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Oct. 31, 2024 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
32:31
INTEL Roundtable w/ Johnson & McGovern : Weekly Wrap up
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Hi, everyone.
Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Friday, November 1st, 2024.
It's the end of the week and the end of the day.
It's time for our Intelligence Community Roundtable with my dear friends and colleagues Larry Johnson and Ray McGovern.
Gentlemen, we can't seem to get a straight answer out of the government as to whether North Korean troops are physically present.
So I'll start with you, Ray.
I'm not talking about North Korean troops way eastern Russia, where they have a common border with North Korea and at which they've been training for generations.
I'm talking about North Korean troops transported to the areas of conflagration with Ukraine.
What is your best understanding as to whether North Korean troops are there or not?
Well, they are there, no doubt.
The question is, why is such a big brouhaha being made of this?
The Russians and the North Koreans are well within their rights to exercise together, to have troops one another.
Actually, they have a mutual defense treaty which obligates them to come to the aid of the other if the other one is invaded militarily.
And with the Korsk invasion by Ukraine, of all people, that has happened to Russia.
So the Russians are making a political point.
Yeah, we can do this.
And their representative in the UN made an eloquent statement saying, well, what's special about this?
Why do you deny the stuff that you do in NATO all the time?
The question is why David Sanger, about a week ago, and now all the press is ringing changes on this terrible threat.
Why is Tony Blinken saying there are 8,000 and they're poised to go into Kursk and they're going to finish up those Ukrainians?
And if they get involved in combat, there will be every right to retaliate against these North Korean troops.
Well, I think there's more to this than meets the eye.
South Korean foreign minister and defense ministers were both in Washington the last few days.
They had mutual discussions.
I think that Blinken and Sullivan are trying to get the South Koreans to do something big.
There were early reports, just one, but it was from a good source, that the U.S. was trying to get the South Koreans to give.
To put in F-16s with pilots in Romania, right next to Ukraine, and turn the tide of the war, so to speak.
And make an announcement to this effect before Tuesday?
It would have to be.
Okay, so now they've been pulling the arm.
Pulling the arms of the South Koreans.
There's not much in this for the South Koreans.
And their president, you know, has been advised, wait, wait, wait, wait.
These guys are going to get shut down.
This is not going to be good for you politically.
So my guess is they haven't persuaded them to give them, go ahead to do this.
But we'll know in the next couple of days, of course.
And even if they don't have the okay.
I would expect Blinky to say, we are talking to the South Koreans, and they're thinking about giving them an F-16 pilots, and that will turn the whole tide here.
Ukraine hasn't lost yet.
And these North Koreans in Russia, the reason for that is the Russians are losing.
They don't have enough people.
So it's all a big charade.
You can almost hear the words they'll use.
Larry, you don't need fodder for your cannon, but I'm going to give you some.
Sure.
Which is Secretary Austin two days ago, and then I want you to reply as you see fit.
Chris, cut number one.
As you know, we now assess that North Korea has sent around 10,000 of its soldiers to train in eastern Russia.
And as Secretary of State pointed out earlier, our most recent information indicates that about 8,000 of those DPRK soldiers are now in the Kursk Oblast.
Now, we've not yet seen these soldiers deploy into combat against Ukraine's forces, but we expect that these North Korean soldiers will join the fight against Ukraine in the coming days.
Our assessment is that Putin's forces have trained these North Korean soldiers in artillery operations, UAV operations, and basic infantry operations, including trench clearing.
The Kremlin has also provided these DPRK troops with Russian uniforms and equipment.
And all of that strongly indicates that Russia intends to use these foreign forces in frontline operations in its war of choice against Ukraine.
And make no mistake, if these North Korean troops engage in combat or combat support operations against Ukraine, they would make themselves legitimate military targets.
So we are consulting closely with our allies and partners and other countries in the region on these reckless developments and on our response.
Does he even realize what he has just said about soldiers who engage in combat or combat support operations are legitimate military targets?
Larry, take it from there.
Go at this however you see fit, my friend.
Well, yeah, they're legitimate military targets.
The problem with Austin is he's lying.
