All Episodes
Previous Next
July 10, 2023 - Ron Paul Liberty Report
30:44
Cluster Bombed! Did Biden Just Say 'We're Out Of Weapons'?

Pressed by media as to why President Biden decided to send universally-reviled "cluster bombs" for Ukraine to use, the president said the quiet part out loud: "Because we're running out of ammunition." Suddenly the narrative carefully built by Biden's neocon foreign policy team has been "cluster bombed" by reality. Also today...looking ahead at the NATO summit set to kick off tomorrow.

|

Time Text
People Want to Express Themselves 00:14:53
Hello everybody and thank you for tuning in to the Liberty Report.
With us today is Daniel McAdams, our co-host.
Daniel, good to see you today.
Happy Monday, Dr. Paul.
How are you today?
Doing well.
Ray and raring a go.
Staying warm.
Solve all the problems.
The problem that we're going to talk about today and we'll try to put it into perspective because it's just another evil of war.
But people want to express themselves.
We have limits, you know.
We don't want any civilians killed.
Yet you go by percentages and it's the civilian or the innocent people who have been dragged into the war or drafted.
They're the ones who suffer.
And that has to do with the subject of cluster bombs.
And it points out that our president is ambivalent and flip-flops.
And I know this will surprise a lot of our listeners that he would change his mind.
But he was always generally very much opposed to cluster bombs because of the lingering damage and danger to civilians, which isn't very appealing.
Sometimes I express myself as saying, well, it's never as it seems.
I don't know.
You stop all the cluster bombs, they'll figure out something else or they'll cheat.
Matter of fact, I think that was one thing that Ukraine did.
They used them early in the war.
They've been using them.
And they said, well, Russia's using them.
And so it's back and forth.
But the concentration in the news today with us is what's the story on the cluster bomb?
If we just eliminated cluster bombs, would we have peace tomorrow?
That's where I have my doubts.
But the president was opposed to it.
One time his administration said that it was a potential war crime.
And I guess they can.
But I can think of some other war crime.
You know, if you're putting on sanctions and you blow up gas lines or dams and you kill 10,000 people, it's not called a war crime.
That's just an accident or something else.
But no, they want to, they use this.
I think it's sort of a relief of a little bit of guilt.
Yes, we want war, we want fighting, we want to win.
But there's a limit.
We're still humane, humaninism.
We do care about humanity and we want to be cautious.
So that's the big thing now that with the NATO thing coming up, the cluster bombing is a big talk.
And my guess is that it'll be a big talk.
And I guess one thing that we might mention, you can imagine, is one of the major reasons is we're running out of weapons.
And this is what we have left over.
We were going to use them, but now we need to use it.
That's the excuse for becoming a potential war criminal.
Yeah.
Well, we were talking offline.
You know, your reaction was, you know, obviously the right one that, okay, all war is war crime.
You know, all war is terrible.
These are terrible weapons.
But I think there is a special connotation.
And, you know, sort of de facto, yes, it's all terrible.
Kids are stepping on mines all the time.
But there's a special connotation.
And, you know, black people in history, like Princess Diana, she made her life's work getting rid of these mines.
And so I think people have that in their memory.
We know that we dropped millions and millions of cluster bombs in places like Cambodia and Laos.
And they still linger, only a very small amount.
And the problem is the dud rate, you know, that can be up.
Now, Biden promised that this wasn't going to be a 1% dud rate, which is the ones that don't explode.
Some kid finds it and kicks it or grabs it and blows them up.
But apparently, the New York Times did a piece saying, well, they're not really telling the truth because we're going to use some old stock and they have a very high dud rate, like up to 30%.
So that's the case.
But there is just still this feeling, and that's why I almost think I could be wrong, but it almost feels like this is a watershed event.
And I guess we can go through it as we talk today.
But on the one hand, you've got the global reaction to it.
The U.S. has put itself in a very, very uncomfortable position with Biden's decision in that it is on the opposite side of the vast majority of its NATO allies who have passed laws and signed international conventions that they will not use and will not support the use of cluster bombs.
So the U.S. has now put itself at odds with all of its allies.
And we can talk about some of the domestic implications for Biden as well.
But one thing we can say, it's a big deal.
Let's put on the first clip.
This is from Politico.
And here's how they frame it.
U.S. approves cluster bombs despite humanitarian concerns.
And so that's a big issue, and that's what people are thinking about.
But you mentioned now the whole issue of weapons.
And let's play that first video clip because this is Biden has a way of sometimes telling the truth.
He's walking out and he's getting grilled by a journalist.
If we can full screen that why cluster bombs?
Why now?
Because we're running out of weapons.
