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Oct. 29, 2024 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
24:59
LtCOL. Karen Kwiatkowski : Is Ukraine On the Ropes?
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Hi, everyone.
Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Wednesday, October 30th, 2024.
Lieutenant Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski joins us now.
Colonel, always a pleasure, my dear friend.
Thank you for the opportunity to pick your brain.
I want to talk to you at some length on the deteriorating situation in Ukraine.
But before we get there, I'd like to touch on some of the events in the Middle East that have happened since.
You were last on the show.
Israel apparently caused no damage to Iran last Friday and Saturday when it supposedly was going to conduct a massive retaliation.
Many of its jets that had flown over Jordan to get to Iraqi airspace turned around when they were Well, some of it, I mean, they say logistics is war.
or is logistics, or that's the fulcrum.
And I think it reflects a little bit of the logistical challenge that Israel in particular, And we're running out of things.
So, you know, we have, you know, there's some, there's a problem in the system.
Because I think if really they had no doubts about their ability to replenish their own Israeli defenses, The attitude, I think, is very destructive, very contemptuous towards everyone around them.
And like all countries, they like to think they're number one.
They've had historically some justification for that.
That edge is gone.
But it's the logistics, I think, that it speaks to.
I think they're buying time.
Not sure what that time will get them, but I think they're buying time.
And surely they must be angry that they had to turn back and that other countries helped Iran defend its airspace.
Well, we know that Russia helped Iran defend its airspace by providing very sophisticated equipment.
We also know the following, and I alluded to this in my first question to you.
The Israeli missiles were fired from jets.
They don't have missiles that can make it all the way.
As far as I know, they can make it all the way from Israel to Iran.
And the jets flew over Jordan.
So the king of Jordan had to give permission to use that airspace.
And then the jets flew over Iraq.
And the Israelis did not get permission from Iraqi authorities.
They got permission from the Americans.
Wait a minute.
Iraq is a sovereign country.
They voted for us to leave.
We agreed to leave.
We haven't left.
We decide who uses Iraqi airspace.
Karen, former colonel in the Air Force?
Well, I mean, it speaks to the credibility of the United States military.
I mean, we know that our political credibility is nil, I think, currently.
But the faith in the U.S. military and what it says goes, that is also greatly diminished.
So if they chose to get American permission because we're occupying part of Iraq illegally and we say, oh, that's fine, you can do that, they must have known we don't speak for the Iraqis.
It's almost like, well, we'll use this as top cover and take our chances or we think we can get through Iraqi airspace just fine.
Arrogance.
Arrogance and a little bit of stupidity.
But I think that they asked for our permission.
Very much shows how isolated both Israel and the United States are, and also that the military doesn't control what it implies that it controls.
You know, the unipolar power that we supposedly have, we haven't had for probably years.
We keep talking like we do, but we don't.
Does the King of Jordan jeopardize the stability of his monarchy?
When in the middle of all the genocide perpetrated by the Israelis, he gives the Israeli military permission to fly over his airspace.
You would think, considering that Jordan is a destination and a place of many people that want Palestinian statehood and much of the resistance has long ties with Jordan.
So, yeah, you would think so.
He was a young king when I was younger, but, you know, Jordan, that's not smart.
That's not smart.
Was he paid to do it?
Well, that's a very interesting question.
Some of our regulars, regular guests, your colleagues on this show are convinced he's been a CIA asset for years.
For years.
half British, he speaks English with a British accent.
He was educated in England.
I'm sure that the MI6 got their hands on him in an affection Well, if he is, I mean, and it looks like, you know, I mean, it would be believable for people to say that, then he is risking his Jordanian government.
Israel would like, because I'm sure Israel wants to expand into Jordan anyway.
And one of the ways Israel has historically expanded is to foment division all around and very much a colonial process.
People don't like to say, oh, we're not colonialists.
Well, you follow, you know, it walks like a duck and talks like a duck.
The procedures of division and puppet governments and picking sides in civil wars, this is how they expand.
