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Feb. 2, 2023 - Ron Paul Liberty Report
34:24
Behind Closed Doors, Pentagon Warns Congress Of Ukraine's Weakness

Although the narrative pushed by the US government and propped up by the mainstream media is that "Ukraine is winning," in a recent classified briefing to Congress the Pentagon is singing a very different tune. As the Biden Administration continues up the escalation escalator, shouldn't the American people hear what military experts really believe? Also today: Why F-16s? And...when a medical school goes "woke."

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Russian Propaganda Tactics 00:15:24
Hello, everybody, and thank you for tuning into the Liberty Report.
With us today is Daniel McAdams, our co-host.
Daniel, good to see you.
Happy Thursday, Dr. Paul.
A little chilly out there this morning.
Oh, boy.
No walking for you, I bet.
But no snow either.
Thankfully.
I'm waiting for the snow.
Skiing in Lake Jackson.
Skiing in Lake Jackson.
Our local Alps.
Well, we have some of our same problems still here, haven't gone away.
You know, we talked about the data of 2014, and that was when a coup occurred, and NATO decided to get rid of a leader of Ukraine, and this stuff all sprung up.
But it was in that same year that the Russians were reminded about their history about how often they have been invaded by, and a lot of Russians have been killed over the years, and they had been promised that the West, NATO, United States wouldn't be moving, not threatening.
We're not going to move equipment and war-mongering stuff right up to the border.
And of course, that coup meant that NATO was going to be much more aggressive.
And that's when Russia decided, well, you know, at least we ought to get back the Crimea.
It was traditionally Russian and that sort of thing.
But that started the war.
And it's been joined by so many other people, but mostly the people who have really joined against their wishes because they don't know what's going on are the American voter and the American taxpayer because it's America that runs the show, even though all the countries pay ellipse service to we have to stop the Russians.
The Russians are coming.
The Russians are coming.
So it's been going on and on.
And now, you know, the Ukrainians have had a lot of support from the West and a lot of weapons, especially from us.
And they say, well, we're just getting started because we're going to get Crimea back again, which is, you know, threatening words.
It's a big deal.
And I think even there's people in the United States military that are saying, yeah, maybe that's a good idea.
But it might be a bad idea, too.
And quite frankly, it would be practically impossible because Russia would become more aggressive.
Who knows what would happen?
But it would be a major, major step forward.
But when Crimea is, when the Ukrainians say this, they really are saying it for NATO.
It's not like they're an independent nation.
I mean, they're the passies for the NATO, and they do what NATO wants.
So they're saying this.
So this is a terrible thing, a terrible threat.
And if they stick to their guns, which there's a lot of people that want to, except for the soldiers in Ukraine and the soldiers in Russia, some of those might be getting pretty tired of this thing.
Because a lot of people have died already.
And we have a moral responsibility for a lot of that because a lot of this wouldn't have happened without our urgency and our money and our tanks and all the equipment that they need.
But anyway, it's a threat, but my suspicion is that it's not coming soon.
We're not going to wake up in the morning and say, you know, the Ukrainians took back Crimea.
I don't think that's going to happen, but it's going to fester.
And it's not going to be resolved shortly.
Yeah, yeah.
And it's really interesting because, and that's why we chose this topic to start the show with.
And if we can put that up, this is from Politico.
And it really says a lot because, as you know, Dr. Paul, lawmakers, Pentagon people, they'll say one thing when the microphone's on.
But when the microphone's off and they're behind closed doors, that's when they will sometimes tell the truth.
And that's what we're seeing here.
This is from Politico.
Ukraine can't take Crimea soon, Pentagon tells lawmakers in a classified briefing.
Now, someone leaked this.
This was the House Armed Services Committee got a classified briefing to the Pentagon.
And this is an absolute contradiction of the narrative.
The narrative is Pentagon is Ukraine is winning.
Just give them a couple of tanks.
They're on their way.
Let them do the fighting.
They'll knock back the Russians.
Well, what they're saying in private is, look, guys, this is really not what's happening.
They're not going to take Crimea anytime soon.
And put the next one on.
This is a leak from that classified briefing.
Ukrainian forces are unlikely to be able to capture Crimea from Russian troops in the future.
