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Jan. 8, 2025 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
22:56
AMB. Ian Proud : Trump and Ukraine.
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Hi, everyone.
Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Thursday, January 9th, 2025.
Former British diplomat and now Judging Freedom regular Ian Proud joins us now.
Ian, a pleasure, a belated Happy New Year to you and gratitude for your work with us in 2024.
And I hope and trust it can continue into 2025.
It's a pleasure to be able to pick your brain.
Happy New Year, Judge.
I want to spend some time with you on the British response or understanding of President-elect Trump and Ukraine.
But before we do, some other issues that I need your thoughts on.
What is the British role, whether it's military or MI6, in the genocide in Gaza?
Well, we've been supplying weapons and dual-use equipment to the Israeli regime for, frankly, as long as I can remember.
The new Labour government made a slight amendment to its export licensing regulations, but nevertheless, we still have unchecked pretty much weapon supplies to Israel.
So we're kind of complicit, but we're not really the main actors in that theatre.
Obviously, the US has by far the most influence over Israel, which frankly...
So the UK is a bit part player.
However, because we've continued to supply parts for weapons, people see us complicit, essentially, in that genocide, particularly within protest groups in the UK that, for understandable reasons, support the Palestinian cause.
Does the UK have laws which it disobeys?
We all know governments break their own laws, much as the U.S. does, which prohibit the distribution, sale, or permission for use of military equipment to regimes that practice apartheid or genocide.
Yes, we do.
We have actually quite strict export licensing regulations, but every single license request, if you like, goes through a minister, a government minister has to approve a license and therefore, you know, bureaucrats, Bureaucrats look at it and actually they say, well, you know, genocide hasn't been proven yet.
There's a case in the International Criminal Court.
So, you know, we can't use that as a justification not to supply this, you know, these weapons.
So, you know, until there's actually, you know, genocide proved at the moment, it seems to me that export license applications are still being cited.
How much evidence?
Do they need?
The International Criminal Court, it's either 15 of 16 or 16 of 17 of the jurists there concluded there's probable cause to believe there's genocide.
The British Lancet has demonstrated more conclusively than any medical people, of which I'm aware of the number of innocents that have been slaughtered.
Haaretz, the Israeli daily.
He continues to recount the mosques and hospitals and schools and stores and shops and homes that are destroyed.
Our colleague Max Blumenthal recounted that the head administrator of the last standing Gaza hospital is being tortured even as we speak.
What more do they need?
You could say the same thing to me, but the American government is obtuse when it comes to Israel.
Is the British government so monolithic that it will deny and defy, this is such a long question against all the rules, my apologies, deny or defy reality?
Well, I don't know the term tooth as a good English man, but I associate myself with that term and apply it equally to the British government.
I think we should be supplying no weapons to Israel because of the But nevertheless, as an eminent judge and jurist yourself, you'll understand the concept of subjudice, and I believe that's a sort of cloak under which British bureaucrats are kind of hiding.
Right, the concept is that we are still deliberating.
We haven't come out with a final decision yet.
Therefore, the defendant is not yet guilty.
Here's someone, you'll recognize his face in a moment, I don't even have to introduce him, who disagrees with you and me and just about everybody that watches this show on the issue of genocide.
Sonia, cut number six.
No. It's not, first of all.
Second, as to how the world sees it, I can't fully answer to that.
But everyone has to look at the facts and draw their own conclusions from those facts.
And my conclusions are clear.
Did he give a realistic answer?
Did he sound credible?
Did he sound like he believed himself what he was saying?
No, this man is a complete...
Go right ahead.
But he's a disgrace.
I mean, this is the man who delayed decisions on sort of cutting off weapons shipments to Israel until after the presidential election in the United States, knowing full well, as he did, that the Democrats were likely to lose it.
He was the ultimate in kicking the responsibility can, you know, down the road at that time.
This man has no ethics and morals whatsoever.
And quite frankly, he finds himself in...
I completely, you know, confess to that.
But, you know, what a complete abrogation of responsibility and a complete, you know, tone-deaf denial of his complicity, you know, in US in action.
You know, in a saner time, maybe under the Trump administration, who knows, he could be prosecuted for war crimes.
I mean, he is largely, since the president has been out of it mentally, he is largely the person most responsible for this.
Remember how he greeted Prime Minister Netanyahu on October 6th or 7th, or when it was after the 7th, so 8th or 9th.
He didn't say, I come to you as the Secretary of State of the United States.
He said, I come to you as a Jew.
Our people refer to him, because he is a lawyer, our people refer to him as Netanyahu's lawyer.
Is MI6 involved in any way in Israel and Gaza, either working with CIA or working with Mossad?
Well, it's open source knowledge that the CIA, MI6 and Mossad have a very close working relationship and that's about as much as I'm prepared to say.
But yeah, of course they work very closely on it.
Whether they're actually involved in the tactical nature of the horrendous things that the Israeli government is doing is frankly less clear.
