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Oct. 21, 2024 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
28:17
Larry Johnson : Ukraine On its Last Legs
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Hi, everyone.
Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Monday, October 21st, 2024.
Larry Johnson will be here with us in a moment on how and why Ukraine is on its last legs and just how significant is this intelligence leak of American documents characterizing what the Israeli plans are.
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Larry Johnson, welcome here.
Always a pleasure, my dear friend.
Good Monday.
Thank you.
Before we get to Ukraine and before we get to the latest on the Israeli documents, on Friday afternoon, Hezbollah apparently sent a drone, which did reach and did attack the weekend residence of Prime Minister Netanyahu.
Was this an attempt to assassinate him or just send a message?
We can find you if we want.
I think it was more sending a message.
Hey, we know where you live.
We can come visit any time.
And they certainly were able to get at least one drone there.
And reportedly, one of the drones actually flew through a particular window.
If that was the bathroom or the bedroom, you know, I think Netanyahu got the message.
What do these drones do?
I mean, are they packed with explosives?
Are they surveillance drones only?
No, well, you've got a variety.
You can't really pack them with explosives because it's only the more expensive ones like the Predator drones where you can put on fairly heavy armament.
You can put an explosive device, you know, like a mortar shell, for example, a small one, on the front of these, and when they collide, it'll detonate.
So this has been the real, if you will, revolution and war that has taken place as a result of this explosion.
This has really changed the game because you haven't seen this anywhere in the world on the battlefield like it is now.
Prior to February 2022, drone warfare was one of the big drones, like the Predators, flying above and then keeping an eye on somebody and then hitting them with a harm missile.
So there was targeted assassination that way.
But now it's, hey, everybody can do it.
I've said before, I'm just waiting for the day when someone puts up a drone swarm to be sucked into the engines of an aircraft of some world leader and to bring them down.
That's going to happen.
It's just, you know, I'm sort of surprised it hasn't happened yet.
Very interesting, Larry.
And again, before we get to the telegram leak, what is your take on the military or political significance of the assassination of Senwar?
I had written before I heard Alistair Crook this morning the same thing, that this was going to create a hero.
You know, I likened it in the piece I wrote to when the Jews...
All of the Jews ended up dying.
And are they forgotten?
Is that an event that the Israel looks back on and said, "Boy, I wish that never happened." No, it's celebrated as a heroic struggle.
And that's the same...
And ditto for the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto fighting against the Nazis.
Again, they...
It was, you know, a true David versus Goliath situation in that.
Well, it's the same thing for Senwar.
They have elevated and made him a hero.
He wasn't sitting behind a desk smoking a cigar.
He was out on the front lines of the battlefield.
And he wasn't cowering.
And he wasn't beating for his life.
He was fighting.
And that sends a message.
It really does resonate.
Here's somebody that agrees with you fully, the president of Turkey, cut number three.
After my brother Ismail Haniyeh, the last elected prime minister of Palestine, I also pray to God to have mercy on Hamas leader Yaya Sinwar, who was martyred recently.
Today, I once again salute, with respect to all the leaders and members of the Palestinian resistance, who became legendary, not only with exemplary struggle, but also with their martyrdom, and the heroes who watered the lands of Gaza with their blessed blood.
Well, this is exactly what you were saying.
Of course, the United States government has an entirely...
Here's Matt Miller, the State Department spokesperson on Thursday, cut number two.
Moss and other terrorist groups will try to present Senwar as some kind of hero for the Palestinian cause.
But I think it's important that everyone remember the actual facts, which is...
and then unleashed a conflict that has been responsible for the death of more than 40,000 Palestinians.
So I would hope that anyone that's considering thinking of him in any favorable light at all We'll look on the actual consequences of his life and the decisions that he made that wreaked such havoc for the Palestinian people.
I guess that's what Joe Biden thinks, if he thinks anything about this.
Well, there's a bright side to what Miller said.
The U.S. government has admitted that Israel's killed 40,000 Palestinians.
Now, they're trying to blame that on Senwar.