Four senior Defense Department officials told the House Armed Services Committee lawmakers.
The assessment is sure to frustrate leaders in Kiev who consider taking the Peninsula Black one of their signature goals.
So this is kind of, I think, Dr. Paul, cracks that are beginning to appear in this edifice that's been carefully built, this edifice of propaganda that's been carefully built there.
And as you know, once the cracks start to appear, as within the Berlin Wall, once a crack starts to appear, then soon the wall comes down.
So they're admitting in private, look, guys, things are not going like we're saying in public.
This is going to be harder.
In fact, it may not happen.
See, I think it's some ambivalence here because they talk tough, but some of the people that are involved, weapons manufacturing, they don't necessarily look for a horrendous World War III.
They're doing quite well by just stirring up trouble.
And give them a little weapons here, blow them up, we'll build some more, and on and on it goes.
So they think that the military-industrial complex are pleased with this.
Others, though, especially some of the hawkish Ukrainians, they say, no, this is it.
And then there's the people who diplomatically have totally forgotten and they want to forget about it because you can't have a limited war.
And maybe they don't want the big war is that they want this limited war.
And they're just allowing this to go on.
And it's going to end badly.
It's going to probably end when it dawns on Americans that we can't afford this anymore.
Yeah, that could be the case.
You know, this reminds me of, you know, we talked about this last week.
We had an article up by Brad Pierce, which was really interesting.
And he made the great point.
He put it more succinctly than I'll put it here.
I'll just summarize it.
This is a contradiction in the narrative that on the one hand, Ukraine is absolutely winning.
There's no question about it.
But if we don't get them more tanks and F-16s immediately, they're going to lose.
And then the other one is that Russia is losing.
Ukraine is getting creamed.
But if we don't stop them, they're going to take all over Europe.
So the contradictions in these narratives are so strong.
And I think that's why it's important to see what they're saying behind the scenes.
And so from this article, it says, well, this assessment is kind of echoing what General Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, who's in favor of this war.
He hates Russia.
He loves Ukraine.
He wants to take Russia out.
And here's what he said a few weeks ago, put this up.
This is from the article.
I still maintain that for this year it would be very, very difficult to militarily eject the Russian forces from every inch of Ukraine and occupied or Russian-occupied Ukraine, he said at a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contract Group.
That doesn't mean it can't happen, doesn't mean it won't happen, but it'll be very, very difficult.
So in the face of all of this propaganda, the strong propaganda that Ukraine is winning, a slight voice of restraint like this infuriated Zelensky, infuriated his government.
They went crazy.
They were furious with him, but it kind of tacks with what this briefing was saying.
Right.
And, you know, a lot of people are satisfied with this, and they're realistic about even, you know, the military, and that's the theme of the whole article, is you better go a little slower because it might not be, you know, snapping our fingers and that's going to happen.
But I think in many ways, though, the one thing that they totally ignore, they talk about the military pros and cons and who's going to invade here and what's going to happen here and how are we going to rebuild the military of Europe, that sort of thing.
But where they really win is the propaganda.
Not just local, not just the immediate propaganda, but the propaganda back there.
You know, it's almost sinful if you say, do you think it would be fair if we looked at it from both sides, look at it from the sides of the Russians.
Why do they do this?
Why would they risk this war that's going on?
And all of a sudden, the history is different.
And I still want to do more work on that as they talk about crane, Ukraine, Ukraine.
But I want to get more people talking about Ukraine before 2014.
And why that came about.
And it has a lot to do with the propaganda that they hide to generate NATO's position.
Because not many Americans would say, oh, you know what?
Why did NATO start this war?
Why did they participate?
Why have they aggravated and stirred up all this trouble?
And it's the Russians.
The Russians invaded the Crimea.
That's it.
But that's the short end.
And they can use that propaganda and they get away with it.
But they need to know not, propaganda is always a negative term, but they need to know the truth about the history of the area.
That might help.
And it does have a lot of parallels with COVID, you know, because in public they'll say one thing, but then sometimes they'll slip.
The mask will slip and you'll hear more.
They did that for a long time and they're doing it here.
And someone might ask, well, why are you guys talking about this?
Are you somehow happy that Ukraine's not winning and Russia is winning?
No, that's not the point.
