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Sept. 10, 2025 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
21:31
LtCOL. Karen Kwiatkowski : Dept of Defense, War, or Peace?
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Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for a judging freedom.
Today is Wednesday, September 9th, 2025.
Colonel Karen Kwadkowski is here with us.
Colonel, welcome here.
I try to smile when I do these intros, notwithstanding uh what the news is.
What is your understanding of the latest US Israeli attack or Israelis slash US attack on a residential neighborhood in Doha, Qatar?
Yeah.
Well, it's it's becoming predictable.
You know, if you're a negotiating team that wants to make peace, certainly uh relative to Gaza or anywhere in the Middle East, you better not meet, or you better meet in secret because uh these are targets.
Apparently uh Trump and Netanyahu believe these are legitimate targets.
And um it's it's obvious, you know, one time is uh an accident, the second time, coincidence perhaps, third time, you know, they do it on purpose, um, to advance the uh uh the mission that the US and Israel have uh vis a vis the Middle East, which is uh one and the same mission.
It is a expansion of Greater Israel, it is the uh elimination of uh any resistance, including human populations, whole human populations, as we're seeing in Gaza.
Um that's the goal.
It's quite simple.
Well I mean, this is particularly uh reprehensible because Trump himself lured these um negotiators, it was a team of 37 of them, uh, to this location in Qatar.
According to Max Blumenthal, I haven't seen it.
The Trump proposal is a hundred words long.
Yeah.
Now, Colonel, wouldn't it be more like a hundred pages long if you're talking about a ceasefire or a peace arrangement, a hundred words.
Did Trump compose this while he was in the bathroom?
I mean, I I don't get it.
Was Whitkoff involved in any of this?
Because he's not a government official.
He doesn't have immunity.
He he could be indicted as a war criminal for uh for what he did, and Trump can't pardon that.
Yeah, well, and Ricoff conveniently left the the last set of talks early.
He was not in Doha.
So um, yeah, they're all they're all implicated in this, I think.
Um you know, the hundred word thing is uh pretty much tells you two things.
One, it this was uh agreed, this was written by Israel, which is what the uh uh Arab size side says that this was clearly written, these words are Isra Israel's words, they're Netanyahu's words.
The hundred word limit is just like the 12-day war.
You know, it's it's a little catchy bumper sticker um designed to really deceive and simplify uh what is uh you know what is obvious to the rest of the world and also very complicated.
Um there's no intention, and I think this, if nothing else, we can conclude there is no intention for Israel to do anything other than accelerate what it has been doing.
And now that uh the starvation has been going on for several months, it won't be long uh before the remaining population, which is probably down to 1.5 million in Gaza, will um they've been weakened, they've they are unsheltered, unhoused, as we would say here in this country.
Um, and disease will take its toll along with malnutrition and of course actual starvation.
So the Israelis, this is a win for them.
Yeah, everybody hates them.
Sure, nobody's gonna trade with them, but they're so short-sighted that what they see is we must exterminate Gaza and take it over and control completely.
Um, and they're gonna get that.
They're gonna do that.
That is their intention.
And when you uh this late in the game, uh assassinate uh, you know, attempt to assassinate the negotiating team, when negotiations have been publicly, you know, Trump was very positive about these, right?
I mean, Trump was like, oh yeah, we've we're gonna it's gonna be a couple weeks, we're gonna have this Gaza thing put to bed, you know, very positive.
But you know, it's all it's all lies.
They're going to uh Israel with the United States help is gonna resolve this by killing uh, probably through death and through their own death and disease that that they will be implicated in, uh probably 80% of the population.
And I think they that Israel thinks it can handle the remaining 20 percent of of surviving Gazans.
And I think that's their goal, and that's what they're gonna do.
Who can stop them?
Only the United States can stop them, and we can stop them in one executive order.
We could stop them.
Trump could stop them in one phone call to the Pentagon.
Nothing gets Israel, zero, and it would be it would be done with in three weeks.
