Judging Freedom - a

Episode Date: March 7, 2023

Resolve to earn your degree in the new year in the Bay with WGU. With courses available online 24-7 and monthly start dates, WGU offers maximum flexibility so you can focus on your future. Learn more at wgu.edu. Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Tuesday, March 7th, 2023. It's a few minutes after one o'clock in the afternoon here on the East Coast of the United States. Our guest today is Lieutenant Colonel Tony Schaefer.

My longtime friend and collaborator, Colonel Schaefer, is the host of The Hard Truth on America Out Loud Talk Radio Network, Saturdays and Sundays at 11 a.m. and available for download whenever you choose. Tony, it's a pleasure. Welcome back to the show. Judge, thank you for having me. Always great to be here with you. Thank you. After listening to you and Colonel Douglas McGregor, your colleague, I have been arguing. I didn't coin this phrase. It's a great phrase that President Biden has a sleepwalking into World War Three. Right. And lately I've been making a couple of points to support that. I'd like you to share your views on it. The use of HIMARS in Ukraine, but actually triggered by American military in Poland. The comments by Victoria Nuland, she of the first Trump impeachment Ukraine scandal, now number two or three in the State Department,

saying we want to liberate Crimea and the presence of two Ukrainian fighter pilots in the United States learning how to fly American F-16s. I mean, how dangerous is all this? We'll start with the HIMARS. I mean, I'm using these three events, which are inassailable. They're all historical events. Right. Who argue that we are sleepwalking into World War III. Do you agree with the argument? And can you address these? We'll start with the HIMARS. I do. Let's start with the HIMARS. So that system is beyond the capability of the Ukrainian military to run. They simply do not have the expertise, leadership, internal, and technical skills to be able to organically maintain and run that. That is to say that

someone else to help them, I'm pretty sure it's us, just saying. So one thing that I've not heard anybody say, and I'm going to say this on your show here, what happens if we have a Francis Gary Power situation? Remember Francis Gary Power was the U-2 pilot that got shot down in 62. 61, 62. What happens when a U.S. citizen

wrapped up as a prisoner of the Russians? What does that do to us? Well, I mean, as you and I both know, you better than I from your career in the military even though a lot of what you did i don't think i'm spilling any beans was undercover but it was out of out of uniform you know the risk you took out of uniform with no invisible insignia you lose the geneva convention of protections mcgregor informs that there are hundreds of American military out of uniform on the ground in Ukraine, operating equipment like these HIMARS.

And there are American military in uniform in Poland pulling the trigger, so to speak, on the HIMARS. So if you ask the question, are American guys shooting at Russian guys? The answer is yes. Can Russia shoot back onto the law? The answer, sadly, is yes. But I don't think they will. And that's where I agree with Doug as well. I think Doug says that the Russians have no interest in going to war with us. I think it's true. It doesn't mean that they won't grab someone and use them for leverage. Just saying. I think that the two, both can be true. And this is where I might, there may be some daylight between Doug

and I. I do believe that Poland, we should be in Poland by the fact that Poland did suffer from the Soviet Union, they do have a legitimate, in their view, I'm saying from their perspective, not our perspective, fear of Russian expansion, with that said, the Polish people don't want the war, so I think this leads us back to the point of where, do we know what we're doing? And I think the answer is by us antagonizing and continuing to push and provide for more support where we are jeopardizing our interests by putting American citizens, whether they're military or not, whether they're undercover or not. When you do that, Judge, you prompt the potential for an expansion of the war. And

one of the greatest dangers is miscalculation. And that miscalculation is being driven by Joe Biden, who has no idea of what they're doing. It's simply just throwing money and weapons into the fray and hoping for the best. And hoping is not a policy. So talking about Poland. Right. The president of Poland has argued that the American military and the Polish military should be used to liberate Crimea. Yeah, I don't know. From my view, insane.

The Victoria Nuland, she of the Ukraine Trump impeachment scandal, now number two or three, I'm not sure which, in the State Department. In those days, she was in charge of Eastern Europe. She's now number two or three right underneath Tony Blinken. Right. Said the other day we should liberate Crimea. Now, liberate Crimea. Crimea has been Russian since Catherine the Great was the was the head of the government.

