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Sept. 19, 2025 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
27:52
Prof. Glenn Diesen : Can Europe Save Ukraine?
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Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom today is Thursday, September 18th, 2025.
Professor Glenn Dezen, my dear friend from the University of Southeastern Norway, joins us on his regular weekly time with us, Professor Diesen, always a pleasure.
I basically want to talk to you about whether Europe can or the Europeans think they can save Ukraine.
But on our way uh to that topic, a couple of other questions.
What has been the reaction in Europe to the American approved and financed and Israeli perpetrated uh attack on a civilian neighborhood in Doha, ostensibly the capital of Qatar, ostensibly an American ally?
Well, I think there's some concerns because uh it's uh they it's often seen in the wider context of uh uh the United States uh well turning a bit against its own allies.
Indeed, you see the same in uh East Asia with Japan and South Korea, the efforts to extract more concessions, uh something that of course has happened with the Europeans as well, as they put themselves in uh well, making themselves excessively dependent on the United States by cutting themselves off from other centers of power.
They see that they're too dependent, and now uh Trump can uh cash in uh effectively putting any trade deal he wants in front of the Europeans, and they have to sign as long as their security depends on the US now.
This is to a large extent what uh one sees also in the Middle East that is one of America's closest allies in the region, uh Qatar being attacked uh by Israel.
And well, let's be honest, it's very hard to imagine this happening without the knowledge or even um participation of the United States, given that the US does have a large uh sway over the security measures of Qatar.
So uh I think it's seen as a wider concern about the the US pulling a bit back because a lot of countries, Gulf states, much like the Europeans have bet uh everything on uh the United States protecting them forever, and as the world becomes more multipolar, do you just have to pull a bit back and also now uh yeah, not valuing those partnerships or alliances as much as in the past.
Uh I guess the fear among the Europeans is that this could happen to them as well.
My God.
I mean, it does London fear London that if Hamas, if the Israelis believe that uh Hamas uh is in a uh is in a townhouse there that the Americans would let the Israelis bomb it and destroy it.
Well, it becomes uh hypothetical, but uh hypothetical said that uh Hamas wouldn't be safe anywhere.
They would attack them no matter where where they were.
So let's say that they were in London.
Is it really unthinkable that the US would stand by them?
I mean uh Trump uh threatened to take uh territory from Denmark.
Uh that that is all of Greenland.
They uh apparently gave their backing to attacking an ally, Qatar.
So it's not unthinkable, but uh maybe there's different rules for the Arab states than for the Europeans.
Well, it's sort of a mic makes right.
I mean, today with the British Prime Minister, Trump said he wanted Bagram Air Force base uh in Afghanistan back.
His Secretary of State at the time, Mike Pompeo, negotiated with the Taliban, not the lawful government of Afghanistan, the terms under which we would leave Afghanistan, and those terms uh provided for the surrender of the Air Force base.
Now he wants it back.
I don't I don't know where this uh where this stuff ends.
Chris play the clip uh of President Trump being asked uh if he knew about the um Israeli attack on Qatar ahead of time.
Well, I'm not thrilled.
I'm not thrilled about it.
I don't have to do that.
I'm just I'm not thrilled about uh the whole situation.
It's not not a good situation.
But I will say this, we want the hostages back.
But we are not thrilled about the way that went down today.
You know how you advance, Mr. President?
Is this real teller you?
Advance?
No.
You were caught by surprise, sir.
I'm never I'm never surprised by anything, especially when it comes to the Middle East.
How did you learn about this happening?
I'll be giving a full statement tomorrow, but uh I would uh tell you this.
I was very unhappy about it, very unhappy about every aspect and uh we gotta get the hostages back.
But I was very unhappy about the way that went down.
So do you think that that no or nope uh is credible?
No, it's uh I wouldn't say it's credible at all.
Uh there is a tendency to say one thing and do another, and uh of course, if the attack had been successful, he might have uh taken credit for it.
Yeah, taken credit for it.