Israel cannot sustain what they're doing without our help.
I mean, this is the this is the country that uh uh we haven't even decided if this is legal yet, gave Trump a gift worth 400 million dollars.
Oh, yeah.
Um is it probable that Qatar was behind this as well, just to satisfy their American masters and their uh Israeli tormentors?
I mean, you you're your retired Air Force, you know better than I, the largest American Air Force base, maybe in the world, but certainly in that part of the world, is right there in Qatar.
Yeah, it is.
And um, the family the that has been running cutter for quite a long time, I forget the name, but uh uh it's uh, you know, they've they've have a firm hold, but like many of those countries, you know, these are uh kind of minority ruled states.
So they're always uh at odds to some extent with their population.
But um, yeah, it's it's possible.
Anything's possible, but I think it the more obvious answer is Trump has done this at least three times.
This is the third time that we know of, possibly more.
Um, this is definitely something Netanyahu and the uh uh IDF, the Vasad, this is what they do.
Um, so I think that's probably the more uh straightforward answer is very believable.
Um, you know, I I will say this.
The UAE uh unrelated to Gaza, but the UAE told Netanyahu and uh Trump that if they didn't end what they were trying to do in the West Bank, which is of course they want to totally absorb the West Bank and control it and also vacate it of Palestinians, and they're doing that.
They're doing that right now, but we're not really talking about it so much.
But the what did the UAE threatened?
They said uh that this will uh basically well in kind words, it will devalue the Abraham Accords.
But in what they meant is, I think, is we're not participating in the Abraham Accords.
And that is one leverage point that seemed when they said that Netanyahu was uh taken aback by that because you know, Israel needs trade, and a big part of uh, of course, the rest of the world hates Israel, we're not trading with them.
I will never buy knowingly another Israeli product.
So, you know, that's this is average people believe this and and feel this way.
But Israel needs regional trade, both in energy and arms and all kinds of things.
And the Abraham Accords kind of that was its big selling point.
Yeah, sure, it's security, but it's about trade.
And so um Israel realizes that uh their trade globally is limited in in some ways because of what they're doing, and they don't want to lose that.
Anyway, I thought I thought they paid more attention to the UAE announcement of that, which is really a threat in a sense.
They responded to that much more uh, you know, logically than they respond to anything Trump says, which means if Trump seems to be telling Israel what to do, you I don't think you can believe that.
I think I think he speaks from uh you know, he speaks out, yeah.
I mean, Netanyahu pulls the strings, I think.
You know, um Max Blumenthal was on before you reminded us that when uh the US and Israel attacked Iran, the uh cutter um air defenses were activated because uh they the Americans who who constructed it and control it uh feared that that air base would be attacked,
and one of the missiles got through and it did some uh significant damage, but it didn't didn't kill anybody.
This time, no cutter air defenses were activated.
How could the United States not have known about this in advance?
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
Um, absolutely, yeah.
And this is another uh problem of having you know a global empire with military bases everywhere, even if the US had nothing to do with this, which is of course, you know, inconceivable.
When you look at the power to do things militarily around the world that we have and the surveillance capability and air defense capability we have scattered all over the world, um, no one will believe you if you say you weren't involved in it.
So we're we're uh you know we were involved in it.
But if we deny that, it's no one's gonna believe it.
So this is a huge uh it's a huge loss of credibility.
Um one additional, particularly for Trump.
I mean, you know, it's funny we talked about Biden's credibility because he was senile and nobody knew he was running the government.
But Trump has actually earned uh his uh uh the the fact that he is not credible on the global scene.
And and Trump expects a Nobel Peace Prize out of all of this because that mobster monster Netanyahu nominated him for it.
Yeah, oh, he wants that.
Yeah, um I I don't I don't know why he would and you know, and if Trump was on the campaign trail, he would probably be poo-pooing the Nobel Peace Prize because of the how how it has it has been devalued itself, you know, when Obama got it.
