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Dec. 3, 2024 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
29:00
Matt Hoh : Voices of Resistance.
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Hi, everyone.
Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Tuesday, December 3rd, 2024.
Matt Ho will be here with us in a minute on Voices of Resistance, and they're everywhere today, in the Middle East, in Ukraine, and in South Korea.
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Matt Ho, it's always a pleasure, my dear friend.
Welcome here and thank you very much for your time.
Is the American government, either using the military or the intelligence services, still trying to undermine the government of Syria?
Yes, Judge, and thanks for having me back on.
Surprising move in the last week in terms of this major offensive from both jihadist and Turkish-backed forces against the Syrian government.
And this is certainly something that the American government is happy with.
The United States was essentially on the side of these nations.
We provided support.
I mean, it's good side of those organizations.
We provided support.
We used our allies, the Turks, the Gulf monarchies to do our bidding.
In the Middle East, in the sense of trying to remove Assad and his government from power for two reasons.
One, because the United States is obsessed with Iran, and the Obama administration was hell-bent on trying to hurt Iran, because, you know, for no better reason, again, the size fact that we've been obsessed with Iran for decades.
And in 2017, Michael Vickers, who was the It was to destroy the Assad government in order to hurt Iran.
In Vicar's words, we had no better chance to hurt Iran than through the Syrian war.
So you see that the Syrian war was just like the Ukraine war, Judge.
It's got nothing to do with Ukraine.
It's got everything to do with this imperial desire to hurt Russia, right?
And it's the same thing with Syria.
May I just add one phrase, and I suspect you'll agree with me.
And it has absolutely nothing to do, nothing to do with the national security of the United States.
No, it doesn't.
Not at all.
In fact, it's counterproductive.
It's harmful.
The people that we're backing, particularly these jihadist, Salafist groups, Come from Al Qaeda.
Al Qaeda, of course, being the great Frankenstein's monster.
of the United States of the last half century.
These organizations are very dangerous to us.
We should not be trying to manipulate, trying to control them, trying to manage them as we've had for decades.
It keeps blowing up in our faces.
It's the term blowback.
But aside from this thought that somehow we could use these forces for our own gains to weaken Iran, it also comes back to Israel.
As well.
So this idea that why are we so interested in weakening Iran?
Again, because of the obsession, this national humiliation by the Iranians of the US in 1978, 1979, 1980, but also to this idea that we have to remake the Middle East in order to make Israel, the paramount power there.
And of course, you've had my boss on, Dennis Fritz, a number of times.
His book, Deadly Betrayal, speaks to exactly why or one of the main reasons why the United States went into Iraq in 2003 was for Israel.
And again, the Syrian war of the last decade plus, more than a half million dead.
Millions and millions made refugees, a country destroyed.
It's still destroyed.
purposes are for reasons that have nothing to do with the Syrian people, reasons that have nothing to do with America's own security, but everything to do with this imperialist vision of playing chess or playing a real-life game of risk.
Essentially, what you have, Judge, in Washington, D.C., are people who are acolytes of Zygmunt Brzezinski and Henry Kinzinger, and they think that by this type of action, this type of great game in the Middle East, it will enhance the American empire and also as well enhance their own personal and institutional
Are American assets being used by American personnel, whether they're contractors or intelligence?
Yes, there's a force of about a thousand American troops.
In eastern Syria, alongside 2,500 troops in Iraq, they're there essentially occupying the oil fields and wheat fields of eastern Syria, where Syria's greatest resources are.
They're also there to help protect the Kurds, who are the United States'on again.
So the United States military is physically present in Syria, helping people to fight to overthrow the government.
We condone it.
We don't just condone it.
We support it in a number of different ways over the last decade and a half in Syria.
We've seen the United States do everything from bombing to sending weapons off, sending weapons off into groups that would fight one another, but then also, too, controlling, by having our troops there, the ability for Syria to rebuild.
And there are allegations that are very substantial and should be taken seriously, that where does this oil in eastern Syria go to that it gets trucked?
to the Israelis.
So, I mean, the whole thing, it's a complicated, ugly mess situation The nightmare for the Syrian people just doesn't seem to end.
And it's all because of these imperialist, Machiavellian, grand chessboard-type ambitions of Washington, D.C., that we see these things continuing to play out.
There's another aspect of this, too, though, Judge, in the sense of what the Turks want to do.
The Turks, of course, are behind this.
The Turks openly support what's called the Syrian National Army.
It used to be the Free Syrian Army.
That is a Turkish force.
And that force in the last week, just as Jihadist Salafist group, HTS, I'm not going to try and pronounce it right now, but HTS is pushing towards Tukilepo, pushing south towards Syria's third largest city homes, eventually, hopefully, trying to attack Damascus, I think, is their view.
Although I think they probably have less.
