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Feb. 23, 2025 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
14:15
[Special Rebroadcast] : Three Years Later—Scott Horton on the Russia-Ukraine War
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Hello there, everyone.
Judge Andrew Napolitano here with Judging Freedom.
Today is Thursday, February 23rd, 24th, 2022.
It's about 1.25 in the afternoon.
We are speaking today with Scott Horton of theantiwar.com.
I mean, who better to talk to about the dangers of war and the dangers of the response to war?
Scott, it's always a pleasure to have you on.
This is our second judging freedom of the day.
We had Alex Jones on earlier today, who I suspect agrees with you and me on what should be appropriate, if any, response on the part of the American government.
But let's start with where the war is today and where Putin's troops are, as far as your sources are telling you.
Well, I have to admit, I'm not up on all the very latest of the troop movement and everything as of this morning.
But I guess, you know, as we're recording this, we're about half a day into a full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia.
And I don't know if they're going all the way to Romania and seizing the entire west of the country as well.
Certainly on the outskirts of Kiev.
I saw reports last night that they were landing troops in Odessa.
I don't know if that's really true, but that would be a huge prize.
As long as they're invading and conquering the entire east of the country, east of the Dnieper River, I think that it's highly likely that they'll go ahead and also seize the very important city of Odessa.
I believe, Judge, one of the reasons that Putin did not...
He's now diminishing his own influence inside Ukraine.
This important country on its doorstep and giving the advantage to his opponents there.
Well, I fear that that's some of the same calculations he's making here.
Well, if I'm going to take the Donbass, I'm weakening pro-Russian-type factions' position, which they're big, obviously, since the coup of 2014 anyway, but at least there's a potential for their power and influence to be exercised in the future there.
But essentially, he got tired of waiting for that possibility.
And so...
But then that means, once he seizes the Donbass, then he goes, okay, well, I guess I'll go ahead and go all the way to Peru or to Odessa.
But now what's he going to do?
Leave a rumped state of Ukraine that's completely dominated by ethnic Ukrainians and Ukrainian speakers, virtually no Russian speakers or ethnic Russians involved in the government at all, and even have very far-rooted nationalists and even Nazis.
Essentially, you know, in a stronger position than before.
So now, he's got to preempt that danger by just going ahead and conquering the West, too.
In other words, Putin's invasion of Ukraine is a government program.
And it keeps expanding, you know, because he keeps creating more problems for himself than he has to fall by doing worse.
What does he do with Ukraine once he's chased the government out?
Yeah, great question.
I mean, I think especially in the world of the country, there's almost certain to be insurgency there.
I don't know how effective it will be.
I don't know about in the east of the country.
Obviously, just because people speak Russian doesn't mean they want to be invaded and conquered by another country.
It's far more complicated than that.
Okay, so what should President Biden be doing?
Do you applaud sanctions?
No. Or are they essentially toothless?
Is he essentially immune to them?
Do we need to, for example, unleash American energy sources to compete with him and sell energy cheaper than he does?
That might bankrupt the Russian state.
Sure. You know, I really don't know.
It's a real tough position that they put us in now.
And, I mean, they, on the American and Western side, but the Russians as well, that, you know, back in 1992, everybody should have just listened to Pat Buchanan and abolished NATO.
We wouldn't have this problem at all.
Now, not only did they not abolish it, but they expanded it right up to Russia's doorstep.
So, now, 30 years later, they're not going to abolish it with a gun to their head, right?
But it was their provocation, essentially, that...
Oh, sure.
The coup of 2014.
Sure. Because the popularly elected Ukrainian government was not pro-NATO, pro-Western enough for them.
That's right.
And it was the same group of people in power other than Obama himself.
It was Joe Biden and Sullivan and Antony Blinken and Victoria Nuland were the ones who did that.
And they're the same ones who are driving the car right now again.
I mean, essentially what we would need, Judge, right?
Like, you know, perfect world would be these people all resign and Rand Paul becomes the president and just says, listen, none of this was my fault.
I do not, you know, happily inherit the legacy of W. Bush and Obama and Trump and Biden on this.
It's a new day and it's out of respect but not fear for just the fact.
That H.W. Bush did promise we would not expand NATO.
And we shouldn't have expanded NATO.
In fact, we'll start by recognizing that Russia actually, not because of any threat, but just because it's right, that they have a good point.
That Bill Clinton promised, okay, fine, we'll expand NATO, but we promise not to move our military equipment into the new NATO members in Eastern Europe.
And then they broke that promise.
You know, maybe we should abide by that promise.
