Judging Freedom - Alastair Crook: Is the US Trying to Escape Reality?

Episode Date: January 20, 2025

Alastair Crook: Is the US Trying to Escape Reality?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

At Ritual, we know what goes into the holiday season. The potluck planning, the gift giving, the spreadsheets. So this new year, take a moment for yourself with science-backed support that puts you first. So whether you're focusing on supporting foundational health with a clean vegan multivitamin or supporting your gut health with Symbiotic Plus, do it with 30% off your first month at ritual.com slash podcast. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Hi, everyone.

Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom, Scratchy Voice and All. Today is Monday, January 20th, 2024. Alistair Crook will be here with us. But first this. We're taught to work hard for 35 to 40 years, save your money, then live off your savings. Unfortunately, there are too many threats undermining the value of our hard-earned dollars. The Fed's massive money printing machine is shrinking your dollar's value. Just the cost of groceries is absurd. Let me be brutally honest. I think the dollar is on its way to being extinct, not just here, but globally. The BRICS nations,

led by Russia and China, threaten to remove the dollar as the world's reserve currency. Central banks have been shifting away from the dollar and into gold. And if we go to central bank digital currency, that will not only destroy the dollar, but we will lose our freedom. We will lose our privacy. They can track anything we do. You need to take care of yourself and your family. So here's what you need to do. Immerse yourself in knowledge and information. The writing is on the wall. Now is the time to consider shifting some of your dollars into gold and silver as your bedrock financial asset. Call my friends at Lear Capital, the leader in precious metals,

investing for over 27 years. They help me diversify into gold and silver. They can help you too. Call Lear today at 800-511-4620, 800-511-4620, or go to learjudgenap.com. Alistair, welcome here, my dear friend. Excuse my voice.

I'll let you do most of the talking today. You have a very interesting piece out this weekend about the United States government and reality. reality, was there any reason to believe in February of 22 that Ukraine could stop the Russian onslaught? Or was the American foreign policy establishment not living in reality? They were not living in reality as we would recognize it. They were living in an imagined reality, one that was carefully crafted by producing memes, echoing these memes, magnifying them across the internet until everybody was in a frenzy of memes and imaginary realities about the world, about Ukraine. And as we've seen, you know, the consequence of that is that there's been more emphasis on the sort of imaginary politics, this identitarian politics,

this balance, gender balance, all of these things have consumed us. They've driven us really into a frenzy. And I do think this, if there's a revolutionary element to President Trump's arrival on the scene, I think it is to break that frenzy, to introduce a little bit of sunlight that shows us the real landscape, the real reality that we're facing

and tells us a few things about where we really are and what the reality really is. Now, it's not going to be easy because there's still a large proportion of the American population and even bigger proportion of the European population that are still living that frenzy, that are going to stay in it until they're forcefully from it, probably. But nonetheless, I think the exercise of unmasking and saying, you know, this is the true reality. This is the reality for the United States. This is the reality for Europe. I think that is going to have a profound effect. The question is, it's down to one man to do this. I'm sure his intentions

about wars and things like that, I think that's absolutely the case. I think he has a slightly an advantage this time over 22, because I think on this time he can um count on the fact that america is in the on the cusp of this if you like this revolution of unmasking of beginning to leave behind these fantasies this hall of mirrors of um ideas about ukraine and russia and and about um about iran all of these things can be if you like just exposed and i think that is uh the revolution but it's one man uh trying to do it uh but what has happened already has changing in europe the the mere fact of Elon Musk questioning Starmer and the rape gangs and of inviting Alice Vadel onto a talk program has sent Europe into a sort of frenzy of concern

that they're going to lose the grip on these imagined realities and we'll have to face the real reality. I want to get back to Ukraine in a minute, but is Prime Minister Stormer in danger of losing his job over these very profound criticisms of his failure as a chief prosecutor to prosecute these rape gangs? I think so. It is really such an outrage, and people in Britain feel so strongly about it. But it's that and many other things. I mean the things that he won't talk about that is not public. They're giving $3,500 billion, I think it is,

to Ukraine. He's just been to Kiev and signed a hundred year agreement with Zelensky. You know, like some schoolgirls, we're best friends forever. Anyway, he signed all those at the same time that, you know, old age pensioners and elderly in Britain are being deprived of their allowance for heating for those that need it. And in this cold weather, they are sort of think his tenure on par, he may go the same way as Liz Truss before too long. Did NATO ever have a serious strategy, a unified strategy for resisting the Russians in Ukraine? No, not really, because they'd been geared up so long for fighting these sort of mini counter-terrorist wars, counter-terrorist wars,

which were sort of fighting small insurgent groups, but never fighting a peer army, never thinking about how to deal with a peer army. The last time was Iraq, but even there, most of the Iraqi Republican Guard commanders had been bought off by the British and by the Americans with pots of gold and money so that they wouldn't fight. We've seen a bit of the same happening in Syria. So this was, they're not really used to this war, major war with big armies fighting. They're used to this sort of small special forces counterinsurgency work.

