Jan. 8, 2025 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
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| Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. | |
| Today is Wednesday, January 8th, 2025. | |
| Ambassador Craig Murray joins us now. | |
| Ambassador Murray, I think you're joining us from Beirut. | |
| You're a courageous young man and we deeply appreciate your presence here. | |
| A belated Happy New Year to you. | |
| A belated gratitude for the time you gave us in 2024 with the hope and expectation we can work together in 2025. | |
| Ambassador, who or what is principally responsible for the demise of the Assad government in Syria? | |
| That's a much more complex question than it sounds because this extraordinary confluence of interests came together where you have nations cooperating All with their own reasons for wanting a piece of Assyrian pie. | |
| So you have Turkey, you have Saudi Arabia, you have Qatar and the other Gulf Cooperation Council states, you have the United States of America, and you have Israel, all of which were involved in Helping and supplying logistically and training and financing and providing weapons to the militia which ultimately was | |
| able to topple Assad. | |
| And that's really quite an extraordinary coalition of convenience. | |
| And of course there will be strains in that. | |
| The Saudi Cooperation Council states were principally interested in harming Iran and harming the interests of Shia Muslims and in promoting extreme Salafism, Wahhabism. | |
| That's rather at odds with the declared interests of the United States and will ultimately lead to blowback terrorism. | |
| And then, of course, you have the different views of the United States which supports the Kurds What was the role of MI6 and | |
| CIA, given the fact that both the British government and the American government He characterized HTS, the present-day name for the ISIS-generated group that took over the country, | |
| or took over the government, as a terrorist organization, and the two of them put a $10 million bounty on the head of Al Jelani. | |
| Now the two of them are touting him as some sort of westernized Thomas Jefferson. | |
| But what role did they play, privately, secretly, notwithstanding what their governments were claiming publicly about this terrorist organization, which now claims to be the legitimate government of Syria? | |
| Well, you're right, of course. | |
| It's extremely important that people understand that al-Qaeda, al-Nusra, ISIS, All the same thing, basically. | |
| This is just a sort of shifting alphabet soup of designations for basically the same set of genuinely fanatical and crazy, extremely violent, medievalist, | |
| religiously motivated people who want to fundamentally set back. | |
| The role of societies in the Middle East. | |
| And there's no doubt whatsoever that members of these groups have been trained, financed and supported by the security services of all the Five Eyes. | |
| Sometimes you get glimpses into this. | |
| For example, we had the case of a young lady who was one of... | |
| A large number of young women who were essentially trafficked to be brides to members of ISIS in Syria and in Iraq. | |
| Shemima Begum is the name of this particular lady who's been attempting to get her UK citizenship back to the UK courts and has not succeeded in doing so. | |
| Which, in my view, is a disgrace because she was trafficked at the age of 15. I don't think she should be held responsible for her decisions when she was very much drawn into this. | |
| But in the evidence in that case, it came out that Canadian intelligence services were heavily involved in assisting ISIS in doing this. | |
| Intelligence is secret. | |
| It's difficult to be able to say with absolute certainty this was done then, this was done then. | |
| We know from congressional testimony that the United States of America spent over half a billion dollars, over half a billion dollars almost a decade ago, and a lot more since, on supporting these people. | |
| So there is this massive distinction between what the government says in public and what it's. | |
| And the fact that it should be secretly cooperating with a designated terrorist group, and then that all then becomes open once it's put that group into power. | |
| And it's extremely plain. | |
| All the Western leaders have been queuing up to get to Syria in order to shake hands with these people. | |
| We've had the German foreign minister, we've had the French foreign minister. | |
| Of course, the Ukrainians were... | |
| We're first. | |
| And there are links there. | |
| It was an Uzbekistan Islamic extremist who constituted quite a large part of the HTS forces who assassinated a Russian general in Moscow in early December. | |
| There are links in this, if you like, this axis of violence that stretch across the different theatres of war and which the security services pull all the strings. | |
| We ran a clip. | |
| This is about an eight- or nine-year-old clip of Lloyd Austin. | |
| He is then a four-star general and the commander of CENTCOM, which is basically American forces in the Middle East and in Europe. | |
| And a member of Congress asks him how much money was spent And how many fighters did you train? | |
| And you pointed this out just a few minutes ago. | |
| Half a billion dollars, 500 million. | |
| Oh, in general, how many people were trained successfully? | |
| And he hesitates, he hems, he haws, he closes his eyes, and he goes, about five. | |
| That's the type of money that is being wasted. | |
| But I want you to look at two clips of Mr. Al Jelani and tell me if this resembles... | |
| The same human being who a few months ago was chopping off hands and cutting off heads. | |
| Chris, run them back to back. | |
| Number seven and number eight. | |
| Russia is an important country and is considered the second most powerful country in the world. | |
| And there are deep strategic interests between Syria and Russia. | |
| There are deep strategic interests between Syria and Russia. | |