We said, as they say, the quiet part out loud that you're not supposed to say we have shipped so much stuff there.
We're basically out.
Well, in a way, we could wish they ran out of weapons real soon on a bunch of them.
That's not going to happen.
It's top priority because they can work the patriotism into it.
And the military-industrial complex, they will get their weapons.
Who knows?
They may not have really run out of weapons, but they have, they are probably looking, and it is claimed, and you understand, the military-industrial complex knows the legislation of session.
Oh, they're probably going to be talking about, you know, more funding for the war in Ukraine.
But they admitted that maybe they're running out of the ordinary weapons, so therefore we have to gather up what we have land around.
There may be some truth to that.
But then I got to thinking, well, they're also running out of money.
They're running out of money and they're wondering where to get it.
And the people are getting a little bit annoyed.
Why are you spending it over there on the borders of Ukraine and not here?
And there's more people unemployed, all these problems that we have.
And we're also running out of recruits.
So maybe the military-industrial complex is going to have to hustle, and they probably will.
But I wish that was a sign that the desire and the prestige of our empire might be diminished because it's that.
It's the patriotic desire to be the top dog that people can't give up because that's the greatness of America.
I happen to think that what we're doing and try to throw our weight around and putting sanctions on others and bombing people and spying on people, being involved in most of the coups, I don't think the founders would say, yeah, that's what we were hoping for.
And it's come to fruition.
So I guess our work was well done.
What a mess what we have compared to what their desires were.
No, these cluster bombs are part of an $800 million new military aid package to Ukraine.
So I can't keep up.
And as you say, Middle America is going to start wondering, hey, hang on a minute, you know.
But The point about this is, well, here's what he said.
If we look at the next one, here's his explanation to Farid Zakaria of CNN.
Here's how he said a little bit different.
He needed to send cluster bombs because Ukraine and the U.S. are running out of ammunition.
Quote, this is Biden.
This is a war relating to munitions, and they're running out of ammunition, and we're low on it.
He said, so I finally did, I finally took the recommendation of the Defense Department, not permanently, but to allow for this transition period.
Well, we get new more 155 weapons, those are 155 millimeter shells for the Ukrainians.
So it's a temporary thing.
But the important thing, again, as I mentioned, is the real split now between the U.S.'s strongest allies in this.
And here's a little clip from one of the greats, one of my favorite Scotsmen.
If we can put this on and listen to, I think the first 56 seconds, he, I think, does a really great job of putting together how the Europeans are thinking about this.
If we can, here's George Galloway.
Flux, I tell you, the war is going so well for NATO, they've decided to supply cluster bombs to the Ukrainian armed forces, even though 120 countries have banned it, including most of the NATO countries, who are about to be inveigled into a collective breach of their own national law by supplying the cluster bombs.
Princess Diana died in vain after all her campaigning against this most pernicious of weapons, still blowing the feet and arms of Cambodian and Laotian children 50 years after the Americans dropped millions of them in an undeclared secret dirty war.
And speaking of dirty war, what?
He knows how to say it.
Every time I've ever heard him over the years, he has been great.
He's like consistent, which is nice.
But you know, maybe we should worry a little bit less because the Ukrainians pay attention to the news and they're aware of this, that people are getting a little bit annoyed in 130 countries, you know, saying this is going on.
So they had to put out a statement and they came out and Zelensky said, he says, we're going to use them very carefully.
We're going to make sure that we really protect civilians.
And I got to thinking, you know, carefully might mean we're going to be more accurate in killing the right people, you know, pretend.
So that's his answer.
We can overcome the nothing's perfect, you know.
And a lot of times bombs hurt and kill each other.
What about, what about, and I mentioned to you just a short while ago, how about the killing that went on in World War II, you know, by the U.S. in bombing and burning down cities where there was very little military advantage to doing this.
You know, the Dresden bombing is one of this historic.
And I understand the numbers come close to the numbers killed with the atomic weapons.
Yeah, yeah.
Terrible, terrible.
But you're right.
It is a joke to hear Zelensky say, we're going to be real careful with those.
These are the guys who, even by the U.S.'s own admission, they blew up the Kurtz Bridge.
They blew up the pipeline.
The U.S. is saying this, not us, not the Russians, blew up the pipeline.
They attacked the Kremlin with drones.
And they're shelling Belgorud.
So they are, and they blew up the dam.
They blew up the dam as well.
So this is what they've done.
And they say, well, this time we're going to be careful.
I think, you know, again, I think it may have been crossing a kind of a Rubicon, though.
And if we can put the next one up, here's the other part that I would say that makes me think this might be a real catalyzing event for Biden here.