The point is we bring this up because think of the incredible cruelty and cynicism if the experts quietly behind the scenes know that Ukraine can't win, yet they keep pouring weapons in, pouring these young people and old people now into the meat grinder that they call Bakhmut in these other places.
Think of the cynicism of people sitting in very comfortable offices around the beltway, knowing it won't do any difference, but pouring them in anyway, instead of encouraging some kind of settlement to this horrible, horrible war.
Yes, and I don't think that's coming soon because there's total resistance to even having a cup of coffee with one of them.
They don't want to have any association that there's a war group on each side.
We have it because of the deep state and the military-industrial complex.
And Russia has the same way.
They know what's going on.
And if Putin would have said nothing, and they keep disobeying and dishonoring their promises, that after World War II and meantime, they, that being NATO and European, said, no, we don't have any intention of doing this.
But 2014 was an eye-opener to the Russians.
That's when they sort of crossed the line.
They talk about different places where they cross the line, but that's a big deal.
And that's when Putin made his move.
But it's information they need, but right now there's a lot of confusion.
And I don't think the average American has a whole lot of interest in it.
This is so different than the continuous war in the 60s because everybody knew somebody that was killed over there.
And they actually had some reporting back then because now the media, they just played the game.
They wanted to prop up this war machine.
The main problem here is that the neocons are still wedded to the Brzezinski Grand Chessboard idea that we've got to take out the Soviets.
He wrote it way back then.
That's why we created the Muhujadin.
That's why we funded the Mujaddin.
That's why we basically, which became al-Qaeda.
That's the unintended consequence.
We think unintended consequences.
They're still wedded to this idea.
They're looking for any way they can to take him down.
I'm just going to finish with one thing, Dr. Paul, because there are a couple of quotes from Mike Rogers, who we know is an uber hawk.
He's the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, an uber hawk.
He almost beat up Matt Gates on the floor.
He almost lost his wig.
But put this up.
This is a quote from him, because this is not in direct relation to that briefing, but he makes some fascinating quotes separately in an interview separate from this meeting.
He said that the war, quote, needs to end this summer.
He said, there's a school of thought that Crimea has got to be part of it, that Russia is never going to quit and give up Crimea, said Rogers.
Putin has got to decide what he can leave with and claim victory.
And he said, here's, again, another quote from the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.
What is doable?
And I don't think that's agreed upon yet.
So I think that there's going to have to be some pressure from our government and NATO leaders with Zelensky about what does victory look like.
And I think that's going to help us more than anything to be able to drive Putin and Zelensky to the table and end this thing this summer.
And what he's saying here echoes what we talked about a couple of days ago, which is that new RAND Corporation study saying that this is not in our best interest to prolong this war.
It needs to be over Pronto.
And I think Rogers' comments are really echoing that.
So I think even though it may seem subtle, I think what we're seeing is a real shift even now among the elites in Washington, a realization that this is not going the way it should and it needs to end soon.
So that's probably a good sign.
You know, Zelensky, when he talks about a victory and where are the lines, we know what he wants.
But he has to have more weapons.
So now he's pushing for these F-16s.
And the whole thing is, even if he got the F-16s, when you read about the native aspects of it, in the sense that they're not going to accomplish the military operation because of, well, various things.
The planes are so expensive.
You need a lot of maintenance on them.
And it's not, and the pilots, runways aren't big enough.
The whole thing, they're not going to win the war with this, but now they're concentrating on there.
Every Time Something Slips 00:03:59
And every time something comes up, they use something that Russia did or said.
The main thing is, is we want more weapons.
But it's just not realistic.
So the military people, it has to be pretty bad for a military officer to say, hey, wait a minute.
You know, when the Pentagon cautioned them and say, you know, this is no easy trick that you guys are talking about.
And none of the wars are ever as easy as they think.
You know, they're already talking about the surprise.
Remember, this is one where they thought this was a three-month deal or a one-month deal.
And now they're into the second year.
And it's messier than ever.
It's a bigger mess than it was when it was started.
The starter was just lying up the ducks.
But a lot of grief has been created.
And a lot of people don't know about the grief that we participated in.
That's where I think we have responsibility.
There's a lot that they should deal.
The people there should make all the decisions.