I shouldn't say that because I think their ambitions are less than that.
The Syrian National Army, the Turkish, the fully Turkish-backed force, HTS and Zihadist Salafist forces are backed by Turkey, but not as overtly.
That force has attacked the Kurds.
And this is what Turkey's ambition in all this, is to weaken the Kurds.
And then of course you have what Israel is doing here.
And we see that it should be, I don't think it's any coincidence.
I don't think anyone's saying this is too much of a stretch to note that this attack, So what you've seen from the Israeli perspective, and we can talk about the ceasefire in Lebanon, because that's very confusing, because it doesn't make sense what Israel is doing to me.
But what you've seen Israel successfully be able to do, Judge.
Is to take on the axis of resistance one at a time, which, of course, is not what any alliance wants.
So Israel was able to, over the last year, of course, degrade Hamas and Palestinian Al-Qihad and the other Palestinian forces to the point where Israel probably believes they cannot conduct another October 7th style attack.
They have, through this ceasefire in Lebanon, taken Hezbollah essentially out.
Now, of course, Israel keeps violating this ceasefire, prompting Hezbollah to fire back at them today.
So I really understand what Israel is doing here because they successfully removed Hezbollah from the war that they've taken that they were successfully are able to at least for the next couple of months, maybe remove that pressure on northern Israel, remove that pressure on the Israeli military.
And of course, secure a political win from Bibi Netanyahu, because Netanyahu said we're going to go.
Why do you think Netanyahu went along with the ceasefire?
Was the IDF suffering?
Did they need a break?
Is this just a political posturing?
I think it's all the above, Judge.
I think there's a number of different reasons for it.
One, the IDF was certainly overextended.
They're exhausted.
That's no secret.
The other aspect was that this was a chance, as I was kind of saying, that allows for Netanyahu to declare victory.
That, look, I killed Hassan Nasrallah.
We had this Pager attack.
We killed all kinds of terrorists throughout Lebanon.
We've been bombing them for three months.
We taught the Lebanese people a lesson.
And now, look, Hezbollah is retreating beyond the Latani River.
This is a victory for us.
Our people can go back to their homes in northern Israel.
I assume that would have been the rationale behind this ceasefire.
Now, but we're not seeing that play out.
Because the Israelis have violated the ceasefire as of this morning 112 times.
So by now it's probably up to 125 or 130 times.
And, you know, they're endangering that tactical and even kind of a strategic success that they had by getting Hezbollah to agree, you know, to a ceasefire, at least take part in a ceasefire.
So the next part then, of course, would be Syria.
And so slowly, one by one, going through the axis of resistance, and that makes sense.
But what we're seeing with Israel's actions relating to the ceasefire, all these violations, it's par for the course of the Israelis, though.
This is how the Israelis act.
This is their entitlement, their arrogance, their desire for blood, their desire for violence, violence itself being objective, a goal for them as well as any other goal.
But looking at this from this perspective, Right.
The former IDF chief of staff and former defense minister Moshe Yalon over the weekend caused quite a stir in Israel.
When he accused the Israeli government of engaging in genocide.
Now, this is a member of the Likud party.
This is not some left-wing outlier.
Or is he an outlier?
Or are there starting to show cracks in the solidarity behind what the prime minister is trying to do?
I think what you just have in the case of Yunnan is just someone who's speaking honestly.
Someone who maybe is frustrated by the verbiage, by the Orwellian rhetoric and language, by the nonsense he hears from the Israeli media, from Israeli politicians, from American politicians, from the American media.
And so he spoke openly and plainly, I think.
I read the response by the State Department to those comments, and it was the nonsensical Orwellian deceitful response that we would expect.
You know, so at least you have some people admitting what's occurring there.
Yunnan, of course, himself had a very violent tenure when he commanded the IDF.
So this is someone who doesn't have, you know, it's not someone who's speaking without blood on his hands.
So I think it's just an aspect, Judge, of the truth is going to come out.
It is out.
And I think there's just some frustration among people in Israel.
That it's not being spoken openly as it should be.
And also, as well, the tensions within Israel politically, the tensions between the various factions, the dislike and the hate for Netanyahu, the jockeying for political positions.
But, I mean, as we see, you know, just things in Israel keep ratcheting up.
I'm not sure if you saw, but Ben Gavir, Edmar Ben Gavir, the settler head.
of the security services in Israel today ordered his police to confiscate the loudspeakers from Mosque.
So there you go.
Thanks, Chris.
You continue to see, even in Israel proper, outside of the genocide in Gaza, this continual march towards the destruction of the Palestinian people.
Let me stop for just a second.
Chris, put the full screen up again, please.
What is the religious significance?
Of silencing the speakers, is there some religious command to make this a public call for prayer that this right-wing minister is attempting to interfere with?
