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Oct. 28, 2024 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
31:58
Alastair Crooke : Israel’s Preference For Self-Destruction.
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Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Monday, October 28th, 2024.
Alistair Crook will be with us in just a moment on, does Israel actually have a preference for self-destruction?
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Alistair, good day to you, my friend, and welcome here.
It's always a pleasure to be able to chat with you.
We all waited and waited and waited for the Israeli response to the Iranian response, and whatever happened in the past three or four days, did the Israelis cause any meaningful damage to anything or anyone in Iran?
No, but something significant did happen, I think, during this, because it was supposed to lead off with destruction of the air defences of Iran, what they call SEAD, Suppression of Enemy Air Defences.
We're supposed to, if you like, destroy the air defenses, both in Iraq and Syria on the way, and then to do that in Iran so that the second and third waves would come in with conventional weapons.
To destroy the targets that had been set for them.
The second and third waves were ready to bring conventional weapons, but they could only go into that, if you like, they could only penetrate into Iranian airspace if it was safe for them to do that.
If, if you like, the air defense had been properly suppressed.
Now, what happened?
We don't know precisely, so much of this is putting it together.
But those second and third waves never happened.
They didn't happen at all.
We got into the first wave and then suddenly the Israelis said, well, that's it.
We're finished.
It's now over.
And we've won.
And it's a great success.
And what seems to have happened?
was during that first wave, the Israeli aircraft with their long-range missiles on it that were supposed to destroy the air defenses never got beyond 70 to 100 kilometers closer to Iran than that.
Too far, if you like, for their missiles to lock on to air defenses because they'd need They weren't able to lock onto it.
And they said, the key thing they said, and this comes from Israeli sources, more than Iranians, but from Israeli sources, they said, we've discovered an unknown air defence system over Tehran province.
So what was happening?
Well, it seems to be that, first of all, They were being locked onto by another missile defense system, and that they were frightened to go ahead, and so they scrapped the attack.
They then just released their missiles, these long-range missiles.
But these long-range missiles are basically guided by GPS.
Some of them may have a radar at the very end for sort of locking onto.
A signal from a radar system or something that they can defend it.
But basically, most of the Israeli long-range missiles are guided by GPS.
Well, we know, first of all, that the Russians are adept at jamming GPS and spoofing GPS.
And maybe that was one of the things that happened.
But what I think we are seeing when we heard
They can do that because although you need to be very close to find a stealth fighter with ordinary radar.
If you have a missile that has a radar capacity in its forehead and would be able to identify a stealth fighter, then the whole idea of the attack on Iran seems to have collapsed.
It would be too dangerous.
The conventional weapons, the conventional bombers, all loaded up, ready to go in and bomb targets.
Wouldn't dare do it because they were not going into a secure area, a secured airspace.
It was unsecured airspace.
In fact, it was being dominated by air defense systems, which threatened the stealth fighters themselves.
I mean, a huge affair.
You know, it has geostrategic implications if this is indeed what happened.
So they released a lot of...
They released...
Did they cause any damage?
No.
There were a few radars on the east, on the western side, by Iraq, in the two provinces next to Iraq, that had some damage on them.
All the rest.
And what seems to have happened is there was this plan, as I say, three-phase plan.
And the Israelis just, when it was cancelled and scuppered, They just announced the plan as if it had happened.
He said, you know, we've succeeded.
We've gone in.
We flew over Tehran.
Of course, he didn't fly over Tehran.
They didn't get closer than 70 kilometers to the borders of Iran itself, let alone over Tehran.
We succeeded.
We flew over.
We suppressed the air defenses.
And then we bombed targets and we destroyed their missile capacity.
It's just hype.
It's not true.
There was tiny damage.
There were two areas.
One was an IRGC base that they said, but it's been abandoned by the IRGC for some time.
And it's used mostly for films, 19 films.
They do the television, use it for films.
That's a big character.
And then there was another place called Parchin.
And Parchin has a history, because I know it quite well from 10 years ago.
