Judging Freedom - Aaron Maté :Ukraine’s Neo-Nazis

Episode Date: April 10, 2024

Aaron Maté :Ukraine’s Neo-NazisSee 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, April 10th, 2024. Aaron Mate joins us now. It's four o'clock in the East Coast. We did have some problems earlier today, not with YouTube, but with the software that gets us to YouTube. The problems have been resolved. Phil Giraldi, who was scheduled to be here at three,

will be here live at five o'clock. Now to Aaron. Aaron, a pleasure, my dear friend. Welcome here. Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, who agrees with you and me on many things involving Ukraine and Gaza, and who was the chief of staff for Secretary of State Colin Powell for many years, recently had some very harsh things to say about the American CIA and Ukraine. I'll let you listen to what he said,

but so you know what's coming. He, last week on this show, late in the day on Friday afternoon, put the finger on the CIA as the cause of the attack on the Crocus Concert Hall. But to be fair to him and to you, here's what he said. This looks a lot like what Nord Stream turned out to be, a U.S. operation. Only the CIA led it. Let's face it. We have done as much to create and to nurture ISIS as anything else on the face of the earth, whether it be Abu Musab al-Zarqawi or any

of the instigators of the so-called ISIS consulate in the beginning. We've used ISIS, and when I say we, I mean that agency called the CIA, the same agency that does so many nefarious things in our name. And they have worked ISIS and worked operatives from ISIS in order to do other things. And I'm hearing, and it makes a lot of sense to me, and I'm watching the behavior and the signals coming from Moscow, which are usually very indicative of the truth when it's something like this. And I think that's what Putin believes. And I think the intelligence community in Russia, whether it's the GRU, the NKVD, the KSB, the FSB or whatever, they believe it too. And that makes this Ukraine conflict a different conflict as of that killing of that many Russians

that close to Putin and blame lying, at least in part, with the people who orchestrated it being the CIA. If Colonel Wilkerson is right, Aaron, wouldn't that be an act of war by the American government on Russia? If he's right, it absolutely would be. And it's awkward for me to, you know, disagree with so many people that I really respect and I've learned a lot from, including Colonel Wilkerson, also Scott Ritter, a regular guest on your show. But I personally just haven't seen the evidence for it yet. So I'm not prepared to go that far. But obviously, I put a lot of stock in what they say. They had the inside experience with these agencies. And I do think it is fair enough to assume the CIA would be capable of something so horrific, but I'm not prepared to go there yet.

What I do know is what is proven. It is true that the U.S. has nurtured ISIS. It encouraged its growth, especially in Syria, wanting to use that as a tool against the government of Bashar al-Assad, as John Kerry admitted. It's also true that ISIS did find a safe haven inside Ukraine. After the breakout of the proxy war there in 2014, following the Maidan coup, ISIS leaders have actually taken refuge inside of Ukraine. And when Ukraine fought on the front lines against Russian-backed Eastern Ukrainians, there were radical Islamist militants serving alongside neo-Nazis, believe it or not. That was in the New York Times, back when the New York Times was allowed to report on who really was fighting on the front lines of Ukraine.

But I'm personally just not prepared to draw a direct line between all that and this massacre inside Moscow. It's just my intuition. It strikes me as something that the CIA would not be prepared to do. Maybe I'm being naive here. No, no, I don't think you're being naive. You're being cautious. You want to see more evidence.

Now, we don't know what Colonel Wilkerson saw. He was not able to tell us everything that he saw. He probably saw some secret things. He may still have a security clearance from the old days. I don't know. Are you prepared to draw a line between the attack on Crocus and the Ukrainian intelligence services? I certainly think the Ukrainian ultranationalists, the fanatics that are very powerful inside Ukraine, could have been involved in this. But yet I have to be cautious there too. I haven't seen the evidence for that yet.

What I'm more inclined to believe is that this is the result of a deteriorating environment caused by the U.S. goal of bleeding Russia. Going into Syria, for example, the dirty war there and fighting on the opposite side of Russia there, coupled with the same thing in Ukraine, using Ukraine as also a proxy war against Russia. Both these conflicts have really plunged relations between these two countries, which makes cooperation and intelligence sharing very difficult. It was reported in the New York Times that even when the U.S. gave a warning to Russia about a potential ISIS-K terror plot, that the CIA shared very limited details because they didn't want to share with Russia its sources and methods, which says that the CIA shared very limited details because they didn't want to share with Russia its sources and

methods, which says that the CIA did not tell Russia everything it knew. And it's understandable. I totally understand if you're in Russia's position, you're hearing this warning from the U.S. Given the long record of the U.S. trying to undermine you, openly saying our goal in Ukraine is to weaken Russia, and funding groups trying to bring down your government, why you'd be skeptical of the U.S. And as Putin said publicly, he doesn't, you know, this could be another attempt to sow chaos in Russia and undermine confidence in the Russian government. So I understand why they reacted that way. But it could very well be the case that the U.S. was actually delivering a serious warning that because of this horrible environment and maybe Russian hubris too, it just wasn't acting on properly.