Well, I mean, of course, for the Muslim community, the call for prayer signals the times at which the faithful are to conduct their prayers.
Ben-Gavir, representing the settlers, representing the right wing, representing the reaction religious class in Israel, which is substantial, which is massive, representing the 750,000 armed settlers in Palestine, in the West Bank, in East Jerusalem.
This type of thing is an aspect of showing supremacy, of showing the superiority, of showing who's in control.
And, you know, I mean, of course, for us here in the United States, we have to hear continually this just pablum coming from our politicians and our media that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East.
You see, you know, aside, of course, from the genocide, the desire, the rapidly approaching annexation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, but you see things like this occurring as well.
We're supposed to believe this is a democracy when they silence the religious rights of the people.
So, you know, for Ben Gavir, for those within Netanyahu's government, for a substantial part, maybe a majority of the Israeli public, This is all part of it.
This is what they want.
They want to defeat the Muslims.
They want to defeat the Arabs.
They want to defeat the Palestinians.
And of course, this idea of what is genocide, what ethnic cleansing look like, this is part of it.
You know, ethnic cleansing and genocide is just simply not destroying people, killing people, forcing them to move, but it's silencing.
It's making so that their culture, their history, their social structures are gone or non-existent.
You know, so by erasing their ability to practice their religion, this is a part of ethnic cleansing.
And so we carried out in Gaza through the unholy bombing, you know, provided by the United States, all those bombs and missiles, the destruction of, you know, when I was there a week or two ago, a judge in Palestine, the numbers I'm hearing consistently from the Palestinians were between 100,000 to 200,000 dead in Gaza.
And no, you know, at a minimum, no knowledge of what it actually is going to look like.
I just saw a number the other day that in Gaza, it's going to take at least three years to get all the bodies out from underneath the rubble.
So that's what genocide looks like there.
In the West Bank, it looks like destroying homes, looks like shooting kids who are throwing rocks, looks like detaining.
Tens of thousands of people, including Leah Nasir, who we talked about last week on your show, a 24-year-old college student, or as well as today, where they frog-marched, they put into prison the Israelis, a 14-year-old boy who was arrested when he was 12 because he was throwing stones at settlers.
I mean, so that's what ethnic cleansing looks like in the West Bank and in an Israel proper, where you have a couple million Palestinian Muslims and Christians living in Israel.
I want to switch to Ukraine, and I want to play two clips for you.
Both of them are from President Zelensky yesterday.
Tell me if you think he's in his right mind.
So, Chris, back to back, cut number one.
You can watch it to answer that question.
If we want to stop the hot stage of the war, we should take under NATO umbrella the territory of Ukraine that we have under our control.
That's what we need to do fast.
And then Ukraine can get back the other part of its territory diplomatically.
The fact is that it is a solution to stop the hot stage of the war because we can just give the NATO membership to the part of Ukraine that is under our control.
Yes, it could be possible, but no one offered.
But the invitation must be given to Ukraine within its internationally recognized border.
You can't give invitation to just one part of a country.
So 10 million human beings have left the country.
600,000 human beings are dead.
The Russians are within months, maybe even weeks, of achieving their goals.
And Zelensky still thinks, still thinks that the Russians will agree to allow Ukraine to join NATO.
Yeah, I mean, the delusion there, Judge, is just astounding.
You know, first of all, any time in the last 33 months, There should have been an end to this war.
I believe the Russians would have accepted it, particularly in the first year or so, without any territorial gains for Russia.
You know, that's all clear now.
It's very obvious.
and people who deny that are simply just lying or ignorant.
What Zelensky is saying here, though, it's as if he's trying to, I think he's trying to speak to the West much more so than he's trying to speak to Russia.
He must know, his people must know that Ukraine, This is the thing that caused Russia to invade, was Russia's concern for their national security.
Chief among that, Ukraine joining NATO.
And so I think this is some type of attempt by Zelensky to show the West that he's reasonable, that he'd be willing to accommodate negotiations, that he still should continue to support me because, look, I'm flexible on this, and I can move with the circumstances, so please continue to support me.
At the same time, too, it's a hedge against what Trump has said he wants to see, and with General Keith Kellogg coming in.
As Trump's advisor or representative for Ukraine and Russia, Kellogg had that piece back in the summertime that argued what Trump's plan for ending the war in Ukraine would be.
And essentially, it would be a freeze along the current front lines, negotiations to take place to resolve that diplomatically, but also, too, holding off.
On Ukraine joining NATO for 10 to 20 years because they know, at least with this current Russian government, and I think anyone who understands the situation, any future Russian government is going to be opposed to Ukraine joining NATO.
So the fact that Zelenskyy is saying this, it just makes no sense.
He's just babbling in the air.
And this is not going to bring about the resolution of conflict that all those tens of millions of people need so desperately.
