Judging Freedom - Aaron Maté (The GrayZone) : Congress Wants War Without Declaring It

Episode Date: February 7, 2024

Aaron Maté (The GrayZone) : Congress Wants War Without Declaring ItSee 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 Wednesday, February 7th, 2024. My good friend Aaron Matei joins us now. Aaron, it's a pleasure. Thank you very much for joining us. I'd like to start with your understanding of the United Nations Relief Organization in Gaza and the smear campaign visited upon them by the Israelis and apparently accepted without evidence by the State Department

and the consequences of that acceptance. The cynicism is pretty extraordinary. So right as the International Court of Justice unveils its ruling that there are plausible grounds to charge Israel with genocide, Israel comes out with this allegation that a handful of UNRWA staffers were involved in October 7th. And UNRWA is the main UN agency serving Palestinian refugees, millions of them, not just in Gaza, but in other regions as well.

And it's long been in Israel's crosshairs because it provides basic services to Palestinians. It basically keeps them alive. It keeps them alive physically and also keeps their culture alive. In UNRWA schools, Palestinian history is taught. It employs 13,000 people in Gaza alone. So it's a major part of the economy there. And if you're Israel and your aim is to basically ethnically cleanse Gaza, leave it uninhabitable, Amra is a major obstacle. So just as the ICJ ruling comes out, which is a huge embarrassment for Israel, saying it's plausible that Israel is committing genocide and also ordering Israel to allow in the humanitarian aid that it's blocking. Israel comes out with these allegations that a handful of UNRWA staffers were involved on October 7th. No actual evidence is supported, but yet the U.S. leads the way, along with a number of its allies, in blocking UNRWA's funding. It's really a sadistic display.

Ken, and so what did the united states do tony blinken said uh he saw credible very credible i think i'm quoting him precisely evidence but he never shared it uh channel four of the united kingdom i guess that's the bbc said they were given a document It was just a six-page summary of the Israeli allegations. It wasn't the actual evidence. Has anybody produced any evidence that United Nations employees in Gaza to help the Gazans stay alive were in fact collaborating with the assault by Hamas on October 7th? You're exactly right about Blinken Blinken immediately said that these allegations are highly credible while simultaneously admitting that he hadn't investigated them so how he's developed the ability to deem something to be credible when

he hasn't looked into the allegation or the evidence is beyond me um but the evidence that has been produced first of all what was overlooked in the the U.S., but it was reported in Axios, that the main source of Israel's so-called intelligence on this, again, the small number of UNRWA staffers, came from interrogations of captured militants. Anybody who's familiar with what Israel does to detainees knows that that means torture. Israel regularly practices torture. It's widely denounced by all the major human rights groups, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Beth Salem, the major Israeli group. So torture appears to be the main source for the so-called intelligence about UNRWA. And then Israel claimed that it had phone intercepts and text messages, which we the public can't see for ourselves. We're just supposed to take Israel's word for it. Certainly that's what the New York

Times and other media stenographers did. But there's no reason for us to accept this. And of course, even if all the allegations were true, let's say that these 12 unrestaffers, or the number was actually revised to below that, but let's say all the allegations are true. How can that possibly justify cutting off the funding of an agency that employs 13,000 people and keeps people alive, especially during a genocide. On the other hand, Israel's committing war crimes, mass murder before our eyes. Yet the Biden administration refused to cut a cent to Israel. In fact, it goes around Congress to rush weapons to Israel, pouring tens of billions of dollars into this genocide. So the hypocrisy and the savagery, it's hard to fathom. Did the State Department ask other Western aid organizations,

whether they're non-governmental or whether they're governmental, to hold off on aid to Gaza in light of these allegations that Secretary Blinken says are highly, highly credible? I don't know about asking other aid groups, but I do know that this funding cut is well over, I believe it's about 80% of UNRWA's funding is at risk and it'll be forced to shut down. So this act alone by the U.S. and its allies, is cutting off a huge lifeline to already desperate people. I mean, we've all seen the warnings that famine is a major risk. People are starving. There's horrible video footage of children drinking rainwater, people relying on animal