He is either lying or he is the most clueless, uncritical thinker in the world who has been buying lines of cow excrement from the Central Intelligence Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency.
I need to correct Ray on one thing.
David Sanger's article, which was the first place this claim of the North Korean activity appeared, was on October 8th.
That's almost four weeks ago.
This is not of recent development.
And the reason it's coming out now, if only people would take time to read the New York Times yesterday.
The article was Russia's Rapid March in Eastern Ukraine.
And what they point out is that in July 1st, And then in August and September, well, over 110, 120 square kilometers each month.
And now in October, it's over 150.
So what is happening is Russia is steamrolling forward.
The Ukrainians don't have an answer to the Russian offensive.
And this is why I say Austin is lying, because he's claiming...
Nonsense.
This is just the opposite.
The only one suffering catastrophic losses is Ukraine.
It's not Russia.
And it's gotten to the place NATO is alarmed.
They don't know what to do.
And as Ray correctly noted, the reporting of Marat Karelian, a Russian wartime correspondent, who indicated that the word he was picking up from his Russian intelligence sources was that the West was desperately trying to get South Korea to come in, fly the F-16s as some sort of Hail Mary to try to help stop the bleeding, which they can't.
So this is, you know, Austin is being dishonest because on the one hand they claim, Oh, Russia's had such catastrophic losses.
They need the North Koreans.
And then in the very next breath, he says, Oh, we've got to stop Russia because if we don't, they're going to take over Europe.
But wait a second.
If they need 10,000 North Koreans just to hang on against the Ukrainians, how in the name of God are they going to take over all of Europe?
Figure out a story.
Stick with it, but jumping back and forth like...
It's just a bad look.
So, Ray, would the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency be in on this charade?
Or would they be duping the Secretary of Defense?
And shouldn't he know that he's being duped?
Well, you know, this all happened before, Judge, on Vietnam.
The CIA then had its own military analytical capability.
That's why my friends Sam Adams and others went up against the Pentagon and lost.
Our CIA director told us, we can't use those actual figures because there's no way I can protect the CIA, which is my primary duty, if we get involved in a pissing match.
With the U.S. Army at war.
His exact words.
That's what he told our analysts.
We had it right.
Inevitably, the Viet Cong came down in 500,000, 600,000 numbers rather than the 299,000 that was more than was.
That's a long story.
So do they lie?
Well, it's real easy to lie now because Bobby Gates, the head of CIA at one point, Put the analytical military capability back in the Pentagon.
So Austin, who had a record as head of CENTCOM of distorting intelligence to the point where 50 intelligence analysts in Tampa at CENTCOM and the DIA filed a complaint with the Inspector General of the Pentagon.
There was an investigation and so forth.
And then the investigation went nowhere.
Well, the investigation was by a two-star, and of course, Austin, who was in charge of CENTCOM, was a four-star.
That's the way it always works.
Larry, go ahead, go ahead, continue.
What I'd like to say here is that Larry is exactly right, and I'd say in the beginning that when Larry read those words, we assess, okay?
Yeah.
We assess that the Russians hacked into the DNC.
We're assessed that Putin really...
Yeah, it's when you don't have any evidence.
That's what you do, you assess.
Larry, here's more fodder for your cannon.
Secretary Blinken was standing next to Secretary Austin, basically saying the same thing.
Chris, cut number two.
We believe that...
And when it comes to China, as a member of the United Nations Security Council, we would and should expect no less.
And we've had communications with China.
In fact, we had a robust conversation just this week.
And I think they know well the concerns that we have and the expectations that, both in word and deed, they'll use the influence that they have to work to curb these activities.
So we'll see if they take action.
But I think this is a demand signal that's coming not just from us, but from countries around the world.
Do countries around the world believe this nonsense, or do they see this for the chicanery that it is, Larry?
I think most see the chicanery and the hypocrisy.
Because just this week, images surfaced.
First of a dead U.S. citizen with the 75th Ranger Regiment tat on his shoulder.
75th Rangers.
Or part of what's known as the Tier 2 unit in the Special Operations Forces.