So you we've seen many of this going uh back and forth.
But uh we saw something similar with Iran.
They argued uh that they were in the middle, well, while they were in the middle of negotiations, he nonetheless uh struck Iran.
So you've seen this kind of deceptive behavior um uh yeah over and over again.
So um he does something similar, of course, in the proxy war in Ukraine, where he plays the role of the mediator, even though much like Biden, he still supplies weapons, he uh supplies the logistics, the intelligence, the targeting.
So but nonetheless, uh it's not his war, it's Biden's war.
He's just a mediator trying to bring the different sides to get sides together.
So I don't think any serious uh analysts, even his strongest supporters, believe that nonsense uh anymore.
I mean, the the the attack in uh Doha that they were there at the invitation of Mr. Whitcough, believing that they were going to a negotiating a negotiation session with the Israelis, and then the Israelis tried to murder them, they didn't succeed.
Well, who would negotiate with the Israelis again, and who would trust the Americans again?
This is the second or third time that's happened.
It happened with Hezbollah, it happened uh with the Iranian negotiators.
Yeah, no, this is the problem.
So there's no good narrative uh to escape this because either the Israelis did it without the knowledge of the US, uh unlikely, but even then uh it shows that the US is not capable of protecting its own allies, it's not even willing to give a stern word or uh punishment for those who attacks its uh attack its allies.
So it's uh it's not a good look for for the United States, and one can't help but to think the US is exhausting some of its um yeah, political stunning in the world as well as its uh reliance as a security provider.
Is Israel losing the PR war over Gaza?
Big question.
Sub question.
You know, the United States is uh in a lot of turmoil, not the least of which was caused by the horrible uh murder of this young man that a lot of us knew, uh Charlie Kirk before the killer and the evidence of the killer's guilt is overwhelming.
I can tell you from a judicial perspective, at least the publicly available evidence.
Before they even knew who the killer was, Prime Minister Netanyahu went on international television to deny that the Israelis have anything to do with it.
I mean, who denies something like this when there's no credible claim that you did it unless there's some widespread belief that people think you probably did it because of all the others you've killed.
Well, uh well, that's it.
I mean, uh irrespective of what Israel done or done not uh well, what uh what is evident here though is the poor reputation it has, the fact that they feel they have to go out immediately and explain that they didn't murder um uh murder Charlie Kirk.
Now I've I've seen uh some of the arguments for why we should be suspicious of Israel, which is the idea that uh over the past few weeks he turned much more critical of Israel.
He he started questioning what's happened on 7th of October.
But you know, the the fact that this is how people think now that if you criticize Israel, they might murder you.
It shows the reputation that Israel has uh has uh gained.
And you also see this now with this UN report coming out, which uh has uh well determined that is it is genocide which is occurring, and uh I guess everyone knew this, but now because of this is becoming very difficult even for some of Israel's closest partners in Europe to still stand by it because they need to get some distance, they have to wash their hands and pretend as if they've been opposed to this uh the whole time.
So even though much of this is political theatrics, you know you nonetheless uh see that uh other countries and politicians have to start to uh take some distance to Israel.
So it's uh it's a publicity nightmare for Israel.
Uh, it's gonna take a very long time if it's ever possible to recover its uh reputation.
Well, apparently the more a Prime Minister Netanyahu denies, the more people believe his denials.
He did it again yesterday, and he blamed the rumor of the Israeli involvement on the Qataris.
Those are the people that gave Trump a 400 million dollar Air Force One style jet, and that Trump permitted the Israelis to uh assault uh Chris Cut number 17.
Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda minister, said that the bigger the lie, the faster it will spread.
Well, somebody has fabricated a monstrous big lie that Israel had something to do with Charlie Kirk's horrific murder.
This is insane.
It is false, it is outrageous.
Charlie loved Israel, he loved the Jewish people.
He told me so in a letter that he sent me just a few months ago.
He encouraged me to make the case directly to the American people about how vital Israel is to US national security.
