Judging Freedom - Aaron Maté : (The GrayZone) - #Biden and His Proxy War (s)

Episode Date: February 14, 2024

How do Senate decisions echo through war-torn lands? Join us with Aaron Maté to uncover the truth behind proxy war funding and its human consequences. Tune in for a thought-provoking analysis. #ProxyWars #Ukraine #GazaSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Thank you. Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Wednesday, February 14th, Valentine's Day and Ash Wednesday. Aaron Matei joins us now. Aaron, thank you very much for coming back to the show. Much appreciated, not just by me, but by the thousands that watch us and appreciate your analysis. things gives about $17 billion to Israel, but $61 billion to Ukraine. We all know Ukraine is on life support. Its military has a new leader nicknamed by his own troops, the Butcher of Bakhmut. Their greatest need is not American largesse, but human beings, young men, which they don't have. How crazy would it be for the House of Representatives to go along with this and President Biden to sign it into law?

For the fate of the planet, it would be suicidal, just prolonging this proxy war that is already lost and has already cost Ukraine foremost so many lives and so much of its future. But Joe Biden, who's responsible for this proxy war, who really began it 10 years ago when the administration he was serving in, the Obama administration, backed a coup in Ukraine, is desperate to prolong this war, at least until after November when he's up for election. And amazingly, it was revealed recently in the Washington Post that in the words of one U.S. official, the White House is trying to, quote, future-proof the Ukraine proxy war from a future president. So thinking here, if they can pass $61 billion

in funding, that will lock in this proxy war funding for long after this year, no matter who becomes president next. So say the voters decide they don't want to go with President Biden anymore. They want to change the course. They elect President Trump. Trump will be locked into allocating billions of dollars to fight a proxy war with Russia. And that's why in the same article in the Washington Post, they admit that only half of the $61 billion that are allocated here for Ukraine will go towards Ukraine's current battlefield needs. The other half goes to funding this proxy war long into the future.

And that's a reflection that Joe Biden, who claims to be standing up for democracy in Ukraine, actually hates democracy at home, so much so that his pro-democracy bill for Ukraine actually defends against the possibility of democracy unseating him in the next election. You know, that's very interesting that you should say this. There is, of course, Supreme Court case law going back to the Nixon administration, with which you're probably familiar, that basically says the president cannot impound funds. And if the Congress orders the funds to be spent, even if the president doesn't want to spend them, he must do so.

I've never really heard of anything like what the Congress is attempting to do to whoever will be inaugurated president 11 months from now, other than this Nixon experiment. But it wasn't different presidents that happened during the Nixon administration. It's simply outrageous that they would try to do this. Here's Senator Romney stating the administration's case, cut eight, Sonia, on the floor of the Senate right before the vote. If we fail to help Ukraine, Putin will invade a NATO nation. He may delay his next invasion until he rebuilds his decimated military.

But we must be clear-eyed. Ukraine is not the end. It is a step. If we fail to help Ukraine, China will eventually absorb Taiwan. If we fail to help Ukraine, NATO, the alliance that's prevented great power conflict for over 75 years, will falter and eventually disintegrate. If we fail to help Ukraine, China will eventually absorb Taiwan. If we fail to help Ukraine, we will abandon our word and our commitment, providing to our friends a view that America cannot be trusted.

This reminds me of the title of that book, The Year of Magical Thinking. This is really crazy and almost ludicrous to make an argument like this. This is a neocon dream. If we don't help Ukraine, President Xi is going to take Taiwan. It's a domino theory

going back to the Vietnam War. You know, unless we wage this war over there, it's going to spread to other places. It's the same playbook and they don't get tired of using it. Note, though, what is missing from Romney's comments there. Anything about the well-being of Ukraine. It's all about what could the consequences be elsewhere. Putin's going to invade a NATO country. China is going to take Taiwan. What about the people of Ukraine who we're supposed to be helping? They're expendable because they're cannon fodder

in what is the real goal, which has been openly stated by the Biden administration and their neocon allies in the Republican Party. This is to weaken Russia. This is to bleed Russia. And it's not going very well. And that's why they're desperate for another $61 billion to prolong this. And Vladimir Putin, by the way, explicitly rejected Romney's premise in his interview with Tucker Carlson last week. And I suspect this is one of the reasons why people like Mitt Romney and their neocon allies were so adamant that people not watch this interview and judge for themselves because Putin was asked by Tucker Carlson, do you want to have a war with NATO? Do you want to invade Poland? And Putin said, absolutely not. The only reason we would is if we were attacked first, then we would invade. But that was completely ignored. And