But because it's our money and our decisions, I feel strongly that we still have a right and a responsibility to say it.
But I felt even stronger when I was in Congress because I was supposed to help in formulating policy.
But it's a real shame because after all this year, things are a lot worse.
Yeah.
You mentioned how they said it's going to be a couple weeks.
You remember back in the Iraq war, this is going to be a cakewalk.
It'll be over in a couple weeks and it'll pay for itself.
It wasn't Richard Pearl who said that or someone like that.
You know, they always say it's going to be easy.
And then when it goes badly, they say, well, who saw that coming?
Mission accomplished.
Yeah, exactly.
Mission accomplished.
Well, here's the article we're talking about.
If we can put that next one up.
Now, this is from Remix, and we saw it via Zero Hedge.
But it's really fascinating.
Could Ukraine actually get F-16 fighter jets?
And we both like this article because it was thankfully devoid of bombast.
It just looked at some objective realities about this.
And it seems like every time the mass slips and you get to see that things aren't going as well as advertised, they come up with a new wonder weapon.
You know, it's the High Mars.
Oh, no, it's the tanks.
Oh, no, it's the F-16s.
This will finally do it.
This is a really important analysis, I think.
And I'm not a military person, so it's helpful to have these numbers.
If we can put this next one up, he says, a fighter bomber is completely different in every respect than the weapons promised so far.
And this is the first point.
Let's start with the price.
The F-16 costs between $13 and $80 million a copy, depending on the version, and its operating cost per hour is between $7 and $20,000.
That begs the question, what would be the purpose of these machines?
Air superiority?
And he goes on, for a modern fighter aircraft flying twice the speed of sound at Mach 2, a runway of 1.5 to 2 kilometers long is essential.
And he points this out.
A runway is a large and immovable target, just like the Russian supply bridges were.
Ukrainian air defenses are already struggling and they would have to defend additional targets.
And he goes on again here, because we're talking about sending a few F-16s.
And this really puts cold water on this.
So if we could do that next one, because he continues, according to an article in Business Insider in December, Russia has so far deployed over 770 modern fighter bombers of the fourth generation or higher in Ukraine out of the 1,200 that they have available.
To succeed against this significant number, Ukraine would need hundreds of combat vehicles.
Let's face it, the chances of this are extremely slim.
And one more if we can, because he points out an important thing.
And this is something that we really need to ponder.
The Trillion Dollar Question 00:03:22
This raises a question that we have no good or morally acceptable answer for.
What is NATO's plan?
More precisely, what is the plan of the current U.S. leadership?
Because Europe is irrelevant and militarily insignificant.
And the final one, and we'll move on to the last one.
I'm sorry to extensively quote this, but it's so important, I think.
He said the prerequisite of any consistent military equipment support to Ukraine, whatever the numbers, should be to clearly define the strategic objective NATO has regarding the war and the two countries involved in it.
We have yet to see that definition.
And that is the big question.
What is the strategic objective of our involvement in Ukraine?
Of course, they're pretending that they're going to save the world.
And, you know, people think, well, maybe it won't be successful.
And it'll be just a dumb decision.
And some people die, and we lose a lot of money.
But I think it's much worse than that because I think there's a negative cause.
It's not neutral.
It doesn't say we do this and no big harm has come.
I think we're less safe.
We're much poorer.
And, you know, there's more of a challenge for the dollar.
There's always a negative.
The positive never comes.
It's not neutral.
It's a negative.
And yes, all done.
And I found it disgusting in the debates that you were held to the quality of whether you're patriotic or not to go along with this kind of thing.
And yet it was my view that it was more patriotic to defend our liberty.
But the excuse used to get, and it still gets to me, that we have to be there for our national security purpose.
We have to do their, I heard Pelosi say that.
I couldn't believe she was on the other side of that.
We do this to preserve our liberties.
We make our country safe and all these things.
That we have an obligation, moral obligation.
And how that's going to protect our Constitution and make us safer is total nonsense.
And you talk about lying in Washington.
And there are some people who tell bald-faced lies and they get into a lot of trouble.
But some of them are silly fibs.
But these are big fibs and nobody talks about it because they all, not all, but so many of them participate in it.
I mean, how often does the military budget get passed without some bipartisan help?
