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Dec. 12, 2024 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
24:59
Matt Hoh : US Unleashes Anarchy in Syria.
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Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Thursday, December 12th, 2024.
Our dear friend and regular contributor Matt Ho will be with us in just a moment on the United States unleashing anarchy in Syria.
But first this.
Welcome here, and thank you for playing such a significant role in helping us to achieve that goal two weeks early of a half a million subscribers by Christmas, which is two weeks from yesterday.
This happened in the middle of the night while we were all asleep.
Well, congratulations, Judge.
Congratulations.
Well-deserved, and onward to a million now, right?
Yes, absolutely.
Absolutely.
How do you explain the American involvement?
Oh, it's been a long time coming, something that they have worked hard at for many years now, the United States government.
It's something that they never let go of.
They are persistent.
So I think maybe while a lot of us, Judge, had kind of thought that their attentions were otherwise, they understood.
That removing Assad was to them an integral part of remaking the Middle East in a manner that makes Israel the predominant or dominant power in the region.
Everything in the Middle East centers around Israel.
Everything in the Middle East centers around opposition to Iran.
This is the American outlook towards the judge.
And so this utilization of Turkish-backed...
Whether they're jihadist, Islamist extreme forces like HTS or more "moderate" forces like the Syrian National Army, as well as the Kurdish forces, the use of the Islamic State and other extreme reactionary religious groups over the last decade plus in the region.
It's all been about improving Israel's position.
And weakening Iran, and it has almost nothing to do with the Syrian people, the Syrian government.
It's got everything to do with these acolytes of Henry Kissinger and Zygmunt Brzezinski treating the Middle East like their own chessboard.
Was there ever an effort by American diplomats to work with President Assad, or was the goal always...
I'm talking about the younger President Assad, the one that was just opposed, not his father.
Or was the goal always just to depose him?
I realize I'm asking you several questions at once, but your brain is very fertile.
Wasn't this odd?
And weren't his intelligence services CIA assets at one point?
They were.
They were.
And the convoluted, twisted and turning, upside down narrative of the last 80 years since the end of the Second World War.
The relationship between the US and Syria has been schizophrenic, I guess, maybe at times.
There was actually US involvement in coups there.
There were, as you said, close relationships between the US intelligence services and the Syrian intelligence services.
There were desires or aims between one another that were...
Almost like an enemy of my friend that lasted, you know, in and out through decades.
But in this modern era, particularly, I have to say, since this century, in the 21st century, the U.S. has seen removing Assad as a goal.
This is all part and parcel, again, of the Israel First policy of the Americans.
This idea that Assad, because he is nominally or directly aligned with Iran.
That he needs to be removed.
That removing Assad and his government will weaken Iran's position, which will then of course weaken Hezbollah and the Palestinians' position, which will then of course improve Israel's position.
And for the Israelis, the paramount thing is the Palestinians.
For the Israelis, the most important thing has always been for them achieving the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
And in order to do that, they need outside support.
In order to have outside support, you have to have storylines that agree with those outside powers.
So in the United States, Iran, of course, is the great boogeyman, particularly since 1979, the Haas' crisis, the Ayatollah taken over, et cetera, et cetera.
So you see how these various narratives and storylines intersect.
And they entangle one another and are utilized for different purposes.
And we haven't even talked about what the Turks have been doing, the Gulf monarchies, all these various foreign interests within Syria, almost all of whom have no interest whatsoever in the Syrian people themselves.
They only have interests in achieving some type of grand geopolitical chessboard type a la Kissinger and Zabrinsky moves.
Phil Giraldi argued yesterday that some Syrian generals were more likely than not bribed to make it easier for the jihadists to take over.
I heard, Judge, you know, the playbook from 10 years ago, 15 years ago, is back out, dusted off.
They're not being described as moderate rebels this time around.
But, you know, I mean, I heard one person on Al Jazeera describing them as constrained jihadists.
I mean, so, right?
I mean, so the...
What is a constrained jihadist?
Right, right.
And this is a person, a prominent position in a think tank in the United Kingdom, etc.
Downing Street, you know, that type of thing.
But this is a type of Orwellian rhetoric that we're used to.
I think seeing the speed at which Assad's government fell.
I mean, I was in Ireland and I went to bed at night and the Syrian opposition forces, HTS and others, were outside of home still.
So still relatively far, relatively far from Damascus.
And I woke up.
Seven hours later, however long, and Assad was on a plane to Russia.
So the speed at which has happened, it was impressive, but it also, I think, gets to your point that Phil was talking about, that there are a lot of things going on here behind the scenes that we don't know.
Certainly we know about the role of Turkey in all this.
We know about the role of Israel in all this, the role of the Americans, their airstrikes, say, just softening up the Syrians, not just over the last week.
And so that's what you saw essentially in this last week, was just how tenuous the hold that the Syrian government had.
On its power.
And of course, the smart thing was done, if Phil's correct, and I have no reason to believe he's not, the smart thing was done with paying people off.
This is how the Taliban took power not once but twice in Afghanistan.
They certainly fought well, but they also knew how to pay off their enemies.