So whether this guy was actual current active duty Special Operations and sheep dip to be put into Ukraine to operate as an ostensible Ukrainian asset, or if he was a mercenary that went over after the fact, there he was, an American dead inside Russia, along with a Marine, another US citizen.
Who was dead.
They got his death picture with his hands up like this, you know, like he's fending off an explosion.
And then there were Poles and Frenchmen and Brits.
So we got all these NATO people running into Ukraine fighting Russians.
And now Blinken wants to get his panties in a wad because, oh my God, the North Koreans who've had a military relationship with Russia for 75 years.
You know what?
It's so pathetic.
It's shameful.
Because I think there's a lot of countries out there just shaking their head, looking at the United States and going, man, when did that clown car empty out?
Because this is ridiculous.
Surely, Ray McGovern, the Secretary of Defense would know that there are Americans.
Poles, Brits, whatever, whomever they may be, on the ground fighting with Ukraine.
How could he not know that?
Well, that's different, Judge.
The U.S. has special privileges to do these things.
I forgot about that.
Yeah, and we haven't been course.
Right, Larry?
Yeah.
So, you know, the difference in who's entitled to do what is really very glaring.
And you're quite right to point out the rest of the world looks on and say, what's going to happen on the 5th?
Now, I'd like to add one other point.
One thing that makes it more likely for me that this miracle, this...
It's because Blinken himself may end up in jail if that other guy comes into office.
Why?
Because just at this time in 2020, okay, he encouraged this guy, CIA acting director, Mikey Morrell, Right.
The roundup, 50 other high-ranking intelligence officials to say Hunter Biden's laptop was what had all the earmarks of a Russian intelligence disinformation operation, okay?
Then Mikey Morell had his own name, 51, and that was used effectively at the last debate where Trump was not smart enough not to ask about this, and Biden said, my God, you know, don't you know?
That 51 intelligence directors have said that.
I remember this.
I have a friend, I won't give you his name, significant person in the military and intelligence communities, although a liberal Democrat who was asked to sign this and he refused.
He's told me several times in private, this is junk and garbage.
These people are my friends that signed it, but I'm not putting my name on it.
We have a friend, Larry and I. Who was a recipient of the Sam Adams Award for Integrity, who signed.
And when I called him on it, he said, I'm just avid to make sure that Trump doesn't win.
Oh, my God.
That's not what an intelligence officer does.
Back to the story.
Now, it was Blinken that set this whole thing up.
Blinken called Mikey Morell and said, can you do this?
Mikey said, of course we can!
51, and the debate just dismissed this whole issue.
Now, did it turn the tide?
Well, it certainly didn't help.
It didn't help Trump.
And so there are these things that are going in Blinken's mind and Sullivan's mind.
My God, what is he going to do?
I mean, we're going to be out of a job for sure, but will we be able to hang out and hide in the desks at Brookings, or is it going to get us?
It's that serious for these guys, personally.
Larry, last Sunday, I participated in a program with Scott Ritter and Dennis Fritz and Colonel Larry Wilkerson on the east side of Manhattan, and we spoke to a group of a couple of 100 anti-war activists.
While we spoke on the east side of Manhattan, a madman.
Address 25,000 people on the west side of Manhattan.
Chris has cut it down to a minute.
If you can tolerate this, you'll know who it is in a heartbeat.
I'd like to know what you think of it, Chris.
Cut number seven.
They are our best friend.
I worked for Ronald Reagan for eight years.
Ronald Reagan said we have to be there for Israel always.
Because they are always there for us.
Hamas is not there for us.
Iran is not there for us.
They want to kill us.
And the Palestinians are taught to kill us at two years old.
They won't let a Palestinian in Jordan.
They won't let a Palestinian in Egypt.
And Harris wants to bring them to you.
They may have good people.
I'm sorry I don't take a risk with people that are taught to kill Americans at two!
I'm on the side of Israel!
You're on the side of Israel!
Donald Trump's on the side of Israel!
And they're on the side of the terrorists!
We keep the electoral politics out of it.
Is there any evidence that...
No, not coming over here.
And look, this is, you know, it's really embarrassing to see Giuliani become this sort of deranged and unhinged at his age.
There was a time where he was not this crazy.
Right.