people want to have this fantasy that Russia, which is bogged down fighting in Ukraine and has suffered some major losses, would somehow dust itself off and go off and invade some other country, which already is in NATO. The whole point of invading Ukraine was that there are millions of people inside Ukraine who are ethnic Russian, who had their rights infringed upon after the U.S. backed a coup in 2014. The U.S. and their ultra-nationalist allies in Ukraine blocked all avenues for a peaceful settlement, first in the Minsk Accords, and then after the Russian invasion began in the peace deal that was reached in Istanbul in April 2022. And so Russia has been trying to force a solution on Ukraine that it refused to accept for itself, which is basically respecting the rights of ethnic Russians inside Ukraine and accepting neutrality so that it doesn't join alliances

like NATO. Here's another clip that will uh animate you this is uh the president shortly after the senate vote listen for two words that he uses that he attributes to ukraine decency and democracy cut number nine it's time for the house republicans to do the same thing, to pass this bill immediately, to stand for decency, stand for democracy, to stand up to a so-called leader hell-bent on weakening American security. And I mean it sincerely. History is watching. History is watching. In moments like this, we have to remember who we are. We're the United States of America. The world is looking to us. There's nothing beyond our capacity. We act together.

In this case, acting together includes acting with our NATO allies. God bless you all. May God protect our speakers. And I promise I'll come back and answer questions later. Thank you. The Presser 2, When Trump said that, sir, what did Putin hear?

The Press 2, What's plan B if the speaker doesn't act? The Press 2, Sir, the did Putin do? What's planned B if the speaker doesn't act? Sir, the hostage is... All right, he doesn't want to answer their questions. I get it. There is nothing decent about the Ukraine government and very little that resembles democracy. Yeah, I mean, Biden's very familiar with that. After all, it was his son who obtained a lucrative board seat with Burisma right after his father helped overthrow the government there.

So that's a window into the state of Ukrainian democracy and decency and corruption. And Biden there, look, he talks about Putin is hell bent on weakening American security. How is it in the interest of American security or anyone's security to pour tens of billions of dollars into this proxy war, sacrifice tens of thousands of people when there are reasonable diplomatic options on the table? The Minsk Accords, Russia's call for neutrality. Zelensky himself accepted the call for neutrality right after Russia invaded. He was about to sign an agreement affirming that. That's when he was told by Boris Johnson and Joe Biden that the U.S. and

the U.K. would not back him up. So Ukraine was forced to keep fighting on. So there's no evidence at all that Russia wants to weaken U.S. security. It would enhance everyone's security if this war would end. But you can say that, things like that, with no pushback. Nobody will ever ask Biden, how is Putin trying to hurt U.S. security? And how does this proxy war help U.S. security? The answer is that security is a euphemism for hegemony. And that's what Russia is in the way of. And therefore, it has to be weakened to this proxy war. I mean, Chuck Schumer gave a speech shortly after the vote saying this enhances American national security and world peace. This is just insane. It is, in fact, the opposite of both. What is the state of the Ukraine military? Isn't it so depleted that much of the stuff that Joe Biden could possibly get there

in the remaining 10 months between now and election day, doesn't even have the human beings with the know-how to use it. You know, just following the accounts in Western media, I haven't even seen recently what's being reported in Ukraine, but in the Western media, really bleak reports from the front line. There's recently a long article in the Washington Post about how Ukraine's suffering from serious personnel shortages. There's all these stories of people being forced into conscription against their will, being literally taken off the street. People are fleeing.

Even in Western Ukraine, which is the bulwark of support for this war against Russia, there have been protests and people resisting this. Because what is the consequence of all this? It's sacrificing generations of young Ukrainians. And now they're talking about lowering the age of conscription. There's pressure on European countries from Ukraine to basically try to compel Ukrainians who have fled to return. And meanwhile, you have upheaval at the top where Zelensky has just replaced the military leadership, bringing in a new commander who has a horrible reputation among his forces for sacrificing his troops, including in Bakhmut, which was a major catastrophe for Ukraine last year. So just going by the accounts in the Western

media alone, the picture from the front line of the Ukrainian military is very bleak. Let's transition over to Israel and Gaza. Do we know, not has the IDF revealed it, but do we know from journalistic sources how many IDF soldiers have been killed and how many have been traumatized and how many cannot go back to their pre-war lives? That's a great question. I'm not sure of the figure, but certainly what we do know is that U.S. intelligence officials recently briefed Congress that when it comes to the stated goal of weakening Hamas, Israel is nowhere near its desired outcome, that they basically have only killed a small number of Hamas leaders.