They knew how to buy loyalties.
They knew how to upend old grievances and begin new relationships, often through a payment.
So, you know, this was impressive.
In how quickly the government was brought down, how quickly the Russian ally was destroyed, and how quickly Turkey, particularly, but also the Israelis and Americans, changed the dynamic in the Middle East within a couple of weeks.
It has to be said, Judge, that the Israelis have proven themselves competent.
This last year in terms of achieving their objectives.
So whether it's the destruction of the Palestinian people, the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, what will be the annexation of the West Bank, the removal of Hezbollah, which I believe is temporary, but it's certainly what's occurring right now, the removal of Hezbollah as a threat to their north,
or at least as something that puts significant pressure on their north, and now the destruction.
The Syrian government.
They've significantly weakened the axis of resistance, and we have to give them credit for their ability to do so.
Where this goes to, of course, is something I think is what worries me.
The hubris is building, I think, in Tel Aviv.
The hubris is building in Washington, D.C. I think the Trump people coming in will be buoyed by this, validated by this.
And of course, as we said in opening comments here, this has deep roots.
This desire to destroy Syria, as well as many other nations throughout the Middle East, for the purposes of improving Israel's position in the Middle East, has something that has long been desired by the foreign policy elite in Washington, D.C., both Republicans and Democrats.
My boss, Dennis Fritz, who you have come on, whose book, Deadly Betrayal, is about this reasoning, this rationale for the Iraq war based upon improving Israel's position in the Middle East.
Dennis could tell you all about this.
Here's a rather morose-looking, looking like an undertaker yet again, Jake Sullivan, earlier today at the American Embassy in Jerusalem, talking about all this.
Cut number two, Chris.
The balance of power in the Middle East has changed significantly, and not in the way that Sinwar or Nasrullah or Iran had planned.
We are now faced with a dramatically reshaped Middle East in which Israel is stronger, Iran is weaker, its proxies decimated, and a ceasefire that is new and will be lasting in Lebanon that ensures Israel's security over the long term.
The purpose of my visit today has been to continue to build on this progress, to ensure that that ceasefire sticks and is fully enforced, to capitalize on the opportunity of the fall of Assad,
This is just absurd.
The American government couldn't give a damn about the people of Syria, and he's just unleashed.
A gaggle of terrorists who are as bad or worse than ISIS.
Right, right, Judge.
And I mean, the obsession with Iran, the...
A relationship with Israel, which I don't even...
I'm jet-lagged a bit, so I'm not sure I can fully articulate that relationship, but we all know what I'm talking about, that special relationship.
Of course.
That dominates everything, that controls everything we do, and it makes people like Jake Sullivan unable to have a worldview of anything other than something dominated by those two points.
Everything bad is Iran, everything good is Israel, you know, to simplify it.
The idea that somehow the risk...
Of Al-Qaeda, which essentially this is what HCS is, Islamic State in the east of Syria.
The idea that somehow the risk of them taking power, creating a caliphate, is...
Better risk is a better option than Assad staying in power, essentially weakened, unable to do much other than support a Russian airbase or two, allow the Russians to dock their ships there, and provide a road for Iran to drive 70,
80-year-old Katusha rockets to Lebanon to, that somehow the option of a caliphate is better than a weak but stable.
Syria shows how demented these people are in Washington DC.
How do you explain, you mentioned Russia, how do you explain the Russian indifference or apparent indifference?
To Assad's demise.
I'm not talking about giving him asylum.
I'm talking about keeping him in power.
Donald Trump, I know he generally speaks in exaggerated terms, tweeted over the weekend that Assad fell because his patron Vladimir Putin abandoned him.
How do you respond to that?
I think the Russians...
Of course, bogged down with Ukraine.
I mean, they're in a war in Ukraine that is going on now for almost three years, something they didn't expect.
So I remember when they invade Ukraine in February 2022, negotiations begin two days afterwards.
The Russians wanted to make a point through their invasion, begin negotiations, and resolve the situation there.
They didn't expect to be at war for three years.
They were prepared for it, obviously.
They didn't expect it.
And this, of course, means that they can't...
We're good to go.
Maybe, I mean, just speculating, but the Russians may be confident that they will be able to maintain their position in western Syria along the coastline, so they'll be able to hold on to a couple air bases, a port, whatever they have there, maintain that presence, that this is something maybe they've worked out with Turkey,
maybe it's something that they've worked out with the Americans.
I mean, who knows at this point, in a sense of, I doubt that it's the case with Americans, but you know what I'm saying, that the Russians...
I think, of course, are embarrassed by losing their ally Assad.
This is the way it's going to be displayed and depicted and detailed.
But the reality is, what did they lose?
And so if they've lost essentially a weight, something that was requiring them to put resources into a position in the Middle East that they weren't getting an advantage from.
But they're still able to maintain the key things from that relationship.
Again, the port on the Mediterranean and entering into some type of understanding with the powers in the region that this is how it's going to be.
You know, so essentially a dividing up.
I think maybe that helps us understand why the Russians took this rather nonchalantly as they did.
They certainly launched attacks against the HCS forces that were advancing against the Syrian government forces.