| Syrian weapons are all Russian. | |
| Many of the power plants are Russian with Russian expertise and there are great cultural ties between Syria and Russia. | |
| We do not want Russia to exit Syria, as some would like. | |
| Syria cannot continue without relations with a large regional country like Iran, but they must be based on diplomatic relations Respect for the sovereignty of the two countries, non-interference in internal affairs, and only relations that are compatible with the interests of the two countries without interfering in the matters of sectarian hatreds. | |
| We hope that the new American administration will not follow in the same approach of the previous administration in continuing these sanctions and will lift them without entering into negotiations or bargaining. | |
| So this is the same guy that said, I'm the head of the government, there'll be no elections for at least four years, who appointed one of his former torturers as the head of their version of the Department of Justice, | |
| who's radicalizing the curriculum in the government schools. | |
| Okay, I get it. | |
| Will diplomats, of which you were one, and with the mindset of which... | |
| Well, it is a deception and a fraud, but it's a deception and a fraud which Western diplomats are party to. | |
| This is a game they know they're supposed to be playing. | |
| And he's saying these things about there should be no sectarian hatred at the same time that his militias are out there. | |
| This week, there are Sharia law agents, official government employees, on the streets of Damascus, advising. | |
| And they say it's only advice to cover their hair. | |
| So there's a massive gulf between what he says and what he does. | |
| And the things he does are the kind of things you'd expect from someone who... | |
| We should not forget, this is, officially, the former deputy leader of al-Qaeda in Syria. | |
| That's who the man is. | |
| And this extremely... | |
| Good media training and makeover, which blatantly has been given by Western intelligence agencies. | |
| It doesn't actually fool anyone, and we will see what's happening. | |
| I'm looking myself to get into Damascus in the next week or to be able to report, because one of the difficulties is that the West has put him in power in order to weaken Iran. | |
| How dangerous will it be for you? | |
| How dangerous is it for Jewish people? | |
| How dangerous is it for... | |
| I think we're at a moment of extreme danger. | |
| I mean, we saw during the Civil War that Christians and Jews and Muslims of other sects were massacred by exactly the individuals who are now in power. | |
| And there's no doubt about that. | |
| Ancient monasteries, ancient churches were destroyed. | |
| Synagogues were burnt down. | |
| The places where al-Nusra and ISIS controlled were subject to abominable practices. | |
| These people are now in power. | |
| He's being a very good front man, pretending all this isn't happening. | |
| And it may be, to some extent, he's attempting to control. | |
| His militias, because maybe it's in his personal interests, you know, maybe he sees a good career in becoming the new Zielinski. | |
| But whether the tens of thousands of Uyghur and Uzbek and Chechen and Bosnian and other extremist fanatics from all over the world... | |
| Who flocked there and who were part of the militia. | |
| Whether they're willing to stop their attempt to impose their extremist form of Islam on the rest of the world by force, just because he says so, seems to me most unlikely, seems to me most improbable he'd be able to do that if he wants to. | |
| And I'm not sure he wants to. | |
| He certainly sees the need to pretend to be wanting to, but that's a very... | |
| A very different thing. | |
| I would just like to make the point of saying that I think it's very important that we don't feed into Islamophobia here and we don't view this extreme form of Saudi-sponsored Wahhabist or Salafist violent extremism as typical of the religion of Islam because it isn't just as they have been. | |
| You're in Beirut. | |
| What is life like in Lebanon? | |
| What is the IDF, if anything, doing? | |
| The IDF continues to consolidate its positions in southern Lebanon. | |
| It's supposed to be... | |
| They're catering those positions by before the end of this month. | |
| The ceasefire runs out before the end of this month, at which point Israel is supposed to have left the country. | |
| They're making fairly plain they're not intending to leave the country. | |
| They're still building and consolidating military emplacements. | |
| They've been putting out radio messages for the last couple of days, giving long lists of towns and villages in the south where Lebanese people are not allowed to return and will be in danger of being killed if they do return. | |
| And many of those, actually, there are many Lebanese people who have already returned, who are now being effectively kicked out again by the Israelis. | |
| So that's, rather as in Syria, where Israel has expanded into southern Syria, and of course that's contiguous with southern Lebanon, all the signs are that this part of, you like, | |
| the... The start of an expansion as part of the Greater Israel Project looks to be permanent rather than temporary. | |
| I should also say that tomorrow there is a... | |
| When you say that, do you mean that Israel is conquering and occupying lands that the whole world two months ago, one month ago, recognized as Lebanon and Israel is now claiming those lands are Israel? | |
| The government of Israel hasn't made a formal claim they are Israel yet. | |
| They are, however, occupying them and not leaving them. | |
| And certainly there are individual extremist Israeli ministers like Ben Qadir who have said they are Israeli. | |
| And my view is there is no intention to leave them. | |
| And it's going to be a bit like the Golan Heights situation where... | |
| Part of the Golan Heights was occupied by Israel for years. | |
| They refused to leave. | |
| And then eventually they declared formal annexation. | |