And that makes sense because just look at the footage. The targets of this war are not Hamas, but Gaza's civilians. So given that Hamas is still a strong fighting force, it would seem then that Israel has taken serious losses. And there have been a few reports on this in the Israeli media, but it's not something that I follow very closely. What is confirmed is that more hostages continue to be at risk with every day that Netanyahu decides that killing Palestinians is more important than rescuing the Israelis who remain captive in Gaza. One of the reports that came to us from Scott Ritter was of several Palestinians that had been shot by the IDF in the proximity of an ambulance. And the ambulance driver and his assistant sort of motioned to the IDF to cease fire while they picked these people up in an attempt to save their lives.

And the IDF motioned. I don't know if you know this tale. The IDF motioned the ambulance drivers. go ahead, go ahead, pick them up. And as soon as they get out of the ambulance, of course, they were ambushed and murdered themselves. Is this type of behavior typical of what the IDF is doing in Gaza? By all accounts, yes. And there's the now widely circulated story of this young Palestinian girl, Hind, who was in a car with her family, all of whom were shot dead, were killed by Israel. She called for help. She was left to die. And the people trying to rescue her were also killed by Israel. And yes, this is absolutely common. It's been happening for years, not just during this current genocide, but for a very long time now.

Euromed, I'm generally not familiar with them, but it's a medical entity, reports that the IDF has invited Israelis into two of its prisons, Israeli civilians, into two of its prisons where Palestinian males are kept to watch them naked, being beaten and attacked with electric prods and to view this or to video this with their iPhones. I mean, this is so sick. Have you heard of this? I have not heard of that, but the Israeli practice of torture is very well documented. So I totally believe it.

Every major human rights group, B'Tselem in Israel and then Amnesty International, that, but the Israeli practice of torture is very well documented. So I totally believe it. Every major human rights group, B'Tselem in Israel, and then Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, they've all documented extensive torture by Israel for decades. It's a really sick society. I feel no problem generalizing there. It is. You have to be. To be founded on ethnic cleansing, to perpetuate that ethnic cleansing, to justify the longest running military occupation in the world, and now carry out this extermination campaign against a largely defenseless civilian population in Gaza. You have to be crazy. And unfortunately, that's extended to pretty much almost all of Israeli society, I'm sorry to say. Well, I'm sorry it's the case as well, but your evidence is overwhelming.

Yesterday at the White House, the president hosted King Abdullah of Georgia, excuse me, of Jordan, who didn't exactly say what the president wanted him to say. Cut number 10. Nearly 100,000 people have been killed, injured, or are missing. The majority are women and children. We cannot afford an Israeli attack on Rafah. It is certain to produce another humanitarian catastrophe. The situation is already unbearable for over a million people who have been pushed into

Rafah since the war started. We cannot stand by and let this continue. We need a lasting ceasefire now. This war must end. We must urgently and immediately work to ensure the sustainable delivery of sufficient aid to Gaza through all possible entry points and mechanisms. And I thank you, Mr. President, for your support on this. Restrictions on vital relief aid and medical items are leading to inhumane conditions. Good for him. I don't know that it's going to do any good, and I don't know what he can do as the King of Jordan, but good for him for saying that in the belly of the beast where he was.

Yeah, he could do more, though. For example, he could stop cooperating with the U.S. military and letting them be there in Jordan so long as the U.S. is backing this genocide. And I think he's giving Biden too much credit when it comes to helping the provision of humanitarian aid. The Biden administration has enforced Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip. Israel insists on inspecting every single piece of, every single thing that comes into Gaza. And the Biden administration has backed him up on that. The White House has just admitted that Israel is blocking flour to the Gaza Strip. That's how sadistic they are. And what is the White House doing about that? So yes, the King of Jordan faces huge unrest at home with his population up in arms about what is going on.