Now, if Charlie disagreed with a policy of mine or decision here and there, not only did I not mind, I welcomed it.
This is the essence of Charlie.
This is the essence of a free country.
It's exactly what Charlie stood for.
And I knew that his suggestions always came from the heart.
Now some are peddling these disgusting rumors, perhaps out of obsession, perhaps with Qatari funding.
With Qatari funding.
I mean, there's so many untruths in there.
Uh our colleague Max Blumenthal reports that Jewish billionaires in the United States offered Charlie an extraordinary amount of money.
The reports are up to 150 million dollars into the coffers of his organization if he would uh support uh the Netanyahu regime unquestioningly, and he told them no, and then they began to attempt to uh coerce him.
This was all at a private meeting, and I don't know that we'll ever get a straight answer as to what happened at the meeting, but we do know that the letter to which Prime Minister Netanyahu refers has a second part to it, which was harshly critical of what the IDF is doing in Gaza, and he's not going to read that part aloud.
Is Israel vital to the national security of the United States, or is Israel an impairment to the national security of the United States, Professor Deason?
Well, I think they become uh yeah, under uh a force which undermines the security of the United States.
Indeed, if it was in the US interest to all blindly support Israel in the uh all that it does in the evening isn't this genocide, uh I don't think there would be a need for a very powerful Israeli lobby.
I don't think there would be uh any need for having uh billionaires offering uh tens of millions of dollars to Charlie Kirk for not criticizing Israel.
So um so I I think this is uh all uh indicators that uh uh the US is being well paid or influenced to not pursue its own national interest.
And whenever a country doesn't pursue its own national interest, you it usually comes with a high cost.
And uh this is what the US has to bear now as well, because uh it's not just Israel which is losing its reputation, it's also the United States, because who stands in the way of recognizing uh Palestinian state?
Well, it's pretty much just two countries now, it's Israel and the United States, and uh the US uh still provides Israel full political cover for any genocide, it provides the weapon, So they're very much joined at the hip.
So I don't think this is in the interest of the United States.
And but it's it's a bit of a mystery how this influence can uh consistently hold over time.
But there's also some interesting videos of Netanyahu himself, who has gone out and explained how easy it is to maneuver the United States and to make it go along on whatever it does.
So I'm not quite sure where all this power and influence comes from.
It's possibly it's just this lobby.
You know, um a couple of weeks ago, the Secret Service discovered uh two listening devices in an emergency services vehicle, an ambulance that they keep in the White House in case the president or anybody is injured there and needs to be rushed to a hospital, and they determined that these listening devices were planted in these emergency services vehicles by um the Mossad.
Nobody was arrested, nobody was charged.
Nothing happened other than somebody on the inside who was upset about this, leaking it so that people like us would talk about it.
Switching gears.
You wrote the book on Russia phobia.
How prevalent is Russia phobia in Europe today?
Oh, I think it's been very prominent for a long time.
Again, I'm not the first one who writes about the Russophobia.
Um much of my literature built on what was written uh uh 200 years ago in Britain when they also uh concluded several uh scholars that uh um a key threat uh to British uh national security was Russophobia, because uh the British government was uh obsessing about uh uh Russia.
The main argument was if uh if and when Russia presents a national security challenge to Britain, they should uh um they should address this.
But they also recognize that uh the hatred and fear of Russia had gone so far that it uh went beyond all reason.
And uh for this reason Britain began to pursue very irrational policies, which actually under undermined its national interest.
Now, this was uh particularly around the 1830s, and what has really changed today?
Uh it's uh it's still uh very very dominant uh across the West.
If I can just add one thing, I always make the point that uh Russophobia is then recognized as the irrational fear and hatred of Russia.
It's not as if there's not rational reasons to fear Russia, but the irrational areas, the aspects are the ones of interest, and they are very dominant at the moment.
Uh, do the leaders of the European Union, and you can tell us about Mrs. Vanderlein and and the uh coming votes of no confidence in a moment, uh Germany, uh Great Britain and France honestly think that they can replace the United States as the financiers uh of the proxy, the NATO proxy war in Ukraine against Russia.
