Judging Freedom - Aaron Maté: What Happens if US Troops Go to Ukraine?

Episode Date: June 6, 2024

Aaron Maté: What Happens if US Troops Go to Ukraine?See 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 Thursday, June 6th, 2024. Our dear friend and great friend of the show, Aaron Matei, joins us now. Aaron, I know you're overseas and it's the middle of the night and I can't thank you enough for coming on the show at the appointed time. You're very gracious with your time to interrupt your travels to join us. But thank you very much, my dear friend. It's a real pleasure, Judge. Thanks for having me. Thank you. Thank you. You and Max were recently attacked, as was the Gray Zone, by the Washington Post journalist I really don't know or know of by the name of Joseph Min. And before that, I didn't know about this until I was researching what Joseph Min was saying about you.

You guys had been attacked by Liza Dwoskin. I also never heard of her, a journalist for the Washington Post. We played a clip, it's hilarious, of you and Max grilling Liza Dwoskin. But before we run some of that, what is this all about? Is this the intelligence community using their favorite mouthpiece to try and smear investigative reporters dedicated to the truth, which is adverse to what the intelligence community and The Washington Post want us to believe? a matter of two establishment journalists going after independent voices who actually do their job of following the facts, especially when it comes to Israel's mass murder in Gaza. I don't know. But the fact is you have two reporters at The Washington Post whose beat is supposed to be disinformation engaging in the act of disinformation itself. Lizzie Dwoskin did it first when she published a really sleazy hit piece on the gray

zone, taking issue with the fact that basically we were one of the few outlets in the West to acknowledge what Israeli media could acknowledge, which is that Israel did kill some of its own people on October 7th. And we would call for a transparent investigation into that. That was established by hostages, witnesses who saw this happen, and other evidence. And the Gray Zone was one of the few outlets willing to just note this, along with others like the Electronic Intifada. And because of that, this Washington Post reporter, Lizzie Dwoskin, wrote a whole article disparaging us. But again, as is the norm with all these cases, whether it's my reporting on Russiagate or the OPCW Syria cover-up scandal, the Ukraine proxy war, on and on.

No one ever challenges anything we say. They just engage in sleazy innuendo, which was the case with Lizzie Dwoskin's piece. And then now this new piece by a guy named Joseph Min who claimed that we are funded by Iran and Russia. And everybody who doesn't like the gray zone, doesn't like what we say, ran with that and spread that conspiracy theory. The Post had to issue a correction because it was so sleazy. But by then, the damage was done because this claim

had spread. It was disingenuously worded to basically say, to suggest that we were funded by Iran and Russia without overtly saying it. And basically, what they did was take the fact that a gray zone editor named Wyatt Reid has done journalism in the past for Iran's press TV and Russia's Sputnik, which are government funded outlets. Now, this was prior to his working at the gray zone. The Washington Post, Joseph Min, turned this into an article falsely claiming that

gray zone leaders have been funded by iran and russia which is not true and he didn't make clear that why it reads work which is just one person was done prior to joining the gray zone so it was very sleazy but the aim here is not to do journalism it's just to disparage and smear people like the gray zone who do uh i gotta play a little bit of this clip because she is so reluctant to take your questions. And the two of you were so persistent. I said to Max, you guys were like a team of cross examiners. I know neither of you is a lawyer, but your persistence and your challenges to her were terrific.

It's an eight minute clip. We added it down to two. We'll cut it in half and play about a minute of it right now. Here we go. Hello? Yeah, hi. Is this Elizabeth Davoskin? May I ask who's calling? Yeah, hi. It's Max Blumenthal from the Gray Zone, and I'm here with my colleague, Aaron Maté.

Oh, okay. Thank you so much for calling. Sure, yeah. You wanted to talk about our factual journalism? I did. I wanted to interview for my piece. Yeah, I got an email from you accusing us of minimizing the atrocities on October 7th. I am confused. It seems like you're planning to attack the investigative journalists who have helped expose a major scandal, us and Ali Abunimah, which has been confirmed even by Israeli media and by Israeli military officials like Colonel Golan Vach, in which Israel killed Israeli civilians on October 7th. There were friendly fire orders. You're attacking us instead of doing the investigation yourself on this scandal. And I'm really confused about why that is. So I definitely want to talk through everything. I don't want you to feel attacked.