They almost always get it.
I can remember early on, back in the 70s, you might get six people that would challenge the military budget.
And it's a lot better than that now, but it's still something that people, you know, they see it as a patriotic thing, and they have to do it, and they compel them to do it, and they buy into it.
Well, we have to be safe.
We have to be safe.
You know, the safety thing.
And that, of course, is one of the worst arguments.
Because if a government decides it's going to make you safe from everything, and it controls everything, it's the motto for an authoritarian.
Private Property Matters 00:07:27
Yeah.
Making you safe.
Exactly.
In their terms.
Well, I think when the smoke clears, and after Americans see that the U.S. military, the U.S. government has thrown literally everything in its arsenal into this war and yet still loses, which will happen, I think there's going to be some questions asked.
How can it be that we spend more than the next nine countries combined on our military, yet spending all of this money all of these years has not produced a military that can win?
Now, we could say Afghanistan, 20 years against a pretty badly armed military, and we still lost, et cetera, et cetera.
I think people are going to ask, what are we paying a trillion dollars for every year if we can't even win this war?
And I think the answer is going to be: it's all corruption.
It's all smoke and mirrors.
It's all to get the well-connected rich at the expense of everyone else.
Yeah, and of course, I keep thinking this kind of thing would not be possible if you could not monetize debt.
Yes.
And us be the owner of the World Reserve Currency.
So there's a big economic element to this.
The Fed is key.
Well, our last story today is something I know near and dear to your heart, Dr. Paul, if you could put it up.
You saw this this morning from the Daily Caller, and it's pretty interesting stuff.
You'll never guess what state it's from, but here it is: exclusive.
Med school went woke after pressure from a creditor document show.
And we'll do the next one really quick because these are the facts of the case.
University of Utah, we wouldn't expect that.
School of Medicine put in a bunch of programs after their creditor demanded that they have more diversity, more this, more that, more the other.
And they caved to it, and now the school has gone woke.
Yeah, they weren't woke enough.
And a medical school or a college can't be much worth much if you don't get accredited.
And this was the beef and all they have the inspectors out there.
There's national inspectors.
And the infiltration of the woke system, you know, in almost everything in the school system, whatever, they're involved.
But in this case, they got up and they targeted this school and said that, you know, no diversity.
You know, you need to do this.
But the thing is, it's sort of like people heard that kind of stuff under COVID.
And some people, you know, resisted and fought it and helped to get it changed.
Other ones said, I'll do whatever you want.
And they rolled over.
And that's what this school has done.
They just rolled over and say, oh, maybe we should be more cautious about this accreditation and having diversity.
Well, maybe, you know, why do you have to sacrifice the whole position of looking for medical students that did pretty well in college instead of excluding them?
You know, because, well, we have to be, you know, favorable.
But it gets to be silly after a while.
They say, usually when they're talking about it, they have certain races they're talking about.
But do you think they're really worried about making sure there's an absolute balance with the Chinese students, with the Hispanic students, with the Japanese students, with the Indian students?
You know, it can't be done.
It becomes absurd.
And it becomes a bureaucratic nonsense.
And guess what?
The quality goes down in medicine.
And just think of the criminality during COVID because the doctors that didn't fall flat on their face and say, well, we have to do what the woke people tell us to do.
And if you don't do it, they're still threatening doctors.
Take their license away with them.
One doctor practiced medicine.
Patients never complain about 40 years.
And they think they can come along and put this stuff out.
People need to get a little more upset with it.
So it really, some of the doctors fight back and there's groups and we try to help.
But what they need to do, just like the parents finally decided to stand up to it, there's no reason why the patients can't stand up.
If they're losing their doctors for this nonsense, they ought to come to the defense of the doctor.
But they don't have any charges against the doctor.
And matter of fact, what we end up with with government medicine is a lot more abuse of medical care.
And COVID was a good example of that.
The one thing that looks like it was very helpful was ivermectin.
And then you become a criminal if you prescribed it, which is changing a little bit.
But just think of what they did to Trump because he suggested taking it.
I mean, it was totally insane.
Just think about that when the quality of your care is less important than the color of your doctor's skin.
I mean, that's crazy.
What next?
MCATSER racist.
No tests.
Just come on in.