Earlier today, the president of South Korea declared martial law.
I hope nothing like that comes here.
But here's a clip of what he said.
A little terrifying, claiming that his opposition is cozying too close to North Korea, and therefore he can suspend all civil liberties.
So there's obviously an English translation.
Cut number seven.
I hereby declare an emergency martial law in order to defend the Free Republic of Korea from the threat of North Korean communist forces and to eradicate the shameless pro-North anti-state forces that are depriving our people of their freedom and happiness.
This measure is necessary to safeguard our constitutional order of freedom.
Through this martial law, I will rebuild and protect the Free Republic of Korea, which is falling into the depths of national ruin.
I will decisively eliminate anti-state forces who have been wreaking havoc and are the main culprits of our nation's downfall.
This is an unavoidable step to protect the freedoms and safety of the people, as well as to ensure the nation's sustainability and security against the anti-state forces attempting to overthrow our system.
And the last time something like this happened, I think, was 1980.
Right, I believe so.
I believe so.
Martial law was about that point.
And don't we have about 30 or 35,000 American troops in South Korea?
We do.
We do.
We have a very heavy presence throughout Asia, about 100,000 troops total.
Throughout the Asia-Pacific, Indian Ocean area of operations over theater.
You know, I mean, that speech is something like you'd see off a movie, right, Judge?
I mean, the idea that we have to take away, I have to take away my nation's freedom in order to save its freedom.
You know, I'm going to tie this back to Ukraine, though.
Because I think everyone is surprised by this.
If I understand, the South Koreans are absolutely shocked.
And of course, when South Koreans wake up tomorrow and learn that they're living under martial law, you know, it can be interesting to see what the public reaction to that is.
But, you know, I mean, for months now, we've heard this.
Oh, the boogeymen of North Korea are on the march.
They're going to Ukraine.
There's ties between Russia and North Korea.
and you know that stirring of the pot that that utilization of the ukraine war uh in far-flung areas of the world to justify all sorts of things right the russians are the By citing them, all sorts of things are possible throughout the world.
Particularly in the last month or two, we've heard these reports of North Korean soldiers going to fight in Ukraine.
We heard reports that maybe the South Koreans would set F-16s there.
Let me stop you for a minute.
This is from the Associated Press, and this is the police resisting.
Opponents to this in public places in Seoul.
Go ahead, Matt.
Right.
And people who are not familiar with the history of, quote, democracy, unquote, in South Korea, certainly for the first time.
30 years or so, more than 30 years after the Korean War, where the United States lost 50,000 soldiers, millions of Koreans killed, there was no democracy in South Korea, and it was violently, violently suppressed.
And the South Korean dictatorships were able to stay in power through the 60s, the 50s, the 60s, the 70s, the 80s, because of the American military presence.
Now you have this situation where you have someone taking power like this, essentially forming a dictatorship.
If you will, with the presence of all these American troops.
And I have a feeling that the United States will react to this in the same way it reacts to all the other illicit, corrupt, criminal, human rights-violating regimes that it supports.
You know, Judge, if you look at the data in terms of the number of nations out there that are listed as not free.
By Freedom House, which is a non-government organization that's funded by the United States, basically a State Department cutout.
Freedom House puts out these rosters every year, which nations are free, which are not free.
And if you just go by their numbers, so you're dealing with an organization that is, again, an American government front, just by their information alone.
And then you match that up to the number of who we sell our weapons to.
You find that the United States sells weapons to three quarters of the world's dictators, monarchies, military regimes, juntas, what have you.
And so I don't think you'll see any difference in South Korea.
If this stays, if there is martial law kept in place, the dictatorship essentially is put in place, the United States will justify it just as it justifies its support for undemocratic regimes across the world.
I had thought with regards to the Ukraine situation that what was going to happen was that this was going to be the impetus to get South Korea and Japan into NATO.
And I still think it's a possibility, but we're seeing here where this isn't what President Yoon in South Korea says.
He's making all the fear mongering.
It reaches the American ear.
It reaches the ears and certainly excites those in Washington, D.C., because they're speaking the language of we have to stand up to this united threat, this axis of evil, right?
He talked about communism.
I mean, that perks American ears up, including those in Washington, D.C. And so we have to justify whatever the South Koreans do, whatever their government does, however they repress their own people, the United States will keep its forces there, will keep that government in power, because we feel that they are,
well, essentially it goes back Matt Ho, thank you very much.
I know we're all over the board, all over the globe, literally, but thank you for allowing me to pick your brain on it.
Safe travels.
We'll look forward to seeing you next week.
All right.
Thanks, Judge.
Of course.
Coming up later today at 2 o 'clock, Roger Waters from Pink Floyd.
The other side of him, which you'll see and hear, is as a magnificent peace activist.
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