Sinwar is not out there shooting the Palestinians and bombing the Palestinians and blowing up tents and setting them on fire.
That's the Israelis.
And up to this point, the U.S. government has maintained, oh, no, those are grossly exaggerated numbers.
Those are Palestinian numbers.
Those aren't the real numbers.
Hey, now they accept them.
Yeah, that's either a recognition of reality or a slip of the tongue on his part.
Yeah, yeah.
These guys think they're so smart, and they are such a bunch of morons, imbecils.
I mean, it's disgusting.
It's the type of, if that job draws people like that, look at Admiral Kirby.
I don't know what kind of an admiral he was when he was full-time Navy, but he is almost universally regarded as a fool today.
Yeah, he'd had trouble launching a rubber duck in a bathtub.
Larry, your own post.
It was about the most lucid explanation of the significance of these two documents that were leaked.
Tell us what they were and how you view this.
Yeah, so these two documents popped up Friday night on the Middle East Spectator.
And so, you know, when I saw them, I'm initially a little skeptical.
One was classified as Top Secret TK FGI ISR /RSAN /NOFORM.
And the other was classified secret.
It was a brief.
The second one was basically an assessment of Israeli readiness to launch a strike.
The information contained in that, I thought, was reassuring because basically it said that Israel, even though they were seen making preparations to try to do something, they're going through the kind of planning and exercise that you normally would expect to see, it was not at a level of intensity and urgency that would suggest that they were getting ready to do something within the next day or two.
But the first document is a piece of, it's sort of what I call a classic intelligence report based upon satellite data imagery and signals intercept.
So when you're talking about information gathered by satellites and information gathered through intercepted communications, that's the most sensitive information in the world.
So that whole document with its classification no foreign means you don't share it with foreigners.
Share it with Israel?
Nope.
Foreigners!
Even though we sometimes act as if they are Americans.
So that means nobody gets to see it.
However, when you go down further, there's a title report summary.
And the report summary then has a sort of a different level of classification.
So what that tells you is from that point on, everything below follows that particular classification.
Larry, let me just stop you.
I thought we shared everything with the five I's.
Well, I bet you the five I's thought that was the case too.
And that's where this that's where this document goes whoops Because this it's not so much That's how the security bureaucrats pronounce that.
5-I stands for United States, Great Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand.
The five.
They're supposed to, you know, they've got together and they share information.
Well, there are five paragraphs in this report.
Paragraphs, if I remember correctly, one, three, and five are shared with the five eyes.
Paragraph two, however, is no form.
It's not shared with any of the five eyes.
Because?
It comes from what they call a foreign government intelligence.
That's what FGI means.
That's not some type secret classification that's written into publicly available DOD manuals.
And then paragraph four is classified so it's releasable only to USA and Great Britain.
Now imagine you're the Canadians or the Aussies or the Kiwis and you're going, hey, wait a minute.
Why aren't they sharing that with me?
And then this now is providing clear proof that the United States is picking and choosing what it's going to share with each of its five-eye partners.
Would that be startling to MI6 and the other intelligence communities of those other supposedly allied countries?
Well, it shouldn't.
Let me put it this way.
If it's startling, They're dumber than I thought they were.
Because they should anticipate and expect that the United States is going to lie to you.
Look, the first lesson I was taught at CIA was there's no such thing as a friendly intelligence organization.
Yeah, but what about the Brits?
Repeat, there's no such thing as a friendly intelligence agency.
But Israel, there's no such thing as a friendly intelligence agency, okay?
So we have alliances with people that we get along with, but it doesn't mean we share everything with them at all.
And guess what?
They do the same to us.
So we think, oh yeah, you're a best friend, and they're not sharing.
That's just, you know, that's what I call the grown-up world of intelligence.
Does this revelation of what we share with whom impair our relationships?
Sure, yeah.
It's going to create some problems, some turmoil, some distrust beyond what already exists.
So, you know, I think this is one of the unanticipated consequences of putting this out.