How desperate or how unwilling to face reality is President Zelensky? Oh, well, the best source of this, beyond his own words, are his own aides. There was a cover story in Time magazine a few months ago sourced to Zelensky's own aides who called him delusional, who said that he borders on Messianic, that they try to tell him that there's no more people left to fight, that they're losing and he won't listen. So his own people tell him that. And the irony of this appearing in Time magazine is that the previous year, Time magazine had named Zelensky the man of the year. So Time magazine goes from naming Zelensky man of the year to reporting based on his own aides that he's delusional. And that's a good illustration of how well this proxy war is going for Zelensky and the U.S. And he continues to talk about how if you don't arm me now, we're going to get into World War III. He wants World War III. He wants to bring in NATO to fight on his side

because that's the only chance he has of not having a total defeat. So there's no person more out of touch than Zelensky. There was a recent headline in the Washington Post saying that Zelensky is running out of options. His options are bad to worse. And I was thinking, do they mean his option of Tel Aviv or Miami?

Because that's pretty much Zelensky's only option at this point. You're talking about where he would go to retire and live. Exactly. Right. Does Ukraine employ Western-trained neo-Nazis? Oh, absolutely. There's a long record of this now. The neo-Nazi Azov battalion is formally incorporated into the U S into the Ukrainian

military. Uh, they've received us training and weapons, uh, since 2014, even though officially that's against us law. The problem was so bad that a few years ago, Congress passed a measure banning us assistance to the Azov battalion. Everybody ignores that. And one way they get around that now is that Azov Battalion recently rebranded to the 3rd Assault Brigade.

So they just changed the name. It's very similar to the Syria playbook, where U.S. officials noted that it was pretty awkward that we were arming an insurgency dominated by al-Qaeda, whose initial name was al-Nusra. So what did al-Nusra do? It changed its name. So now they have a different name. So they've just brought the Syria playbook to Ukraine. And there's many other neo-Nazi militias that have received U.S. support.

Are there neo-Nazi militias in Germany today? Well, there are. There's a great article about this in The Gray Zone by my colleague Kit Klarenberg. It's called Meet Centuria, Ukraine's Western-Trained Neo-Nazi Army. And Kit reports that inside Germany, you have now a sizable presence of this militia that originates in Ukraine, but they're expanding across Europe. They are a collection of not very nice people, open neo-Nazis with neo-Nazi insignia, and they're training inside Germany pretty openly. Germany is well aware that this is going on, but isn't doing much about it. Zelensky even made a really bizarre comment about a year ago, where he said that unless the West gives more weapons to Ukraine, Ukrainians,

that if the West does not give more weapons to Ukraine, then Ukrainians who are currently in places like Germany, that they could be upset. And basically, the subtext of his comment was that Ukrainian neo-Nazis and fascists who are elsewhere could basically turn on their host countries and cause problems. And I wouldn't be surprised if he was referring to these militias like Centuria, which are in Germany. Let me ask you if the flip side of that is likely, meaning if the U.S. House of Representatives does not pass the $61 billion that the Biden wakes up in the middle of the night, realize he's made a terrible mistake. The money doesn't flow. Will Berlin replace Washington?

I doubt that. There are some politicians in Germany who talk like that, but I don't think they have the means to. A good illustration of this we saw recently, and you've covered this on your show, where you had those German military leaders talking about how they can circumvent Olaf Scholz's reluctance to send Taurus missiles to Ukraine. And the reason Scholz doesn't want to do that is because he knows it's, first of all, it would be catastrophic. It'd be very dangerous because Russia would see Germany as an even more direct commander

in the war than it currently is. But also, you know, it'd just be a disaster for Germany, which is already suffering so much economically as a result of its role in signing on to Biden's proxy war. Biden already destroyed the Nord Stream pipelines, thereby cutting off Germany from its reliable source of cheap Russian natural gas. So Schultz and any other remotely sane German leader does not want to be drawn more in. And also just financially, I don't think anyone can match the power that the U.S. has in being able to supply all these weapons. Europe simply just doesn't have the weapons. Right, right. Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama recently interrogated Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin under oath and asked him quite directly, Mr. Secretary, can Ukraine win? Watch this. Cut number 10.

