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Dec. 8, 2024 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
28:01
Larry Johnson : Putin’s Warning to the US.
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Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Monday, December 9th, 2024.
Larry Johnson is here with us as we continue our examination of the dramatic events over the weekend in Syria.
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Larry, welcome here, my dear friend.
We originally were going to talk about President Putin's warning to the U.S. over the use of attackants in Ukraine, and we'll get there.
But, of course, the hot news this morning is the dramatic developments over the weekend in Syria.
What's your handle, big picture on this, as to how it happened and who benefits and who suffers?
Quarter of a century.
If you recall the images of March 2003, Baghdad, pulling down the statue of Saddam Hussein.
Yay, we got rid of Saddam!
And, you know, with that one, we overthrew completely.
And mission accomplished!
George W. Bush waving the flag!
How'd that all turn out, Judge?
Did it bring peace and security and stability to Iraq?
No.
No.
So now in this case, what the United States has done, along with the United Kingdom, in tandem with Turkey, and look, this just didn't start in the last month or two, I think I've commented before, the relationship between the U.S., the U.K.,
Turkey, in a plot to use Islamic extremists, the same people ideologically who attacked America on 9-11, The same people that the United States declared a global war on terrorism, that's what the United States started arming, training, and funding more than 10 years ago.
And look, this was not just Obama doing it.
Let's recall that the United States' hypocrisy in funding and equipping terrorists when it suits our purposes started under Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld.
When they decided that this group, the Mujahideen al-Khalq, an Iranian group that had been involved in going back to terrorist attacks against the Shah of Iran, but it was a mixture of Marxist and extremist Islam, they continued those attacks, and Cheney and Rumsfeld said, hey, let's use them against Iran.
So, you know, you jump ahead to 2012 when Barack Obama declares, oh, we're taking them off the terrorist list.
They're no longer a terrorist.
Now, here is the United States.
On the one hand, for the State Department and the Bureau of Counterterrorism, my old office, where we put together the Terrorism Rewards Program, they put a $10 million bounty on the head of Jelani, the head of HTS.
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham came out of, it represents an amalgam of al-Nusra.
Al-Nusra, and I'll sound like I'm reading from the Old Testament of the Bible, so-and-so begat so-and-so begat so-and-so.
But al-Nusra came out of ISIS.
ISIS came out of al-Qaeda, and understand that ISIS was more radical than al-Qaeda.
I've written recently and published a letter.
From Ayman Zawahiri, Bin Laden's number two, where he chided the then leader of ISIS, Zarqawi, for being too harsh.
You've got to stop attacking those Shia mosques and killing all those Shia Muslims right now.
You can get to them later, but it's creating a bad image.
This guy, Jelani, has been involved with beheading people.
Oh, but Larry, Larry, CNN.
Says he's a changed man.
Yeah, I'm sure.
Yeah, he changed his name from Saul to Paul.
That's a New Testament reference for those of you where Saul was going out persecuting new Christians and then he had a conversion experience.
Yeah, nonsense.
Jelani hasn't changed.
What a lot of people in the West struggle with is...
And the folks in ISIS, when they're talking about creating a global caliphate, when they're talking about bringing the world under God's rule, it's not just some cheap political trick.
They genuinely believe.
They're motivated by their faith.
And you need to take that seriously.
And that's the problem.
Particularly when you get a lot of CIA case officers who are pretty cynical and many would not be terribly religious, they dismiss this as nonsense.
So what's going to happen here is that Syria is going to go the way of Libya in terms of breaking up into different constituent parts.
There's not going to be anybody with the military power and clout to bring it all together.
At some point, these Islamic extremists that are represented by Jelani, they're going to be stepping up their war with the Kurds in the east.
So what you're looking at here is chaos.
And now all of the celebratory mood in Israel and Turkey and the United States, oh, look, we maybe got rid of Assad.
You know, the question is always, what comes next?
And all of this was being pursued with an eye towards, one, trying to weaken Russia, and secondly, weaken Iran.
And I think the long-term outcome of this will be just the opposite effect.
So, how did Russia either look the other way or decide it wasn't worth it?
In contrast to the United States, where the United States would go in and deliberately overthrow a government that's not doing what it wants to do and try to undermine it, you know, the Russians had offered a few years back to, hey, Assad, let us get your army trained up.