I want to talk you through the points in the story. I'm, of course, aware that there were deaths due to friendly fire. We didn't contact you. You contacted us. So we want to hear from you. What is your issue with us? How are we minimizing what happened on October 7th? If you believe that since you wrote it, it should be easy to explain.

So let's hear it. These were great, poignant questions to put to her, which obviously she was not prepared to answer. What became of that story? Nothing? Yeah, nothing. I think the job was or the aim of it was to smear independent journalists who are pointing out what was acknowledged in Israeli media, which is that there were friendly fire incidents on October 7th, which she did acknowledge there in that clip grudgingly. But, you know, the job was to smear us and get people who don't like us to cite this as evidence that we shouldn't be listened to. That's the whole point of all this stuff.

It's to give people something to cling to so they cannot listen to us rather than try to contest us on the merits. That's what you're supposed to do if you're engaging in normal, healthy dialogue. If you don't agree with someone, you challenge their assertions based on any logical flaws or factual flaws. I mean, that's just like reasoning and arguments, journalism 101. So many journalists have abandoned that. And I've experienced this many times.

A few years ago, the Guardian of London put out an article calling me the most prolific spreader of disinformation on Syria. And their evidence for this was a study that they failed to mention was funded by the very same states that waged a multi-billion dollar dirty war on Syria, which I was very critical of. And of course, this article in The Guardian didn't give a single example of my alleged disinformation about Syria, even though they called me the most prolific spreader of disinformation. So I called the reporter who

wrote the story, Mark Townsend of The Guardian. I asked him, can you name one example of this information that I've spread about Syria? Just one. You call me the most prolific spreader of it. Just one example. Of course, he couldn't because there is none because the point here is to smear us rather than engage with the facts that we put out. Did the Washington Post have to either print a retraction or change a headline in the, what is his name, Joseph Men's story? That's the second hit job. They did have to issue a massive correction. The central claim of Joseph Men, which he put out on Twitter, was that we are funded by Iran and Russia. This guy is a disinformation reporter

putting out blatant misinformation. And the Washington Post had issued a correction saying that that was false. So they retracted Joseph Mann's central claim. A guy purportedly covering disinformation is in fact spreading it. But look, the damage was done. First of all, another aim of this piece was not just to smear the gray zone, but I think to trigger some sort of legal action against Wyatt Reid. Because Joseph Mann, in emailing Wyatt Reid, the gray zone editor who has done work in the past for Russian and Iranian media outlets, said to him, I want to speak to your lawyers. And basically, and then the article says that he consulted experts who believe that Wyatt Reed could be in violation of U.S. sanctions. This is Justice Department journalism, trying to get the government to prosecute a young man who, like many people,

didn't see any prospect working in establishment media because he wants to do his job. In the case of someone living in the U.S., you're responsible for your own government and not the governments of Iran and Russia. And people want to do their job as journalists and be critical of their own government on foreign policy, don't have opportunities in places like The Washington Post. So many people like Wyatt Reed take jobs at places like Russian or Iranian-backed outlets. They get to do journalism that actually they value and that actually is critical of U.S. foreign policy, which they couldn't do in establishment U.S. media. And then a journalist working in the establishment goes ahead and tries to get them prosecuted. That's how it works. Aaron, you and maybe people won't agree with me because we're friends and colleagues.

You're totally vindicated in both of these stories, totally vindicated. The stories are written by people who are not interested in the truth. They're just interested in grinding an ax against those who challenge the establishment views. We all know that. I want to play a short clip. It's maybe a minute 30 from President Biden on his so-called three-phase deal. And then we'll talk about it. Then we're going to play Admiral Kirby saying three times it's an Israeli deal. And then we're going to talk about Cy Hersh's report that says the president made it up. Didn't even talk to Bill Burns,

the head of the CIA, who's the chief negotiator. But Chris, first President Biden on his three-phase deal, which he claims came from the Israelis. The first phase would last for six weeks. Here's what it would include. A full and complete ceasefire. A withdrawal of Israeli forces from all populated areas of Gaza, release of a number of hostages, including women, the elderly, the wounded, in exchange for the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. During the six weeks of Phase 1, Israel and Hamas would negotiate the necessary arrangements to get to phase two.

