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Dec. 18, 2024 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
26:01
COL. Lawrence Wilkerson : Who Owns the Drones?
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Hi, everyone.
Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Thursday, December 19th, 2024.
Our dear friend, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson joins us now.
Colonel Wilkerson, a pleasure.
Thank you very much for coming here.
A hectic day with a lot of high-tech email problems, but we're pulling it off.
Colonel, was President Assad's departure from the head of the Syrian state?
A strategic setback for Russia?
It wasn't a strategic setback.
I would call it in military terms an operational, maybe even tactical setback.
Because Russia has other alternatives for the Mediterranean, one of which is exploring right now in Libya.
They've had people in Libya all along, but now I understand they're looking very seriously at establishing some significant relationship there.
So they will get through it.
The real focus for Russia is, of course, what we want it to be.
The empire wants it to be.
It's in Ukraine.
It's in Central Europe.
And now we're trying to spark a war in Georgia.
We've succeeded in problems in Romania and Moldova.
So Russia's got its hands full.
Not that it can't handle it.
I think it can.
But it's very strategically oriented now to the serious theater.
And that's Ukraine.
The question I just put to you was put to President Putin not too long ago in that marathon press conference he holds right before Christmas each year.
We'll play some of the one-liners from it, which are terrific.
One of them is actually hilarious.
But here's what he said.
About Syria not being a failure, cut number six.
You and those who pay your salary would like to present everything that's happening in Syria as a shortcoming or a defeat of Russia.
I'd like to assure you that is not so.
And I'll tell you why.
We have come to Syria 10 years ago.
So, in order to prevent the creation of a terroristic enclave, the likes of which we've seen in the other countries, for example, in Afghanistan, in general, we have achieved our goal.
Even those groups that used to fight with the Assad regime, with the governmental forces, they have evolved as well.
It is for a reason that today many European countries and the United States would like to establish relations with them.
If they are a terrorist organization, how come you're trying to do that?
Then that means that they have changed.
That means that to a certain extent our goal has been achieved.
What do you think?
It's interesting that he chose to ignore a very long...
Russian relationship throughout the Cold War with Syria.
The fact that Russians married Syrian women and vice versa.
Very close relationship with Syria.
Probably more close relationship with Syria than any other country south of that particular portion of Russia.
So he ignored that and went right to the president because the president is the most pertinent.
And he's right.
He's right.
He's escaping a terrorist supporting place, which he tried.
Is it now well settled and accepted that MI6 and CIA orchestrated the final push that resulted in President Assad's departure?
I think they were there helping majorly, but I think it's fair to say that Erdogan had the most impact on it, on its immediacy.
Fair, fair.
You were once the chief of staff for the State Department, the present State Department, for which you and I and the folks watching us now have little or no respect, characterized HTS as a terrorist organization.
Put a $10 million bounty on the head of Al Jelani while the CIA was paying his people and training them.
How does the State Department react to that type of behavior by another wing of the same government?
This State Department, under Anthony Blinken, probably chortles in his coffee in the morning.
Administrations with whom I've been indirectly or even directly associated, it's been a shock to the diplomats when they found out what the agency was actually doing.
And I don't just mean the diplomats in Washington who are members of the National Security Council like the Secretary of State himself, but I mean the diplomats charged with carrying out American foreign policy, economic policy, financial policy, security policy, and so forth in countries around the world who don't even know the CIA,
who's station chief or...
So the CIA is figuratively and literally its own entity.
It can violate federal law, provide material assistance to terrorist organizations, start a war.
The presidential finding about the CIA was signed by Barack Obama.
He hasn't been president for 16 years.
And they can still rely on that as justification for all of their dirty deeds, no matter what the current administration—I'm no apologist for the current administration, you know that—but no matter what the current administration wants.
True.
True.
And it has a lingering effect, Judge, between administrations, unless someone does a really good transition.
And a really good cleanup job after that transition of the previous administration's nefarious activities that they call covert action, direct action, clandestine operations.
Unless you do that, they can linger for 30, 40 years and keep on going.
Keep on being funded.
