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Dec. 10, 2024 - Ron Paul Liberty Report
26:18
Will Putin Heed Trump's Ukraine Ceasefire Demand?

President-elect Donald Trump has posted a demand that Russian President Vladimir Putin agree to an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine, citing the fall of Syria's Assad as a warning. Will tough talk yield the desired results in the nearly three-year war? Also today, the US is planning to take the terrorist group that took over Syria off of the State Department terror list. Is it all just politics?

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Russia's Winning Streak 00:14:55
Hello, everybody, and thank you for tuning into the Liberty Report.
With us today, we have Daniel McAdams, our co-host.
Daniel, welcome to the program.
Good morning, Dr. Paul.
How are you this morning?
Very good, very good.
But, you know, we didn't have to look too hard about what is a big item in the news today.
And it's what was in the news yesterday and probably the day before.
That has a little bit to do with, you know, politics that are involved.
We have to talk about our president.
You could tell me who really is the president right now.
And then we also have to deal with what's going on in Syria, of course.
But anyway, there's a lot going on.
It offers us a chance to make our points that America is better off if we mind our own business.
But I wished I could say that's what it looks like.
Every once in a while, I hear a message coming from the yet to be sworn in president, and he's, you know, saying the right things.
We should try to stay out of wars and this sort of thing.
But it's a little more complicated than that because it looks like it's getting to be very serious.
And I want to just start off by quoting a sentence from a Zero Hedge today.
And the heading is, Trump tells Putin to agree to a media ceasefire in Ukraine after Syria's Assad ousted.
Well, that is a big issue.
But it also, you know, invites this whole idea that, you know, that it's almost like the inauguration has occurred and Trump is speaking for the people in a way that there is some truth to that, even though it's not technically that way.
But there's a lot going on.
He gives us a hint on what type of attitude will be used.
And I think Trump will give a lot of orders.
And I think that's what a lot of people like about him.
But the whole thing is, is will it ever backfire right now?
People see it as a positive, but it also sometimes is involving some threats and say, well, if you don't do it, you better watch out.
We're going to put on some tariffs and sanctions.
And that's not hidden.
That's part of the policy.
You do it our way or else.
So in some ways, I like to hear it that Trump would like to get people to quit one war in Ukraine.
But when it's the use of threats, I don't think long term that benefits us because it might upset somebody someday.
And it certainly isn't going to be very pleasing for Russia to hear this.
So it remains to be seen, but all we can do, Daniel, the way I see it from where we are, is to encourage non-interventionism and a willingness to talk to people and not look for another fight.
Because I just, I think it said that, you know, the Russians had no business being in Syria and they should just stay out of here and get away.
I might say, and United States.
That advice for the United States might go well, might go on, you know, just as good for us as for others because we're in too many places.
And that, of course, is part of our mission is try to save a dollar here and there because they're spending more than a dollar here and there.
And that is a big deal.
And a lot of this is related to our foreign policy.
But this is a messy situation and things are changing.
But the alignments are different.
But right now it looks to me like if some of these things go through and uh, there's a so-called settlement uh, and find out who the terrorists are and who's running serious, i'll bet you a little bit that we'll be sending more money over there.
Uh indeed uh, dr Paul, I would thank Joshua Clemens, who just donated 50 on our live stream.
We appreciate your support.
Um, you know president Trump uh, on the campaign trail, he vowed to end this war on day one, and so I think there's a lot of pressure that he's assumed on himself to end it.
And it's certainly as you say, dr Paul, it's a, it's a nice aspiration put into practice.
I do wonder uh whether, particularly with regard to a statement that he made um actually, if you can put that first clip on, this is the article we're talking about.
Uh, he's telling basically, he's telling president Putin, look what happened to Assad, you better pay attention, because you may be next if you don't do a ceasefire.
And now that may be overhyping the way he said it, but it certainly is.
There the question um, and uh, if you go to the next clip actually here's um, here's a little more of what he said.