You know, if I'm a Russian or a Chinese intelligence analyst, man, I'm just having a good time going over this because, you know, It both allows you, as a Russian or Chinese intelligence analyst, to compare what you have with what the Americans have.
Because the notion that the United States is the only country in the world with satellites that can fly over those military bases in Israel and take photographs and collect information is ludicrous.
Russians have it.
Chinese have it.
I suspect the Indians probably have it as well.
You should always, you know, if you're the commander of that base, you should expect somebody's collecting information.
That's why you do try to take steps to disguise your activities or hide them best you can.
But we live now in an era where it's virtually impossible to hide anything because of the tremendous ISR capabilities that have developed over the last, you know, 20 years.
ISR is intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance.
Let me ask you the flip side of the question about our relationship with the four remaining I's.
How, if at all, does this impair the relationship between CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency and Mossad and IDF?
Or are we so intertwined with them that it won't impair that relationship at all?
Well, I think it's going to create some obstacles potentially for, you know, that's called liaison.
And, you know, a significant amount of U.S. intelligence over the last 20 years, if you compare the last 20 years to the preceding 30 years, the last 20 years have relied more and more upon liaison reporting, particularly on the human side.
What does that mean, Larry?
That means intelligence that you get from the Brits, from the Israelis, from the Germans, whoever, they give you the intelligence that they've collected, then we pass it off and report it as human intelligence, but acknowledging that it is from a foreign source.
its liaison.
So, I think it's more Because initially, I saw it, I withheld judgment.
But based upon the reaction, the sort of growing hysterical reaction in Washington, D.C., I think it is absolutely legitimate.
And the purpose was very simple.
Stop Israel from attacking Iran.
Put it out there.
Who is the likely leaker?
Not the person, but what does the person do for a living?
How many people would have had lawful, legitimate access to this document?
How many human beings?
Yeah, this was not some low-level snuffy like Bradley, Chelsea Manning.
This is someone who is at a senior level.
I think it's highly unlikely.
That, you know, an analyst like me sitting at the CIA who had this come across their desk would want to take the risk of getting up and getting that information out, particularly to the Middle East, Middle East spectator.
This, I think this came from an official source.
And what do I mean by official source?
You got an official like a Blinken.
Like a Sullivan, somebody that works for them, that's very frustrated that Israel is ignoring the U.S. pleas to not escalate, to not strike Iran because they fear the consequences, and yet they can't go directly and leak it to the Washington Post or the New York Times.
That'd be too obvious.
So you use the cutout.
And then in this case, it cut out was the Middle East Spectator.
That way, it looks like it was maybe the Iranians, because the Middle East spectator does have a relationship with Iran, or at least an alleged relationship with Iran.
No, no, no.
So I'm saying in getting it out there, regardless of whether it was a whistleblower, and I think you can make a case...
I guess we'll learn if it came from a high-ranking U.S. official for policy reasons, if no one is prosecuted.
I mean, Ray says maybe 300 human beings had access to these documents.
Do you agree with that number, or do you think it's more or less?
I don't know.
My guess would be it's more.
Let's put it this way.
If Ray is correct that, say, only 300 had access to it, then the FBI is going to have a pretty easy time of tracking down and gathering, you know, They get to spy on all these people.
They get to pull the phone records and email records.
How much of a setback is this for Israel, and why is Prime Minister Netanyahu, as you described him earlier, as have your colleagues on this show, livid?
Well, number one, it makes it quite clear.
That Israel is involved in preparation and identifies particular kinds of weapons systems that are going to be used and how they would be used.
But, you know, I think we should avoid assigning too much importance to these documents in terms of what they reveal about Israel's state of operations.
Because the message I took away after reading both of them was, All this prediction that Israel's going to do it today, it's going to do it tomorrow, it's any day now.
No, it's not any day now.
You don't see them rushing around, you don't see them assembling and massing force.
They seem to be taking their time.
Well, China and Russia have the same information.
I mean, to believe that they don't, I think, is foolish.
Do you think China and Russia are sharing it with Iran?