Let us get you equipped.
Let us help you.
And Assad said, no, no, no.
Well, you know, mother, please.
I'd rather do it myself.
Okay.
So the Russians didn't force themselves, but the Russians still had interest in the area because what they want to do is prevent the rise of these radical Islamists because the ones that comprise the ranks of HTS are not Syrians.
A lot of them include Chechens and Uzbekis out of former Russian republics.
So this really is sort of a global threat.
So, you know, Russia wasn't going to force its hand.
And I think once it became clear that Assad wasn't going to listen, Russia wasn't about to go in and break the China and have to take responsibility for it.
Unlike Don Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney, at least the Russians understood that if you break it, you buy it.
And they weren't interested in breaking it.
So Jelani, now the head of what passes for the government in Syria, or at least the head of the principal terrorist group that toppled Assad, still has a bounty on his head offered by the State Department.
I've asked this of all of our colleagues.
They're also your friends this morning.
So the same government that's offering a bounty to capture this guy is funding his fighters.
Right.
Yeah, that's it.
You know, and not only funding his fighters, we're funding the people that we claim carried out the attack on us on 9-11.
Okay?
And it's just, they are ideologically, not only in sync, more extreme than the crowd that surrounded bin Laden and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
So yeah, we play this double game and we think we're really cute about it.
Well, how has it turned out in Libya?
You know, Libya hasn't become an island of peace and stability.
And so what we're doing is we're increasingly destabilizing different areas of the world.
And I think that message is starting to resonate in Moscow and in Tehran in a way that, you know, they recognize You no longer can deal with the United States in normal diplomatic measures.
You have to do other things.
There are people sitting in American federal prisons who are convicted of providing material assistance to terrorist organizations.
Right.
And the government itself does that.
Yeah.
No, absolutely.
And look, we haven't just done it with HTS.
And this just didn't start this year or last year.
Remember, that was one of the purposes and functions of the so-called consulate, the CIA base that was in Benghazi that was attacked in 2012.
That base was set up with a specific mission of collecting weapons from the fallen Libyan ruler and then prostituting.
which, you know, the Turks are Sunni in their outlook.
And so, you know, from the standpoint of Recep Erdogan, this is just a way to maybe try to recapture some of the glory of the Ottoman Empire.
Help me to understand the neocon mentality, Larry, that mentality that pervades the deep state, the State Department, no matter who's in the Oval Office.
In their minds, why are they celebrating?
How does this advance American national security?
What moral basis is there?
For Joe Biden to be applauding the overthrow of Assad and his replacement with a guy that cuts people's heads off.
It doesn't do a thing for U.S. national security.
What it does in their mind is it helps ensure Israel's security because eliminating Syria is going to make it more difficult for Iran to provide support to Hezbollah.
All of this is on the assumption that Hezbollah's existence And capabilities are entirely dependent upon Iran.
I don't believe that's the case.
But, you know, look, this is not the first time from the neocons perspective, and frankly, the Israeli, you know, I call it the Zionist perspective, that they'll climb into bed with terrorists.
It was right shortly after the formation of Hamas in 1987, Mossad started funneling money to Hamas via Qatar.
In order to strengthen Hamas, make them a player, put them in a position where they could even carry out terrorist attacks, all of this was in order to provide a counterweight to Fatah and the PLO.
And so it was a very cynical use where they would get in bed with the terrorists.
And frankly, go back to 1980, 81, when Israel was arming Iran.
After the Ayatollah Khomeini came in.
So it is, you know, if people are looking, thinking that this is a black and white issue where the good guys with the white hats are always standing firm against terrorism and all those evil people supporting terrorists, well, it's blackish gray when it comes to both Israel and the United States.
They've got more of a track record of supporting terrorists and engaging in terrorism.
Then they do opposing terrorism.
That's the sad fact.
How is Iran harmed by the overthrow of Assad?
Well, Assad, nothing else that contributes to this image that, okay, Iran's increasingly isolated, which they're not, because of their growing role in BRICS, and they're calculating how to respond to the last Israeli attack.
They've held off so far.
Candidly, you know, I listened to Scott earlier, and I disagree with him with respect to what Iran's going to do with nuclear weapons.