I would be very surprised if they were, you know, frankly speaking.
I don't think even British ministers would.
Would condone that.
But they do have a very close and strong working relationship.
Does the British Prime Minister have the level of control over MI6 that the American president has over the CIA?
Or is MI6 independent of the Prime Minister?
Well, MI6 actually works for the Foreign Secretary, strictly speaking.
You know, the Foreign Minister, the Blinken equivalent.
And everything theoretically, at least that they do, has to be signed off by ministers, including legal justifications to assassinate people overseas.
Even those sorts of decisions have to be signed off by British government.
So technically, you know, there is oversight.
I don't know how much oversight Joe Biden would have had over the CIA, but on a day-to-day basis, as you can imagine, they're largely free to kind of do whatever they please.
Who is the British foreign minister now that David Cameron has been ousted because of the change in the government?
Well, we've had this cast list of, frankly, dreadful characters.
The latest one is called David Lammy, another David, number nine foreign secretary in the space of 10 years.
He doesn't really seem to be any better.
And, of course, you know, because they stay for such a short period of time, their ability to really understand what's going on in the swamp is limited because they're not really around long enough, you know, to really sort of get under the surface of all the murky stuff that's happening, you know, behind the scenes.
Makes you...
In the case of Blinken, whatever you think of him, he's been around the block, as we say in the U.S., many, many times.
He knows exactly what he's doing.
He knows exactly who our allies are.
He knows exactly what the law is.
And he knows exactly what he can get away with.
I don't know, and I don't know anything about him.
Yeah, he's in this club with Sullivan and Newland.
It's kind of the terrible trio.
Certainly when it comes to my favourite topic, Ukraine.
He was there to NSA when Biden was vice president.
Blinken and Newland and Sullivan were a terrible duo in state.
So Newland is now a professor at Columbia University in New York City, as is Hillary Clinton.
And the rumour is that Secretary Blinken is going there as well.
This has caused Jeff Sachs to age about 20 years overnight.
President Zelensky will be next.
He'll be teaching there soon.
Zelensky right here in New York City.
Ambassador, over the weekend, President Trump made a number of Trumpian comments, one of which was if the...
There will be hell to pay.
What could he possibly mean?
What could it possibly be worse than what has already happened in Gaza?
Well, that's exactly what I was going to say, Judge.
What could they possibly do, having completely flattened Gaza?
Killed 50,000 innocent people, still been unable to find the majority of the hostages.
And God bless them, you know, everybody should want for these hostages to be released.
You know, just through basic humanity, we should all want for that.
But when they have tried to kind of find them, many of them have ended up dead and the majority still remain in captivity.
So, you know, what Trump could possibly do, I mean, it doesn't really seem that he'd have the ability to kind of do any worse or any more, frankly, than what it is.
Is there a treaty of alliance between the two?
Because of course, as you know, there is none between the US and Israel.
We have a complicated relationship with Israel dating back to 1948, as you'll understand.
But we also have very, very strong relations with the Gulf Arab states, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and so on.
So we're not as deep into the Israel relationship.
Ironically, as the United States, which is massively committed to it.
We are an ally with Israel, but also we have more enduring and, frankly, more important.
Well, is it bilateral?
What does the UK get in return?
Well, not a great deal, frankly.
I mean, the bilateral trade isn't that great.
We get, obviously, intelligence and security cooperation, such that it is.
Mossad is a very effective operation, as you know.
You know, it is an important ally and the reason we want it to kind of maintain its statehood against kind of aggression over the past decades and all the stuff that we know about.
But, I mean, it's not our most, frankly, important alliance in any way, if it can even be called an alliance.
Moving on to the area of the world, which has become your expertise, are there UK troops on the ground in Ukraine or in Russia?
Well, in Russia, no, because we no longer have a defense section in Moscow.
There may be British mercenaries having operated in Kursk.
One of them was captured a few months ago, I believe.
So mercenaries, yes.
Actual troops declared no.
Declared troops in Ukraine, probably yes.
in a kind of, if you like, liaison sort of role, including at the British Embassy in Kiev itself.
So yes, but not in any numbers, even though, you know, Well, when the Ukrainians launch, forgive me, I think it's called the Storm Shadow, a British offensive missile that goes into Russia, does that require the employment of British technicians?
Because of secret national security secrets implicated in the use of it, much as when the Ukrainians want to use American attackums, only American personnel can deploy them.
Well, they all frankly rely on American intelligence and targeting data, you know, satellite data.
So, no, I mean...
So the actual training in how to do that kind of stuff wouldn't have needed to be done in Ukraine itself.
But obviously liaison, military intelligence and other types of liaison will be happening, but not in a very practical nuts and bolts sense of the term.
And obviously, MI6 is present in Ukraine and in Russia, just as CIA is.
Well, I mean, everywhere.
Yes.
Right.
You know, a lot of our intelligence people, Ambassador, say that MI6 has the lead role over CIA and, of course, SBU, the Ukrainian leader.