And it was good for Biden to hear that face to face. But the King of Jordan, like everybody else, could be doing more. Talk to me about the anger in other countries in the region. And tell me if you think it will reach the level of influencing the elites who run the countries, Egypt, Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria. The Gulf monarchies have long viewed Palestinians as sort of a nuisance. They're sort of in their way. And they've been doing what they can to pacify them, hoping that by giving some limited aid to Gaza, some limited aid to the West Bank, the Palestinians will just be quiet. Obviously,

October 7th showed that Palestinians are unwilling to do that. And now they've been forced to confront their own complicity in the Israeli occupation. And that's why Saudi Arabia, knowing the consequences to itself, if it went along with the so-called normalization agreement with Israel, has been forced to back away. So these governments do listen to their people, that they're afraid of them, and they will do what they can to avoid being destabilized and overthrown by their own populations, where there's a huge amount of sympathy with the Palestinian cause. But it's always within the context of preserving their own power. And look, compare what South

Africa did to the Gulf Monarchy. South Africa went out of its way to launch this genocide case. Why didn't the Gulf Monarchies do that? Why didn't they back up South Africa when they did that? So that's just an example of the limits, I think, of action that we can expect from these Gulf monarchies, which while providing aid to Palestinians and paying lip service to their concerns, have over the years been complicit with Israel. And the biggest example is Egypt, which after the Camp David Accords of 1979 was taken out of the equation. Camp David was basically undertaken, as some U.S. officials have subsequently admitted, to basically remove Egypt as an obstacle to Israeli control of the West Bank and Gaza.

Because once you have peace with Egypt, they can no longer stand up for Palestinian rights. So that was a major goal of the Camp David Peace Accords in 1979. And we see today Sisi playing that role to a T. He's way worse than Mubarak was, the previous leader of Egypt, before he was overthrown. And Sisi has helped enforce the siege of Gaza, has basically acted in concert with the U.S. and Israel. I mean, Sisi would be bankrupt if the United States aid were to be stopped, if he dared to frustrate or disagree with his masters in Washington. Do you think that Joe Biden has given Netanyahu some sort of a red line? I mean, I don't know how he can possibly campaign for president with people chanting genocide Joe and with the American population disapproving of the of the genocide and that number growing all the time.

It's really amazing. You know, as Max Blumenthal has pointed out, Joe Biden could have a huge victory for himself if he just simply followed what his base wants, which is a ceasefire. But he won't do it. He's sort of the exact version of Donald Trump that we were told is beholden to Russia. Remember the whole conspiracy theory about Trump is that he's enthralled with Vladimir Putin. He's doing his bidding. That, too, Joe Biden actually is when it comes to Israel. He's so attached to Israel and enforcing its hegemony and its genocide. He's willing to sabotage his own reelection chances. That's the only conclusion I can draw. This is the former director of the CIA, who was also a former Secretary of State of the United States, dancing and celebrating with IDF killers yesterday. That was, of course, Mike Pompeo. So is this a type of behavior typical of IDF troops? And do you know what the significance of the yellow scarf was that they put over his around his neck? which is where Israeli soldiers go after they've served in Gaza, slaughtering civilians in Gaza.

And here is Mike Pompeo going to cheer them up and dance with them. And he's appearing with an Israeli influencer who he's dancing with, who recently was posting videos on TikTok next to himself, next to Israeli soldiers who are bombing Gaza, and they're eating ice cream. So he's the kind of depraved people who Mike Pompeo was dancing with. It's just a sickening display. A former Secretary of State, former CIA director,

going to dance with a genocidal army. And he's not the first former Trump official to do that. Mike Pence recently visited Israel and signed bombs, signed U.S. bombs that are being dropped on Gaza's civilians. Donald Trump, I really hope he's learned about the kind of people he should surround himself with. He talked in 2016, you know, I think genuinely about being an anti-intervention president. He went and appointed some of the worst neocons in the world, like Mike Pompeo.

Yes. Aaron, thanks very much. Much appreciated, my dear friend. We'll see you again soon. Thank you, Judge. Okay. much much appreciated uh my dear friend uh we'll see you again soon thank you judge okay ah another uh a brilliant and gifted analysis from my dear friend i'm just looking at uh tomorrow for you uh at eight o'clock in the morning uh eastern uh colonel uh tony schaefer at 2 in the afternoon Eastern, Professor John Mearsheimer, at 3 in the afternoon Eastern, Colonel Douglas McGregor. This is like the New York Yankees of 1927 tomorrow. And at 4.15 Eastern,

the aforementioned and praised Max Blumenthal. A good day for you and for us. Judge Napolitano, by the way, these are ashes on my forehead. I didn't suffer any bruise because a lot of you have been asking about that. It's a Catholic tradition on Ash Wednesday, not Valentine's Day. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom. Thank you.