I think Iran will have now drawn the conclusion, based upon what has happened to Syria, that Iran has no alternative but to obtain nuclear weapons.
That's the only guarantee a country has that it will not be attacked by the United States.
Every country that doesn't have nuclear weapons has been attacked.
It doesn't matter if you've got chemical weapons, but if you've got a nuclear weapon, The United States backs away because they don't want to run that risk.
I would not be surprised to see Iran make that decision now.
They've held off on it because they sort of harbored in the back of their mind, hey, maybe we can cut a deal with the West.
Maybe we can make the West like us.
No, that's not going to happen.
They don't understand.
The West has fixed itself, the United States, the American people.
They fixed themselves on this notion that Iran is the number one sponsor of terrorism.
And here's the irony, Judge.
I can take you back to the State Department Bureau of Counterterrorism.
Look at their statistics.
They start reporting for the year 2017.
That's the year Hayat Tahrir al-Shem came out.
HTS.
HTS has been listed in the top 10 terrorist groups in the world since 2017.
How about Iran?
Not on the list.
Not a single group that's on that list is sponsored by Iran.
Yet, the United States persists with this lie.
And the lie is based upon Iranian support to Hezbollah and Hamas.
And frankly, what Hezbollah has been doing, they're fighting to recover territory that they believe is theirs.
What does Hezbollah do now?
Well, they're waiting.
The ceasefire is really not holding.
But I do not think Hezbollah is in a situation where they're going to curl up in a fetal position and go away.
They like to pretend that there's this great control now over Syria.
The smuggling that goes on there goes back centuries.
So they're going to be able to get weapons and resupply.
They're going to be somewhat isolated initially, but I don't think Iran's going to cut them loose.
And at the same time, you've had the Saudis continue to express support for Hezbollah and the people of Palestine in terms of what they're fighting against, in terms of the genocide, the Israeli genocide.
So that's why I say this is not going to be a neat, clean wrap-up where, oh, Hezbollah's going to give up, Hamas is going to surrender, Israel's going to be at peace.
And, you know, the angels will be singing, birds will be chirping.
Not going to happen.
Let's switch gears to Vladimir Putin out of the mouth of Sergei Lavrov warning the U.S. stop sending missiles into the Russian territory.
Was this such a warning given?
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
What's the U.S. going to do about it?
Well, what happened was, and we didn't know this at the time, Putin gave that speech, and then apparently we've now learned that General Gerasimov, the head of the Russian military, called Charlie Brown, not the cartoon character, but the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on November 27th.
We don't know what was said in that conversation.
All we can do is surmise.
So, they had the conversation on November 27th.
After that date, Ukraine stopped launching attackums, storm shadows, and scalps into Russia.
Hmm.
Why did they do that?
Why?
Well, that tells me that on that phone call, Gerasimov told Charlie Brown in no uncertain terms, if there's one more missile, we're going to attack NATO bases, And there's not a damn thing you can do about it.
And I think Charlie Brown, he's an educated man, and he's not a person of limited intelligence.
And I think he said, okay.
And the word went forth from there to both CIA and to all the other NATO allies.
Basically, cut this out.
This stops right now.
Ukraine, you can launch drones.
That's fine.
But no more missile launches that require U.S. intelligence inputs.
So that's held since, you know, we're coming now three weeks later after that.
Why isn't this on the front pages of the Washington Post?
Because the U.S. blinked.
You know, you got Russia and the U.S. in a stare-down contest, and the U.S. blinked.
That's it.
And the U.S. doesn't want to admit that.
So, like I said, unfortunately, so much of our understanding of foreign policy is driven by these media memes.
And it was like, as you noted earlier in our conversation, that when CNN interviewed Jelani, the head of the HTS, everyone's going, oh, look at that.
Isn't that nice?
Look at that nice, clean-shaven young man.
Oh, man, he shaved off his beard.
And this was entirely a staged event.
So those staged events are designed to manipulate public opinion.
But you can manipulate public opinion all day long.
It doesn't change certain realities.
And the reality right now with Russia is Russia is running militarily.
Russia's under no pressure whatsoever to change its strategy in Ukraine.
It's not going to negotiate with Donald Trump.
And Trump can bellow and holler and threaten all he wants.