And that was before George the Third was the king of Great Britain. So Crimea has been part of Russia since before the United States existed. Right. Is this the real goal of Tony Blinken or is she an outlier? Is Nuland an outlier? No, I think the neocons and neo-liberals want this. They want this for purposes of control and expansion of the nation state and especially the eu uh the they they want to make eu an expansionist state uh i'm going to say something's probably going to be trouble you know a guy named adolf hitler wanted to expand his state for purposes of influence and growing room

that's the impression i have with what they want to do they want quote unquote growing room and just let me let me put this in context okay you seize Crimea, and then what? Tony Zinni, one of my mentors from the old days, General Zinni was commander, central commander. He basically told me the story of how Bill Clinton, President Clinton, called him in seven times when they had a dispute. Because any number of times, Judge, Tony Zinni would be asked, can you do something militarily? Can you achieve military objectives? And he would go up and meet with the president face to face, and he would lay out how we could probably do it militarily. And he'd always ask the question, then what? What are you

going to do after we achieve military objectives? So the same thing here. Okay, first off, you're going to be breaking the fundamental purpose of NATO. NATO is a defensive organization. I would argue that there should be a reinforcement of the fact that, Judge, it is a defensive organization. It is only there to defend when there's someone who goes on the offensive. That's it. I want to stick with Poland, but I have to ask you this. When Gorbachev and George H.W. decided that the Berlin Wall would come down and Eastern Europe would be liberated. It was based on a promise that H.W. and Jim Baker made to President Gorbachev that NATO would never move eastward. And of course, we know what Clinton did. Clinton moved NATO eastward. I mean, can you imagine the Chinese having offensive weaponry at the Rio Grande aimed at Dallas? I mean, that's what Putin is confronting. happened. The Warsaw Pact, which was the communist version of NATO, ceased to exist. We need NATO for anymore without the Warsaw Pact. Well, that's been a question for a long time. I've

said publicly in editorials that there's no purpose for it. As a matter of fact, it's a boys club, literally. I mean, that's what you do. You got all these guys running around in uniform, many of the European Union nations with long hair. Heck, a while back, I don't know if you remember, the EU wanted to have its own military. It's like, you've already got NATO. Why do you want a military with the EU? I do remember that. I do remember that. Yes. So my first question, why do you want to militarize Europe anyway? No offense to the Europeans. Anytime you militarize, you get in trouble. We have to come bail you out. We've done it like three times now. I don't think we want to come back for a fourth. And that's what we're trying to do. And I think that's where a Biden company are like any number of other leaders on the left. Woodrow Wilson, FDR. Who else got us in trouble? Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton and the Balkans. It seems to me, Judge, that there's a pattern here that's developing. Now, I know for a fact, and I know this is diverting a little bit, but I know that McMaster, General McMaster, when he was National Security Advisor to Trump, actually walked in three separate times and demanded that he, Trump, authorize troop deployments to Syria.

And he was like, no way. And I know for a fact, and I think Doug can confirm this as well, that, that, that, that Trump had the sense to not be bullied into doing something that was not in our interests. And this is where, again, right now, judge, I don't see where anything we're talking about is in the American interests, the interest of economy, economic growth, good, good being good neighbors. Again, it's like a bullying, like we're trying to get in there and bully someone. And I can tell you right now. So what do Victoria Nuland and Tony Blinken and Lloyd Austin want? Do they want to drive Putin from office? Well, that's what Biden said.

He said he wanted him out. I think, look, you remove Putin, you create the potential for shattering a very large number of Russian states. Basically, Russia is made up of a lot of states. Putin has said, I want to put the band back together, and he kind of is. So he's been trying his best to get the uzbekistan tajikistan all of those stands back kind of under his control based on the paranoia you and i spoke about they're they've always had influence i i don't think there's anything wrong with their influence it's like okay it's not our job to tell them what to have influence or not especially since they have a tradition of this to include include Crimea. So it's like, okay,

why are we involved in that? That's not our job. We're not the world policeman. And that's what it comes down to. But Nuland thinks we should be. You push Putin out of office, you may end up with the guy who was the president after Putin's two terms. And then while he was the president, they changed the constitution so that Putin could serve for many terms. Dmitry Medvedev. What did he say last week? He said, we may have to push our troops all the way to the Ukraine-Polish border and maybe into Poland. This guy's crazy and makes Putin seem like a middle road moderate by comparison. That's what I'm saying. And then obviously, if you have a shattered republic in the form of the Soviet Union, imagine like Libya with nukes. Imagine that. Imagine Libya, a failed state like Russia with nukes and all the different shenanigans that go on.

