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Nov. 20, 2024 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
24:56
COL. Douglas Macgregor : Trump and the Storm of the Century
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Hi, everyone.
Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Wednesday, November 20, 2024.
Colonel Douglas McGregor joins us now.
Colonel, always a pleasure, and I appreciate very much your accommodating our schedule.
Colonel, you have written what can only be described as a very insightful piece, a masterpiece published at the American Conservative and elsewhere called Trump and the Storm of the Century, and I have many questions for you on it.
But before we get to that, And the unique, to say the least, relationship between Israel and the United States.
How reckless was President Biden's administration, we don't know if he made the decision, to allow the use of offensive weaponry into Russia and now to allow the use of anti-personnel landmines, unlawful in all but five countries,
three of which are Russia, Ukraine, and the U.S. Well, I have at least two sources right now telling me that Russian nuclear rocket forces are on full alert.
They are at the highest level of readiness they have ever achieved, which means that they are literally a short message away from launching nuclear warheads on missiles against anyone that threatens them, whether it's the United States or China.
So that much has happened, which suggests to me that the Russians have taken this very seriously.
One of those surrogates is not in Eastern Europe.
It's in London.
Sky News in Al Jazeera reported during the past half hour, correct me, Colonel, I think they're called Storm Shadow, British rockets fired into the Kursk.
I think that's true.
I think it's useful to reflect on our experience with the pre-Russian or Soviet regime.
In 1973, for various reasons, Schlesinger, who was the Secretary of Defense, and Kissinger, who at the time was, I think, Either as a national security advisor or secretary of state, I don't know which, decided that our nuclear forces should go on full alert because we had told the Israelis, of course, to stop, not to cross the river.
Then once we discovered they were across the river, we told them to pull back.
But they obviously dragged their feet on this.
They wanted to drive right into Cairo, which would have precipitated chaos in Egypt on a scale we can't even begin to imagine.
And in the region.
The Soviets at the time warned us that this had to stop.
And when they saw that we had gone to a full nuclear alert, Brezhnev was informed.
He was sitting at a meeting.
He read the note that we had gone on a full nuclear alert.
He turned around.
He looked up at the individual and said, over Egypt?
For him, it was incomprehensible.
That two major powers like the United States and the Soviet Union would risk a nuclear war over Egypt.
Well, today, we're not talking about Egypt.
We are talking about Ukraine.
Eastern Ukraine, specifically, right on Russia's border.
That has been a menacing problem for Russia for years.
The Russians want it to be neutral.
They want all foreign forces removed.
They want it to be effectively Austrianized.
And we have refused to do that.
And now, after having been told that they would regard deep strikes into Russian territory as an act of war against Russia itself, we've turned right around within 60 days of the government changing hands in an effort that one can only describe as not just reckless, but a direct assault on this thing that the globalists and leftists talk about all the time.
Democracy.
Well, democracy is apparently something that only is viable when it serves their purposes.
When it turns out that the American people have rejected them at the box office, they've decided to subvert it and to create a situation that they hope President Trump can't fix, from which he can't disengage.
from which he cannot disentangle the United States, actions that could lead to war I have two questions.
That is incredible.
Do you think that the Russians would fire at the British and us?
And I don't mean the human beings on the ground, but our assets and land masses because of their doctrine that a nuclear superpower is, Second question, you can integrate these as you see fit.
Do you think Joe Biden is trying to create an insoluble, catastrophic mess for Donald Trump, much as Biden believes Trump did by not getting out of Afghanistan on his own watch and left it to Biden to suffer for it?
Well, the answer to the second question is yes.
Whether or not this is so-called retribution for Afghanistan is another matter, because at the time that President Trump wanted to disengage, there was widespread bipartisan support in the Senate to keep our forces in Afghanistan, largely because of the contractor presence and the enormous quantities of money that were being laundered through that process and then back to the United States.
So I think the answer to the second one is probably yes, but the first one, that's difficult to know.