This is a post that he made on Truth Social, and he said, Assad is gone, he's fled the country.
His protector Russia, Russia Russia, led by Putin was not interested in protecting him any longer.
There's no reason for Russia to be on there in the first place, as you point out, dr Paul.
Of course, that would raise the question, what about the 800 U.s bases uh, that we have around the world?
Um, if that's true for Russia, then it's certainly true for us.
But he went on to say some things that uh, you know, I think.
First of all, I think he has good instincts if he knows the people wanting to end the war.
He knows why he was elected.
He promised to end wars and all the polls we've been citing lately show how much America wants out of out of these wars to stop being Ukraine's protector as Putin was Assad's protector.
The question is some of the things that he said, I wonder and I worry, Dr. Paul, whether he's getting the right advice where the people around him are telling him things that just aren't true.
And one of the reasons that I worry about this is he cited 600,000 Russian soldiers.
dead or wounded.
Now, that may be a number that comes from the neocons and the people who want to continue this war by saying, Russia's on its back, it's about ready to drop, and this is what they've been saying since the very beginning.
Russia will fold in a week, don't worry.
This will be a piece of cake, or a cakewalk, as they said about Iraq.
Um, if they're feeding him this false information, there's a danger that he will have the wrong conclusions, and you know, it's very obvious that this is not the case.
For one, why are we talking about Ukraine needing to start drafting teenagers?
If they were doing so well and Russia doing so badly, wouldn't it be the other way around?
You know?
So there are a lot of problems with I.
I think what he's expecting, I think his expectations are too high, dr Paul, because if he said there must be an immediate ceasefire well Russia, by all accounts is, is winning the conflict.
I don't think even the mainstream Media is saying that, Dr. Paul.
And so when you are winning a conflict, when you're winning a war, you don't stop and have peace negotiations.
It's unrealistic expectations.
So a policy that's, I think, rooted in a very positive thing could fail by design if people that are talking to him are telling him things that aren't true.
I think that's just the real danger, Dr. Paul.
Well, you know, there was one statistic that you and I talked a little bit about, and that has to do with what is the status of the Russians.
Are they weak and have they been weakened by the Ukraine war?
And they've had their problem.
But just getting to the proper understanding, you know, Trump said the coming president also said that Moscow had lost all interest in Syria and because of Ukraine, where close to 600,000 Russian soldiers were wounded or dead.
And that just doesn't sound quite right to me.
But that's horrendous, you know, when you're talking about that.
And, you know, I keep thinking about the famous quote and the famous policy of Ronald Reagan, it's peace through strength.
And I think people misinterpret the word strength.
Strength can be all kinds of things.
I tend to think strength is willingness to defend on principle the freedoms that can bring about peace in the world.
But the strength, shouting and threatening, I just don't think that is the same thing.
I don't think that'll automatically translate into strength.
What if it translates into more people questioning our policy and more people, you know, I keep thinking in financial terms, what if that contributes to the fact that there's a few people in this world today that would like to challenge the dollar, dollar, the dollar as a reserve currency.
Now, that's a big deal.
That's strength, but it's not the kind they're talking about.
The strength that they refer to is we have more weapons than you do and we'll use them and we do.
And if we settle things, and I think between the lines, Daniel, what I read about Syria is things, if they get settled, now we're talking about who to blame for what.
It looks like we're opening out the door for more money to go in there.
I don't think this is an indication, oh, well, we're going to end a war in Ukraine and we don't have to send them any money, but we might be involved because we already have interest in the oil.
There's oil in Syria.
And there are some other countries around that area that like that idea to be on the side of who's running Syria.
And that is something that we should be concerned about.
Yeah, absolutely.
And, you know, if you go to, if you go to the next one, which is the actual post that President-elect Trump made on Truth Social, there's another thing that's slightly disturbing, Dr. Paul.
And it does, again, it makes you worry that he's not getting accurate advice from people around him.