But that was one I remember most distinctly when I thought there was no such thing as a Nobel Peace Prize after they gave it to him for doing nothing, and then he proceeded by engaging in all kinds of conflict and illegal acts.
So but yeah, I'm going to unleash the PhD in you.
Why do presidents kill?
Why do American presidents love to kill?
Okay, first off, why are they American presidents?
Because they love power.
And if you love power, what how do you express power by using the tools of power?
And one of the biggest tools of power that uh the United States has is, of course, you know, our military and to some extent our covert capabilities.
But uh, but yeah, any state that is well known for some particular uh power or strength that it has, like the Mossad, Israel has a Massad, Massad is feared globally.
Why?
Because it it conducts amazing assassinations at at will.
Um do the prime ministers of of Israel use this strong, valuable tool that they have.
Of course they do, of course they do.
And we have a tool of a global military, we have a tool of a still quasi-large economy that we can leverage.
Um, we have uh reasonably good targeting information around the world.
Why wouldn't you use that?
You you're you you become pro, I mean I say man because we've only had men presidents, right?
But what was one of the close runners-up female president that we might have had in our lifetimes?
It was Hillary Clinton.
I mean, she she would have she would have, in my view, spent the same or more money than Trump has on the military.
And she would have conducted as many assassinations, attempted assassinations, intrigues, uh setups, uh, you know, deals that would cause massive death.
Yes, she would do that.
People that choose to be president and that run for president and make the compromises, the moral compromises that in this day and age uh are required to be the United States president.
I mean, they're moral compromises.
We we're an empire, we're not, you know, what are we electing an emperor?
But you know, this this is the MO of really sick people who have to exercise power and have to show that they have the power and and want to kill innocent people like 11 people in a speed boat 1300 miles from the American post.
Yeah.
Is it realistic uh that we could not have a standing army as the framers wanted?
Is it realistic that we could have a military budget of one quarter of the of the trillion trillion dollars that we now uh spend?
It it is realistic because the enemies that We are fighting that we supposedly have around the world are enemies of our own creation and some of them were created in our imagination.
Um, you know, we talk about Russia as a great threat.
Well, Russia's no threat.
Uh it is, it is a pure nuclear power, but it's no threat to us.
China the same.
Um, in fact, the very idea that your worst enemy is the guy that provides you with your quality of living and pretty much 90% of the items that you have in your home, that that's the enemy that we should arm up against them.
It is it is irrational.
Um, so if you don't have, if you have if you look at where your real enemies are, uh United States has very few.
Um, if we stay in our lane and live by our republican small R republican principles and abide by our constitution, we'll have no enemies.
And when you don't have enemies, then you have a military that does uh Coast Guard type duties.
Um, you know, we don't need we could get by on 10% of what we spend, but here's what the military industrial complex cannot get by on 10% or 25% or even 50%.
They must have their trillions, they must have their trillions, and they own the Congress and they elect the president.
So uh we got a big problem here.
So if you want to reduce the military, you really have to end the empire.
And to end the empire is a big big problem.
I mean, it's gonna end on its own.
If you want to accelerate that, we need states uh and people to secede and end their support for Washington.
And that is not gonna happen overnight.
How is it that Russia has a bigger and more professional army?
And China has a Navy a little smaller, but every bit as formidable as ours.
And we spend more than the next 10 countries combined, which of course includes Russia and China.
Yeah, well, the way that we uh fund our military, of course, military industrial complex, we we let private enterprise, so to speak, it's really corporatism, it's really fascism, you know, it's state uh favored and cultivated and hot house flower managed industries, okay.
Um those are very expensive and they produce very little and they're less and less competitive every year, less and less competitive with themselves.
I mean, we only that the top five defense contractors have 90%, 95% of all defense business.
So it's there's no competition.
We call it free market, see, but it's not really the free market.