At one point, the Israelis announced to the world that they collected a few samples of enriched uranium that came from near Parchin, and there had to be an inspection.
And so the IEA, which includes not just Americans, not Israelis, but includes American experts within it too, Did an inspection of the IEA and found nothing.
It's just, it's not integral to their missile system at all.
It deals mostly with smaller weapons, manpaths.
It's just a conventional sort of military research station.
And then the Israelis said, oh, but there's tarmac in the front, so there are hidden basements underneath, and you didn't do that.
So those were investigated too.
And there were no hidden basements, and there was no weapons program proved whatsoever.
This has been going on with Bachin for years, and it's out in the open.
And it seems that two or three buildings suffered some damage, but probably not from missiles.
It may well have been from those quadcopters.
Do you think that the Israeli leadership, the IDF leadership and the civilian leadership, I think it's quite clear.
They have to take the victory route and declare victory.
They have to because strategic concepts are too important.
If Russia has indeed lent, if you like, an anti-stealth missile system.
To Iran, which secures airspace, it has huge ramifications because the whole stealth idea was based on stealth aircraft being able to penetrate into, if you like, airspace that is dominated by air defense systems and destroy them because they could not be found and not seen on radar.
Well, clearly, if that doesn't hold, the whole concept, and this could impact on the whole of the Western sort of defense concept, on the fact that, I mean, what we're saying at the end is, you know, that at the end of the day, Iran has an effective air defense system.
Israel does not.
And that has big implications for the whole region.
It has big implications because also, you know, there is in the background this huge competition, you know, Russian technical competence on the battlefield versus NATO's technical competence.
And everyone presumed that, you know, Israel, as little America, therefore had the ability to go and bomb Iran.
Well, it was aborted.
And they fired a few long-range missiles from 70 to 100 kilometers.
But there's no way those missiles would be accurate because they rely on old GPS.
They are pre-configured with old GPS.
And then they have to get new, if you like, at the end.
Data provided to get their target.
Otherwise, you're just firing them blindly.
And it seems that's what more or less has happened.
They sort of fired blindly because they loaded up with these missiles.
They couldn't get onto it.
They met this unexpected air defense system around Tehran.
And they called it all off.
Two and three, the big bombing didn't take place.
So the damage was minimal.
You know, the Israelis, though, have to go to the victory narrative.
They couldn't say otherwise.
Let's go over to Lebanon.
Did the IDF suffer serious casualties in the past four or five days in South Lebanon?
Huge.
Huge.
One Hebrew-language newspaper has said, you know, the amount of death and injuries that we've suffered in Lebanon in this period is a catastrophe.
The quote, that's the direct word that they used in the press.
They said it was a catastrophe.
They've also said that the Golani Brigade has been really effectively disabled, decimated.
You remember that was the elite unit, the Golanis, that first of all had a drone that came in and killed a number, a small number, and injured many more Golanis soldiers in their base just south of Haifa.
And now in Lebanon they seem to have suffered huge losses.
And they've now talked about the IDF have now proposed a two-week brief ceasefire.
they're going to stop attacking in Lebanon.
But Hezbollah responded by saying, okay, but now you have to evacuate 20 settlements in the north because these are being used by Israeli troops as staging grounds, and if you like, meeting places before they incurs into Lebanon, and we're now going to attack those.
So we advise all you civilians to leave, and they are.
Lots of them are leaving.
you know, the whole Strategy versus Iran is coming undone.
If we can't hit Iran and we can't suppress its air defenses, then, you know, the only way we could attack Iran is nuclear.
and that would mean probably a nuclear war.
So this is really a very...
I mean, this is an inflection point because so much And that would, in a sense, the way the Israelis were looking at it was, you know, we'd solve Gaza, the South, by attacking the North.
And we'd solve the North by attacking Iran.
None of those are already working as a strategy.
Is the IDF pulling out...
Not out of Gaza.
It's still in Gaza.
It's still trying to pursue.