fodder for baking. I mean, the horror stories are endless and, to me, remind me of what I know of the Nazi Holocaust, which my family went through. So how in the face of all this, the Biden administration can both continue this policy while cutting off the agency that keeps Palestinians alive. It's just beyond me. Do you think an argument can be made that the United States government is waging war against the Palestinians in Gaza? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, supplying the weapons that is destroying their homes, their schools or hospitals,

standing by as Israel blocks aid to Gaza. That is the only area where we're told the Biden administration is applying some pressure. But the very fact that they have to pressure their ally to allow in humanitarian aid to begin with shows how sadistic all of this is. Because of course, it shouldn't be a question. You aren't allowed to block aid to a people you're besieging and committing mass murder against. So absolutely, this is a war on the Palestinian people. And cutting off UNRWA, this Palestinian refugee agency at the UN, is a new phase of that. I want to play a clip for you, which is just a few hours old. It's President Biden at his worst, if you can imagine that, really speaking out of both sides of his mouth, berating members of Congress. And Congress is going through all kinds of crazy hoops with their crazy parliamentary procedure about aid for Ukraine and aid for Israel and aid for the southern border.

And we really needn't get into the intricacies of that. Send the weapons give me the authorization to send the weapons to Israel to kill the Palestinians and give me money Defeat the Palestinian Palestinians who survived the killings Cut six cut sixteen watch this this bipartisan agreement also provides Israel with what it needs to protect his people and Defend itself against Hamas terrorists and it will provide the necessary life-saving humanitarian assistance for the Palestinian people. By opposing this bill, they're denying aid to the people who are really suffering and desperately need help. You know, there's more work to get this done over the finish line, and I want to be clear.

Doing nothing is not an option. Republicans have to decide. For years, they said they want to secure the border. Now they have the strongest border bill this country has ever seen. The border bill stuff from a president who has difficulty putting two sentences together, to me, arguably, some of the worst statements he's made in conjunction with each other and his entire presidency. Your thoughts? I totally agree. He's openly admitting that Palestinians are suffering, are starving, and he wants us to accept this notion that it's acceptable to impose that suffering and starvation on them just so long as we include some money to alleviate their suffering in a measure that would provide the weapons that

are slaughtering them. It's so Orwellian and ridiculous. And Chuck Schumer had similar comments. He said that Palestinians are starving, and so we have to give them this money and this aid bill to help them out. Of course, the money for Palestinian aid is a fraction of what Schumer and Biden and Mitch McConnell want to give Israel to kill Palestinians. It doesn't occur to any of them, rather than funding Israel to commit more mass murder and throwing in a token amount of money for humanitarian aid, why don't we stop the mass murder, which we easily could do? And also, if Israel did that, if the U.S. pressured Israel to stop the fighting, that means they could seriously engage with Hamas and get the hostages home because Hamas has

put out a detailed proposal, which Netanyahu has just rejected. But if Netanyahu wanted, he could rescue all of his captives, but he doesn't. He cares more about killing Palestinians than he does about rescuing his own people. Oh, but Aaron, according to Prime Minister Netanyahu, all the Israeli goals will be achieved by the IDF in just a couple of months. Watch this. This is just a few hours old as well. Cut number 18, Chris. I came here this evening to say we are on our way to that decisive victory. It is in our hands. It's not a matter of perhaps weeks, but it is in a matter of months. The IDF are working systematically and they will achieve all the objectives of the war. Well, I don't know how he can achieve

all the objectives of the war if he still has the objective of bringing hostages home. Between 30 and 50 of the hostages have been killed by the IDF bombing and destruction. This infuriates me as much as the Biden statement did. I have to restrain myself. I'll let you tell this infuriates me as much as the Biden statement did.

I have to restrain myself. I'll let you, I'll let you take over here. What do you think? What are the Israelis think of this nonsense out of his mouth? Well, there is an Israeli protest movement, which understands that Netanyahu is a pathological liar and a threat to the remaining captives inside Gaza.