I know the intelligence community relies on, if you read it, it appears to be benign.
Executive Order 12333 signed by Ronald Reagan.
They find language in there that allows them to spy on everyone without search warrants, every mobile device in the country.
When Trump asked me what I thought he should do upon becoming president, I said rescind 12333.
He didn't know what it was, and of course most people don't, and I explained to him what it was.
So the government has this habit of relying on old authorities.
What reasons did Obama give?
I think from my conversation with President Obama in the Roosevelt Room in November, as I recall, of 2015, the penultimate year of his second term, he was so fed up with John Kerry talking about ground troops going to Syria.
So fed up with the trouble that Hillary and Samantha Power had got him into with regard to Libya, he thought Libya was a tragic mistake.
If I was reading him right, and I think I was, it was a tragic mistake, that he was not going to do anything like that with Syria, put troops on the ground, for example.
And so he had to do something, so he signed off on a presidential finding that said, you know, we could try to undermine Assad.
Why did he have to do something?
What conceivable national security interest was at stake then of the United States, or is at stake now?
I don't think any such thing, Judge.
I think domestic political considerations and keeping his administration together and intact was at the center of that decision, just as I think lots of national security and foreign policy decisions are made based on domestic political considerations.
Rather than genuine security considerations.
The Guardian of London, you hinted at this a few moments ago, Colonel, reports that the Russians are dismantling their air defense systems in Syria and moving them to Libya.
Does that make sense to you?
It does.
I would question the strategic The value of that only in the sense that, had it been me, and I'm just a brazen son of a bitch, had it been me...
Colonel, are you telling me something I don't know?
I would have moved him for one.
I would have wanted to be the first Russian in 2000 years to fulfill the dream of every Russian emperor or emperor-like character during that two millennia.
And have a warm water port at the southern end of the Persian Gulf.
All right.
But they'll be welcomed in Libya?
Or will the United States, Great Britain, and Turkey, and the Israelis move over to Libya?
They will.
And the Russians will have no choice because, as you're well aware, they're dueling factions in Libya, some more powerful than others.
Whomever the Russians decide to align themselves with, we will align with the other side.
Is there still an area of Syria subject to the control of the Islamic terror groups, HTS and others, headed directly or nominally by al-Jolani,
that he actually has control over?
Beyond the city of Damascus, we know that the Israelis have taken more land than three times the size of the Gaza Strip.
We know that the Turks have taken even more land than that.
But is there an area over which the new government, in air quotes, of Syria has jurisdiction?
I listened to a number of transmissions from inside Syria this morning.
And Al Jazeera was one, one of the Syrian stations was another, and another one was Iraqi, and still another one was Jordanian.
And from what I could tell was the people that they were interviewing said they had no idea what the government in Damascus could do because there was no one around them doing it.
And they were having trouble with the Turks, trouble with the Israelis, trouble with the Iraqis, and others.
And they were saying, "What do we call for?
Whom do we call?"
Where's our 911?
That sort of thing.
So I don't think they have control over anything other than the environs of Damascus.
Switching gears, Colonel, how close to collapse do you believe the Ukrainian military is?
They're collapsed, as far as I'm concerned.
The only thing that Ukraine has that's beck and call now are these disingenuous Evil acts like sending someone to Moscow to assassinate a Russian general.
That's about the only resort that Ukraine has left.
Other than Biden, that act too was to try and tie Trump's hands to make Putin so angry that he would repose with something that Trump would find difficult to deal with.
And Putin so far has not done that.
But the attackums and the continued use of them and continued striking of Russian soil is another.
Case in point, they're trying to tie Trump's hands.
Biden and Blinken and Sullivan do not want to leave with the prospect that Trump might go in and within 48 hours shut the war down, primarily by stopping the funding and stopping the arms.
There are a lot of arms still there, but very few people to operate them.
But you're right.
With a phone call or the stroke of a pen, the president could order all Americans, military, intelligence, contractors, civilians, soldiers of fortune, whatever they are out of the country, and he could stop all the arms supplies,
even though much of it has been authorized but not yet delivered.
And he might just do that.