Do you subscribe to that view?
No, I mean, any country you go to, the US presence in Ukraine, the diplomatic presence, therefore the intelligence presence, will be much bigger than the UK presence.
So, I mean, just in terms of numbers of people on the US side that they can deploy into the field, will be far greater than the UK side.
I mean, it's not even close, frankly, although, understandably, the UK plays a considerable role.
We're probably second in the pack behind the US, I'd say.
Is the UK involvement in Ukraine motivated by some ideological view that Vladimir Putin is evil and the Russians are bad, or is it merely parroting what the US wants?
No.
Actually, I mean, we have a longer historical enmity with Russia than the United States of America.
Yours has only really emerged since the end of the Second World War, the start of the Cold War.
Ours goes back to the 18th and 19th centuries in Central Asia.
So it goes that deep.
But in terms of the things we do in terms of policy, The challenge for us will be when Trump decides to pivot, however he decides to pivot after he becomes president, and us being left in no man's land, flailing around with the Germans and the French coming on side with the Americans, and us having to follow on behind, I think, is what's going to happen.
Well, you've led right into my next question.
What happens if Trump turns off the spigot of aid just like that?
What will the British do to Ukraine?
What will the British do?
Well, we cannot match the sheer sums of money that the United States of America has been pumping into.
Into Ukraine.
We spoke about the $20 billion just shuffled across the road to the World Bank a couple of times ago.
When we spoke, they've just sent across another $8 billion, another $500 million in the past.
Our total spending, even in a big year, is only about $5 billion max, and that includes humanitarian aid and military aid.
So we can't match the sums that the U.S. provide.
And if U.S. policy changes, our policy will have to change because we will never be able to give the U.S. What will happen to NATO, Ambassador, if Donald Trump pulls the US out?
Well, I don't think he will, quite frankly, because NATO is a massive gravy train for US defence contractors.
That, you know, get 57% of NATO business in terms of arms sales.
So I don't think he is going to put it out at all.
I don't see why.
I mean, he's talking up, you know, Europe spending more on their collective defence, therefore on US, you know, weapon systems, 5% completely unrealistic.
Partly that's allowing the US to focus more on the Pacific threat, you know, China and letting Europe fend off Russia by itself.
But that's not necessarily a bad thing.
Is the US going to leave NATO?
I don't think so.
There's too much money in it.
What is your understanding of the current almost caricature, almost cartoonish dispute between Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister of Great Britain, and Elon Musk, the world's wealthiest man?
I mean, it's bizarre.
I mean, firstly, Elon Musk is worth twice as much as the whole country of Ukraine, which in itself is...
I thought you were going to say twice as much as the UK, but let's not...
Yeah, who knows?
But at the moment, it's twice as much as Ukraine.
It's all about when Keir Starmer was a former chief poskyer You will have an Attorney General.
It's kind of a bit like that sort of role, you know, in the US system.
And a period of time when grooming gangs, you know, gangs in the north of England that were grooming young girls to have gang raped them, basically.
you know, wasn't addressed with sufficient vigor by the justice system, essentially.
And there was an inquiry about this.
And, you know, Keir Starmer was this figure at the time.
Lots of people don't think he did enough.
For some reason now, Elon Musk has decided to bring it up again.
I don't know why he's chosen to do that now.
He just seems to have this general hatred of Starmer, possibly because he's supporting this kind of Nigel Farage's, you know, reform party.
But it's, as you say, it's cartoonish.
What the hell?
Elon Musk.
Does Keir Starmer even care what Elon Musk says?
Elon Musk is a citizen of the world.
He seems to have citizenship everywhere.
I mean, maybe he'll be in one way next.
Who knows?
Who knows?
But he's South African and American, I believe, are his two kind of key nationalities.
I don't think he's got British citizenship.
He's weighing in all sorts of Greenland debate.
You know, he's got his...
He has so much power, this kind of...
He's getting his own everywhere.
It's actually quite scary, I think, for US democracy more than for UK democracy, I suspect.
Is there any evidence to support the allegation that Sir Keir was less than aggressive in prosecuting these thugs?
I mean, there are thugs and there are thugs.
There are thugs that you can prove guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, and there are thugs that you don't have the evidence to prove it.
Yeah, these are paedophiles and gang rapists, actually.
But no, I mean, there was a full inquiry which concluded the insufficient action at several...
Keir Starmer was responsible for one, you know, bit of the system.
I mean, I think he was an effective director of public prosecutions.
Other people, you know, can judge.
It's just a bizarre thing.
You know, more work needs to be done to clamp down on this sort of dreadful criminal behaviour.
Everybody must agree on that.
Got it.
Ambassador Ian Proud, a pleasure, my dear friend.
Thank you for joining us.
I hope you'll come back again next week.
Thank you, Judge.
Looking forward to it.
Looking forward to seeing you again.
Thank you.
All the best.
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