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Dec. 5, 2024 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
22:55
LtCol. Tony Shaffer : South Korea and Ukraine: The Connection.
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Hi, everyone.
Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Thursday, December 5th, 2024.
Our dear friend, Lieutenant Colonel Tony Schaefer, joins us right now.
Tony, good morning.
Welcome to the show.
A pleasure to be with you, my friend.
Tony, why is the United States in Syria?
Why are there 1,000 U.S. troops in Syria?
And what are they doing there?
Well, that's a good question.
The reason they're there is essentially an affectation or result of the war on ISIS.
Essentially, during the Buy With and Through strategy during the first two years of the Trump administration, 2017 and 2018, my friend General Joe Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, had put together a strategy for defeating ISIS.
That strategy was called by, with, and through.
It was executed by Central Command.
And in doing the job of retaking Iraq from ISIS, they chased ISIS into Syria.
And then President Trump said to secure some of the oil facilities to make sure that they could not be used by the bad guys, by ISIS.
We also supported the Kurds.
During this time, the Kurds were our allies.
They still are.
And we opened a permanent base in Erbil in northern Iraq and were working with them.
And I was part of the effort to help them, I think, establish a path to an independent Kurdistan during the 2019-2020 timeframe.
Obviously, it didn't happen.
So the troops in Syria, they went in there.
President Trump felt very uncomfortable with them being in there and directed the Joe Dunford.
As a matter of fact, I talked to General Dunford at the time, in 2019, and he said he felt uncomfortable with our troops being there because once troops are there, they start looking for things to do, which means they don't want to leave.
And so both General Dunford and President Trump had directed they be moved out.
Well, it didn't happen because Mark Milley rolled in.
The corporate folks in the State Department and DOD moved in and basically refused to take the troops out.
They disobeyed the clear instructions of the commander-in-chief.
They did, absolutely.
And that's another issue with Mark Milley.
Mark failed to execute what was already underway to remove our troops there.
I see the troops there having no real clear purpose.
They're just another target.
We suffered casualties by them being in the region.
And they really aren't doing much other than some, I think they're doing some military operations, which I don't want to get into details, but suffice it to say, Judge, we could be doing those military operations from other locations.
What conceivable American national security interests are at stake in Syria?
At this point, I don't see any.
Back in 20, I think it was 2013, there was a very embarrassing episode where Pentagon directed, funded terrorists, rebel groups in Syria were fighting CIA-funded terror groups in Syria, both of which were supposed to be
So that was very embarrassing.
I mean, how incompetent can the CIA be, unless this was for some bizarre reason purposeful that it would be funding terrorist groups that were fighting each other?
No, it was incompetence.
You had any number of black operations experts, I use air quotes like my friend Chris Plant, They were each trying to promote the idea that their group had the right mix of military force and capability,
essentially combat power, to defeat the official government of Syria, which I thought was a bad idea.
I've said back then, I say now, we should have learned a lesson from Libya.
The moment you destabilize the government, whether you like it or not, you create open space.
And that open space, ungoverned space, is a petri dish for terrorists.
So even if you don't like a leader, you remove that leader, you create conditions for chaos.
Generally speaking, criminal organizations and terrorist groups fill that space as quickly as they can get into it.
That's what we saw in Libya.
That's what we're seeing in Syria right now.
Is it snarky or is it accurate to say American troops are there stealing oil or protecting Conoco as it steals oil?
I don't think we're stealing much of anything because the oil prices haven't dropped.
Tony, you're smiling from ear to ear as I'm asking you about oil.
Well, I'm smiling about it because one of the reasons George Bush We never saw cheap oil.
We saw nothing but chaos.
So I'm always reticent when people start talking about us getting natural resources because obviously the corporations who actually do the work don't drop the price.
So it's kind of like we, the military, may carry the water for them, but they take the water and sell it at the regular price.
So I'm just saying – I was skeptical about Iraq, obviously, and I'm skeptical here.
I don't think we're seeing any benefit.
Matter of fact, I don't see any good from our troops being in the middle of harm's way at this point, still being there after all this time.
Okay, and I think you're on the same page with the president-elect.
I think so.
Yeah, before we jump to South Korea and Ukraine and the connection there, as odd as it sounds, here's somebody who disagrees with you.
He's not very credible, but he does disagree with you, Secretary Blinken yesterday, Look, I think what we've just seen in Syria with the offensive by HDS reflects the fact that Assad's key backers, key allies, whether it's Russia, whether it's Hezbollah, whether it's Iran, have all, in different ways, been distracted, notably by problems of their own making.
And it looks like HTS took advantage of that fact.
Right now, I think what's so critical is that we see de-escalation.
We ensure that civilians are protected throughout Syria.
And, maybe most critically, that there's actually a political process that moves forward on the basis of the UN Security Council resolution to try to resolve and end The civil war in Syria.
If anything, the fact that Assad has refused to engage in any meaningful way on a political process is also what opened the door to this attack and to the gains that HDS has made on the ground.