Well, it's hard to say.
Uh it's that there's no rational indicators for this, and I do think that many of the leaders in Europe are getting a bit panicked, uh, because uh the idea of filling the shoes of the United States is not realistic.
They don't have the money, uh, they don't have the weapons, and uh in this they're running out of Ukrainian soldiers as well to use as proxies.
Um but I think uh the hope is to simply uh keep it going for as long as possible until they can pull the United States back into this war.
I mean, it's worth noting now, for example, with this drone incident in Poland, the uh the the greatest disappointment of the Europeans is that it didn't pull the United States in.
Uh the US did not lose its mind, it kind of blew the whole thing off, which was a massive disappointment.
So the it seems as if the entire uh military strategies to pull um United States back deeper and deeper into this war.
So um yeah, it's uh uh so it it might be a temporary solution, but the idea that over the longer term the Europeans can replace uh the US, I I think it's very unrealistic.
Will they try?
Will they try and do some sort of creative financing like taking money from a budget to build infrastructure?
Uh and you you have mentioned this before in a prior interview, Professor, uh, and apply it to paying American arms manufacturers to replace the arms that the US government sends the Ukraine.
So the arms are in existence in a warehouse in New Jersey.
President Trump sends them to Ukraine, and then the Europeans pay an American arms manufacturer to replace the ones that were sent from New Jersey to Ukraine.
This is all a hypothetical example, but this is the way I understand Trump and Starmer and Meritz and Macron have uh crafted their latest deal.
Yeah, well, this is the general idea buy weapons for Ukraine, uh European money to buy American weapons, and this is good for Trump as well, because then he can pretend as if this is no longer his war, he's just selling weapons to the Ukraine now to the Europeans who happen to send it to uh Ukraine.
There's a lot of dishonesty around this though, because the US then still has to provide the complementary uh intelligence sharing, uh the targeting, they still have to provide uh support with the logistics.
So uh at the end of the day, the only difference now is that uh Europeans have to pay the United States, and uh but uh but the Europeans are running out of money as well.
Uh if you look at uh the situation now in the United Kingdom, France, uh Germany, uh the this uh I would say a political crisis as a legitimacy crisis.
So uh this can't go on for very long.
But for the for Trump, I think it's good, he gets paid, so and also when Ukraine begins to fall apart, he can uh he can point to uh the fact that he still continued to support it, but it eventually it was the Europeans who dropped the ball.
Here's President Zelensky asking for money.
Uh number uh cut number five, Chris.
As precursor's long range fires, we were at the moment when practically the United States and other partners were thinking whether to give Ukraine long-range weaponry or not.
We have found our own.
As if now we have our own long-range capabilities, we just lack financing.
Yeah, financial.
There is financing for drones.
I'm not saying that to mock any of the partners, but it's not a solution, right?
For 800 shaheads per day at Ukrainian territory, we need at least one 1,500 interceptors.
The price of one interceptor is 3,000 euros.
That is the answer to how to stop the Shaheeds.
And so that Russia does not want tomorrow to send 800 shahez.
We must send 1,000 drones to their territory to retaliate.
So, what we need from the partners to counter Shahids, we need financing from our partners.
These are not global decisions, these are FES decisions that must be done today.
This type of a public uh plea for money work.
No, I think it worked better before.
He's don't get me wrong, I think Zelensky's been quite excellent in uh getting money from uh the Western countries.
Uh, but uh there is a problem now, and uh he is uh it's some of it could be fixed with more money, uh, and this is what is going for.
Now, one of the solutions would be to get uh uh get his hands on the Russian sovereign funds of the central bank, which has been frozen by the Europeans.
Indeed, only uh yesterday I think it was the Financial Times reported that the EU is now looking at uh they called it uh yeah creative ways or being legally creative in terms of how they can try to steal the money without calling it theft.