It's not going to move Russia.
And I think, frankly, some of Trump's statements over the weekend were downright foolish.
Instead of trying to open actual doors for true diplomacy, I think he ended up closing them.
With his bombast and his claims that Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia weakened.
Right, right.
Grow up.
Grow up.
One of the things he said over the weekend, Larry, was Assad collapsed because his benefactor deserted him.
That would be Vladimir Putin.
How does that enhance diplomacy with Russia?
Even if that was true, you're correct.
That doesn't help, but that's not what happened.
But again, that's how the U.S. wants to believe it, the narrative.
We come to indulge ourselves with that kind of fantasy and ignore, coming back to the real central issue of, we claim to oppose Islamic terrorism, yet we're now aiding, funding, and abetting it.
Okay?
And the rest of the world sees our hypocrisy, and they take that into account in figuring out, okay, how are we going to deal with these Americans?
We're an untrustworthy lot.
And frankly, when you look at all the different countries we've been involved with trying to overthrow and currently the efforts to cause unrest in Georgia and then overturning the election in Romania, you know, we're really...
Your former colleagues, and I know you were on the analysis side, not the operations side, are having a field day.
Yeah, yeah.
But again, they never think through the consequences.
Well, you know, what comes next?
I mean, not all of it, I guarantee you, not all of the case officers that are involved with this are blind to the prospects.
I mean, I have a really good friend who is...
And this was a pressure under the Bush administration to invade Iran.
And he kept saying, okay, we do that, then what's next?
And it was like, oh, it'll work out.
And he said, okay, I'm getting out of this.
Because he knew that it was not going to end well because nobody...
Look at what happened.
We got rid of Saddam Hussein.
We brought in a group initially that had been selected to help run the government.
And then in short order, Rumsfeld got rid of them and put in Jerry Bremer and the whole thing went to hell.
Well, we don't even have that now in Syria.
What we've got in Syria is a guy that we think is, But the reality is nobody controls Jelani.
Jelani controls Jelani.
Wow.
Larry Johnson, thank you, my dear man.
I appreciate very much everything you said, especially if and when you disagree with others on the show, because there's so many facts we all still need to know about what happened.
We all know that what happened happened very quickly and was a surprise to all.
I think we will soon learn what factors were involved.
But from you and Ray and Scott and Alistair and soon from Pepe and from Jeff Sachs, I think we all know U.S. was behind all of this.
MI6 was behind all of this.
Probably in cahoots with their buddies in Mossad as well.
Yeah.
And never had any, I don't think they had any notion whatsoever.
That it would actually come this quick and turn out this way.
They're not prepared for it.
Look, I offer what I call my informed opinion.
I could be wrong, and it wouldn't be the first time.
But the one thing I don't think I'm wrong on is this is going to unleash a new level of chaos in the Middle East.
You know, when people are sitting comfortably in Washington, D.C., they're not paying for this with their blood.
They're not seeing their children being shot or starving or fleeing in fear.
I mean, there is a human aspect to this that we just ignore.
A great human suffering.
Alice told us about hangings in the streets.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And there's been some hanging former, uh, Yeah.
There's a video.
They've got a child, a 12, 13-year-old boy in the back of the truck.
They behead him.
The HCS behead the kid.
They call him an enemy.
So, you know, this is not a game.
This is not some These are actual living, breathing human beings.
And, you know, within this mix, again, we tend to only look at it in one dimension.
Syria for a long time was really a key place in Christianity.
A lot of the events that take place in the New Testament occurred in Syria.
And yet, the Christians are likely to be murdered now.
By HTS.
They'll be forced to convert.
The HTS does not, they're not of the ideological mindset.
Like within Sunni and even Shia Islam, they will live side by side with Christians.
They'll live with Jews and call them people of the book.
Not these guys.
These guys are uncompromising.
And so when you're killing Christians, when you're killing Alouettes, it's going to be a purge.
And a new genocide.
And I don't see, frankly, how it's avoided.
Wow.
Thank you, Larry.
Much appreciated.
I think we'll know more by the time you and Ray are back at the end of the week.
I look forward to it already.
All the best.
All right, my friend.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Coming up at noon Eastern, I think he's in Paris.
I inadvertently said Moscow, but he still has that.
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