And they have their eye on Jordan anyway, so does the U.S. I mean, the U.S. does what Israel wants.
You know, what is our plan for Israel?
Well, it's whatever Israel wants.
Right, right.
Also, last week, the Israeli IDF suffered what Haaretz called catastrophic losses in Lebanon.
Now, they didn't give the number.
The military won't give the number.
Ritter thinks the number is about 12,000 in the past year killed or injured.
By injured, he means so badly injured that they can't go back to the military.
That's probably, you correct me if you see it differently, that's probably a significant number in a relatively small military that's largely reservist, isn't it?
Yeah, that's huge.
That's higher than even I would have.
I've been thinking about it, but that's higher than I would have estimated just off the cuff.
And the other thing I do know from just reading news and that kind of thing, but the Israeli, the IDF soldiers also, many of them, particularly the ones that have been deployed in Gaza, and the things that they're doing are suffering, well, PTSD, of course, but also moral.
Suicides are higher.
They are deciding they don't want to do this.
Not all of them, but that's also a kind of a casualty, a mental health casualty.
And of course, people that have people in the military with mental health questions and who've become casualties are no longer really useful to the military.
So, yeah, I think I think they are I think they are unprepared for.
Going back to Iran, here's what the United States thinks about this.
This is U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the United States Ambassador to the United Nations at the United Nations two days ago.
Cut number eight.
There's also today the United States message for Israel remains clear.
We will always help secure its people and territory from Iran and its terrorist proxies and partners.
Our message for Iran remains clear as well.
Should it choose to undertake further aggressive acts against Israel or U.S. personnel in the region, there will be severe consequences.
We will not hesitate.
War against U.S. personnel in the region.
We know there are at least 200 soldiers on the ground in Israel because the White House has said each of those THAAD units were accompanied by 100 soldiers supposedly to protect it, operate it, and maintain it.
We know that they're probably a tripwire.
But, Colonel, does Iran pose the slightest No, I wouldn't say it poses the slightest threat at all.
The politicians apparently think that Israel is America, you know, the 51st state, and it's not.
It's also kind of strange to hear her talk about, and I did hear, I've heard similar things, and I think I might have heard that already.
Her suggestion or her statement that she kind of stuttered over a little bit, that we're all concerned about Iranian aggression towards Israel.
And I'm like, as I watch this thing go down, it looks the opposite to me.
It looks very much like, well, what we're really seeing is Israeli aggression to not just Iran, but of course all her neighbors closer by.
And that maybe Iran sympathizes with these guys, you know, proxy.
America has to be careful when we talk about proxy military forces, you know, because what we're doing in Ukraine.
We have to be very careful about accusing other people of having proxies.
The United States has never shied away from a double standard.
We know that.
But in this era of cable television and alternate media, they probably get caught with their pants down.
Last area on Israel before we go over to Ukraine.
This is from just a few hours ago from The Guardian.
An Israeli airstrike in the town of Beit Lahaya in northern Gaza has killed at least 90 people and destroyed several residential buildings.
The strike comes as Israel's siege and renewed aerial ground operations in the north of the territory moves into its third week.
Medics estimate that nearly 800 people have been killed since the siege began in early October, this October.
Quote, no one is coming to save them.
Blackouts hide horrors of the siege from northern Gaza.
The U.S. called this horrifying.
Big deal.
They called it horrifying.
They're paying for it.
Yeah, you're paying for it.
enabling it, we are encouraging it really because I'm sure that in discussions, So let's hurry up and do that.
And the Americans are like, okay, well, that sounds like a plan.
Why don't you do that?
Here, we'll help you.
We'll make sure you can clear that out and then some future date, this long-promised and never-materializing ceasefire will happen.
It's really criminal.
It's criminal on the US part, particularly.
We have no moral leadership at all in any of the top agencies of this country that are working with Israel.
I mean, zero.
They are as bad as if they committed the genocide themselves.
And they see nothing wrong with it and they defend it.