And hopefully, you know, when they are confirmed or what have you, they're read into the intelligence and they'll see that some of these things are wrong.
But one of the things that he said is that Russia and Iran are in a weakened state right now because of Ukraine and a bad economy.
And they're the other because of Israel and its fighting success.
Well, if you look at Russia's economic growth, now we know that statistics are always fudged, you know, Dr. Paul.
But if you do look at their GDP growth, their economy is less than weakened.
This is sort of another neocon talking point that was made from the beginning.
Remember, Ursula von der Leyen, who's the European head of the European Commission, she said that they're taking computer chips out of their washing machines and using them for weapons.
That's what kind of bad shape they're in.
Well, that hasn't been the case.
And we've seen with the Yerezhnik missile that was just launched that they do have the technology to move ahead.
So again, I just think it's a danger of coming in armed with false information and then having false expectations based on that information.
Anyone who's winning a war doesn't sit down to negotiate with the loser.
That's just doesn't how it's not how it works.
You know, when we were beating, you know, the Allies were beating Germany in World War II.
You know, we had them at their last legs.
We didn't say, okay, well, let's have a talk and figure out how we can divide this up.
No, the one side capitulates when they're losing.
And the other thing that he said, Dr. Paul, just quickly is that he said that Zelensky wants to make a deal.
He'd like to make a deal.
Now, I hope that's the case.
But from everything that we see from Zelensky, it's the opposite.
He doesn't want to make a deal, or the deal that he wants to make is a deal that's unrealistic.
Like, okay, you give us all of our land back.
You give us a bunch of money.
We punish you.
And that'll be the deal.
It's unrealistic.
You know, it's just, I mean, Trump should know this.
He's a deal maker.
You know, and it's concerning.
Well, you know, they mention it and it appears in the news and it appeared in this article.
But I don't think to the significance of how are they going to solve it.
I'm talking about the Russian bases in Syria.
I just can't visualize.
Well, we're talking about it and we'll do this.
And, you know, the radicals aren't so radical as they used to be.
And they are taking over and we're going to work this out.
But I just don't.
I don't think the Russians are, just give us a week or two.
We'll pack our bags and we're going to leave because we really don't need those bases anymore.
I can't see that happening.
And I don't know what the plan is for that.
I mean, we can shout and tell them what to do and to get along, but that's not going to be on.
There are some things that won't change just with the people, you know, intimidating them to follow the policy that we want.
And, you know, Trump does speak out that some of it, you know, stirs us up because we're worried whether it's a little bit too aggressive.
But then he comes up and he says, United States should not intervene in the Syrian conflict.
Well, that is a good idea.
And they say, we don't have troops here.
We're not going to put troops in.
But I've heard that so many times.
But, you know, the first day that this broke, you know, when I saw it had to go, I said, there's CIA agents involved.
I just bet they're involved in doing this.
I bet we have special forces there.
And we are involved.
And it looks to me like they're opening the door that, you know, we're not going to be able to, the people in the country, our country, America, they're turning against us, taking their money and sending it to the Ukraine war, which is such a disaster.
But maybe they won't catch it because we'll start sending the money into Syria and they might maybe secure the oil and help come up with a solution.
What are we going to do with the Russians?
They have bases in this country.
How are we going to bring about peace and order?
Yeah.
I do want to thank Dowding Thomas, who just donated $50 to the program, saying end all foreign aid, including Israel, and Daniel Hamel, who put in $20 to help us.
We appreciate that.
Well, let's move on to our second topic, Dr. Paul.
And it's another one that's really right in the news and very relevant.
And if you can put on that next clip, this is now all of a sudden that the HTS has taken over Syria, the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, formerly known as Al-Qaeda.
The U.S. is now considering removing them from the terror list.
And I think this says a lot, Dr. Paul, to the politicization of the terrorist list.
Terror List Politics 00:11:13
Day you're a terrorist, the next day you're an aid recipient.
That's at least what it sounds like to me.
I don't know what's your take on this.
Well, what?