We have enduring security interests in Syria, particularly the interest in making sure that ISIS doesn't resurrect and doesn't come back.
Tony, is that baloney?
We have enduring security interests in Syria?
No, they have enduring security interests in having their fingers in every single conflict on the globe.
He's a neocon.
Neolib, I guess, would be the most proper term because they're all kind of neocons.
Neolibs are all the same monoparty.
What he's saying is one of their allies stirred trouble up, and he's not unhappy about that.
Assad is, for better or for worse, a leader of Syria.
He can lead Syria the way he wants, whether we agree with it or not.
And as Tulsi Gabbard once recognized, they don't hold a threat to us.
They're not threatening us.
And I don't know exactly why we are investing so much blood and treasure in trying to involve ourselves.
There are other allies we could actually help have them do the work.
Kurdistan, the Kurds, Turkey.
You know, last time I checked, Turkey's still a member of NATO.
So by our jumping directly in, I think we expose ourselves to being a target directly.
There's no reason for us to do that.
And again, I don't see any military objectives worth sacrificing or strategic objectives worth sacrificing blood and treasure for at this point.
I just don't.
Are the American troops engaged in combat?
Against Assad and his allies?
Or are they just there looking for something to do?
There's only a thousand.
I don't want to gainsay human life, but that's a small number of troops.
Well, they are on the border with Jordan as well.
So there's more troops close by.
And theoretically, they're there to provide logistics and operational basis, forward basis for military operations.
So the answer is, yeah, we're conducting military operations, lethal operations.
Theoretically, they're only against ISIS and ISIS-related organizations.
So I don't know.
I have no insight on how successful or unsuccessful that's been.
I know we've had casualties there, but I can't speak to the specifics of what we've done successfully or not.
But, again, the bottom line is, I think if you want to have those operations available, you can do it from other places besides Syria.
Just saying.
Another subject matter before we talk about North Korea and South Korea.
Trump has been saying things like to Hamas, release the hostages or there will be hell to pay.
He even said whoever's responsible for not releasing them will suffer, I'm paraphrasing, a greater hit than the United States government has ever inflicted.
The greatest hit we ever inflicted was Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
What can Trump do that Netanyahu was unable to do to secure the release of the hostages?
I'll be blunt.
he can essentially target the leadership of Hamas that is not resident within the Gaza Strip.
One of the notable things that we've seen And I'm going to cite for you General Soleimani, one of the leaders of the IRGC who was killed incidental to his visit to Iraq from Iran.
People were screaming about how that would be destabilizing to take out a senior Iranian leader.
Well, I disagreed then, I disagree now.
When you invoke a price for these folks who are making decisions, and that's what Trump said, basically said, The people who are preventing this.
Well, the people who are preventing this are some of the Iranian leaders who are discouraging.
Well, one of the people preventing it is Netanyahu himself, but that just depends on which side of the aisle you're on since he wants this war extended.
We all know that.
As far as I'm concerned, the hostages should be out.
If there are American hostages still being held, they should be either rescued.
Yeah, who's not holding American hostages, Judge.
I know we may have a discrement on this, but he's not.
Switching gears, were there ever North Korean troops in Ukraine, or was this part of a facade, a deception, leading up to what happened in South Korea earlier this week?
I think there were troops there, but not enough to make any difference in the conflict.
It was one of those feel-good, We're helping out situations.
Like, we'll send a few troops, and I think there's credible reports that they were there.
I don't think Russia would want them on the battlefield.
I know I wouldn't.
I mean, I'm not saying North Korean troops couldn't fight.
I'm saying there's no reason for them to be in that environment.
And I think it's just a head fake.
Regarding South Korea, everything indicates to me that Back in the old days, we used to have great intelligence sources regarding South Korea.
North Korea too, but South Korea.
Because we always knew what was going on because of concerns over this very thing happening.
Clearly, we've lost our edge on that.
We didn't see this coming.
But I don't see this anything more than a political...
That is the South Korean president.
Why was there not a peep from the White House, from Blinken, from Sullivan, from the U.S. ambassador, from the commander of 28,000 American troops there?
Not a peep when that was happening.
I think they were caught off guard.
I think they weren't paying attention.
I think this administration gets focused on what it wants to be focused on rather than on things happening, and they just won't pay attention or do that.
But yeah, I get your point.
At some point, there were military forces, South Korean forces, being used in the conflict in Seoul, which is a big concern to us.
Those 28,000 troops are under a unified command.
As a matter of fact, you might laugh at this.
It's the United Nations command.
The UN is the one.
Who essentially is there with us running that war.
That was the first and last time the UN actually went to war in Korea back then.
Is that about the largest concentration of American troops outside the United States, between 28,000 and 30,000?
And they've been there since 1948?
We've had way more.
As a matter of fact, when I was working this in the late 80s, early 2000s, we had upwards of 40,000 to 50,000.
We would surge them in when we thought there was going to be a war.