But let's simply deal with facts.
According to the U.S. State Department's now Bureau of Counterterrorism, it was the Office of the Coordinator with Counterterrorism when I was there, every year they put out a report on who's the most active terrorist groups in nations.
And every year they list Iran as a major sponsor of terrorism.
Okay, that's true.
But then you look at the statistical annex.
And what do those numbers say?
They list the top 10 groups that are responsible for like 95% of the terrorist activities.
Not a single one of those for 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, going back, not a single one is sponsored by Iran, funded by Iran, trained by Iran.
The groups Hezbollah and Hamas, ironically, We've carried out very, very few terrorist attacks.
And the terrorist attacks that Hezbollah has carried out primarily against the United States have always been actually against military and government targets.
They have not gone after civilians per se.
Now, nobody wants to hear those facts.
We instead pretend to create this mythological enemy when, you know, we were the ones in part helping fund Iran, arm Iran.
Back in the early 1980s.
I mean, we were playing both sides of the fence.
We were providing arms and weapons to the Iranians and arms and weapons to the Iraqis.
Ali North was wheeling and dealing with Iran.
That's how they got those shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles, the Stingers.
So, this is blatant hypocrisy again.
And it's just pandering to the American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee.
The other thing that he said is that Israel has been there for us.
Israel has never been there for us.
I guess he forgot about the USS Liberty.
Exactly.
Poor Rudy, you know.
I'm from New York and I know a little bit about Rudy.
He's lost his penthouse now, for God's sake.
I think he's lost his license to be a lawyer, right?
Yeah.
And he's lost whatever lingering reputation he has because during those hearings about September 6th or whatever, You've got to look into that corruption.
And the attorney general said, well, I said to Rudy, I said, well, this is serious.
What's your evidence?
We have no evidence, just reports.
Just look into it.
No evidence.
We assess there has been corruption.
Poor Giuliani.
It's hard for me to feel sorry for him.
But he's got his just desserts now, and no more girlfriends, and no more penthouse.
Going back to last weekend, when the Israelis began their assault on Iran, and they didn't have the second wave or the third wave, they didn't even finish the first wave, according to Alistair.
Their jets flew over Jordan and flew over Iraq.
Yeah.
Is the King of Jordan a CIA asset or a CIA stooge?
Well, he's had a close relationship.
I don't know if he's ever officially signed up as a source, but what they lack, both Iraq and Jordan, is air defense systems.
If they had any kind of credible air defense system.
Israel wouldn't dare to do that.
What's telling, and I think Alistair had it exactly right, because if Israel had hit the kinds of targets that it's been claiming, and the media side, the spin back in Israel is, oh, we wiped out those Iranians, we wiped out their air defense system, they didn't have it, we took out this plant and that plant.
Where are the pictures?
This is just like saying, those Hamas terrorists beheaded babies.
Where are the names?
Give us the names, the photographs.
Show us the babies when they were not beheaded.
They can't do it because it didn't happen.
And what happened here was Israel is loath to admit that they got stopped and that their plan, because when you compare what Gallant was saying before they launched, It was going to be devastating.
The world was going to be standing in shock and awe of what Israel accomplished.
And you know what?
That night, when Israel basically called it off, everybody else was singing Peggy Lee's song, Is That All There Is?
Because there wasn't a lot to it.
Let's go back to where we started.
How much longer, regardless of the outcome on Tuesday, how much longer can Ukraine last?
Larry has seen videos of the Ukrainian military shelling its own people who were trying to run from Ukraine into Russia.
How much longer can that country possibly last?
I don't see how it extends beyond the end of March or April.
Just look at the New York Times piece and the chart of the capture of the land.
It's going up!
And that rate of acceleration is not slowing.
It's increasing.
Yeah, the land is important, but more important really are the troops that are being sacrificed in this whole thing.
I would say November if a certain person wins.
In other words, it depends on what happens in the election.
If Trump wins, I would not expect the Ukrainians to be able to stand fast.
They'll be running away.
They'll be giving up.
They will say, well, look, what's the use?
If Kamala wins, then I suppose But it's not very long, and it all has to do with when a very debilitated president is calling the shots, depending on who he listens to now or the next day.