Then phase two would be an exchange for the release of all remaining living hostages, including male soldiers. Israeli forces would withdraw from Gaza. And as long as Hamas lives up to its commitments, a temporary ceasefire would become, in the words of the Israeli proposal, the cessation of hostilities permanently, end of quote. Finally, in phase three, a major reconstruction plan for Gaza would commence. And any final remains of hostages who've been killed would be returned to their families. That proposal, an Israeli proposal,

has been given to Hamas. It was done on Thursday night, our time. We're waiting for an official response from Hamas. We would note that publicly, Hamas officials came out and welcomed this proposal. This was an Israeli proposal. We have every expectation that if Hamas agrees to the proposal, as was transmitted to them, an Israeli proposal,

that Israel would say yes. All right. So Baghdad, Bob, had to say three times it was an Israeli proposal. Do you believe that the Israelis would propose something like this, knowing if Prime Minister Netanyahu went along with it, his government would collapse because Ben-Gabir and Smotrich and their colleagues would leave? Exactly. That's the question. And so, therefore, the answer is no, this was not an Israeli proposal. Biden was just putting that out there. And Seymour Hersh's article, which you referenced, says that basically Biden was doing a shot in the dark. He's desperate because he's facing an election defeat because of his support, his unfettered support for Israeli

mass murder. But Biden's dilemma is he doesn't want to do actually anything concrete on his end that could end the atrocities. If he wanted to, he could stop the unending flow of U.S. weaponry that allows Israel to sustain its mass murder campaign. He could allow U.N. resolutions calling for a ceasefire. He won't do that, though, for whatever reason. He's got a longtime personal attachment to defending the Israeli government. There's a famous anecdote where he tells former Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin 40 years ago that Israel shall be slaughtering women and children in Lebanon. And to the point where Begin was offended at how bloodthirsty Joe Biden was. So that's that's who Joe Biden is. And also there's the role of AIPAC and the huge sway they have over Congress, especially Democrats. So Biden then was, I think, trying to pretend as if he was doing something. And therefore, he put it out there that Israel had proposed a ceasefire.

When in reality, as you point out, if Israel ever actually made such a proposal, the government would fall because of the extremism of the people in their government. And Netanyahu himself does not want to end this war. Joe Biden this week was asked by Time Magazine, do you think it's fair to say that Netanyahu is extending this war for his own political survival? And Joe Biden first says, I'm not going to comment on that. But because this is Joe Biden, he can't remember the last thing he said. So then he immediately did comment. And what did Joe Biden say? He said that, yes, I do think it's very fair for someone to believe that. So Joe Biden was confirming that, yes, Netanyahu is prolonging this war. So therefore, if Joe Biden agrees that Netanyahu is prolonging the war for his own political survival, why then would Netanyahu be offering a ceasefire to end the war? So Cy Hershey's

story makes a lot of sense that Biden was putting this out there, hoping that would create enough pressure on Netanyahu to actually accept the ceasefire. But it hasn't happened because this government, this Israeli government is so committed to destroying Gaza and its people. I wonder if when Prime Minister Netanyahu addresses a joint session of Congress and Bernie Sanders doesn't show, and he's in that with Bernie Sanders, who's Jewish, said he's not going to show if before Netanyahu leaves the United States, he will either be indicted and the subject of an arrest warrant at the ICC or will be embraced by Joe Biden in the Oval Office or all of the above. I would bet that it is the latter. He's embraced by Joe Biden because Biden is in lockstep with Netanyahu no matter what he tries to leak out to the press.

He's in lockstep with Netanyahu. He claims to be frustrated with him, but has done everything he can to support Netanyahu's Scorch Earth campaign inside Gaza. And the U.S. establishment, whether it's Democrats or the Republicans, they've united to say that they don't recognize the ICC here. They love the ICC. Back when the ICC was copying a State Department report or a State Department study, back study, to indict Vladimir Putin, everybody was singing the ICC's praises back then. Right, right, right. But now that they're going after a U.S. client and they're going after crimes that the U.S. is deeply complicit in. If the ICC does ultimately indict Netanyahu, the U.S. will stand firmly behind him.