General, can Ukraine win? Yes. Yes. What does that look like? Well, what we've said all along is we want to see Ukraine remain a sovereign, independent, democratic state that has the ability to defend its sovereign territory and deter aggression. And that's been our aim from the very beginning, and it remains our aim. But yes, they can be successful. Under oath, he makes a statement like that. Not the first time we believe he has substantially misled and lied under oath. What do you think? Not the first time, and not the first time he's used the exact same words,

because literally just over a year ago, march 2023 lloyd austin went before the same congress and said that we believe ukraine has a strong chance of being successful in the upcoming counter-offensive how did that go it was a complete disaster in fact the counter-offensive is such a disaster that the new york times recently reported that the pentagon which lloyd austin heads that the counter offensive was such a failure that the Pentagon doesn't even consider it to be a counter offensive. It was so bad. They can't even use the word counter offensive to describe it. That's what a failure it was.

And that's what Lloyd Austin hid from the public when he went before Congress a year ago and said that they have a strong chance of success. When meanwhile, we learned later on from leaks that came out um on those discord servers if you remember that uh all those leaks that the pentagon was privately saying along with u.s intelligence that at best ukraine only had a modest chance of success and the reason was obvious because ukraine doesn't doesn't have the air power and if you're going to launch a counter-offensive you need air power which ukraine just doesn't have anyone could have predicted that and lloyd austin was lying

through his teeth then, and he's lying through his teeth now. Except now it's even worse, because at least back then you could say, all right, maybe this counteroffensive might do something. With all that training, all those people, all that money that was poured into it, it was a complete disaster. So why possibly would it be any better now? So if the CIA had 12 stationary bases in Ukraine, you would think the Secretary of Defense would know about it. Here's Senator Tuberville again, cut number 12. Do we have 12 CIA bases in Ukraine? Can you answer that in this setting? CIA bases? I got this out of the New York Times, which I don't read very often.

I'll defer that question to the director of the CIA. All right. Thank you. I wish he had been a trained lawyer and followed up with the right questions. You're the secretary of defense and you don't know what the CIA is doing in Ukraine. You've got billions of dollars worth of equipment there and you don't know what the CIA is doing there. You know, and it's a very pertinent question because in that same congressional appearance, Lloyd Austin referred to Russia's invasion of Ukraine as unprovoked. Yes.

So it's an unprovoked invasion. Yet when it comes to the question of whether or not we've established 12 secret CIA bases inside Ukraine since backing the coup in 2014, Sorry, I can't answer that for you. Because answering that question would put, would just expose the complete lie that Austin uttered when he said that this invasion was unprovoked. You think that if Russia put 12 secret bases inside Canada or Mexico, that the US might feel provoked? Especially if that came after we backed a coup

that overthrew their government that was trying to be neutral. So it's just no wonder he can't talk about it because it completely exposes the rest of his life. So nicely put. We're going to take a break for a commercial announcement. When we come back, we'll explore Aaron's views on the latest debacles in Gaza. But first this. How do you really feel about your financial future right now today? Stable or uncertain? Despite all the happy talk that the

Fed and the banks want you to buy into, I believe that 2024 is going to be a very unstable year, politically and financially. That's one of the reasons I decided to buy physical gold and silver. And I suggest you should do the same and do it now. Why? Because throughout times of economic uncertainty, gold and silver have rightly earned a reputation for stability. Owning precious metals has made me feel more stable and it can do the same for you. Reach out to my friends at Lear Capital and get their free wealth protection guides. You can reach them at 800-511-4620. Lear has earned an excellent reputation by helping thousands of customers just like you move portions of their retirement savings into Lear gold and silver IRAs.

It's easy to do, and it's tax and penalty free. Don't be caught off guard. Experts predict the markets may tank again. You'll be happy if you have protection in place. So call Lear at 800-511-4620, 800-511-4620, or go to learjudgenap.com and tell them your friend the judge sent you. Is Israel losing the war in Gaza? From the point of view of its military goal, its stated military goals of destroying Hamas, absolutely.

The fact that now Israel forces have pulled back and that Netanyahu is under so much pressure. Democrats are abandoning him, at least rhetorically. Even Nancy Pelosi, who is a staunch supporter of Israel, recently signed on a letter saying that the U.S. should halt arms transfers to Israel. So politically, Israel is certainly losing. Militarily, they have not achieved their goal of defeating Hamas. And that makes sense. I mean, their main targets have not been Hamas, but Palestinian civilians and Palestinian infrastructure. In terms of their goals of making Gaza unlivable, that's the one success I think that they can point to.