He might.
And, you know, Mrs. Zelensky, I'm told, just took her Bugatti to some repair facility.
Deeper into Europe.
I wonder why she's doing that.
Maybe her husband has given her some kind of warning.
Colonel, is there any military advantage to Ukraine for the murder of General Kirilov?
Zero.
Zero.
And what they did was make themselves even more visible as the truly corrupt and despicable people that are at the head of Ukraine's government.
And if we had anything to do with it, if we had anything to do with it, if we blessed it, if we provided intelligence or anything like that, we should be horsewhipped.
Well, we should be prosecuted.
But, Colonel, we all know that the SBU, the Ukrainian incel, is subject to MI6 and CIA.
They don't do anything without knowledge, consent, and often funding, is it?
Fair to believe that the American CIA knew nothing about this?
It could have been a rogue operation, ordered rogue in the sense that they didn't, ordered strictly by the powers that be in Ukraine, by a vindictive Zelensky, for example.
He strikes me now as that sort of a person, that he's going to do everything he can until he walks out the door or is assassinated himself to make Putin hurt.
Anyway, he possibly can.
This is the viciousness that takes place in people who are losing.
I mean, losing badly.
You have to go back to some of the real troublesome times during the Nazis and what happened when particular commanders found out that, realized without question, Germany was losing and what they did at that time.
The great exception to that, of course, is when the order went out to destroy Paris and he didn't do it.
You do have some people that still adhere to the rules of law and high morals.
But Zelensky's not that kind of person.
I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't do this by himself with some people he knew, and I know he knows some of these people, and in defiance even of his supporters.
It just doesn't make any sense in terms of What the CIA or MI6, for that matter, would think would be that they still operate on this should be productive.
In some way, it should be productive.
It should be productive, of course, for us.
And you make a point when you say that Biden, Sullivan, Lincoln might have wanted to further tie Trump's hands, and so they authorize this.
You know, holding their nose.
They authorized this.
After all, Blinken is the one who lies to Congress about the deaths in Gaza and about U.S. weapons being used for those deaths.
So I don't put it past what you're saying.
Colonel, before we get to drones, which I want to ask you about, drones over New Jersey and the East Coast in general, I forgot what I was going to ask you.
We'll go to the drones.
Does the government fly drones over the United States and deny it?
Which government?
The federal government.
The federal government.
Probably at times when it's conducive to do so, but I wouldn't say it's a practice.
I'd say the problem is the problem that we talked about in the administration I serve most closely and intimately, and that was the problem we discussed.
Almost ad nauseam with the FAA about what it was going to be like when almost anyone could fly in that realm roughly 300 feet and below for general aviation and commercial aviation,
especially around airports and thick points and such, and how air traffic control was going to deal with it.
Now you have so many of these things already flying around that that problem that we discussed then, only in its latent stages, has become really serious.
So I would suspect that any time you see drones around, it's going to be uncontrolled in many respects.
And I'll give you an example.
My son-in-law was a policeman.
I won't say for where, because otherwise I'll get people in trouble.
He knew that the police in his department, having newly acquired their drones, were actually at times flying them around and looking in bedrooms, and looking in showers, bathrooms, and watching people in there bathing,
especially beautiful girls and such as that.
So you're talking about a situation where there isn't the control, certainly not the control the FAA would prefer.
Over these things that there should be and probably won't be for some time, and there are people who are going to take advantage of that, including probably some of our enemies.
If you were showering and you looked out your window and saw a drone and there was a nearby shotgun, would you take the drone out?
I'd take it out, but you know what?
The law isn't fully developed on that yet.
You might be accused of destroying private property.
Right.
I mean, the law is reprehensible.
When the Constitution was written, the states retained an area of jurisdiction called public safety.
But the states have no public safety in the skies.
It's all the feds.
When I saw a drone over my property, state police sent a helicopter up there.
And then I talked to them.
I said, could you have shot it down?
They said, no.
We're armed to protect ourselves.
We were told, do not take it down.
Unless it's assaulting you or assaulting the judge, do not take it down because this is an area of federal jurisdiction.