As a segue to discussing in the second part of this interview, your observations about Ukraine, here's someone in the heart of that issue who doesn't normally talk about Gaza calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. I won't even say what it is. You'll know in a minute. And of course, there is a translator. Cut number eight, Chris. We have come up with a number of initiatives of the UN Security Council calling for a ceasefire. The US has blocked that, vetoing those initiatives.

Had we been working in solidarity, trying to secure an agreement, that would be the positive scenario, but so far it has not succeeded. We directly call for a ceasefire. … Max and Professor Sachs have made that there is no negotiation, no communication between Sergey Lavrov and Tony Blinken. There should be daily communication given these hotspots. There absolutely should be, especially in light of the U.S. decision to now allow Ukrainian strikes inside Russia proper with U.S. weapons. And initially, the claim was that the Biden administration was going to let Ukraine launch these strikes across the border, but just

in a very small region around Kharkiv. Well, now some White House officials have floated the possibility of that expanding to other areas of Russia, including Antony Blinken has said that the U.S. could adapt and adjust. And that's been the established playbook so far. The U.S. says we're not going to do something. We're not going to send attack them. We're not going to send cluster munitions. We're not going to send HIMARS. We're not going to let Ukraine strike into Russia with American weapons. All of those self-imposed red lines by Biden have been crossed because Biden is ultimately not committed to Ukraine's well-being. He's simply committed to using Ukraine to bleed Russia. And therefore, when the time is

right on the escalation ladder, it's time to mount it no matter what the dangers are. It's interesting to listen to Putin talk about a ceasefire in Gaza. It's worth comparing him to Zelensky. Zelensky initially, after October 7th, did everything he could to kiss Israel's feet. He wanted to visit Israel in a solidarity visit, but Israel said no, because I think they thought that would be bad PR. Only recently, in the last week or so, has Zelensky finally started saying a few token words, gesturing in the direction of Palestinian rights. And why is he doing that now? It's very obvious. He's trying to manufacture support for his so-called peace plan, which is not a peace plan. It's just a recipe for continued war because he won't negotiate peace as long as Vladimir Putin's in power,

making peace impossible. But he wants Arab states to get on his side. So I think the Ukrainian government has calculated, they say a few nice things about the need for a Palestinian state one day, and we try to back off Zelensky's unfettered support for Israel, then maybe we can get some Arab states to support our fake people. This is crazy. You mentioned the U.S. I mean, we could add British, German, Swedish permission to use weapons and aim them inside Russia. Here's Foreign Minister Lavrov saying we're not going to put up with this. Cut number one.

We have shown that we will not put up with this and that we will not allow Ukraine to be used as a direct threat to our security, as an instrument for the destruction of everything Russian on historical Russian lands. They did this for more than two decades, or even 30 years, immediately after the disappearance of the Soviet Union. Their goal was to destroy everything Russian from the language to the government in this territory, which they wanted to take for themselves. And they were counting on it. But as always happens, if they wake up the Russian bear, then our people have united like never before. These are not empty words. We saw this during the Russian presidential elections. The Nazi regime continues to use Western weapons to attack

civilian targets, towns, and cities. I assure you that they will not be able to cross this line unnoticed. If they wake up the Russian bear, they're going to have problems on their hands. I didn't know the Russians used that phrase about themselves. I thought that was a Western sort of negative reference to them. This is a pretty strong language, don't you think? It is, of course. And what would we be saying if Russia was providing offensive weapons to Mexico or Canada and allowing their use for strikes across our border? Or if Russia was training Mexican or Canadian forces, tens of thousands of them, and backing a government that we helped, that Russia helped impose that was promising to wipe out ethnic Americans living inside of Canada or Mexico.