But you mentioned something before we started about this.
Why isn't private property solving some of these problems?
Yeah, the private property is the answer because nothing is going to be perfect.
So if you and I were capable, and at times there still are a couple private hospitals.
Matter of fact, I have a grandson right now in a medical school that's totally private.
But there's not many of those left anymore.
But then they make those decisions.
And because you don't have to go through the bureaucracy, it doesn't become politicized, and you don't have all this input and balances and all the effort to have this perfect diversity.
But by ownership, this is sort of like, I think you could solve so many problems with ownership.
In a way, there was a time when ownership of your house said that it's your house, it's your castle.
And it's still, there's good sentiment that, Texas especially, that it's your place and people don't allow to walk in and take over.
But why is the private property of a house still respected?
And they've transitioned this in.
But if you have the private property of a bakery, you become a slave.
No matter what nonsense.
If it's nonsense and goofy, just leave them.
No, we're going to do this until we put you in jail because you won't follow our orders and you will do this and you will promote such and such.
And if private property would solve that problem, because you don't have any right to come in here and tell me what I have to do.
If my customers or my patients don't like what we do, they go someplace else.
But no, they've destroyed the concept of private property.
Matter of fact, I've argued for years we don't own our property.
We just pay rent.
And that's why even our housing, well, there's already a lot of regulations on housing.
Right now, the plan is to put more on there through the position, especially dealing with rent controls.
Oh, rent's too high.
Coalitions and Property Rights 00:03:55
We've got to control it.
And everybody knows what happens like in the New York area or when the rent was too low.
It didn't work.
They don't understand and realize it's much better for the individual.
There's more competition and you will have more diversity.
Everything gets better if it's done privately and voluntarily between two individuals.
Absolutely.
Well, I'm going to close it out here, Dr. Paul, and just remind our viewers that it's not a Ron Paul Institute event, but there's going to be that big rally in D.C. Get there if you can.
We've got to show strength.
I was on the phone with Dennis Kucinich yesterday.
He gave me a call and was talking about he's very excited about speaking, and he said to me, this is our moment.
We have got to do something.
This is the first effort that he's seen to finally bring back together a coalition of left and right and beyond left and right, which is what we are.
So if you can make it out there, show of strength, they're going to get noticed by a lot of people, by a lot of lawmakers.
RageAgainstwar.com, I think, is the website for more info, and I'll put it in the description.
I'll be there speaking.
Lots of great people.
The judge is going to be there.
So it's definitely worth it.
It's time to raise our voices and put an end to this war and to the madness.
Dr. Paul, back to you.
Very good.
No, it's an issue that I've worked on for a long time, and we had periods in Washington.
If the Republicans were in charge, you could work a coalition with the Democrats more.
So it's sort of there, and they don't mind too much doing it, but it's political.
And that's the reason that overcoming the politicization of all this is difficult because we did have some groups over those 10 years or so that, you know, well, actually, those 10 years went into closer to 20, especially in Afghanistan.
On and on it goes.
But there's answers to this, and they're not complex, and they're so easy and so wonderful.
If you have a position of non-interventionist foreign policy, you obey the Constitution.
There's a moral defense of this position.
And it's a system that is helpful in being corrective, that you really get rid of this whole idea of monetizing debt.
So if you need war, if you couldn't monetize debt, it'd be over.
You couldn't do it.
People would have to donate their money, which they wouldn't do.
There's no way that people are going to donate their money to the cause of going over to Ukraine.
90% of the people probably would have trouble finding where Ukraine was.
So this is something that is available to us.
This is why I think this coalition being developed, I hope you are able to support it because it's one time.
I like coalitions.
I don't like middle-of-the-road cooperation because both sides, you know, sell out and give up something they believe in.
Coalitions, you don't have to give up anything.
You know, you can have a disagreement on a certain issue, but if you agree the issue of war is bad, it should bring all progressives and liberals and Republicans and conservatives and libertarians together.
And it should be a strong moral principle and a constitutional principle that can defend this and make people want, you know, they're on the right track and we need to do it.
Hopefully we'll be able to say that because I see efforts now that we are gently moving in that direction.
But right now, we're putting up with a mess in Ukraine, and that has nothing to do with working for peace.
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