And the way the Russia's Russia certainly does it this way in China as well, and China is still, you know, I don't think we call them communists, but they definitely have a uh central planning type organization.
Russia is a little bit less, but it's still top dominated.
They view their military, their defensive capability as a government interest area, a government department, and they fund it like that.
So they kind of fund their military and their military research, like we do things like uh education, right?
When we don't, the states mainly fund education.
But if the federal government says, Well, I'm interested in something and they put the money there, they're they're not like competing and trying to play a big game and being lobbied.
It's all it's it's like it's as if you had all civil servants doing your military, and they were all patriotic, and they all knew why they were building weapons, and they all understood the importance to the country and the limits on what that country could invest.
Uh our our system except accepts no limits on what we can spend on our military.
There are no limits, it goes up uh 10, 20% a year.
Uh they expect that.
They are organized around that free money train.
Uh and and and aside, a small side benefit of all of this is we get some weapons.
Okay.
Most of them don't work very well, very, very expensive, low in numbers.
Um, and they're like hot house flowers, you know, we are we've look how difficult it's been for us to increase the production of artillery shells just in the four years that the Ukraine war has been going on when suddenly someone in the army woke up and said, Oh my gosh, we can't produce seats and we're running out.
I mean, it's a joke.
Uh, but they do depend on money and they lobby Congress to get that money, and they do a little propaganda across the you know, football games, right?
You see the the power of the US military at football games and other events.
You know, there's a propaganda aspect of all this.
But the system is a flawed system.
It does not provide defense.
Trump's right about it's a secretary uh department of war.
Our our department of defense in the past, since 1947, has done no defense.
It has only conducted offensive activities, not very well.
Is this um name change stylistic or substantive?
Well, is Pete Heggseth a stylistic or substantive secretary of war?
But let's not go there.
I've known him for 15 years.
Let's not go there.
He is an icon of um a failing and flawed empire.
And uh this this name change, you know, if you think about why we change names of anything, it's because we're losing traction with the old name, you know, new Coke.
Well, that was a that was a big mistake.
Uh defense of the Department of War, probably very similar.
Uh, you know, because you would think that if you had this big idea that you were going to change the name of the Department of Defense to the Department of War, the war department, that you might have some actual changes in mind that you have broached even within the Pentagon to actually change what it is you're doing, how you're doing it, um, how you're going to be more effective, what your real mission is.
Uh, they didn't do any of that.
They just said, eh, make it make it the Department of War.
That's what we do, we fight wars.
And you know, Trump, I'm no offense to Trump or anybody that hasn't served in the military, but Trump knows nothing about war.
You know, he doesn't.
This is uh it's in just like a lot of people, they see it on TV.
They have this uh uh kind of patent complex, you know, they're all patriots.
Well, they're not patriots, you know.
These are not real wars.
Uh, if this country was ever attacked, I think we know who would be fighting to defend the country, and it would not be the Pentagon.
Wow.
Karen, thank you very much.
A very difficult subject to talk about with uh cheerfulness and perspective, but you managed to do it deeply appreciated uh here and uh on the folks uh watching.
All right, Chris, put it up.
Watch this.
All right.
Remember what happened with Cracker Barrel when they tried to get rid of that gentleman.
Oh my gosh.
Oh my gosh.
Wow.
All right, thank you, uh, Colonel Kwakowski.
Always a pleasure.
We look forward to seeing you again next week.
Absolutely.
Thank you, Judge.
Thank you.
Another busy day uh tomorrow at eight in the morning, Phil Giraldi at 11 in the morning.
I believe he's in uh Shanghai or Beijing Pepe Escobar at one in the afternoon, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson at two in the afternoon, Aaron Mate at three in the afternoon, Professor John Mirschamer.
And sometime during the day, we haven't pinned it down yet, because he's so uh hot uh over what the Americans and Israelis did in Qatar today, wants to come back on, and he's always welcome here, Professor Jeffrey Sachs, judge the Palatino for judging freedom,
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