I mean, there had been war a long time ago. Russia instead tried to abide by and respect the Minsk Accords, which were brokered in 2015 to end the civil war that began in Ukraine after the U.S.-backed coup. The U.S. helped undermine that. The U.S., right up until Russia's invasion, rejected all Russian efforts to resolve it diplomatically. As we've talked about in your show, Ray McGovern, veteran CIA official and regular guest on your show, I believe was the only voice in the West to point out that the Biden administration appeared to have reneged on a pledge they made to Russia right before it invaded not to put offensive weapons in Ukrainian territory. But that, of course, has gotten no attention here in the West

because we're not supposed to look at the actual background to this war. We're only supposed to believe the propaganda that the Russian invasion was unprovoked. But this moment underscores just what a dangerous project this is, using Ukraine for a proxy war with the open aim of weakening Russia. That's the Biden administration's open aim. And therefore, no amount of escalation and no amount of Ukrainian death is too high for the Biden administration right now because they're willing to keep sacrificing this country just as long as U.S. forces aren't engaged directly. But then the question is, is that even something to rule out at this point, given how repeatedly the U.S. has crossed its own red lines up the escalation ladder? What happens if U.S. troops enter Ukraine, armed, uniformed U.S. troops? Well, you know, that's a terrible thing to fathom because the likely result is nuclear war. I mean, there are already U.S. forces on the ground in Ukraine, but as was pointed out in that leaked German phone call that came out recently,

they're in civilian clothes. So basically they're acting covertly to help Ukraine fire weapons against Russia. That's how dangerous things are. And so if U.S. forces were ever sent directly, I think it's reasonable to say that's the end of the world because we're talking about the world's two nuclear powers who can destroy all of us many times over. Last subject for you, Senator Charles Grassley, whom I've known for years, who is the president pro tem of the Senate, he's fourth in line to the presidency, made the following absurd justification for why Ukraine is so important to the United States. So one would be the 1993 Budapest Agreement. Another one would be Article 5 of NATO, because if Putin would decide to build up the Russian Empire, as he said his goal is, that would include the Baltics and part of Poland. And instead of the United States being interested in just the defense and sovereignty of Ukraine and spending money in that direction,

we would be spending many, many times more money to defend NATO or to defend our obligations under the Budapest Agreement. In the case of NATO, that could even include American blood. So I think it's in our national security interest to support Ukraine outside of the leadership responsibilities that the United States has is to have a consistent foreign policy so our friends will follow us and so that our enemies will fear us. Two days ago, it sounds like something out of the Cold War mentality. Yes, and Senator Grassley does not understand the Budapest Agreement. He talks about

our obligations under the Budapest Agreement. The Budapest Agreement didn't talk about obligations. It talked about giving assurances, which is different than an obligation. And yes, basically, Budapest was that Ukraine would give up its nuclear weapons, which, by the way, it could not even control. And it didn't want to use because it couldn't afford to maintain them. The control of those weapons was in Moscow. Scott Ritter, I believe, has spoken about this on your show and has firsthand experience with this as a former weapons inspector. So that's the first thing. But basically, in return for Ukraine giving up its nuclear weapons, Ukraine received assurances, not guarantees, assurances that

its territorial integrity and sovereignty would be respected. And yeah, you could argue that, I think very plausibly, that Russia did violate the Budapest Agreement by invading Ukraine. But those who make that claim are forgetting another violation. Did the U.S. respect Ukraine's sovereignty back in 2014 when it backed a coup that overthrew its democratically elected government? Of course not. And if that had not have happened, we would not have seen Russia's invasion because Russia's invasion grew out of the ensuing eight-year war after that coup in 2014. And it also grew out of the U.S. refusal to accept the Minsk Accords, which was the internationally agreed upon mechanism for

ending that war that began after the U.S.-backed coup. So to talk about our obligations under the Budapest Agreement, first of all, it's just factually false. There are no obligations. There were assurances made, but that's different than an obligation. And second of all, it also overlooks our own role in causing this whole crisis because of our violation of Ukraine's sovereignty. I think you've taken apart his argument very nicely, Aaron. Thank you for your time, my friend. I know you're in another part of the planet, but thank you very much for interrupting your evening to join us. All the best, safe travels. I hope we see you again next week. Thank you, Judge.

Pleasure. Coming up tomorrow at three o'clock in the afternoon eastern Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson and at 4 o'clock the boys are reunited I won't even tell you where they are Larry Johnson, Ray McGovern the intelligence community roundtable happy end of the day end of the week Friday

regular segment. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom Friday regular segment. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom. Altyazı M.K.