So they might take the Russian funds uh of the Russian central bank and then buy uh Eurobonds at um yeah zero rates and then and then use this capital to ship it to Ukraine.
So uh you know they do all these different uh schemes, but uh all of it essentially revolves around stealing the funds of the Russian central bank because the Europeans don't really have that much money more that much more money.
Uh Again, the the Germans, the French, the British, they're all still sending the money they can, but at the same time they have to take it out of their own country.
So they have to explain why they don't have money for anything else but they're sending all of their money to this very corrupt government in Ukraine.
And people would like to know why at least are they working on a peace?
But no, they won't even sit down and talk to the Russians.
So this is uh this is causing not just economic problems but it's causing uh yeah political instability as well.
Do you have a finger on the pulse of what not European elites or academics or government officials but average Europeans believe do they understand that NATO started the war in uh Ukraine with the coup in 2014?
Well, not really, no, they don't, because there has been an incredible conformity in the media.
That is, across Europe, you see all the newspapers, all the TV channels, they're saying the exact same thing.
And it's quite remarkable.
So, for example, the first day after the Russian invasion in 2022, Zelensky, he made a statement saying that they had been contacted already on the first day by Russia, who wanted to discuss a ceasefire based on restoring Ukraine's neutrality.
Now, none of us are allowed to talk about the fact that this was caused by NATO expansion, so we're not allowed to discuss it.
So no media covers this at all.
And again, at least in the United States, you had reports from the New York Times where they pointed out that from the first day after the coup in 2014, the intelligence services of Ukraine were being absorbed by the United States, is being remade from scratch as an instrument against Russia.
We know about the CIA bases along the borders.
We know how the government in Ukraine was increasingly put under Washington's control.
But we don't really have the same information here.
Even the bombshell report out of, I think it was also New York Times, which showed that the entire war had been run out of Germany, managed by American generals.
This is not newsworthy in Europe.
So we're all told one story where NATO is just this actor who wants to help Ukrainians for no other reason than its love for freedom.
So by the way, I agree I think NATO did start this war back in 2014 and uh and um yeah but uh this is there is simply no coverage at all so you almost can't blame people for not knowing Colonel uh Douglas McGregor reports that 10,000 Polish troops in Ukrainian military uniforms died fighting for Ukraine in Ukraine.
Is this known in Europe?
Is this known in Poland?
I'm not sure to what extent it's known in Poland, but it's not discussed anywhere.
So there wouldn't be any reason why people would actually know.
And I guess it wouldn't surprise me about all of these human losses from Poland.
But even in Poland now, which has been very firmly with Zelensky in this war and very anti-Russian in many ways, they're also now revolting to some extent by rejecting some of the more hawkish elements in their own government.
And you saw this now with, again, the drone incident across Poland, this whole story has been mocked because it doesn't really make that much sense.
And, you know, it was decoy drones.
They're not really sure if they're even Russian.
So there's been more pushback.
And I think it is like this with every war.
In the beginning, you have a tendency where everyone falls in line.
And the longer the war goes on, people start to see through some of the most obvious propaganda, and they grow wary of the war.
So I think more people in Poland, at least, are turning against this.
But the basic facts of the war is very much unknown.
uh if you don't fall in line with the main Narrative of the media.
They will never discuss your arguments.
They will, however, make sure that everyone knows your uh Putin stooge and you know repeating Kremlin talking point and all this smears, but they will never actually engage with arguments, they will never address or report on facts, which goes against the war narrative.
And uh yeah, so it's hard.
I mean, in this country, they still say that Ukraine is winning.
Indeed, uh, General Kellogg also recently said that uh actually Ukraine is winning.
So, you know, this is where we are, and the media beh acts as stenographers, just repeating the same thing.
Yes.
Professor Diesen, thanks very much.
Great, great uh chat.
You always bring a fresh uh perspective to the show.
Thank you for joining us.
We'll look forward to seeing you next week, my friend.
Uh, thanks.
Thank you, Judge.
Of course.
All the best to you.
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