The NYPD said the same thing.
Imagine the NYPD afraid to chase something in the skies because it's federally controlled.
So the feds have emasculated our right to self-defense, yours and mine, and the ability of the state where you live and the state where I live.
To protect us by taking these strange flying beasts from out of the skies.
I was told yesterday by a lawyer that that domain, just as you just described it, is you can't defend yourself against something operating in that domain.
It's strictly a federal.
If you do defend yourself, you'll be taking your chances with a jury.
Some jurors would be on our side, some would not.
Here's what I wanted to show you before.
Chris, run the British journalist questioning President Putin earlier today.
Mr. President, you have failed to reach the objectives of your special military operation.
Large numbers of Russians have died, including a general assassinated here in Moscow this week.
And the leader of Syria, who you supported, has been overthrown.
Mr. President, when you face President-elect Trump, you will be the weaker leader.
How do you propose to compromise?
What are you going to offer?
You asked what we can offer, or I can offer, to the President-elect Trump when we meet.
I do not know when we're going to meet, because he does not speak about that.
I haven't spoken to him for more than four years now.
I am prepared for that conversation at any time.
I will be prepared to hold a meeting as well, if he so desires.
You said that this conversation will take place where I'll be in a weakened state.
I'm of a different opinion.
I think that Russia became much stronger over the past two or three years.
Russia today.
Before you comment on that, Chris, play the Mark Twain one.
Whoever would like to present Russia is weakened.
And as you're an American, I would like to remind you of a well-known writer and a person who said at some time, the rumors of my death are much exaggerated.
And if we hold a meeting at some time with a president-elect Trump, I'm sure we'll have something to discuss.
What do you think?
I thought the Mark Twain line was terrific.
I mean, could you imagine Trump or Biden or Clinton or Obama or Bush or any of them quoting Solzhenitsyn to a Russian reporter?
It was a perfect riposte.
And the calm that he maintained after that ass, ass, asked the question.
I mean, what an ass.
But let's point something else out here, too, though.
I'm going to tell you a little history here.
You probably know it, but many of your listeners probably don't.
In 1865, the European countries in particular, but all around the world, leaders were trembling.
They were trembling because their consuls and ambassadors in the United States, and even more so the battlefield observers, they had sent to battlefields we all know the names of, like Antietam and Gettysburg and Coal Harbor, and they were saying back to their countries,
"Beware!"
There's a million-man-plus army that is battle-hardened, battle-tested, and incomparably supplied and maintained with artillery and rifle cannon and everything else.
Be careful.
Well, of course, we disassembled that military, put a few of them out on the western frontier to fight the Native Americans, and that was it.
But they were scared to death.
I'm scared to death of Russia.
Colonel, here's another.
Clip from President Putin that I want you to see where he actually dares the West to try and take down Oreshnik.
There is no chance to shoot down these Oreshnik missiles.
Well, if those Western experts you mentioned think so, that Oreshnik can be shot down, we suggest they and those in the West and the United States who pay them for their analysis.
Conduct some kind of technological experiment, a high-tech duel of the 21st century.
Let them name some object, let's say in Kiev, concentrate all their air defense and missile defense forces there, and we will hit it with Oreshnik and see what happens.
We are ready for such an experiment.
Is the other side ready?
Wow.
Here's the real, real kicker here.
You're going to have a $14 billion Nimitz class or Vinson class or whatever class aircraft carrier with all of its air wing deployed and 5,000 plus sailors on it out in the ocean somewhere, or maybe two or three of them.
And there's going to be an Ereshnik equivalent that takes them all out.
In about 30 seconds.
Wow.
Wow.
Even though it's Christmas time, we'll end on that, Colonel.
Thank you very much for your time.
Thank you for becoming such a treat and such a hero to all of our viewers in 2024.
And I wish you a Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year.
And I wish and hope and expect that you'll be back with us again in the new year.
Same to you.
And may your holidays be merry and bright.
Thank you.
Thank you, Colonel.
All the best.
Take care.
A great man.
Coming up, another great man at three o 'clock, Professor John Mearsheimer, Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom.
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