If you put this next one up, because the progressives, the House Progressive Caucus, has been very quiet about this war.
They've been very supportive of Biden, quietly supportive of Biden.
Now, you know, Congressman McGovern, you worked with him in the House.
He was very anti-war.
He's been very, very quiet.
But somehow, the progressives and people in Biden's own party have found their voice when it comes to these cluster munitions.
And here's McGovern.
This is a piece in the Washington Times.
McGovern urged Biden to listen to our NATO allies, such as UK, France, Germany, and Spain, who oppose sending cluster munitions to Ukraine and foregoing cluster bombs.
So his own coalition is now attacking him, is now critical of him.
He's finding himself in a corner with just him and Jake Sullivan and Anthony Blinken.
I would not want to be in that corner.
Yes, you know, I think this will continue to do exactly what they've been doing because they have to finally decide war is all about killing people.
That's why they go to war because they have a disagreement.
And the people who could and had opportunities over a period of time of developing more peaceful arrangements, I certainly thought, oh, I was hopeful about after the Cold War ended.
But even recently, you know, some of the agreements that were made, you know, as these wars were breaking out, even in 2014, since then, there's been a desire by a few people trying to get the two sides together.
But they're determined to have the war.
But if you're determined to have the war, that means you're determined you have to kill people.
And then they say, well, you know, we'll be careful.
We'll be careful.
And I don't think statistics hold up very well about how well the civilians are protected in any war.
And then I get to thinking, most countries still put a lot of pressure on their people, patriotic pressure, or by conscription.
And they're the ones who, you know, are out in the front lines and get killed.
That to me just blows my mind.
Of course, I should understand it because I didn't step aside and refuse to go to the military back in 1962.
But that's a longer story to tell.
But it's just to me tragic how the innocent suffer.
Same thing with economics.
Who suffers from the money and the deficits?
And the poor people vote with the Democrats and the welfare because we're going to get food stamps, food stamps.
But the salaries always go up faster than the cost of living.
And they do that and they believe it all the time.
But who suffered?
The middle class.
Do you think there's very many rich people from Hollywood on the streets right now in California?
Escalation to NATO Membership? 00:10:01
Maybe by choice.
That's a different story.
And I don't think they've opened up their gates to let the immigrants come in that they promoted so vigorously.
Yeah.
Well, the other way I think this is hurting Biden politically is it's giving a lot of traction and ammunition, so to speak, to RFK Jr., because he's able to come out and really take the high ground as a traditional progressive anti-war Democrat.
And if you look at this next one, this is from Summit News.
They have a piece out: ceaseless escalation.
RFK Jr. slams Biden for sending cluster bombs to Ukraine.
Now, here's a couple of RFK tweets.
Let's put the next one up because this is just giving him tons of ammo.
He says last year, the White House press secretary Jen Saki called the use of cluster bombs a war crime.
Now President Biden wants to send them to Ukraine.
Stop this ceaseless escalation.
It's time for peace.
And then do the next one.
And here's doing another tweet.
He's just going to town, and he's absolutely right.
RFK Jr., on the 8th, he said Biden was opposed to cluster bombs in 1982 as well when he opposed their sale to Israel.
What happened to his conscience?
That is a tough, tough thing, and that's giving RFK some traction, I think.
Yeah, the conscience has been lost a long time ago when it comes to it.
And of course, that's the battle of humankind: do people have conscience?
Do they have a sense of right and wrong?
And a lot of times they can set those things apart when the emotions get high, the politics get high, the finances get high in pecking order, and they just believe there's nothing else that we can do.
But we're going to keep doing what we're doing, doing our best we can about a position of promoting peace and prosperity, which I do believe in.
Yeah.
And Senator Vance, I think, is one of the few Republicans I think have spoken out.
Now, he's a mixed bag, we know.
But when he's good, it's nice to have him on our team.
If you put the next one up, here's some Republican criticism finally of this endless escalation.
Senator Vance tweeted, it's hard to believe the posture of the administration is, quote, we ran out of conventional artillery, so we're sending them cluster bombs, end quote.
Looking forward to the August press release from Sleepy Joe.
We gave him all the cluster munitions, so now we have to give them the H-bomb.
And he's doing it kind of in a funny way, but it is a point that they have no reverse gear.
The neocons have no reverse gear.
We've seen escalation after escalation.
And finally, I want to do one other thing, Dr. Paul, is I want to show our friend Larry Johnson, who's spoken at a couple of our conferences, who I think does a terrific job, former CIA officer and analyst.
He makes a great point.
If you put this up, very sarcastically makes this point.
This is from his website, Son of the American, New American Revolution.