What happens if they invade Rafah? I guess I should ask the question in an orderly fashion. Why did they pull their troops out of southern Gaza if they plan on invading Rafah as soon as Ramadan's over? Ramadan's over today. It's a great question. I can only speculate. I suspect that it was the military resistance that they faced that they just couldn't countenance anymore. They have taken a lot of losses. They had to pull back. This is not my area of expertise. I'd love to hear what Scott Ritter, for example,

has to say about this. But it seems to me that Hamas put up a much more formidable resistance than at least someone like me expected. And Israel eventually, taking casualties, had to pull back. And now, I mean, you can only speculate as to what's going on perhaps they've even already thrown in the towel they realize that they can't do anything more and

perhaps maybe the standoff of the bite administration is what they'll use to say it was the bite administration we didn't have their support so we couldn't go into rafa i mean that's to me the best case scenario or they're just simply trying to regroup, buy some time, and then go into Rafah and kill as many people as they can when they're ready. Is Israel playing a nefarious and dangerous game by destroying the consulate adjacent to the embassy of Iran in Damascus and murdering two high-ranking Iranian generals? Oh, of course. And then I think the motives there are pretty easy to discern. That's not difficult to me to see why they did that. I think they want to pull the U.S. into a war. That's a sign of the desperation we're talking about. They know, of course, that if they bomb

an Iranian consulate, which is a sovereign territory of Iran, that Iran will have to respond. And if their goal is to provoke a response, well, why would they do that? It could only be because they want the U.S. to fight on their side. So if Iran retaliates in a strong enough fashion that that might compel the U.S. to get involved, as Joe Biden has suggested he would, because he sent even aircraft carriers into the Middle East as soon as October 7th happened to tell other countries in the region that we have Israel's back. And so therefore, I think Israel's trying to take advantage of that by provoking Iran to retaliate and hopefully drag the US in to fight on its side. Because for example, Hezbollah, which is an ally of Iran,

Israel doesn't want to take on Hezbollah on its own because Hezbollah can actually fight back. The Israelis are cowards. We see that in Gaza. They don't want to fight. They just want to blow things up. They want to fight people who can't fight back. Hezbollah can fight back. And therefore, Israel, if it wants to fight Hezbollah, then it needs its bigger brother, the U.S. on its side. I'm going to play a clip. It's only 11 or 12 seconds long of President Biden. I believe he's with the Japanese prime minister walking along the promenade outside the Rose Garden. But a reporter shouts to him a question. Australia is interested in you freeing Julian Assange, would you consider dropping the prosecution? So it's a little difficult to hear, but watch this clip. Listen to the question.

The answer is given with some indifference, but it's a startling answer. Do you have a response to Australia's request that you end Julian Assange's prosecution? Let's run it one more time, Sonia. Do you have a response to Australia's request that you end Julian Assange's prosecution? You have a response to Australia's request that you end Julian Assange's prosecution. We're considering it. I was stunned and exhilarated at that answer. Of course, as I said, he gave it with some indifference. I don't know if he seriously meant it. What do you think? Yeah, I mean, that's the thing. You never know with Biden. He blurts things out. He lies a lot. He could just be saying that

in the moment because he doesn't know what else to say. He said all sorts of things that he doesn't end up following through on. And he's also known to be a liar. He's lied his whole political career. So it's encouraging. I don't want to minimize the importance of him not ruling out the prospect of freeing Assange, especially because what Assange has gone through is just so horrible. And all of us are hoping so badly for his release, at least anybody who cares about

a free press and who values integrity and courage, which Julian Assange exemplifies. But the problem here is it's Joe Biden, who I just can't trust anything he says out loud. So we'll see. I'm hoping for the best here. Aaron, Matei, a pleasure, my dear friend, as always, thank you very much for joining us. Thank you, Judge. Okay. As I indicated at the beginning of the clip on Aaron, due to some internet blips, it's now 425, Wednesday afternoon, the 10th of April. Phil Giraldi will be live at five o'clock. And coming up tomorrow for you, we have a very interesting day at all times Eastern. At eight in the morning, Tony Schaefer. At two in the afternoon, Mike Benz. Remember him, our expert on the First Amendment. There's a

litany of assaults by the government on the First Amendment that Mike will analyze. At three in the afternoon, Professor John Mearsheimer. At four in the afternoon, the inimitable Max Blumenthal. And at five in the afternoon, as if it were a Friday, the Intelligence Roundtable, the boys, Larry Johnson and Ray McGovern. A full day for you. I look forward to it. I trust you will as well. Coming up, Phil Giraldi at five o'clock. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. Thank you.