What they're doing is trying to, I mean, continue with ethnic cleansing from the north.
And we've seen pictures of sort of great caravans of Palestinians.
They've been in, they've arrested all the hospital staff.
I mean, the technical staff, medical staff.
They've all been arrested, and there are pictures of them sitting in a pit in their underpants before being taken off for interrogation.
And that was the last hospital functioning in the north of Gaza.
But they're trying to take as many Palestinians out of Gaza, north of the Netzeri frontier, and to, if you like, take it clear.
Just before this started again, there was this big conference held in Israel, at which ministers were present, in which they again declared that the intention is to remove all the Palestinians from Gaza and to replace it with settlements, 50 settlements.
And many people signed up to join, to volunteer, to, if you like, inhabit the settlements.
The Jewish settlements would be emplaced in Gaza after this war.
So, I mean, that's still going on, but it's not succeeding.
I mean, it's not succeeding because the troops keep saying as soon as they clear one part of Gaza, you know, they come back again and find it's been reoccupied by Hamas.
So they rely now on their hoping.
And so there's a great emphasis on we must have a solution.
We must negotiate something.
But as things stand, there are maybe talks, maybe they'll be delayed till after the American election, but Hamas haven't changed their position one shot.
It's not changed at all.
So there's not a great deal of expectation that unless Israel were prepared to meet Hamas's terms, which have not changed from the beginning, which is a complete end to the conflict in Gaza and Israeli withdrawal and the release of hostages on both sides, there will not be a deal.
And we still seem far from that.
And the catastrophic loss casualties inflicted upon the IDF in Lebanon.
Is the Israeli intention to expand its borders from the river to the sea and way up north still a war without limits?
I think we're probably entering a transitioning moment, but this is, you know, maybe I'm sent it back.
By attacking what they call these planetary mixers, wonderful name, where you mix fuel for it.
I mean, this was something, these were a few old holes that were in Parchin years ago.
But as I say, there was no damage done, even to those.
I think they were MEK sending off a few quadcopters with tiny warheads just to give a semblance of something.
So I think...
Yet at the same time, Israel is full of talk, again, delusional talk, about how now we have to build on the success with Iran and prepare for the next stages when America will come and support us and will come in and provide.
It's more basic ability to damage and destroy Iran.
Of course, America is just as blocked from Iran if the air defenses are as I said they were, and that Iran has provided demonstration with using Russian.
Electronic jamming of GPSs and electronic warfare and perhaps a Russian stealth anti-air defence system.
A stealth air defence.
We've all wondered if there was such a thing in process in Russia for some time.
But it looks as if they've done it.
So a stealth air defense system starts off in the normal way, following GPS, if you like, coordinates, but then it switches on the radar.
And if the radar is close to a stealth aircraft or a stealth bomber, it will find its target and will destroy it.
Right-wing members of Prime Minister Netanyahu's government still talking about de-radicalizing Palestinians, ethnic cleansing, mowing the lawn from the river to the sea.
And if they are, are they prepared for the sacrifice the Israeli people would have to make in order to even attempt?
Those lurid goals?
Well, I don't think so.
And as you probably know, I wrote a little bit about this for multiple reasons.
One is because the aim, which I think really goes back to those days of the Hudson Institute and the neocons at those times, who sort of persuaded The authorities in the US at that time,
that it was possible to have a form of perpetual revolution in the region where, you know, there would be one regime change would follow another which would follow another.
This was all set out in the Clean Break strategy that Worms and others, part of Stoop Jackson's Senate aides.
Put together with Netanyahu in '76.
And it first of all postulated the defeat of Iraq and of Syria, but a form of perpetual revolutions that would emplace the American, if you like, ideal in the region.
And that was done and presented to Netanyahu.
So, I mean, the idea that he's not part of that network is just not true.
He was in it.
It was very much part of his idea.
Now, is that feasible?
Now, is that feasible?
They don't have a big enough army.