These are reasonable things that, you know, Jack Kennedy, He cut out the entire State Department and he sent his brother, the Attorney General, to meet in secret with the Russians and promised to remove the missiles from Turkey.
He said, listen, this business is too important to let a bunch of stupid politicians get in the way.
He had his Attorney General secretly negotiate a solution to the Cuban Missile Crisis.
State Department isn't up to it.
We've got to do what we've got to do to end this thing, to nip this thing in the bud right here and not let it progress further.
Well, how do we nip it in the bud?
You know, war is the health of the state.
The government loves to have a demon.
For two years, the demon was COVID.
Now the demon is Putin.
I mean, the government demonizes him with the exception of smaller outlets.
The media demonizes him.
His background is a KGB agent.
His background is a character.
Not supporting what he does.
I don't like him and I don't trust him.
But is what he's done in the past 48 hours a threat to the national security of the United States of America?
I submit it is not.
Yeah, I mean, it depends on how you define it.
And in D.C., define it as broadly as they can.
You know, America's, they don't even say vital interests anymore.
Just interests, which could mean anything.
I mean, you know, Rand Paul, speaking of Rand Paul, he gave a speech.
Where I think he's really onto something here.
And this is only one of the factors, and he said so too.
He said, listen, I don't think it's a coincidence that some of the loudest politicians in the Congress on this issue, and his friend Ted Cruz, are from states that export natural gas.
And they want to disrupt the pipeline between Russia and Germany.
I agree with Rand Paul.
But I want to know what you would tell Joe Biden if he called you up this afternoon and said, what should I do?
Well, he's speaking right now, actually, in my peripheral vision here, and he looks mad as hell.
He should say, this is partially my fault, except that.
In the Obama government, we really did push hard for a regime change there, and it did not work out.
You know, a man enough to admit that, a man enough to admit that Putin, despite whatever anybody thinks of him, he does have some real points about his security concerns.
And frankly, there's security concerns that we can't allay.
You know, I just, a hour ago, I spoke to Joe Cirincione, the nuclear weapons expert, about how the anti-missile systems, the anti-missile, you know, missile defense systems, Bush proposed and Obama installed in Romania and Poland.
They don't work at all.
They don't work.
They're completely useless.
The whole thing is a boondoggle.
And yet, from the point of view of Vladimir Putin, he has to act as though they work.
He has to believe that it might work.
And that here America's changing the entire setup of mutually assured destruction and tipping the balance toward a strike in our favor.
And from the Oliver Stone interviews, With Putin.
Oliver Stone says to Putin, he goes, come on, you know, it's just a moondoggle for corporate America.
You know how it is.
They don't work.
And when Putin, I'm paraphrasing, says, come on, Oliver Stone, I know that's true, but I'm the head of security around here, man.
What am I supposed to do?
You ring my country with anti-missile missiles, I have to make...
Missiles don't tie.
And that's exactly what he did, judges.
In 2018, debuted an entire new array of nuclear weapons to counteract the fact that W. Bush tore up the anti-ballistic missile treaty, and he and Obama installed these anti-missile missiles in Romania and Poland.
And judges don't even work.
We're 20 years into this crisis of this escalation in nuclear brinksmanship, and the whole thing is just, as Oliver Stone said, just.
Boondoggle. Just a rip-off.
Is this just the tip of the iceberg?
Is President Xi going to do something with Taiwan?
Is the crazy supreme leader in North Korea going to do something, obviously with the Chinese consent, in South Korea?
Or is this just Vladimir Putin deciding I'm 69 years old, I can't have this job forever, it's time for my legacy, and this is it.
Give you the last word.
Yeah, well, I sure hope that nothing happens in the East.
It's definitely right that if the Chinese were going to do it, now's probably their chance.
And I would say, okay, last word, I mean, that's our absolute worst case scenario.
But even if that happened and China did conquer Taiwan, America should stay out of that too.
We do not have a treaty alliance with Taiwan 50 years ago.
Nixon recognized that Taiwan is a part of China.
It is one country.
Eventually, they'll be reunited.
We want them to be reunited peacefully.
But this is not the same as if they invaded Japan or South Korea or Australia or a nation.
This is more like if they really cracked down on their sovereignty in Hong Kong.
We lose Taiwan anyway.
The question is whether we also lose American cities to thermonuclear devices in retaliation.
And the answer to that should just be...
Tough luck to you guys.
Sorry. Our go-to guy on war.
Sorry we have to come to you, but thanks for your time.
Judge Napolitano, judging freedom.
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