So the use of the word horrifying, that's a nice touch.
It is meaningless to the people making the decisions in Washington.
They don't think it's horrifying.
They actually think it's good, which is why they are ensuring that Israel has everything it needs.
But I do think Israel has overreached and most likely this oppression and continued activity, intensifying activity in northern Gaza really is about making the Gaza Strip Smaller.
And uninhabitable.
Well, uninhabitable for Palestinians.
The Israelis will rebuild as much as they can vacate in the north.
I think their intention was the whole thing.
That didn't work.
Palestinians won't leave.
But it is a smaller piece that probably, very likely, they and the Americans also believe they can control that, they can take that over, they can expand.
And, you know, this is all in the context of also expanding the occupied territories in the West Bank and, of course, the Southern Lebanon project.
This is all part of the same thing.
We need to hurry up, take what we can, call a ceasefire, build a fence, and then we have it.
This is the ugliest kind of war.
It's the most non-mysterious type of war.
This is why wars happen.
They happen for land and resources.
And it's very obvious to everybody on the planet.
Except they're trying to hide it from the American people.
Don't worry, we think it's horrifying.
No, they don't think it's horrifying.
They are behind it.
And of course, the people around there, the Palestinians are never going to accept this.
It's not a move towards peace.
It is simple, brute expansion.
Here's a clip from a person you probably disagree with on many, many things, but I expect you'll agree with what he says.
And only he in the Senate and Congressman Thomas Massey in the House have said anything.
Quite like this.
Cut number six, Chris.
I understand that there are millions of Americans who disagree with President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris on the terrible war in Gaza.
I am one of them.
It did not have the right to wage an all-out war against the entire Palestinian people.
It did not have the right to kill 42,000 Palestinians, two-thirds of whom were children, women, and the elderly, or injure over 100.
It did not have the right to destroy Gaza's infrastructure, housing, and healthcare system.
It did not have the right to bomb every one of Gaza's 12 universities.
It did not have the right to block humanitarian aid, causing massive malnutrition in children and, in fact, starvation.
And that is why I am doing everything I can to block U.S. military aid and offensive weapons sales.
To the right-wing extremist Netanyahu government in Israel.
Everything could be smiling at something Bernie said.
Yeah.
Yeah, he's absolutely right.
And I like the way that he put it because that right to self-defense seems to be the go-to phrase.
Well, we have to, you know, we have to help.
Israel has a right to self-defense.
And of course, they have no right to do any of the things.
Bernie's 100% right on that.
Unfortunately, I'm a little more cynical as to the Netanyahu government.
I think most of the foreseeable governments in the next decade in Israel are going to be very similar to Netanyahu, probably not facing jail terms immediately, but they're going to be very much arrogant, war mongering, not somebody that can
Switching over to Ukraine, Russian troops have Ukrainians and some Americans surrounded in Kursk.
They are tightening the noose, according to President Putin.
That is, the people inside the surrounded area will soon be eliminated.
Meanwhile, the main Russian military continues to march westward, and it is approaching the Dnieper River.
600,000 Iranian young men dead, not dead and injured, dead.
$400 million given by the Defense Department last week.
Election Day coming up next week.
Okay, this is a long question.
What does all this tell you?
Well, you know, the offloading of the last bits of taxpayer-funded Ukrainian aid, that's something that we're seeing, something they need to get done before the administration possibly changes.
And it's not clear who's going to win, but if it does happen to be Trump, we know that he is not supportive of this proxy war that the U.S. is running out of Kyiv.
They need to make hay while the sun shines with other people's money.
The numbers, of course, are terrible.
And the people in Ukraine, whether it's people on the street, people that are facing these, they're still picking people up off the street and drafting them, sending them to the front.
There's so many defections.
I think 100,000 Ukrainian soldiers or People that have been taken, have defected, have left, have run away, what do they call it, deserted.
Because it's a hopeless thing and it's a murderous thing.
And it doesn't advance the interests of Ukraine.