And what they've done is to try and substitute, if you like, Israel has tried to substitute Western style of rationality.
If you like, the rationality of the mechanical rationality of the West by moving it to a sort of Talmudian base of epistemology, the biblical base of epistemology.
But the young Israelis are still, I mean, postmodern young men.
With their TikTok.
And they don't have a great capacity.
The whole of postmodernity is to put, you know, saving life first.
Suffering is not something that they welcome.
Suffering is something you avoid.
Suffering is something that has no meaning and has no value.
And so these are the forces and they're facing an enemy which does see meaning in suffering.
Which does see meaning in loss of life and sees that as a means of that the bloodshed is terrible, it is ghastly, but it's something that can preserve your people, even if you will not be there at the time.
It is a very different type of thinking and a way of thinking.
If you pick the two together, a small army, which is too small, To try and do these, even to take South Lebanon and occupy it, let alone to defeat Syria, let alone to go to Iran.
I mean, it's madness.
It's madness to think that that's possible, and particularly using, you know, reservists for your force who've been brought up in the Western tradition.
Which is all about, you know, enjoying the moment of life, the condition of life, and to avoid suffering and to avoid pain as much as you can, to tackle people who have a very different vision of the world.
Does Netanyahu recognize that his goals cannot be achieved by brute force alone?
I don't know if you saw the photographs of him and Galland in the operations from in the sort of bunker under the Kyria, the defense section in Tel Aviv, while the attack was going on.
But their faces were, you know, I mean, really, they seem to be mad.
And sort of, it was very, there was no sort of excitement and enthusiasm.
And then it was called off.
So is there a solution to ask Joe Biden for troops on the ground or more military equipment?
Or does he accept the inevitable that Israel simply lacks the power and the will to achieve this genocidal goal?
Well, you know, it's going to be difficult because you've probably seen the Atlantic Council has just come out with a paper, which is to try and lay out the sort of the landscape, the map for a war with Iran over the next four years, whoever wins the election, both for, if you like, the Republican and the Democrats.
The Atlantic Council, which I think has something like, does it have six or seven former heads of the intelligence services on its board, has come out saying we must have a plan to take forward and to build on what Iran has done for the next four years in order to attack and destroy Iran.
Now, whether that is grounded, any realistic understanding, Of, you know, what has happened in Ukraine, what has happened in terms of what I keep calling is the military revolution,
which has changed the whole balance between air-led, you know, operations, which the West is still completely stuck in, the sort of Second World War massive flotillas of planes using conventional bombing.
and the world of drones, smart missiles, and missile warfare.
Because an attack on Iran, they have overwhelming.
If it wasn't nuclear, then they would face it.
Military capability, military infrastructure.
The hypersonic missiles, which Israel cannot shoot down, they can come over in waves and simply destroy the military capacity of Israel.
So does the Atlantic Council and its sort of followers, who are quite numerous in the West, really plan to do it?
Maybe Netanyahu will just go along with it because it promises huge amount of funding for Israel in terms of, you know, re-equipping the military and giving one of its provisions is the idea that, you know, well, Israel is going to have to sort of have a big up rate in its military preparedness.
And we're going to have to spend a lot of money building up Israel in terms of its military capacities.
Will he go along for the money and it'll become just a boondoggle like Ukraine has become a boondoggle by which people get very rich, but nothing really is secure.
I don't know, but that's one possibility, I would think.
Alistair, thank you, my dear friend.
As always, thank you for your analysis and your time.
We look forward to seeing you again.
Same time, same place next week.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
All the best.
And coming up later today, as usual, for Monday morning, Ray McGovern at 10 o 'clock, Larry Johnson at 11, and this afternoon at 3 o 'clock Eastern, Phil Giraldi, and at 4 o 'clock Eastern, Scott Ritter.
Scott and I were together yesterday.
At a terrific gathering of like-minded people in Midtown Manhattan, and he and I will talk a little bit about that, but he's mainly going to talk about how badly the Israelis suffered over the weekend.
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