As you said, Israel recently acknowledged that 30 more hostages were killed and likely by Israeli bombings because that's the inevitable result of this indiscriminate bombing campaign. As Joe Biden described it, it was Biden who called Israel's doing indiscriminate bombing. And when you're bombing indiscriminately, that means you're going to kill people. And that includes the Israeli hostages rather than get them home through a negotiation, which has already yielded success. There has been previous rounds of captive exchanges. Netanyahu is doubling down on his strategy and now asking for a few more months when really all he's doing is sentencing the Israeli hostages who remain to death. And he knows that. He's just a pathological liar who doesn't care about his own people, doesn't care about Palestinians, and is just

dedicated to himself prolonging his political career because he knows that once this war is over so will his time in office. And just committed to israeli hegemony and occupation that he wants to just commit as much destruction as he can before he exits the stage you um uh you mentioned biden's condemnation of uh indiscriminate uh bombing he himself is engaged in indiscriminate bombing. Three poor young soldiers, reservists from Georgia, were asleep in their barracks in some godforsaken place called Tower 22, somewhere in the middle of nowhere at the border between Jordan and Syria, and American air defenses failed, and a drone killed them and injured 37 others. Joe Biden sent 87 different strikes, 85 different strikes, 85 different places in the Middle East and killed tribesmen and herdsmen and families and innocents engaged in the exact same collective punishment he purports to condemn the IDF for doing? Why should we believe anything Joe Biden says in this respect? Well, we shouldn't believe anything Joe Biden says because he's also a career pathological liar. He's

lied his entire career, whether it's about his own personal background. Remember when he was running for president in the late 80s and he was caught plagiarizing a speech of a British or a Scottish politician about his life story that he passed off? I do remember that, yes. And of course, every other pro-war deception that is based on lies to justify bombing places. So that's Joe Biden's way of conducting himself. And there's no different here. I mean, why are U.S. forces in Syria to begin with? Does anybody ever ask that question?

Is it the only option we're told we have when U.S. forces are attacked is to just keep bombing? Why can't we discuss whether those U.S. forces should be there to begin with? When Donald Trump tried to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria, what happened? He was undermined by his own aides, by his own State Department, by his own Pentagon. And Joe Biden, rather than try to get U.S. troops out of harm's way, keeps them in harm's way. And why? I mean, it's a long story, but basically the U.S. tried to overthrow the Syrian government with one of the most expensive covert operations in history. Syria, with the help of Iran and Hezbollah and Russia, defeated that. And accordingly, I think there's a lot of bitterness in Washington.

They want to punish Syria for it. And that's why the U.S. military force in Syria happens to be in the region that has Syria's oil and wheat reserves. So basically we steal Syria's oil and wheat. We put U.S. troops in harm's way. But the imperative of punishing a state that stood up and refused to be regime changed and is also an ally of Iran who we want to weaken, all of this supersedes the protection of U.S. lives. So when Admiral Kirby was asked by what congressional authority did Joe Biden dispatch those 85 attacks. He basically said, well, he doesn't need authority for this because we're defending U.S. troops and the commander in chief can always defend U.S. troops.

Now, this is a circular argument because the commander in chief puts U.S. troops wherever he wants to put them, perhaps even intentionally in harm's way. So as to use them as bait, almost literally. And then when the attack is drawn, use the attack as the basis for attacking other people that have nothing to do with the attack. I mean, you can't make this up. But in my world, in the legal world, these guys flunk spectacularly at understanding the Constitution. You can defend U.S. troops if they are legally present in the place from which you're defending them. But they're not legally present in Syria. They're not legally present in Iraq. They're

legally present in Jordan. I'll grant you that. I don't know where this Tower 22 thing is, which side of the border it was on. But if it's in Syria or Iraq, they're not legally present there, and no amount of force can justify their presence legally. Yes. When the Iraqi parliament voted a few years ago to call for the removal of U.S. forces, the U.S. responded by threatening to seize Iraq's foreign reserves, which were held at a New York bank. So that took care of that. And with Syria, yeah, it's not even a, you know, Syria's never wanted the U.S. there.