And everybody knows that.
And even Zelensky and the few trusted people that he has left around him recognize that.
And they also recognize if the administration changes their position of support, power, leverage disappears immediately because Trump will simply act.
That's that's what he will do.
Larry Johnson has reported to us of incidents where Ukrainian civilians who live near the Russian border have sought to flee to Russia and have been bombed and shot by Ukrainian military to prevent them from leaving the country.
I mean, this is not as low as it gets.
I mean, Ukraine's got to be on its last leg if it's killing its own civilians.
Well, that is also the practice that was even when this thing started, you know, because Russia came westward into the various Russian-speaking territories.
And that happened there as the Ukrainians...
They were named as traitors and they were treated as traitors.
So shooting their own people, yes, it is a desperate act.
It is also a habit that has been pursued from the beginning.
This is their attitude.
And again, it's a political it's driven from the political Kagan's wife, so everybody knows who we're talking about, is Victoria Nuland, the infamous Victoria Nuland.
Sure, sure.
She's a big part of this vision.
And so they get their guys in.
Eventually, their guy was Zelensky.
They fund, they foment, they encourage, they force NATO or incite NATO, make this thing a big NATO defensive thing, which NATO and defense are two words that don't go together because they can defend nothing.
But the idea that, oh, well, we're going to do this, all that came out of Washington for the most part.
New York and Washington.
And we put our people in to make it happen, basically.
Is Ukraine on the ropes?
Is it on its last legs, no matter who wins the election next week?
Oh, yeah.
There's no doubt about that.
And like I said, I think even the people at the top levels of the Ukrainian government, the people in their parliament, I forget the name of the parliament, what they call it.
They all recognize this.
And I think we're seeing already this last 400, this last tranche of funding, most of that will never make it to any battlefront.
It will not make it to military people.
It's the pocketing.
this is the last graph that you're going to get and uh the people the people that are uh managing the receipt of this money um It is that desperate, I think.
I think it's done with.
The problem is, because they don't have leverage, and this is, of course, Zelensky's concern.
He says, well, I need to be strong so I can negotiate with Putin.
Well, guess what?
You're not strong.
We can't make you strong.
This is a disaster.
So, Zelensky's right.
Who's going to decide for Putin what he wants to leave?
If anything, of Ukraine.
Because when this thing started out, it was simply, on the Russian side, it was simply about preserving some autonomy and some security for the Russian-speaking citizens on the eastern part of Ukraine, in the Donbass.
That was it.
That was the parameters.
And now two and a half, over two and a half years later, many deaths on both sides, but more on the Ukrainian side.
There's nothing to negotiate with.
What kind of country is going to be set up?
If they keep talking about making the rump country of Ukraine a NATO member, which it's not going to happen, but they're still pursuing this as a long term goal or turn it into a military production zone for NATO.
Why would that be of interest to Putin, who is not just winning, but their economy and their military and his popularity has grown in the past two and a half years?
And it was already...
This is nuts.
This is a grand error that the United States has really made happen, and Europe has followed along salivating at the possibilities.
It's a terrible error, and history is not going to be kind to the West in this case.
Colonel Kwiatkowski, thank you very much.
Pleasure, Karen.
Thank you for your time.
Thank you for your analysis.
I hope you can come back again next week.
Absolutely.
Thank you, Judge.
All the best.
We have a very busy day for you tomorrow, Thursday.
At 8 in the morning, Ambassador Charles Freeman.
At 2 in the afternoon, yours truly.
Ask the Judge.
Get your questions in early.
Chris and Sonia and I will review them.
We'll pick the more interesting and challenging ones, and I'll start with those.
And if we have time, There'll be follow-up.
At 3 in the afternoon, Professor Gilbert Doctorow.
At 4 in the afternoon, my dear friend Aaron Maté.
At 5 in the afternoon, Colonel Larry Wilkerson.
At 5.30 in the afternoon, you can't get through a week without big brain time, Professor Jeffrey Sachs.
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