What fascinated me was, there's a reward involved here.
How much uh?
A 50, 10 million dollars, bonnie on his, on the head of getting rid of Julani, so somebody I don't know.
What are they going to do if they get rid of him?
Who's going to get the money?
You know?
So uh, they either have to keep doing it or change their plan.
But uh, I I don't know, because that's probably peanuts compared to if this, if we get to it uh, investing in a lot more money than we have so far.
But uh, you know I, I guess uh, the several decades that i've looked at this, I I get rather cynical.
And you know, there was a time in my life where people would write us stories about uh being maneuvered, how Roosevelt maneuvered and manipulated us into World War Ii, and for years I said nobody could do that, nobody could do it.
Well, i've softened that position because I think some people do and they rationalize and say, well, it's better, it's better to get this war over and get it done with.
That's the only way we can do it.
That's the only way we can bring the people together.
So, and that's been going on, you know, ever since, whether it's uh, you know, I became much more aware.
I was aware of World War Ii but uh, much more aware when we were fighting Korea and people some of my teachers were being drafted.
Vietnam was another disaster, and I get drafted on and on.
We're always involved, but now it's different.
We we uh, we hide our involvement.
We have uh, we have uh drones.
We can deal with those and and uh, we don't have to have tanks and all, but we still are much involved.
We are still very much involved and uh, and we should deal with it and they and, I think, most people involved, will say the right words because uh, you know uh, some of our presidential candidates are pretty good at talking about non-intervention foreign policy and it helps them to get elected.
So I, I think, I think what i'm talking about is we, we're searching for the truth.
Hopefully we are able to contribute to that, because so much of the politics and foreign policy is based on lies.
Yeah, including these uh, apparently these terror watch lists, because you can easily be taken off if you have a political success that pleases Washington Dc.
I think it sort of undermines the idea of what of what terrorism is, and you know you could say that's naive to question it, but um, I think that's the case.
So if you go to that next clip, who is Julani?
As you just mentioned, he is the founder of the Al-Nusra Front, which was the Al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria.
We all remember Al-Qaeda, so the remember we talked about at the time the first whitewashing was when they changed their name to Nusra Front doesn't sound as bad as Al-Qaeda to the American people.
Well, that was kind of sullied and so they renamed it to HTS.
So that's where they are now.
If you go to the next one, this is an important uh piece from the article which we found on Antiwar.com, which is another makeover.
Julani is now portraying himself as a moderate.
And President Biden has said he likes what he's hearing from the former al-Qaeda leader.
We've taken notes of sentiments by leaders of this revolution in recent days, and they're saying the right things right now.
That seems to me, Dr. Paul, incredibly naive.
One wonders how many DCPR firms are going over to Julani and fixing his hair, fixing his beard and telling him the stuff to say.
Remember, he said a few days ago, we want to be more inclusive.
Maybe they're going to start a DIE program in Syria.
Who knows?
But it does feel like this is a PR airbrushing over the history of some fairly brutal people.
You know, Dave DeCamp wrote this article in anti-war, and we watch carefully what Dave has to say.
And in this article, he's quoting the Washington.
He says, the Washington Post reported that U.S. officials are in contact with HTS and other groups involved in offensive, in the offensive.
One U.S. official said the Biden administration was doing a real-time assessment, oh, good, be real certain, on whether or not HTS should be removed from the list of foreign terrorist organizations.
This is a big deal.
You know, this deserves a debate.
You know, my reaction was there should be no debate whatsoever.
We should just say no to this nonsense and don't even tell, oh, should we give them money?
Should we go over there?
What is our next move?
What are we going to do with the oil?
What are we going to do with the Russians?
How are we going to handle Israel so they don't overreact?
All these things.
It'd be so much nicer.
So, Daniel, I think we cheat a little bit because we have a foreign policy that is so delightful.
And it is true promotion of peace and prosperity.
And it is something that it's easy to figure out.