So yeah, this is the largest concentration of combat forces and support forces we have right now, forward-based as far as I know.
Can Joe Biden extend the war in Ukraine so that the misery of the end of it falls into Donald Trump's lap?
Oh yeah.
Oh yeah.
That's what the plan is, Judge.
Everything I've seen, and fortunately, Mike Johnson, I think, announced yesterday, no more money until Trump comes in, which is good.
That's a good move.
Well, there's $7 billion in the pipeline, meaning already authorized but not yet sent.
Can they possibly get $7 billion worth of military equipment to Ukraine in the next two months?
And if they do...
That's what they're going to do.
It's going to be essentially obligating the funds, not spending them.
$7 billion is a lot of money, even now.
And so, you know, you're not going to get that amount of gear out the door.
What you can do, Judge, is do an accounting trick of having the accountants at the Pentagon essentially do letters of Intent to buy or actually enter in contacts with Raytheon, Boeing, and all these other companies for this stuff to be manufactured.
So therefore, the money is obligated.
Once it's obligated, the feeling is, well, we have to pay it.
I would, if I repeat headstands and I get over there, I would look at that and say, yeah, we'll take the penalty of breaking the contract, but we're not paying you this money.
I think that's what should be done.
$7 billion is a lot of money, period.
And the fact that they're just trying to kick it out the door to create more chaos should make every American wake up to what's really going on.
Tucker Carlson, our friend Tucker, is in Russia talking about this.
He's doing some interviews talking about the fact that we're closer to World War III than we've ever been before.
I agree with Tucker.
and that all this weaponry we're sending over there is being used to directly attack the Russians.
And the Russians see it very differently than the Western countries.
press does regarding what we're doing.
And I think it's a very dangerous thing.
Should we expect to receive the threatened response from President Putin?
Because the Ukrainians and Americans and the Ukrainians and British keep using American attackums and British storm shadows to attack inside Russia.
How much longer will that last before American and British assets are attacked and destroyed in return.
They've already been attacked and destroyed, Judge.
They're just not being obvious about it.
One of the things the Russians have done is they've armed the Houthi via the Iranians.
Where do you think the Houthi got hypersonic missiles?
Do you really think that they just kind of showed up one day in a gift box?
The Russians have quietly been causing problems behind the scenes.
One of them we can trace directly is the Houthi.
And the 12% of shipping that goes through the Suez Canal, the Red Sea, has been a cost.
We, the Western world, have paid that cost of additional shipping.
That's one of the less obvious things.
But they're going to start ratcheting up.
We keep poking the bear, and the bear's getting upset.
And it's like, oh, the EU keeps saying, oh, they're bluffing.
I'm just telling you, I've studied the Russians a long time.
I've fought the Cold War, and you may think that they're not going to do anything, and all of a sudden you're going to get swatted by a big old bear claw.
And I think that's what's coming next.
And Putin is, I think, very patient, but we're not hitting.
If we really wanted to do something to hurt him, there's all sorts of things we could do regarding economics, not sanctions, they don't work, dropping the bottom out of the price of oil.
Would cause huge damage to the Russian economy because they're making so much money off oil right now.
Things like that.
So I'm very concerned that people aren't paying attention.
I would listen to Tucker Carlson about what he's saying.
And the EU keeps saber rattling like they want a war with Russia, which I think is foolish.
Does the United States...
Tony.
Yes.
So the greatest, and I said this on the network too, on Newsmax, the greatest danger to peace, the greatest danger to escalation, to seeing escalation, is miscalculation.
During the Cold War, there were a number of events which NATO and Russia almost fired on each other.
They were accidental.
One was the war scare of 83, where a command post exercise, Abel Archer, was ongoing.
The Russians thought that was a cover for a sneak attack.
They're paranoid.
What can I say?
Now, NATO's paranoid.
Everybody's paranoid.
So, if something happens, a missile goes off into Poland, people feel they have to respond.
Next thing you know, you've got missiles going back and forth.
This thing could ratchet up the nuclear in about an hour.
That's what most people who are rational are worried about, is some miscalculation leading to an escalation, that escalation resulting in a full-blown exchange of nuclear weapons.
Oh, Tony, according to Admiral Buchanan, We can wage a nuclear war and we can win it.
I think this is insane, but that's what he said, and he's yet to be countermanded by any of his superiors, including the current commander-in-chief.
This is shades of fail-safe.
For those who have not watched fail-safe, go watch fail-safe.
shades of fail safe.
And for those who don't remember that crazy movie, a president played by Henry Fonda bombed New York because he had inadvertently bombed Moscow and he wanted to show he had some...
Thank you.
Coming up later today, we are trying to locate our friend Ryan Dawson, who lives in South Korea, to get a live, hands-on report of the Marshall Law Declaration and attempted coup.
If we can get him, we'll of course let you know.
Scheduled.
For us today is Gilbert Doctorow at one o 'clock and Colonel Wilkerson at two and Professor Mearsheimer at three.
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