I don't think that we should exclude it as a possibility.
I think the Russians know that there are limited quantities of these missiles, and they're going to watch very carefully how they are employed.
To take a more nuanced view of this whole thing, we should remember that the phrasing in Russian talks about An overwhelming use of force involving missiles, unmanned systems, whatever, even ground forces into White Russia, Belarusia, or Ukraine, and then Russia proper, in other words, the larger Russian state, as something that could trigger a nuclear response.
In other words, some number of missiles, whatever that is, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10. The Russians have responded to us as only they can by showing us that they are in a state of readiness to employ those nuclear weapons.
I should think that alone would give pause to everyone in Washington.
Regarding the wisdom of this stupid action, particularly given the fact it's at the end of this Ukrainian tragedy.
The Ukrainian state is on life support.
Giving them these missiles is analogous to giving a heart patient who is clinically dead lying on a slab a haircut and a shave.
It's not going to change anything.
But I think the Russians, and I don't think they're alone, Yes, I do.
And I think this goes to the heart of the problem.
This has never been about Ukraine.
I don't see any evidence that anybody inside the Beltway gives a damn about Ukraine or the people that live there.
I've wrestled with this from the very beginning because I grew up with large numbers of Ukrainians for whom I felt at the time in the 50s and 60s great affection.
I don't hate Russians.
I don't hate Ukrainians.
I think this whole thing from the very beginning, as Donald Trump said, should stop.
He said we have to stop the killing.
He's absolutely right.
These people, though, have always been interested in one thing, and that's been to harm Russia.
Right.
That's the goal.
That's all there is.
That's right.
Right.
Switching gears, Colonel, in order to explore your piece, how dangerous for the U.S. is its current relationship with Israel?
I think it's extremely dangerous.
It harkens back to Serbia's relationship with Russia in 1914.
Russia was not allied with Serbia.
We are not allied with Israel.
Everybody keeps saying, oh, it's our best ally.
That's nonsense.
We have a relationship with Israel for reasons of history and, frankly, AIPAC.
That's why we have a relationship with Israel.
Israel is in charge of that relationship.
Serbia in 1914 was effectively in charge of its relationship with Russia.
I mean, why would the czar of Russia send millions of Russian troops into action against Germany and Austria-Hungary over little Serbia?
Why wouldn't he have intervened and said, let's sit down in a neutral state and talk this over and find a way through it?
He made no such effort.
We haven't made any such effort.
And it's very dangerous because they're calling the shots, not us.
As recently as this morning, Amos Hochstein said,
was led to believe by the Israeli negotiators and the Hezbollah negotiators that they had an agreement, whereupon Prime Minister Netanyahu publicly announced, I don't know if he called Mr. Hochstein ahead of time, That the Israelis would not agree.
According to some of our other colleagues on this show, Aaron Maté among them, Netanyahu is going to play the same game in negotiating with Hezbollah as he played with Hamas.
He wants war, war, and more war, and he will never agree to a ceasefire because he can't survive politically once the war is over.
We've been saying that to where blue in the face, but it is apparently true.
First question is, how real was all of this?
I'm beginning to wonder how much is real and how much is theater.
Sometimes I think these discussions about negotiating a peace agreement or a ceasefire or something else really from the very beginning have been nothing but theater.
Remember, You know, I very early on, because I've seen the Israelis in action, I know them to be very intelligent people, particularly the IDF officers.
From the very beginning, I've been skeptical of this 7 October event.
I mean, where were all the reaction forces that could have been on standby that could have responded to this incursion?
How could such a large incursion go unnoticed?
Well, we know it didn't.
We now know from people inside the Israeli.
We know that the deputy chief of staff for intelligence in Egypt personally called and warned the Israelis that there would be attack on 7 October.
You know, so I have a great deal of difficulty with this whole thing from the very beginning.
And now we've seen, thanks to Max Blumenthal, Aaron, Mate, and a number of people, that while this attack was horrendous and disgusting, it was not exactly what was described.