Syria wants the U.S. to leave. The U.S. claims it's in Syria to fight ISIS. That's the official pretext. But it's a joke. If you read the Pentagon's own reports on this, every quarter there's a Pentagon inspector general who does an assessment of the U.S. mission inside Syria. And they point out every time the U.S. is not fighting ISIS at all. It's actually Syria and Russia and their allies that are fighting ISIS.

If anything, some of these targets that Joe Biden hit were bases and sites that were used by people who were actually fighting ISIS inside of Syria, including the Syrian government and their allies. So the pretext is a joke, and certainly, as you point out, there's no legal authorization whatsoever. As we speak, Senator Schumer is attempting to get the Senate to approve another $12 or $13 billion in aid to Israel and another $60 billion in aid to Ukraine. The other parts of this, I think, that included Taiwan

and something at the southern border for immigration, changing the immigration law, failed. I want to take you to your other field of expertise, which is Ukraine. What good would another $60 billion do when, A, they don't have the manpower, B, they don't have the stability in the government, C, the president has been saying for a week now he wants to fire the general who's in charge. The general is basically saying, I'm not leaving. That's got to spell a disaster. Who's going to account for the 60 billion, whether it's in cash, God forbid, or whether it's in military equipment that they don't know how to

use or have the manpower to use. All right. My question is a long one, but you sense my anger and you know where I want you, what I'd like you to explain. Yeah. Nobody thinks that Ukraine can win this war. In fact, there was an article recently in the Washington Post citing U.S. officials saying that the best U.S. hope for Ukraine in 2024 is that Ukraine doesn't lose any more territory. So thanks to us, we pushed them into this proxy war. We crushed all the available opportunities there were to avoid the war, both before Russia invaded and afterwards. And now we're saying the best we can hope for, for Ukraine for this year, is they don't lose even more territory than they've already lost, thanks to us. So Biden knows that Ukraine can't win, but basically he wants to prolong the war

until at least after he's up for reelection, because this, up until the Gaza genocide, was his signature foreign policy move, and he was proud of it. And these are the same people like Biden and Blinken who were saying forever that Russia's already lost. And now Biden is standing up there begging for more money because he just needs a lifeline to keep this war going. And $60 billion could do that. Scott Ritter has pointed out that after the US and UK got Zelensky to walk away from the peace deal that was reached in April 2022, so just weeks after Russia invaded. Ukraine was rewarded with an injection of tens of billions of dollars in NATO weaponry, and that did prolong the war. And I think the thinking now in the White

House is that they want to do that again. Just another $60 billion could at least buy them some more time, at least through Biden's reelection campaign in November 2024. But as of right now, as we're speaking, it doesn't look like Republicans are going to give that to him, which is all the more of a disaster for Biden. Right, right. Here he is. This is number 14, Chris, admonishing Republicans. History is watching you. This bill would also address two other important priorities. First, it provides urgent funding for Ukraine. I'm wearing my Ukraine tie, my Ukraine pin,

which I've been wearing because they're in dire straits right now defending themselves against a Russian onslaught. A brutal conquest. The clock is ticking. Every week, every month that passes without new aid, Ukraine means fewer artillery shells, fewer defense, air defense systems, fewer tools for Ukraine to defend itself against this Russian onslaught. Just what Putin wants. Well, it's his fault that Ukraine is in the position that he's in now. If he had not dispatched Boris Johnson, then the Prime Minister of Great Britain, to scuttle the handshake agreement that had been negotiated in Turkey and to promise all the aid they needed to resist Putin. None of this bloodshed, none of this loss would have happened. You know, I'd say it's even worse than that because 10 years ago this month is when Biden's administration, and he played a key role in this, backed a coup in Ukraine that overthrew its

government. That that's when Victoria Nuland was caught on tape plotting the installation of new government and saying that she needed Joe Biden's blessing to give it the attaboy, along with Jake Sullivan, who was then his top aide. And that set off Ukraine on its current path because shortly after that coup, then the Russian-aligned people of Eastern Ukraine

revolted because the new government that the U.S. helped install was waging an open war on their culture, was trying to ban the Russian language, and was a coup government that didn't represent the people of eastern Ukraine. So they revolted. That set off this war. The U.S. then undermined every opportunity there was to end the war in something called the Minsk Two Accords, which could have ended this war back in 2015. But the U.S., siding with Ukraine's ultranationalists, blocked that. Meanwhile,