Trust me, I spent a lot of time studying loose nukes. I actually work with Ambassador Hank Cooper. We worked on a team on this a few years ago. The last thing we want, Judge, are people who are willing to sell multi-megaton weapons on the black market. It's not a good idea. I don't think we want to see that. And that's why I think we have to invest in maintaining Russia, whether we like it or not, as a whole state. It's just not a good idea. Back to sleepwalking into World War III. Yeah.

F-16s. Now, why on earth would we be training Ukraine pilots to fly them? Joe Biden has said we're not going to give them. I guess Victoria Nuland is twisting his arm. And if a Ukrainian pilot is flying an F-16, how far can he reach with his offensive weaponry? Moscow? No. But Judge, between you and me, we've been friends a long time. When do you really believe anything Joe Biden says anymore? Seriously. Seriously. I mean, the man lies.

I share that view with you. I think he's lying about this. Assessment as to how dangerous it would be for us to send them F-16s. They don't care. Anyway, two things on the F-16. F-16 is not the current generation fighter. It's a great aircraft, a great dogfighter. As a matter of fact, it's better than the F-16 is not the current generation fighter. It's a great aircraft, a great dogfighter. As a matter of fact, it's better than the F-35.

We could have a whole discussion of the F-35, the stealth fighter, which gets shot down every time it goes against one of these aircraft designed in the 80s, just saying. But it's not an offensive capability. These things would not be able to deliver nuclear weapons, not easily. Not to say they couldn't, but it's not designed for that. This is just a Band-Aid they do it judge it's just a band-aid to give the ukrainians some ray of hope to keep fighting that's all it is f-16s are tactical fighters uh what they could would have lit literally no effect on the battle. You could give them a dozen of these things.

It means nothing. They're short range. They might be able to deliver some precision ordnance on a few places. But I'm telling you right now, the S-300, take it down. There's no way these things would get anywhere past the Ukraine border, probably not even that, anywhere past that. So I think it's a false hope. When you were last on, we had some fun running clips from Jack Devine.

Yes. I don't know if you worked with him. You worked closely with the CIA. They trained you. You don't share their values, thank God, which is why we're friends. But Jack, of course, is a full metal jacket CIA. He's a corporate man. He's a corporate man. He's a corporate man. Correct. Here he is

on Russia, Gary, that first clip. Nobody knows Afghanistan the way you do, Jack, but that was the death throes of the Soviet Union. That was not Putin with a modern army. Well, first of all, I dispute he has a modern army. He's now demonstrating to the world he doesn't have a modern army. He has a lot of modern weapons. Well, he of all, I dispute he has a modern army. He's now demonstrating to the world he doesn't have a modern army. He has a lot of modern weapons. Well, he has a more modern army now than Gorbachev had in the Afghan days. Yeah, but look at what Afghanis had, AK-47s. Look at what technology has done for the Ukrainians and all the sophisticated technology from drones to cyber intelligence. His army is not showing itself very well.

It's a surprise to all of us. Although this is the second time I've been surprised because when I went in to do the Afghan program, I was assured they were 10 feet tall. And then every day they shrunk a quarter of an inch. So I think what's showing here, and I think it's the big story, he has paramilitary functioning as his cutting edge

because his own army, now they're fighting. Remember, Judge, you and I talked about dissent and how the things crumble when you start to lose. Watch the dynamic between the Wagner group and the military. Carl Schaefer, do you share this negative, lugubrious assessment of the Russian military? No, I don't. First, Wagner is the semi-legal organization that can do all the dirty work. And the reason that there's conflict is because the army wants to take credit for what's about to happen, which is going to be basically wearing down and defeating Ukraine. Again, I just go with the numbers. I'm a numbers guy. I was trained as