If you defend America and the taxpayer, and you say you shouldn't have any aggressive wars, you don't have entangling alliances, you know, it makes it pretty easy, especially when we have the satisfaction that we truly believe that will bring us peace better than any other type of foreign policy.
And, you know, the reason they want to remove them from the terror list isn't because they've all of a sudden cleaned up and are behaving themselves.
It's that while they are on the terror list, we can't send them money.
That's what it's all about.
They want to be able to send millions and millions and tens of millions of dollars to the new rulers of Syria, but they can't do it because of this little technical problem.
Now, the same is true.
If you go to the next clip, this is back in 2016 when Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State, and she spearheaded this idea of removing the MEK in Iran from the terrorists.
She didn't do it because they cleaned up their act.
She did it because the U.S. wanted to work with the MEK to help overthrow the Iranian government.
So again, it's all about politics, and it's all about the opposite of what you say, Dr. Paul, which is a non-interventionist foreign policy.
The U.S. wants to intervene more, so it politicizes the terror watch list so that it can do so.
So all of this is a very bad sign, I think.
You know, at the beginning, I mentioned the various wars that I remember so clearly, but they were very similar in that you thought about airplanes and aircraft carriers and you thought about tanks and all these things.
And it's old-fashioned.
Now the intervention is a little more sophisticated.
The lying is a little bit more sophisticated.
It's harder for the American people to keep up.
But I'm impressed, though, the American people, especially right now, there's some vehicles where we can reach out to supporters of this position through the internet.
And that to me is wonderful.
And I think the old-fashioned Twitter, which is now X, has, it looks like it is something that's being offered to getting the truth out.
And some of you will say, well, I read this or that, but compared to what we've had to put up, compared to the nonsense of the big wars in the 20th century and all that stuff, there was really not much of a discussion.
And I think it's this age that we live in, because I give a lot of credit to the internet and other vehicles, even in spite of all their shortcomings, that awakened a lot of people who finally got sick and tired of listening to that nonsense about COVID.
And that debate is still going on.
It's going on with some of the people being appointed to the new administration.
But I think that vehicle is there.
And of course, we work hard to use that in a very positive manner.
Absolutely.
I'm going to close out, Dr. Paul.
And I want to just put up one clip.
And our friend and colleague Norman sent this over to me this morning.
But if you can put that next clip on, this is really something you may have to expand that a little bit.
But this is a post on Twitter X put out by Joe Wilson, who's a Republican for South Carolina.
And you will remember him, Dr. Paul, because he gave floor speeches after 9-11 every single day.
And he ended every speech with, we will never forget 9-11.
Well, here he is in his office celebrating the people who took over Syria.
The people who took over Syria are al-Qaeda, the very people that he was condemning every day on the floor after 9-11.
So this really goes to show, Dr. Paul, I would say this is exhibit A. Unfortunately, I don't want to pick on the guy, but a lot of members of Congress aren't all that smart.
And they listen to what people tell them around them rather than doing their own research, unlike others.
So that's kind of a funny little aside.
But I will, if you put that last clip on, I will remind our viewers that we are at the year-end fundraising state at the Ron Paul Institute.
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Over to you, Dr. Paul.
Very good.
And I applaud Daniel, your efforts to keep us alive and keep us moving and keeping our program on the air.
Because, you know, when we started this, when I left Congress, we had some donations that set us up and got us our equipment.
That equipment is right now wearing out.
And that's why we're broadcasting in a little different manner.
But it needs to be done.
And sometimes it is easy to motivate people to say, hey, they need some help.
But we do.
And I also get annoyed when people have to beg and plead.
But I always think that, well, maybe our message and our operation isn't effective enough because I want people to want to send us money.
So, and they have over the years, I marvel at how much money has been sent to the various campaigns I've had.
So I want to make sure people know how grateful I am.
But right now, we've concentrated some other things rather than letting people know that right now we need to redo some of our equipment to keep this program on.
But I do want to thank everybody for tuning in today to the Liberty Report.
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