In other words, many of the crimes attributed to these Hamas fighters were not committed.
Baby decapitations, babies in ovens, and these kinds of things.
I'm not saying that doesn't mean anything when you're being killed or murdered or brutalized or raped.
I'm simply pointing out that All of this looked to me, after I began considering it carefully, more and more theatrical.
Well, here we are, what is it, 14 months later, and we're now mired in this miserable war that I think, originally, Netanyahu and his cabinet thought would last 30 days.
I think they thought that they could drive 2 million people out of their homes or kill as many as necessary to get them to leave.
It hasn't worked.
They're prepared to do the same thing on the West Bank against the Palestinians that live there.
There are over a million Palestinian Arabs there.
There are almost 2.1 million Palestinian Arabs in Gaza.
And now they're doing the same thing to southern Lebanon.
And in the midst of all of this, they have now returned almost like a compass returns to true north to Iran, that the real solution to Gaza, to the West Bank.
And what's the goal?
Destroy Iran, a nation of 100 million, which has enormous resources, enormous capabilities that the world needs and wants, that has powerful allies, even among those who were previously opposed to it, and now are willing to support it and protect its sovereignty?
This is not Iraq.
This is not a relatively small nation with a dysfunctional army in 2003 that could be overwhelmed in short order.
This is a major power in the region, and the region needs it.
Even the people in the region that may not like it have concluded, we need Iran.
And we are now tasked, as Americans and the United States Armed Forces, with the mission of destroying it for Israel.
Does that make sense?
No, it doesn't, Colonel.
Will Israel attack Iran without the active assistance of the United States?
Well, you know, I don't know the answer to that, but thus far we've seen evidence that they won't because they were reliant on refueling assets from the Royal Air Force that we may also be involved, but I'm not aware of it.
They can't do the things they want to do without our space-based reconnaissance intelligence surveillance assets.
So I don't think they will unless they're fairly certain that we'll come to their aid.
And I think the whole thing from the beginning has been designed to provoke Iran into launching a really destructive attack, which Iran can do.
Iran can do enormous damage to Israel, and it has been reluctant to do that.
And I think the reason is they know that that will then be used as the excuse to bring in the United States Armed Forces.
See what these Iranians did, and nobody pays attention to the fact that they'd been attacked by Iran.
What would President Trump say to the American people is the reason he's going to put American boys into harm's way?
And expose American treasure to destruction because Netanyahu wants to attack Iran.
My suspicion is that he will say exactly what President Biden has said.
And you can go read these words.
They come straight from AIPAC.
And this is essentially what the former Prime Minister of Israel, Naftali, said.
Iran is the seat of all evil.
Iran is the head of the alleged octopus.
That once Iran is destroyed, this government is decapitated or destroyed, that their problems will vanish, that everyone in the region will then suddenly subordinate themselves to Israeli will, that the various millions of Arabs in Palestine and in other surrounding countries will do what they're told.
I don't see any evidence for that.
I think it's the opposite, to be frank.
But I think that's the feeling, and I think President Trump...
I don't sign on for that description.
But that has been played up in the American mainstream media, as you know, Judge, certainly for at least 20, probably 30 years.
So what would be the purpose of an American attack on Iran?
To reduce its nuclear capabilities, which are a mile below ground?
To destroy its oil refineries, which China's not going to like very much at all.
What would be the purpose of this, besides satisfying AIPAC and the sort of prejudicial, maniacal rantings about Iran as the great Satan?
I think certainly the nuclear facilities are at the top of the Israeli target list.
And they are determined that we use the best weaponry at our disposal, certainly from the United States Air Force, to deliver the bunker-busting, ground-penetrating capabilities that will destroy the facility.
The possibility that this would only represent a setback, that there would be a build-back, a reconstruction at some point, perhaps at a different location.
Or that their capabilities are, frankly, distributed over a wider area.
Those are other issues that I can't address.