So it's very, very conflicted, and it's very unpredictable, and that worries the Russians, Chinese, Iranians.
It worries everybody sick.
What's going to happen?
January 20th, when there's a change in our government.
Apologies for going back and forth.
Here's a very debilitated ex-president.
And we'll again keep the politics out of what the heck he was doing in Michigan.
I don't know if you guys have seen this, but I have to show it to you.
Cut number six.
I have to be careful what I say because there's only one president at a time.
But I think we're going to have to essentially start again.
On the peace process.
I understand why young Palestinian and Arab Americans in Michigan think too many people have died.
I get that.
But if you live in one of those kibbutzim in Israel, right next to Gaza, and Hamas butchered them, and so then the people who criticize it are essentially saying, Yeah, but look how many people you've killed and retaliated.
So how many is enough for you to kill to punish them for the terrible things they did?
That all sounds nice until you realize, what would you do if it was your family?
You would say, well, you'll have to forgive me.
I'm not keeping score that way.
It isn't how many we've had to kill.
Because Hamas makes sure that...
They'll force you to kill civilians if you want to defend yourself.
Not sure who's worse, Larry, Giuliani or Clinton, when it comes to facts and history.
Yeah, I mean, just disgusting, despicable.
The same guy who's basically raked in millions of dollars.
Using the Haitians as shields to justify his profit-making.
Look, the fact of the matter is that right now the number of civilians that have been murdered by the Israelis using the actions of October 7th 1,200
were allegedly killed by Hamas, but the reality is far fewer, because the Israeli government itself, through their Hannibal doctrine, was responsible for killing, I would estimate, at least 500 to 600 of the Israelis who died that day.
How many people have died in Gaza?
Do we have a number?
Yeah, it's over 45,000, and when you add in what's going on in Lebanon, it's over 50,000.
So at what point do you say, okay, we've killed enough?
Because what has been exposed now is the reality of the Zionist plan.
They're not looking to reach an agreement, a negotiation with the Palestinians where they say, okay, you give us our hostages back, we'll separate, you live on your side of the wall, we'll live on our side of the wall, and we'll try to get along.
That's not what they want.
They want to eliminate.
The Palestinians.
Exterminate them.
Wipe them out.
Kill them if necessary.
Starve them if they can.
Force them to flee.
But they want them out of that land because the Zionists insist.
That land is theirs.
It doesn't belong to any of these lousy Palestinians who aren't even real human beings.
Because God gave it to them?
They really believe that?
Oh, absolutely.
And that's why you had Netanyahu talking about Amalek.
We've got to kill the Amaleks.
And that instruction to the Jews in the Old Testament to kill everybody, men, women, and children, because that was God's command.
Well, you know, when you write the book, you get to control the narrative.
I'd just add about Bill Clinton.
He was the one that started the expansion of NATO against the promise that was made earlier.
He also hired a bunch of Zionists to work with him on the Middle East.
And with these Zionists, he put a lot of pressure on Arafat, and Arafat finally didn't trust him.
And Arafat was right.
So what happened to Arafat?
He was poisoned.
It was removed from the scene.
So this is a guy who is largely responsible for the fact that a fair deal for the Palestinians has been put off for as long as Clinton was president.
That was a long time.
And so he's likely responsible for this.
And for him to be parroting this business about, you know, the way they shield and all those kinds of things, it's such male bovine excrement that it's not worthy of even listening to.
Yeah.
Gentlemen, thank you very much for your time as always.
You both are so gracious and generous as to give us double duty.
I hope we can see you again on Monday morning as usual.
The crowds love you guys.
The fact that we are friends, and in the case of Larry, I've been collaborators for so many years just adds to the meaningfulness of everything we do.
Thank you so much.
Have a great weekend.
We'll see you Monday.
Thank you, and we'll see you then.
Monday, as usual, my dear friends, with Ray at 10 in the morning and Larry at 11 in the morning.
And we start off, before the sun comes up, with Alistair Crook at 8 Eastern.
Judge Napoli, have a nice weekend, my friends.
Oh, remember to like and subscribe, please.
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