His headline is, Ukraine is doing great, which is why Biden is sending them cluster munitions.
So, you know, it's just a narrative smasher because, on the one hand, if Ukraine is winning and everything is going fine, why are you desperately bringing out these weapons?
Well, you don't have the ones we want.
We've already given them.
They obviously aren't doing anything, so we've got to give them more.
So it really destroys that narrative, I think.
But it also destroys the narrative of our most powerful military in the world.
Because how is it possible?
We spend more than the next nine countries combined and we somehow run out of weapons.
Where's the money going?
I mean, that's what America should be asking.
See, they have false beliefs about how to solve this problem.
And one that they have resorted to in more than 100 years, especially, and that is the international organizations.
You know, we had to get into World War I, you know, or the world would come down.
Of course, the war was almost over by that time, but we had to get in to participate in the divvying up the loot.
And they did that.
But the war following that, they said, we have to, this was billed as the war to end all wars.
What do we need?
We need the League of Nations.
And fortunately, even back then, we were still able to resist.
Our Senate resisted that.
We didn't join, but the principles were buried there.
So that was the mantra after that, you know, after World War II.
We have to do better than World War I.
That war didn't end all wars.
A couple years later, we were in a bigger war.
So they expect to do this and expect the people to roll out.
Well, we'll have a United Nations.
That one will work.
And then that hasn't stopped a thing.
All I remember well is the United Nations came out.
One of their biggest things they did was get us into the Korean War without a declaration, but we can't declare it's a war.
That's wrong because it was just a little old police action.
And so it's deception, and they depend on that.
And that's what we're, and we'll talk a little bit more about this.
You know, whether will NATO solve these problems or the United Nations.
And they're always looking for another military alliance that's going to do that.
That is control.
And it is not just control of weaponry.
It's the control of oil and everything else down the line.
Yeah.
Control is the word.
Control of the money.
Put on this next JPEG because this is a graphic example.
I wish every American could see this graph.
And I apologize in advance.
It's hard to read because it's a long graph.
But you can tell this is where NATO defense expenditure stands in 2022.
Look at the spending in billions of constant 2015 U.S. dollars.
Look how far we are ahead of all the other allies.
As you always say, Dr. Paul, NATO is Washington, D.C.
And I can't imagine a more graphic example of it than this here.
And I wish America could see how much disproportionately the quote-unquote burden of defending Europe, the U.S., the U.S. taxpayer, the U.S. middle class, and the poor, as you say, how much they have to suffer to take care of rich Europe.
You know, in order to get the people to go along with this and sacrifice life and limb and money and the economy, they have to be fearful.
How did this happen?
People should stop and think, how did it ever happen?
Because it really, in many ways, this whole process from the lockdown and the COVID thing, that's still going on.
They didn't back off on it, even though there was a lot of objection to it and people did say enough is enough.
But what they have to depend on is fear.
It has to be the fear of what could happen.
And they use fear first, and then put a guilt trip on everybody.
You mean you don't support the troops?
You're not very patriotic.
Being unpatriotic, you know, is the whole thing.
And I understood that that had something to do with scoundrels.
They resorted to patriotism.
Exactly.
Well, I think the last we want to mention, just kind of a preview, and to put on that last clip, our friend Ted Carpenter did a good piece in anti-war.com, as usual.
But it's can Washington be saved from itself at the NATO summit.
And as we know, we're going to talk a little bit about it.
But tomorrow is when the NATO summit starts, the Vilnius NATO summit.
It doesn't look like Ukraine is going to get the invitation to join.
We're told that privately the U.S. and U.K. are saying no.
I mean, they can't join.
Obviously, you can't join because Article 5 would kick in immediately and you'd have World War III.
So the question, what is going to happen, as Ted points out, the usual pro-NATO, pro-Ukraine lobbyists in the West are pushing very hard to give them a membership action plan, which is basically a roadmap to NATO membership.
But I think it just seems to me, Dr. Paul, that there are some cracks in the alliance.
There are some cracks domestically in the U.S. that are getting more and more manifest.
And I don't expect to see anything dramatic come out of the NATO summit because of that.
You know, the country that I watch and you watch and you understand it very well is exactly where Turkey's coming from.
Because I think there's an honest attempt to try to calm things down a little bit and at least talk to the Russians.
And yet when they take a different position, then they risk any ability to talk to Russia.
But Turkey is okay on putting Ukraine in into NATO.
But the other country involved in this wheeling and dealing is Sweden.
If Sweden didn't need to be in all these international organizations for over 100 years of fighting and killing, I wonder why they feel so obsessed that they have to get in now.
It just makes no sense to me.