| And in their view, this was part of Israel, which the United States under Donald Trump recognized. | |
| And I think we are in Lebanon seeing an intention to permanently occupy land here. | |
| Though I don't expect we'll see a formal claim of annexation for some time. | |
| Over the weekend, And then yesterday, President-elect Donald Trump made two comments. | |
| One is, I am the best friend of Israel in the world. | |
| I'm paraphrasing. | |
| And the other is, if the Israeli hostages are not returned by the time of my inauguration, there will be hell to pay. | |
| I'm also now paraphrasing. | |
| I think it's a very, very worrying time, which is why I'm back here. | |
| Here in Lebanon, we have the ceasefire agreement, which was for two months, runs out. | |
| We have the Trump inauguration and, exactly as you say, the potentially explosive consequences about the Middle East. | |
| We also, tomorrow, the Lebanese parliament is supposed to elect a new president. | |
| Under the constitution of Lebanon, the president has to be a Christian. | |
| And the United States is quite openly trying to impose a military strongman, General Joseph Owen, on the country. | |
| The United States Special Envoy Holstein is here. | |
| He has publicly advocated, and it's quite extraordinary that a state should tell another state who their president should be. | |
| Holstein has publicly advocated for General Owen, and he's been joined in that by Saudi Arabia. | |
| Mohammed bin Salman saying he wants General Aram to be the Prime Minister, to be the President. | |
| And their puppet, al-Julani in Syria, has also said he wants General Aram to be the President. | |
| But the Hezbollah control 40% of the Parliament, which chooses the President, and they have allies, strong allies in the Christian parties. | |
| So I don't think that's going to work. | |
| I don't think the United States is actually going to get its way tomorrow. | |
| My guess is actually there won't be a resolution of it tomorrow, but that's going to bring more conflict with the United States and more conflict involving Hezbollah. | |
| So there's a series of flashpoints. | |
| There's the end of the ceasefire, there's Trump coming in and his threats on Hamas, and there's the Lebanese. | |
| Kicking back against the Americans trying to impose a precedent upon them. | |
| So this is really quite a difficult and dangerous time. | |
| Here's President-elect Trump yesterday on these very topics, Ambassador. | |
| Chris, cut number nine. | |
| Do you think they're waiting for President Trump to take office? | |
| No, I think they heard him loud and clear. | |
| Better get done by the inaugural. | |
| Before I take office. | |
| All hell must be paid if they don't release the hostages. | |
| Do I have to define it for you? | |
| All hell will break out. | |
| If those hostages aren't back, I don't want to hurt your negotiation. | |
| If they're not back by the time I get into office, all hell will break out in the Middle East. | |
| And it will not be good for Hamas, and it will not be good, frankly, for anyone. | |
| All hell will break out. | |
| I don't have to say anymore, but that's what it is. | |
| And they should have given them back a long time. | |
| They should have never taken them. | |
| If the deal isn't done before I take office, which is now going to be two weeks, all hell will break out in the Middle East. | |
| Thank you, Mr. President. | |
| You've done a great job. | |
| Thank you. | |
| That, of course, with Donald Trump was his billionaire entrepreneur friend who will become the new Amos Hochstein, the new emissary. | |
| He's a roving emissary attempting to put out fires in the Middle East. | |
| Later on, he was asked if he would rule out the introduction of American troops, and he hedged, but the implication was he would not. | |
| He didn't want to show his cards. | |
| I understand not wanting to show his cards, but could you imagine American troops in Gaza? | |
| Could you imagine American troops implicated in genocide? | |
| Have American troops ever fought shoulder to shoulder with the IDF? | |
| Does the IDF even want that? | |
| All right, too many questions, but take it from here. | |
| I think it's quite possible the IDF does want that, in that Israel's determination has been to drag America into the conflict in the Middle East, and more specifically, of course, | |
| to drag America into conflict with Iran. | |
| So I think that the idea would delight the Israelis. | |
| It would, of course, be a nightmare for the American Armed Forces because it's a very unpleasant form of urban warfare, which is essentially genocide. | |
| You're fighting people with virtually no ability to fight back with anything. | |
| So the idea that the United States military would wish to do that, I think it's potentially wrong. | |
| We have seen Americans involved. | |
| There was the hostage rescue operation last year, which managed to rescue three or four hostages at the expense of killing, I think, 280 Palestinians. | |
| And that had quite heavy American involvement, including, of course, the use of that temporary peer, which turned out to be of no use for anything else. | |
| And which costs $300 million. | |
| Ambassador, I know you have to run, as do I. Thank you very much for your time. | |
| It's very deeply appreciated by our audience, by my team, and not least of all by me. | |
| And we look forward to having you back on the show again. | |
| Thank you, sir. | |
| Be safe and be well. | |
| And if you can come to us from Damascus, we'll take you no matter when it's convenient for us, as long as it's convenient and safe for you. | |
| Thank you. | |
| And thank you very much. | |
| It's always a pleasure. | |
| Thank you. | |
| Sure. Coming up later today at one o'clock this afternoon from antiwar.com, Kyle Anzalone at two o'clock, Aaron Maté at three o'clock, Phil Giraldi, and shortly thereafter, Professor Jeffrey Sachs, Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. |
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