Democrats like Joe Biden embraced these insane conspiracy theories that Donald Trump was an agent of Russia and that we could not have any peaceful accommodation with Russia whatsoever, which helped escalate tensions. And then Joe Biden comes in after he again tries to blame Russia for the contents of his son's laptop. So all these things that Biden embraced ramped up confrontation with Russia. Then, of course, he chooses to ignore Russia's offers before the invasion, the detailed treaty that Russia put out in December 2021

on ways to avoid a war in Ukraine, which Biden ignored. And afterwards, as you say, he then blocked the peace deal reached in Turkey in April 2022. And now he's begging Republicans to bail him out. CNN is reporting that a U.S. military strike Wednesday, that's today, in Baghdad, in Baghdad killed a Hezbollah leader. So there doesn't seem to be any limit to what Joe Biden will do to please his buddy,

Prime Minister Netanyahu, while at the same time saying, oh, we got to have a two-state solution and you got to let aid in to the people who managed to escape your killings in Gaza. The same time, Riyadh has said, two-state solution, back to the 67 borders or there will be no normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia. I guess you can describe this as a mess exacerbated by the United States

government. What else is new? Yeah. And this airstrike in Iraq, I believe that it hit forces that are actually embedded inside the Iraqi military, the popular mobilization units, if I have that correct. And if so, then that's a direct attack on Iraq as a state, not just some random militias, but actually Iraq as a state, which is yet another violation of Iraq's sovereignty, which Joe Biden is well acquainted with. He's been violating Iraq's sovereignty for decades now, or supporting the violation of Iraq's sovereignty for decades now. And yeah, in terms of the two-state solution stance of Saudi Arabia, this, by the way, is nothing new for them. Over 20 years ago, in 2002, the entire Arab League, led by Saudi Arabia, offered Israel what was called the Arab Peace Proposal, which is basically, you withdraw to your internationally

recognized borders of June 1967, allow finally for the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, which is a huge compromise for Palestinians because that's just 22% of their historic homeland. And we'll give you full peace. We'll give you the very normalization that Israel claims it wants now. Netanyahu at the time said we'll never, ever, ever accept that. He's been backed up by successive U.S. administrations. And that's a big reason why we're in the situation we're in right now. How much worse has the slaughter in Gaza gotten since the declaration by the court that there's plausible evidence of genocide? You know, that's a great question. It's hard to fathom the

answer because it's just been horrible for these last many months now. I can tell you anecdotally from friends of mine that are in Gaza who send me stories and videos. It's just it's unspeakable. And, you know, the people who should feel really there's many people who should feel shame. But The New York Times recently has had articles saying that the number of killings are declining. Things are getting better. It's such a lie. This is a mass murder campaign that is continuing. It's only getting worse, and it's only getting worse thanks to U.S. policy. How bad is it on the West Bank? What is the IDF doing there? Well, the West Bank is just continued land theft, harassment of Palestinians, settlers allowed to go on rampages, heavily armed, harassing people.

I have many friends in the West Bank who go through just the worst things imaginable. But the problem is the Gaza genocide is so horrible that even they feel bad. People in the West Bank feel bad talking about their own plight just because of what Israel is doing in Gaza is unprecedented, this mass murder of a densely populated death camp. But certainly the West Bank deserves so much more attention than it's getting because it's horrible there as well. Aaron Matei, thank you, my dear friend. Thanks for your extraordinary knowledge and insight. So much appreciated by me, by my team, by the viewers. I hope you can come back again next week as usual.

Of course. Thank you, Judge. You're welcome. What a great analysis from somebody with extraordinary sources of knowledge on the ground in the Middle East. Coming up at 5 o'clock Eastern, another brilliant

soul, Professor Jeffrey Sachs. How bad is the breach between Israel and Saudi Arabia because of these recent events? Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. MUSIC