But we want them in, but not Ukraine.
Yeah, yeah.
Smart move.
Well, Ted makes a good point here.
Offering to let Ukraine join NATO now or in the future would be the final insult and provocation to Russia.
France and Germany should have stuck to their positions in 2008 and made it clear that the alliance would never include Ukraine.
A great deal of needless tragedy might have been avoided if they had done so.
Instead of firmly closing the door, they accepted the eventual goal of NATO membership for Kiev.
Fairness Over Heresy 00:03:15
So he says a lot of lives could have been saved, and he's absolutely right.
Well, that is true.
If you look back at so many of the deeply flawed positions that we've been involved in, there's been a lot of scenarios where you say, well, if we hadn't done that.
But, you know, they don't start with a basic principle.
They don't even want to entertain the thought that, well, maybe the basic principle ought to be related to the Constitution.
Because the founders were concerned about perpetual wars, and they worried about that.
They tried to make it limited.
They tried to keep us out of war unless the people spoke through their members of Congress.
But that doesn't happen anymore.
That's almost like heresy.
And it is heresy for the military-industrial complex.
They want to go at will.
What have we ended up with with this system rejecting that is we end up with the great presidents or the war president.
That may be in transition because I think George W. Bush thought that's what he had to do.
And he made statements along that line.
All great presidents have to deal with a war.
So maybe that is the case.
And right now, the Biden war is not doing so well.
I think it was Biden that said, Assad has to go.
If you remember that.
Not as smart as anyone.
And that was Obama's tune.
Assad has to go.
Gotta go, gotta go.
Well, I'm gonna close out just by reminding you, you're watching the show.
We hope you enjoy the show, the program, but there's no substitute.
If you put on that next clip, there's no substitute for getting together in person.
And that's why we supplement the show in a way with our conferences.
The next one will be in Dulles, September 2nd, 2023.
It's coming up in just under two months.
Which Way America, the hotel is very easy to get to from the Dulles Airport.
There's a shuttle.
We've kept our ticket prices low, as in really low, and through the month of July, you can get a early bird special and save even more money.
So grab those tickets right away while they're still there.
Going to see Dr. Paul speaking.
You're going to see Colonel McGregor speaking.
You're going to see Max Blumenthal speaking.
There's going to be a lot of great speakers.
We'll announce some more coming up, but get those tickets right away.
Take advantage of the early bird special.
And we'll see you in September.
Dr. Paul?
Very good.
I think I'll come.
All right.
That's great.
Oh, wonderful.
You know, the whole thing that I was talking about a minute ago is that people have to have a basic principle that they're following.
But if it's interventionism, if it's being involved, if you can run people's lives, but we'll do it the right way.
We can run the economy, but we'll have to be fair and equitable.
And we can run the world as long as we're fair with everybody and as long as our motive is to bring about peace.
And then I suggested, as I have so many times, well, you know, we should follow the law, you know, and the law says that we shouldn't be getting involved, you know, in wars without the people's approval.
Movement and Moral Failure 00:02:22
And it has led to a great deal of problems.
So the Constitution hasn't done well, but the founders warned us that the Constitution won't work if you don't have the morality of the people.
So some of these agreements and the oath of office, that has become a force, as far as I'm concerned, from a personal viewpoint, that they don't follow it.
And therefore, they've lost the guideline of what we should be involved in.
And they say, well, this sounds like it's not the fault of the Constitution.
It's the fault of the people.
Does that mean that all the members of Congress, basically, the members that end up in Congress are pretty careless with that oath of office.
But what about the people themselves?
I mean, the majority of the people must endorse the plunder and the transfer of wealth with the belief that they're going to transfer all the wealth and we will get in front of the line.
They didn't know that illegal immigrants are going to get in front of them too, but that's been the problem.
So they lose their way.
And I think the problem is as much, if not more, a moral problem with the people knowing what they should do or shouldn't do and acting responsibly and assuming responsibility for oneself.
So this movement that's going on right now coming out of the COVID movement, this is a monster thing.
How many horrible stories?
I can't, I was at one time starting to say these horrible stories of some of the regulations and rules and laws going in our school system.
And it's too exasperating to go through that because everything is so dumb.
And yet, still, I think they're a minority.
They just have a lot of voice.
And I believe the majority of the American people still believe in the basic principles of what our founding fathers believe and what's in the Constitution.
But our voices have become weak.
But I think they're getting a little bit louder.
And that is our job to convince people that peace and prosperity is worth putting a shout out for that and say, yes, peace and prosperity is a good goal.
That's what we're going to continue to fight for.
I want to thank everybody for tuning in today to the Liberty Report.
Export Selection