I don't know what they've thought about.
Now, as far as the oil production refining thing is concerned, I think there's a lot of tension between Washington and the Israelis over this because the Israelis would just as soon destroy it.
They would like to reduce Iran to a state of total poverty and incapability, incompetence.
And turn them into a, you know, as we used to say many years ago, bomb them into the Stone Age.
I think that would be the preference.
It's not necessarily ours.
In fact, I don't think it is because we understand the larger implications.
But can we control the establishment?
Israelis.
I think there's some evidence that we could.
I don't see much evidence that we have.
Is there a Strategic cost, not political cost, strategic cost.
Well, that's one of the questions that I raised, because in the article I pointed out that Eisenhower resisted enormous pressure to involve himself in the Suez intervention by the British, French and Israelis in 1956.
And in fact, he made it impossible for them to stay there.
There were lots of people who insisted that Nasser was another Hitler and that eliminating Nasser was critical and essential.
The only way to do that was to go directly into the country, regain control of the canal, which had formerly been under the British, and assassinate, remove Nasser and his lieutenants.
Well, it didn't happen, but it turned out that Nasser was not nearly as capable and effective as his successor.
And there were still wars after that.
So, you know, that's one example.
That's not the only one.
Eisenhower was under a lot of pressure by people inside the Department of Defense and State to consider fighting a war against China when he took office in 1953, and obviously he decided not to do that and walked away from it.
In other words, if you walk away from something, what's the cost?
Well, the cost to him was minimal.
I don't think the cost to us would be very great at all.
In fact, I think the opposite would be the case.
Because right now, the cost to us strategically in that part of the world, and I would argue through most of the world, certainly outside of Europe and North America, has been horrendous.
We have lost any credibility that we once had as this paragon of justice and fairness, as standing for what we think is right.
And particularly, we talk all the time about human rights, but what about the human right to live, which is the one that is being deprived right now from the Palestinian Arabs and others that don't agree with Israel?
I know from being a journalist myself that you don't always get to control the title of your article, but if you chose this title, Trump and the Storm of the Century, why did you do so?
Because this event in the Middle East has the potential to be much like the events of July and August 1914.
Iran is far larger than Serbia, far more capable and powerful.
It has friends.
These friends will not desert Iran.
We have tried and have been unable to isolate Iran from China, from Russia.
From India and any number of countries in the world that want to trade with Iran.
Now we tried very hard with the Abraham Accords to drive a wedge between the Sunni Arab states and Shiite Iran.
That has failed.
China came in and brokered an agreement, and all of the Peninsular Arabs have come around to realizing they don't have to fight Iran, and Iran doesn't have to fight with them, and that together they can all be prosperous and make a great deal of money.
And that is where their heads are.
So right now, you could end up in a regional conflict that actually becomes global.
Because if you're sitting in Russia dealing with this man Biden and his deep strikes, where's the incentive for the Russians to help us in the Middle East?
If you're Chinese and watching all of this and listening to the utter nonsense about Taiwan and why we should put our entire nation at risk for the defense of Taiwan when there's no evidence the Chinese want to attack it anyway, But the bottom line is they're not going to take it seriously either.
So why not line up and align yourself with Russia?
And there, of course, is India.
You start adding up the numbers.
You have the largest body of the human population on the planet arrayed against you.
Why do we want to do this?
Thank you, Colonel.
Thank you very much for your analysis.
I don't know where the last 30 minutes went, but thank you very much for your...
Deeply, deeply appreciate it.
All my best to you.
I know next week's a short week.
It's a happy holiday in the U.S., but I hope we can squeeze in some time together.
Well, we'll see.
Thanks, Judge.
I appreciate it.
Thank you, Colonel.
Coming up at 3 o 'clock Eastern, Phil Giraldi at 4 o 'clock Eastern, Professor John Mearsheimer at 4.30 Eastern.
Max Blumenthal at 5 o 'clock Eastern.
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