a lieutenant to examine all aspects of the battle space to include what's behind the front. And there ain't nothing behind the front in Ukraine. There's a lot behind the front in Russia. So I'm just looking at it from numbers game. So I don't know what school of intelligence analysis Jack went to, but I can tell you, I don't think he went to a good one. Is Jack wrong when he says that uh the russians are using i don't know what is a paramilitary force cops i don't know what it's like blackwater i mean and i you know i just saw all right i know what wagner is but so is jack saying the only reason the russians are close to taking bakhmut is because of wagner it's not because of russian military and does wagner operate totally out of the chain outside of the chain of command of Russian

military, Tony? No. Well, yes. They are completely separate from the military. They report to Putin directly. It's like Putin's direct access, but we have something similar with JSOC. I'm going to get in trouble for that. Joint Special Operations Command actually reports to the president. JSOC bypasses the chain of command? No, they actually report directly to the president uh they're jsoc bypasses the chain of command and by that they actually report directly to the president every other regional command has a four-star general in charge jsoc and socom goes directly to the president our president back to wagner wagner reports directly to the president why is jack calling them paramilitary or is he referring to somebody else no he's referring to them as paramilitary because essentially they're taking folks and training them like they've got penal battalions.

I guess they've taken prisoners and turned them into soldiers. They train them, but they're not considered uniformed soldiers. Apparently within the Russian system of governance and legal system, they can't have paramilitary organizations, but they do. In this case, it's one that reports to Putin. What I think is going on is Wagner is seen as kind of the special purpose forces. During the Cold War, the Russians had special purpose forces, that is, folks who would go out ahead of normal troops and do special things like assassination, deception, all those things which regular army troops who are less trained, less experienced, just don't do as well. So they're smarter, they're more agile, and they're supposed to be doing

things that are more tightly controlled by leadership. That's why they're using Wagner. It has nothing to do with the, well, there will be a conflict because I think both sides are going to want credit for, but I think it's a conflict, not that they're they're about to be i think okay during my uh during my conversation with jack devine i asked him about the cia and lying yeah now did he lie to you well i'll tell you what he said you'll you're you can hear it yourself and you may laugh or you may react however you wish yeah uh you were trained by the CIA. You worked with the CIA. You reject much of their culture.

However, I want you to listen to what Jack, who's a company man, as we both know, I want you to listen to what he said. According to Mike Pompeo, the former director, their job is to steal secrets and lie about it. We'll talk about that. You put a marker down. Let me respond to that. Let me, you put a marker down. Let me respond to that. Go ahead.

That is true outside of the U.S. and outside of the U.S. judicial system. I had a lawyer, a professional lawyer at my elbow for the last 15 years of my career, and I wasn't unique. I guess he's saying that they lie and they lie about it or they don't lie. It's binary. Either you lie or you do not lie. There's nothing in between. It's like one or zero. You lie or you don't. So I think it's a non-denial denial. Anyway, no, they lie. I mean, come on. It's like when you examine what they're doing right now, Judge, do you really believe that they are even domestically trying to tell the truth about what's going on? CIA has become like many of the large bureaucracies. They've become

self-sustaining to their own purpose and mission, and they will do whatever's necessary to keep the gravy train going. That's what they do. Meaning they will tell President Biden or whoever receives the presidential intelligence briefing what they think the president wants to hear. Absolutely. Absolutely. Look, I've dealt with Tenet directly. I used to have to brief him every six months on some of the operations I was running because we, DOD, have certain authorities that are above even CIAs, which would just go tell them what we're doing. But with that said, there's things that they can do and lie about to the American people because it's called covert action, a handful of other things that they can do. And they have special dispensation to do that, at least

within what they believe they have. And yeah, I do believe they're going to say what they believe is in their interest, their CIA interests, to continue to get politicians to do that. I had a general, Bob Harding once told me that he witnessed George Tenet lying to Congress about something going on. Flat out. That's a crime, whether he's under oath or not. Because he wanted more money. And basically he said, if you give me X, Y, Z, I can guarantee that this will never happen. It's like, you're lying. Who was the head of the CIA in 9-11? George. George Tenet.

Another story for another time. Another story for another time. Tony's show, The Hard Truth, America Out Loud Talk Radio Network, Saturday and Sunday at 11 a.m. and now once a week here. We're so happy on Judging Freedom.

Lieutenant Colonel Schaefer, my friend Tony, always a pleasure. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Or as we get it, Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom.