Judging Freedom - Aaron Maté : Kharkiv Under Fire. Russia Increases Attacks

Episode Date: May 6, 2024

Aaron Maté : Kharkiv Under Fire. Russia Increases AttacksSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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gentle guidance and encouragement to create these incredible changes for yourself and see what good can come from them. Trust me, listening on Audible can help you reach the goals you set for yourself. Start listening today when you sign up for a free 30-day trial at audible.com slash wonderyca. That's audible.com slash wonderyca. That's audible.com slash wonderyca. Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Monday, May 6, 2024. Aaron Maté from the Gray Zone joins us now. Aaron, a pleasure. My dear friend, thank you for your time. Thank you for accommodating my crazy schedule today. You're the fulcrum. You're right in the middle of nine shows. What is happening in, I have a lot of questions to ask you about with respect to Israel and about demonstrations on American campuses, but I want to start by

asking you about Ukraine. What is happening in Kharkiv and in that part of Ukraine as we speak? Well, Ukraine is facing the consequence of what U.S. officials anonymously warned back in the fall of 2022. So back in the fall of 2022, Ukraine suffered, Ukraine achieved some gains. They took back two provinces, Kherson and Kharkiv, and they expelled Russian forces there. And that was when General Mark Milley said that Ukraine should negotiate. But he was ignored. Biden told him to shut up. Ukraine ignored him too. And back then, the New York Times had an article where some anonymous U.S. officials said that they feared the most dangerous moments are yet to come. The reason why they explained is because to their surprise, Russia had not targeted civilian infrastructure

and had largely avoided escalating the war. And the reason back then was obvious. Russia was trying to just compel Ukraine to enter into the negotiations that were repeatedly undermined. I'm still holding, I hope that that could happen. But Ukraine with US backing refused to take that advice. And so now places like Kharkiv and other areas of Ukraine are facing those dangerous moments that U.S. officials privately warned about because this war has gone exactly the way anyone could have predicted it, including Barack Obama and Antony Blinken, when their policy was different, when they said that arming Ukraine and flooding it with weapons only plays to Russia's military advantage.

So accordingly now, after more than two years of war, Ukraine's been ground down and therefore they're largely defenseless against these Russian assaults. So therefore, when Russia attacks places like Kharkiv, they don't have their defenses anymore to push back. Now we're supposed to believe that the $61 billion recently approved by Congress will make a difference, but so much of that money isn't even for this current battlefield. That's to try to lock in this proxy war long into the future. So unfortunately, it's civilians on the front lines that are paying the price. observation about war. Wars of maneuver, where you try very quickly with a lot of force to defeat your enemy, and wars of attrition, where you patiently wear down the enemy slowly, methodically, surgically, and avoid civilian targets. It seems as though what President Putin's troops are doing in Ukraine is a classic war of attrition, something the Americans don't have the temperament, culture, or patience for. Yeah, that makes sense to me. And the problem here for Ukraine is that in a war of attrition,

you can possibly endure it if your force size and your weaponry size is equal. But when it comes to Ukraine and Russia, there's just no comparison. Russia is such a larger country. It has a much larger pool of people that it can draw on to fight. Unlike Ukraine, Russia has not suffered a huge drain of people trying to flee. Some people left early on in the war. But if you look at the polls and if you look at the recruitment, it does seem like Russia has more enthusiasm to draw on than in Ukraine, which makes sense because Russia is not outgunned and Russia just has more people.

And this was recognized. Antony Blinken said this back in March of 2015. Now, Ray McGovern, I know, has talked about this on your show. He said that if you're playing the military game in Ukraine, you're playing to Russia's advantage just because of Russia's size. And so accordingly, in a war of attrition, Russia will have much currency in the media around the time that the Republicans were battling over whether the $61 billion in aid to Ukraine combined with this around Taiwan was even going to make it to the floor of the House for a vote. And that is, you referred to some of it, the $61 billion for Ukraine, as tying the hands of the future. Now, I don't know where Donald Trump is on this. I don't know if he's going to defeat Joe Biden. Nobody knows that. But for years, he has been saying, I'm not behind the war in Ukraine. I'm not behind the war in Ukraine. Suddenly, Mike Johnson says, best buddies. Buddy, is the purpose of this 61 billion to tie the hands

of Donald Trump or any future president to compel the expenditure of this money in future years that is the explicit aim it was acknowledged in outlets like the Washington Post a few months ago, where the term used was that this is to future-proof the Ukraine war. And what they mean by future-proof is future-proof the Ukraine war from democracy in case voters vote for somebody different and Trump comes in and has a different policy. Now, although whether or not Trump will have a different policy is speculation at this point because it's hard to read where he's at. He just basically gave his endorsement to the Ukraine proxy we're funding after months of everyone claiming that he was against it.

But he embraced Mike Johnson and backed him up when Mike Johnson allowed this vote. And that was Trump's endorsement. And Mitch McConnell even thanked Trump for that. But just in case Trump got out of line, which obviously people in the establishment are worried about, they explicitly said in the Washington Post that the aim of this funding was to future-proof it against a future president having a different policy. And that's why about half of the $61 billion is not for Ukraine's

current battlefield needs, it's for the future. You know, it's very interesting, Aaron. There's a Supreme Court opinion going back to the Nixon years when Congress appropriated funds and he refused to spend it. And the challenge made its way to the Supreme Court. And the Supreme Court said, if Congress appropriates the funds, you shall spend it. So Donald Trump's hands or a future president, whoever that may be, disgusted with Ukraine, wanting to bring peace, interested in negotiation. Unless the Congress has enough votes in the Congress, he or she has enough votes in the Congress to undo this legislation, may be compelled by this legislation and Supreme Court precedent to spend that money. That is repellent.

And you put your finger on it. The public may not want this to be spent. But the generation in charge in 2024 is going to force whoever's in charge in 2028 or 29 or whenever to spend this money on a corrupt, decaying, dying, non-democratic regime. Yeah. And the irony of all this is that this war is supposedly being fought in the name of democracy. That's been Joe Biden's theme from the start of this proxy war, that we're defending democracy against autocracy. Well, putting aside the state of democracy inside Ukraine, which well before Russia invaded, Zelensky was cracking down on the opposition, taking opposition media networks off of the air. That was a year before the invasion.

Putting that aside, what about democracy in the US? How's that faring? Well, polls show that people are against additional funding for Ukraine, especially Republicans. But whatever Republican Speaker Mike Johnson just do, he ignored the voters. And Mitch McConnell openly thanked him for that. He said, Mitch McConnell recently told the Wall Street Journal that he's grateful that enough Republicans were able to tell their constituents what you think is incorrect. And as the Wall Street Journal put it, McConnell was grateful that these Republicans were able to, quote, stand up to their voters. So that's how we're defending democracy is by standing up to our own voters and future

proofing our proxy war against the threat of democracy. And by the way, this anti-democratic bent has been a feature of this Ukraine proxy war from the start. So, for example, back when Trump was impeached in 2019, early 2020 by House Democrats after he paused some weapons for Ukraine while pressuring Ukraine allegedly to investigate the Bidens and help them look into the origins of Russiagate. Alexander Vindman, who was a star Democratic witness, he testified that the reason he objected to what Trump's freeze of the Ukraine weapons is that he said Trump was subverting the foreign policy of the United States. Well, who makes the foreign policy of the United States? Is it the elected president or is it unelected bureaucrats like Alexander Vindman? And what Vindman was saying was that it's not the president, it's us. It's the permanent state. It's what's called the

interagency, the deep state, basically. That's what all this has entrenched. On top of all the disasters of this proxy war fueling a conflict with nuclear armed russia also entrenching that the public should have no say and it's the people who are unelected behind the scenes that they're the ones who have real power before we uh go over to uh the domestic dissent in the u.s um how significant is kharkiv to the Russian war of attrition or to the Ukrainian defenses, whatever defenses they have left? You know, that's beyond my wheelhouse, Judge. I don't have the military knowledge there.

What I do know is that Kharkiv has historic ties to Russia, has an ethnic Russian population. And certainly it seems now that after so many failed peace efforts, the negotiations before Russia invaded, after Russia invaded in Istanbul, it seems to me that Russia's aim now is to take Kharkiv. And- It's a Russian city. It's Russian culturally, it's Russian speaking, right? There certainly is a heavy ethnic russian component there yes yes okay um tell me about this uh professor uh from columbia university rebecca weiner who's a spy an undercover nypd intelligence official on, you can't make this up, on the Columbia faculty. Well, this is a great article up on the Grayzone right now about this. It's an unbelievable story.

While working as a professor at Columbia, Rebecca Weiner has also worked with the NYPD. And last week as the NYPD and New York City Mayor Eric Adams were trotting out their justifications for raiding college kids protesting mass murder in Gaza. She was out there talking about how, yes, we support free speech, and this is not an attack on free speech. But then she basically admitted this was about free speech because the students were saying the wrong things in her eyes. And so this is an unprecedented, or I shouldn't say unprecedented, it's just, it's a mind-blowing case. We have a supposed professor on campus at that same school, by the way, on Columbia, where Victoria Nuland is and Hillary Clinton is, which is headed by a former Israeli

intelligence officer. She's there also, meanwhile, working with the NYPD to basically help round up her students. And that's considered completely normal in this culture. I wonder if she'll be back there in the fall now that the students know who she is. I can't imagine anybody wanting to take her course. Well, it's the same theme as Ukraine. What the people want just doesn't matter. She serves the interests of power, of the interests of donors who don't want to see protests like this. So if anything, I would count on her being promoted. You have a colleague, Kit Klarenberg. This is another crazy story that Facebook says is

dangerous. What the hell is that all about? Yeah, well, Kit's also been censored on Twitter. And yes, Facebook recently took the decision to censor Kit on the grounds that he's some sort of threat to public safety when he's never been charged or convicted of anything. He just does journalism, does very good journalism. He's broken a lot of really important stories. This comes after he was detained in the UK at an airport. He's from the UK.

He was detained there for hours. His belongings were taken from him and people like the British counterterrorism police, wherever they were, basically went through his, his personal belongings and, uh, painted them as some sort of threat. Um, that's what he's faced for the crime of doing journalism. Has he exposed something that the British government or the American government don't

want exposed, which is typically what sets them off? Well, one of his biggest exposés was he obtained internal planning documents that were written up by UK intelligence operatives trying to advise Ukraine on how to blow up the Kerch Bridge, the bridge connecting Crimea and Russia. And after somebody blew up that bridge, it turned out to be Ukrainian operatives, Kit obtained a document showing that the UK, that UK operatives were advising Ukraine on how to blow up that bridge.

That was a really explosive story among many that he's published at the Gray Zone. And so accordingly, he's faced retribution. He was detained. Now Facebook, I'm sure in cooperation with intelligence officials, has deemed him to be a dangerous individual. That's the point I was going to go to next. You're a step ahead of me. We all know that the government uses carrots and sticks with Facebook and with all the

platforms in the US, and I'm sure that something like that happens there. You know, good journalism should be dangerous to the powers that be. That's the purpose of it, exposing things that the public can make up their own mind. Is he incarcerated or is he in the u.s uh kit is not he's neither he's neither incarcerated nor in the u.s but look he's from the uk and he's uh he's avoided returning because of what happened to him uh detained and put under investigation on completely baseless grounds so his own country, he's avoided returning to because of the persecution he's faced.

I mean, imagine that. He doesn't even feel safe in his own country of origin. And this is supposed to be the UK, a beacon of Western democracy. I know people who have avoided travel to the UK out of similar fears. And look, the UK is hosting right now the biggest assault on journalism there is in the world, which is the imprisonment and persecution of Julian Assange. So that's the state right now of democracy and freedom in the so-called democratic West is, you know, crackdowns on journalists who dare do their jobs.

What is your take on the long-term likely effect of the college demonstrations by which, I mean, do you think that they will, this is the university of Michigan yesterday, that stadium holds a hundred thousand, and you can see the demonstrators marching, the protesters marching through commencement. Do you think that the long-term effect will be a change in policy, as ultimately happened with LBJ not seeking election in 68 and Nixon eventually changing his mind and getting us out of Vietnam? Or do you think these demonstrations, because they are largely focused on Joe Biden's misguided policies, will help Trump? Well, in terms of a change of policy, I just can't expect that from Joe Biden, who's such a anti-Palestinian fanatic.

He's displayed that at every single turn, as we've talked about every single week, refusing to put any pressure on Israel, constantly being humiliated by Israel, announcing red lines that he immediately walks back, not slowing U.S. weaponry that sustains the Israeli mass murder campaign. So I just can't expect a policy change from him. What I think the long-term impact will be, if I were to guess, well, one indication of the impact of these protests is the complete freakout we've seen from the elite class in both parties. Fox News, CNN, there's really not any difference in how outraged pundits and politicians are from both Democrats and the Republican side have been over these protests.

And why? Because their bedrock support for Israel is being challenged. But also, I think more broadly, too, they're outraged at this site of moral courage. These young students, a lot of them, you know, take, you know, in heavy debt going to these colleges, especially the elite ones, putting themselves on the line for a cause bigger than themselves, for suffering people thousands of miles away, who with no benefit to any of these students immediately, but just doing something for the sake of what's right. And that display of moral courage is a real threat to our elite class of pundits and politicians whose entire existence is predicated on reaping the rewards of serving the establishment, of serving the system,

of justifying and whitewashing our wars abroad in return for some benefit to them, for career advancement, for all the privileges that come with towing the line and being a part of the system. And I think they're outraged at the sight of these young people bucking their values and actually showing some moral leadership, especially the sight of this happening at elite schools like Columbia, NYU, Harvard, Yale, where you're supposed to go learn how to be a good servant of the establishment and go on your merry way and receive your reward. These young people aren't doing that. And I think that site of moral courage and clarity

is a real threat to the establishment. And that's why we're seeing such a freakout about it. And that's what I hope the long-lasting impact will be, is maybe I'm being naive here, but a new generation that refuses to play the game that they've been taught of just basically accepting our warmongering and our oppression of suffering people around the world in return for some rewards from the masters of this country. You are too young to have a personal

memory of this, of course, but you are a student of history. I mean, suppose this Democratic National Convention in Chicago this summer resembles the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1968. Tens and tens of thousands of students clashing with Chicago police, blood and nightsticks all over the place, and the Republicans capitalizing on it. Do you have a sense that that might happen again? Well, I think it'd be difficult for Republicans to capitalize because they're equally, if not more, anti-Palestinian than Joe Biden is. I mean, if you watch Fox News these days,

you listen to all these Republican politicians, including Trump, their only criticism of Biden is that he didn't crack down on the student protests earlier and that he hasn't been fulsome enough in his support of Israel. But so whether they capitalize, so in terms of their ability to capitalize, it's not going to come from them seizing on the outrage over the mass murder campaign and the crackdown on people opposing it. They might benefit if Joe Biden, because of his slavish devotion to Israel, just alienates people so that they stay home.

I don't think this will translate into votes, for trump and the republicans do you um um do you think that uh netanyahu is behind indirectly obviously the violent and fierce nature of these crackdowns in the united states he certainly cheered it on. You've covered that video where he basically demanded a crackdown on the protests, and that's exactly what he got. So I don't think he's behind it, but certainly he's allowed to meddle

in the U.S. to such an extent that it's fine in the eyes of the establishment for a foreign leader to demand a crackdown on protesting college students and to smear them as anti-Semites, as he did. And our government has shown that Israel is free to meddle in the U.S. all it wants. Netanyahu famously came to the U.S. to campaign against the Iran nuclear deal. Obama, even though that embarrassed Obama, Obama gave Israel a multi-year,

billions of dollars worth of military aid. So Israeli interference and Israeli entitlement is totally normalized. And so I don't think Biden needed Netanyahu to tell him to crack down on the students, but he certainly tolerated Netanyahu doing so and has essentially played along. And now Netanyahu is also allowed to sabotage any prospects of a ceasefire. Israeli official recently told Haaretz that Hamas's demands are unacceptable because Hamas is demanding an end to the war. And that basically that Israel would rather invade Rafah than see all the hostages released.

And that's also allowed to happen without comment. Where's the outrage in the U.S. about Israel knowingly keeping the captives that Hamas is holding in captivity because they refuse to end their murderous assault on Palestinians. Here's Netanyahu yesterday announcing the banning of Al Jazeera from Israel and the confiscation of Al Jazeera's equipment. After discussion in the political security cabinet and following my guidance, the government will today discuss the closure of Al Jazeera broadcasts in Israel. Al Jazeera reporters harmed Israeli security and incited against IDF soldiers. It's time to remove the Hamas from our country.

And I thank communications minister Shlomo Kari for his action on the matter. The government has now ordered the closure of the incitement mouthpiece of Hamas in Israel to the channel of Jazira the Turtles. They were just signed. We are putting them into practice. A mouthpiece of Hamas, anyone who infers against the State of Israel, anyone who harms the security of Israel, and the soldiers and fighters of the IDF will no longer be broadcast here from Israel, and his equipment will be confiscated. And his equipment will be confiscated.

I guess he has the power to do that under Israeli law. But is he worried that Al Jazeera will present a different view of the slaughter in Gaza, and that might affect public opinion in the streets of Jerusalem? Absolutely. And the timing of this comes as Israel is stepping up its assault on Rafah. It just, I mean, pretty much simultaneously, after announcing the ban on Al Jazeera, it ordered hundreds of thousands of people in Rafah to flee.

And of course, they have nowhere to go. So this is clearly timed because it wants to silence an outlet that does the job of covering Israel accurately. And the eyes of the Israeli government, that just can't be tolerated. And this is part of a longstanding Israeli war on Al Jazeera. They previously killed Al Jazeera workers, including Shireen Abu Akleh, who was a correspondent in the occupied territories. She was assassinated by Israeli soldiers

during the mass murder campaign in Gaza. They attacked an Al Jazeera crew. At least one Al Jazeera cameraman bled to death because Israel, after attacking him, blocked ambulances from reaching him. So this is just par for the course. Back to the Democrats in Chicago. This is a great, great comment. Bernie Sanders, cut number three on all of this.

They are out there not because they are pro-Khomas. They are out there because they are pro-Khomas, they are out there because they are outraged by what the Israeli government is now doing in Gaza, which is bringing unbelievable harm, not just to the terrorist organization of Khomas, but to the entire Palestinian people. And that's why these anti-war demonstrators are out there. They do not want to see a situation continue where 110,000 Palestinians out of, you know, 5 percent of the population have been killed or wounded, where children now face starvation. Hundreds of thousands of children face starvation because Israel is refusing to allow humanitarian aid to get to where it has to go.

Demonstrations is what—and the right to dissent, the right to protest, that is what the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States is all about. That's what, in fact, makes you a free country. Being a free country means that somebody goes out and demonstrates, you don't have to agree with them, they have the right. That's the difference between autocracy and dictatorship in a free country. But for anybody to suggest that we cannot be critical of the government of Israel or the government of Italy or the government of Ireland, you know,

for whatever reason, is not what democracy is about. So I happen to believe, not everybody agrees with me, that the war policies of the Netanyahu government are a disaster. They are causing unprecedented harm. They are in violation of international law and absolutely in violation of American law, by the way. But I think people who are critical, the idea that people who are critical of what Netanyahu is doing are anti-Semitic, that is nonsense. And that is a very, very dangerous line to cross in terms of freedom of expression in this country. I am thinking back, and other people are making this reference, that this may be Biden's Vietnam. Couldn't have said it better.

It's about time he said it, but nobody in the government, I haven't heard anybody in either house of Congress say anything that succinctly, that forcefully, and that supportive of the First Amendment values as Bernie Sanders of all people. Yeah. And Bernie, I mean, Bernie wants Biden to win. And he's, you can see there how concerned he is and how out of touch he feels Biden is by supporting the crackdown on protests and

continuing his policy of unconditional support for the Israeli government. Bernie Sanders, I think, is saying some of this too late. This should have been a message from the start. Instead, he endorsed Israel's stated aims of regime change in Gaza, which basically was a license to commit mass murder. And it took Bernie too long to come around for a ceasefire. But it is better late than never. And if Biden was smart, I mean, putting aside human values, morality, whatever, we can't expect that from Joe Biden. But from his own political future, if he wants a reelection, his support for Israel is alienating his base.

And Bernie Sanders is urging him to change course. But all indications are that Biden is full steam ahead. I mean, last week, Biden was asked by a reporter, will these protests change your policy at all? And he said very simply, no. Well, Aaron, thank you. Thank you for accommodating my schedule because of my travel. Much appreciated.

Much appreciated your analysis as always. And I hope we can see you again next week. Safe travels, Judge. And thanks for having me. Thank you. Thank you, next week. Safe travels, Judge, and thanks for having me. Thank you. Thank you, my friend. Coming up at 1 o'clock, Anya Parampol at 2 o'clock, Matt Ho at 3 o'clock, Phil Giraldi. We're only halfway through the day.

At 4.30, Scott Ritter. At 5.30, Professor Jeffrey Sachs. And late tomorrow morning, Colonel Douglas McGregor. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. Thank you.