has kindred souls in Washington like Blinken, who has been called, and well said, the lawyer for Netanyahu.
Who's going to prevail?
I hope it's the military that prevails, as it did prevail in the last time with respect to Ukraine and whether longer-range missiles would be authorized by Biden.
I don't know what's going to happen, but tomorrow and the next day, if you're a prayer, say your prayers and make sure that the right thing happens with respect to what Netanyahu thinks he can get away with because three and a half weeks before the election, he probably thinks, and perhaps he's right, that he can get away with murder, more murder.
Murder figuratively and literally.
Larry, Where do you see this going?
Does Iran have a nuclear weapon?
Or is Iran able to deliver nuclear material in such a manner as to produce the type of catastrophic damage that a nuclear weapon can produce?
The short answer is yes.
Let me put it this way, that Iran has the scientific capability.
They have the engineering capability and experience.
They have built missiles, ballistic missiles that can be delivered accurately.
They have built other weapons with explosives.
So they're technologically capable of doing it.
The issue has been over the years, and I think the analytical conclusion recognized that the religious prescription The proscription, the prohibitive nature of that has prevented Iran from doing it.
Now, I can see a scenario under which the Iranians will finally say, you know, we've tried to go the route of peace.
We've tried to go the route of negotiation.
And yet, the only countries that are left alone that are not threatened with nuclear destruction are those that have actually nuclear weapons.
And so I could see them at some point, If Israel persists on the course that it's set because they are talking about they want to destroy Iran.
The United States does.
Israel does.
They're not talking about this as just some fanciful idea.
They're intent on doing it.
They want to do it.
I've got a friend who was put in charge of the Iran Task Force back in 2006 at CIA.
Because they were preparing then to go in.
And once he realized what they were doing, he said, I'm not going to be part of this.
And he went off and took another job.
Because they weren't thinking through, okay, we invade, then what?
What's the next step?
And it's always, oh, we'll work it out.
It'll fix itself.
Just like we did in Iraq.
What can go wrong?
John Bolton wants us to attack the Iranian nuclear facilities.
Lindsey Graham wants us to destroy their oil refineries.
These two fellows are utterly heedless of the natural and probable consequences of that.
Well, they're heedless of the military requirements as well, Judge.
Yeah.
It's a formidable task to get those aircraft, however sophisticated, over those sites.
As a codicil here, I notice even the White House is saying the last day or two that, well, we don't want to attack the nuclear sites, just the other bases or where they store these weapons and stuff like that.
It's a monumental task.
They have to have overflight rights.
A lot of the countries in between have said, "Nothing doing.
We don't want you to fly over our territory." Is the U.S. going to do the necessary refueling of some of these fighter bombers over the Mediterranean or wherever they're going to fly?
I don't think they're going to do that.
And that's one real disincentive for the Israelis to try this, because it's a long way to Tipperary.
It's a long way to Iran.
And going back, well, you might not get back.
And besides, by the time you get back, your airfields will be all destroyed.
And what are you going to do?
Ditch in the Mediterranean?
Good luck.
So the military requirements here, escape John Bolton, who never wore a uniform, escape all the other kinds of people who don't know.
Lindsey Graham was a lawyer prosecuting draft.
What is often overlooked is the formidable military requirements to mount such a strike, particularly if the U.S. isn't.
Is it sort of on board full bore?
Larry, last question.
Does Israel possess a projectile, an unmanned projectile, that can reach from Israel to Iran?
Oh, yes, yes.
They have ballistic missiles that can do that.
and I think they're ballistic missiles capable of carrying a nuclear warhead.
The problem is...
But when you're actually doing it in a country the size of Iran, Israel doesn't have that many nuclear weapons.
It would have to saturate Iran.
And in doing that, Israel would itself be embarking on a war with the world.
Because Russia and China are not going to stand by and let a country like Iran be attacked, in particular with nuclear weapons, and that there will be no control.
Can the Russian S-400 defensive mechanism that the Russians just sold or gave to the Iranians repel these ballistic missiles?
Yes, it has that capability.
We're not quite sure it's there yet, right?
We know that this is 300ths, but we Is it?
Okay, good.
Yeah.
And they've had so much time to prepare for this, and that's what's fascinating.
as time goes by, the incentive for Israel to justify an immediate retaliation goes down.
Because, again...
You violated the UN charter.
You violated international law.
We're going to answer that.
They answered.
Then Israel answered again with more criminal acts by murdering Hassan Nasrallah, blowing up pagers in the hands of civilians throughout Lebanon.
And so Iran again said, okay, you've already assassinated Ania, and now you've done this?
Then they responded again.
Israel this time said, well, they hit us.
Yeah, but, you know, go back to the beginning of the story.
Gentlemen, thank you very much.
I appreciate you coming on on an odd day for you to accommodate my schedule, and I appreciate all the time you spent with us.
I'll see you both.
Bright and early on Monday morning.
Larry, you survived the hurricane.
Survived the hurricane.
Very happy for you and your family.
Of course, I'm always happy for you and yours, Ray.
Thank you very much, my friends.
All right.
Bye-bye.
Have a great weekend.
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