But, you know, maybe it was because they didn't have the wherewithal with their requirements being in Ukraine, with their requirements towards Ukraine, or just the desire, we didn't see them launch a campaign to keep Assad in power like we did 10 years ago.
How can the American government justify Air Force bombing of Assad's military defenses?
Well, certainly the American government is so obsessed with getting rid of Assad and his government because, again, if there's Israel and Iran, then they're going to do whatever is going to point them in that direction.
So if that means attack his forces to somehow nominally support the Kurdish forces, you know, I mean, it doesn't really make much sense, particularly that the Syrian forces in the central part of the country, towards the eastern part of the country, the former government forces,
were the ones that in a large part were keeping the Islamic State forces in check.
However, it was the Syrian Arab army backed by the Russians and reinforced by cadres of Iraqi and Lebanese militias that defeated the Islamic State on the ground.
Certainly the Kurds backed by the United States did a heck of a lot in the east of Syria, too, to destroy the Islamic State or at least render them militarily ineffective in Syria.
But, you know, so you're moving this hedge against the Islamic State there.
So when you played that clip, It's almost like he's letting on that he knows what's happening here, that the hedge that we had, the obstacle, the counterweight that we had against the Islamic State in central Syria,
say, is now removed.
That, of course, to many people in Washington, D.C., is an exciting thing because that means we can go back on the campaign.
Maybe that means we need some more troops back over there.
Maybe that means we need to be more involved in terms of backing our Kurdish allies.
And the whole thing becomes very absurd very quickly because, of course, the Turks are our ally.
They're a NATO partner.
They're the ones who instigated this or at least supported it.
They're pushing against Kurdish positions because everything in Syria for the Turks is about the Kurds.
I shouldn't say everything, but most, that's their priority, is the Kurds.
And now you have the Turks wanting to weaken the Kurds in Syria, which runs directly into the interests of the United States because the Kurds are our allies there.
We have about 1,000 of them.
I think?
The confluence of things that are occurring here, the number of interests that are running into each other, the number of interests that are counter to one another, and the whole argument of the enemy of my enemy is my friend begins to unravel when you start facing more than one enemy and having more than one friend.
I just want to go before we leave to Ukraine.
While you were in Ireland, the British government...
Excuse me.
Authorized and facilitated attacks by storm shadows into Russia.
And the American government did the same with the TACAMs.
And then yesterday morning, the Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, said this: Cut number 14. Seeing the confrontation in the Russian-American relations because of the official Washington,
they are on the verge of breaking.
The trips, private and business trips to U.S. are fraught with serious risks.
There is a literal hunt by the American law enforcement.
And intelligence service for our citizens.
And there is a fraud scheme of luring out Russian citizens abroad.
So how is it happening?
They send invitations with some beneficial commercial or tourist offers.
After that, the people that were targeted are detained.
And then they're extradited to the American jurisdiction according to the extradition agreements.
And there is a full list of countries that cooperate with the U.S. in the...
Regarding the extradition, it will be on our website.
That is why we urge during the celebrations and in the future to refrain from any trips to the U.S. or any allied satellite states, first of all Canada, and countries of the EU,
with some exceptions.
It isn't an emergency, of course.
Is the Kremlin signaling that the Resnick is going to be used?
Maybe the American airbase in Poland?
It should be taken seriously, Judge.
I mean, I think they have still a way to go, the Russians, before they hit a NATO site.
And they have a lot of other options they can do before that in terms of hitting NATO communications assets or targeting things within.
Ukraine that are directly tied to NATO.
But it's certainly a point that we're heading towards.
And, you know, I mean, just because we haven't reached it yet doesn't mean that we're not on our way there.
And so the use of the Reshnik, the threat of use of it, is something that hasn't come lightly.
And it also has been preceded by so many events that, of course, we're at this point.
It makes sense logically that we have arrived here because there's a whole sequence of action, counteraction, supported by rhetoric on both sides, that looking at where we're at,
it's entirely understandable.
Now, of course, we're...
Waiting to see what occurs when the Trump administration comes in.
I think, like others, I'm very nervous that the Trump administration is going to make demands of the Russians, is going to speak to the Russians in a manner that the Russians simply are not going to want to respond to.
And that then, of course, the response will be from the Americans, well, we'll beat you then, which I think is essentially what we're expecting to see, particularly with the people that Trump is bringing into his administration.
So if they can't deliver...
Matt Ho, thank you very much, my dear friend.
Much appreciated.
I know you're on a little bit of sleep because of your international travel, but you're very good to give us this time, and we look forward to seeing you next week.
All right.
Thanks, George.
And congratulations again on the $500,000.
Oh, thank you.
Thank you very much.
We are finished for today, but tomorrow, Friday, the end of the day, the end of the week, our Intelligence at 4 o 'clock in the afternoon, our Intelligence Community Roundtable, and they'll have much knowing them.
To celebrate and crow about.
Knowing those two, they're going to take credit for everything.
I'm being a little bit of exaggerating because I have such affection for them.
But they'll be here, as will I, of course, at four o 'clock tomorrow afternoon.
Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom.
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