Absolutely.
But what this does is,
That kind of information becomes very important, as well as helping to identify the kinds of weapon systems and missile defense systems that you're going to want to have in place to defeat These air-launched ballistic missiles.
Because Israel's going to launch those.
They're not going to fly into Iran and launch them inside Iran.
They'll make that aircraft very vulnerable.
They'll get up outside of Iran to fire them.
But again, then that gives the Iranians a leg up in preparing defenses.
Could this be part of an Israeli-American plot to mislead the Iranians, or do you think this is a real, legitimate breach of serious Israeli planning, now a setback for the Israelis?
Yeah, no, I think it's legit.
Just, again, from nothing else, the fact that you've got a paragraph of the intel where there's only sharing it with the U.S. and the Brits and the other three members of the Five Eyes group are shut out.
That's going to create some problems.
I don't think you would deliberately create You know, it's like, say, hey, I'm going to fake that I'm cheating on my wife, but as part of cheating on my wife, I'm going to take a photograph of myself in bed with, you know, wait a second.
That doesn't fly too well.
So, yeah, I think this message was damaging because that second paragraph is based on foreign government intelligence ISR.
Which is the foreign government.
Was that Israel that shared that information with the United States and the United States put it out?
Or was it some other foreign government that shared it?
Regardless, I think it's that second paragraph that's got Israel so miffed because it talks specifically about two particular weapon systems.
One of which, initially, I couldn't find any reference on.
Throughout the internet to it.
It was called Golden Horizon.
Now someone else has suggested it's supposed to be Golden Dawn, but the point is it got written into that intelligence piece as Golden Horizon.
So that initially raised my suspicion that it could be a fabrication, but since then, no.
Let's switch gears, Larry, before we conclude.
How desperate is Ukraine at this moment?
Mid to late October 2024.
It's getting darker every day.
Videos have surfaced out of Kurs, for example, where you see a line of about 100 Ukrainian soldiers fleeing across the field.
and some are getting hit with drones as they're running away.
The point is...
They don't have tanks.
They don't have armored personnel characters.
They're having to bug out on foot.
And then across that main line of combat that stretches about 900 miles north to south, the Russians are advancing rapidly.
There was a hilarious troll done by the Russians today.
So they took this one area.
And normally they'll hoist their flag.
Well, they hoisted their flag in a North Korean flag.
Now, there weren't any North Koreans there, but it just, oh my gosh, it set off the Ukrainians.
See, see, the North Koreans, they're there!
We've all been predicting that North Korea has been in its last legs for a while.
Do you believe this time is true?
It's not going to collapse before Election Day, but is it going to make it until Christmas?
You mean Ukraine?
Is Ukraine going to make it until Christmas?
Ukraine, yes, I'm sorry.
Yeah, yeah.
They may hold out.
I've been wrong in the past trying to set a date on whether it'll collapse.
All we can see, though, is more and more senior, Ukrainian officials are coming out and admitting that they don't have enough manpower.
That's the problem, the lack of manpower.
And then on top of it, you had General Zeluzny now, Ukraine's ambassador to the United Kingdom.
He's saying that, hey, you know, we need to be ready to make some concessions on territory in order to bring an end to the fighting.
Now that's been, that has been a non-negotiable position for Zelensky.
As recently as two days ago.
But now, here's Zeluzny, who enjoys more popular support.
So, I think one thing we could be seeing is the beginnings of, they're going to replace Zelensky with Zeluzny, and he might be in a position to actually negotiate with the Russians.
Interesting observations.
Thank you, Larry.
Thanks very much for your time.
Please get back to us.
If and when, I'm sure it'll be when, you discover more about the origins of these two leaked documents, and we'll address it right away.
Otherwise, we'll see you with the youngster on Friday.
I'll be there.
Thank you.
Thank you, Larry.
All the best.
The youngster, of course, is Ray McGovern when he and Larry join me at the end of the day on Friday afternoon.
Joining me this afternoon at 1.30 on all of these topics, Scott Ritter.
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