So I don't think they ever had a proper strategy for this at all it was just um these were just episodes of you know good pr good um you know optics um this looks great so we'll do this it looks as if we're strong and we're winning but never any serious consideration of what could be expected when you put up, if you like, a much smaller, less well-equipped army against a major army like Russia with its capabilities and its forces. And there was never any sense of that. I mean, it's a tragedy that they've allowed to happen in the interest of sort of these memes again,

you know, these imaginary narratives that we've all had, that, you know, Russia is collapsing, Putin is about to vanish, all of these stories to keep us diverted. And what has diverted us from is the reality that Ukraine was never going to win against a massive military force such as that of Russia. Has the West seen as massive a military force since 1945? No, they haven't. As I say, we've turned over to really much more to this type of small-scale special forces actions, engaging few people, whether it was in Afghanistan or in Syria or elsewhere, and mostly training small militias

and working with them. Well, this is not suitable for facing off a Russian army, well-trained, well-equipped, of nearly a million men. This is a different type of war. It goes back to that period. And during this latter time, it's all been about not only not arming ourselves or preparing for anything else, but it's all been orientated towards fighting what they would describe condescendingly as sort of barefoot tribesmen in Yemen or in Afghanistan or whatever, and how successful that was. Well, it wasn't.

Look at what's happened subsequently. And certainly in terms of Ukraine, it was sort of producing fantasies. What kind of advice or guidance did CIA and MI6 give the West that they could have been so wrong in their understanding of Russian force and strength? in Europe or in America, that you've had people who've really tried to make an effort to understand other countries, other civilizations, other cultures. We just take it for granted. And, of course, the advent of AI and data crunching has actually skewed this even further. People assume that if you have enough data points

and some cloud computing, you can know everything about Iran. Well, you can't. It's a different civilizational sphere. It's very hard to leave your own cultural sphere completely. I don't think it's probably possible. But if you can stand back and look into your own sphere and see what you look like, at least from the boundaries of it, if not from another vantage point, then you can get an idea of what it means, what Russia is, what China is. But we don't do that and haven't done this for some time

because of this reliance particularly over the last four years of the sort of machinery the whole machinery of echo chambers and memes and creating constructs and and you know it takes people they become engaged in this frenzy. They get convinced. And you'll hear people after a very short time repeating stories and memes about what's happening. Oh, Putin's about to fall. He's sick. He's ill. Within days, they come.

And they carefully construct a system of many, many people on laptops in universities and elsewhere. And as soon as the meme exited from sort of Washington headquarters in parts of the suburbs, it gets taken up by these young people. And you get it. It's almost a weight of consensus saying, yes, this is right. Putin's a thug. Putin is failing. Russia is failing. And it swept along that and the fever grips people. And I think this is, as I say, why, you know, I think there is a prospect

that Trump can do something quite revolutionary, which is break the fever. Break the fever of all these memes and these imaginary ideas and try and take it back. It's not going to be easy, as I say, because, you know, I don't think there's been any preparation. Well, there's been the opposite preparation in America for the sense that Russia is winning, for example. There's no preparation of the public. It's begun, a little bit of that. But there's no real psychological preparation for a new position for the United States in the world. Did the West really and truly believe the nonsense that it fed us? Question one. Question two, how much resistance should Trump expect from the American deep state, which is heavily invested in this nonsense? So first of all is that even if they didn't believe all of the memes, they believed the memes themselves could bring victory.

That if you said it clearly enough and if you repeated it that, you know, Russia was weak and it would fail, then it would come about. This was the magical thinking in this process. Instead of doing hard work and homework and strategy, it was rested on the sense that if you get a victory language right, then you will get victory. Because it's in the meme, it's in the narrative of who has victory is really what counts much more than what happens and what we've seen in russia is the reassertion of the of the facts on the ground

of the battlefield realities that's what matters ultimately at the end when ukraine is defeated it will be visible and be seen by all but until until then, we live in a sort of fantasy world of ideas. Did they really believe it? I think many people came to believe it. And as I say, it's very compelling, this process that we went through with these echo chambers, because it seemed like all the world agreed with this. Everyone concurred that Russia is weak and Ukraine is winning. And it seemed that there was a whole of society consensus on this view.

And that in a sense, all that mattered because most of the Europeans and Americans didn't seem to care much about the Ukrainians or the fact that they were dying in such numbers. What mattered was that we had the victory of narrative. We were there and we could claim we had defeated and damaged or hurt Russia. How long do you think the Israeli Hamas ceasefire will last? I think that Netanyahu, he doesn't see it in his interest. Many Israelis may disagree with him on this, a lot of them do, but he does not see it in his interest, personal interest, political interest, I think, for this ceasefire to last. So the general feeling is that it will probably last maybe 16 days, which is when the next exchange is due to take place. The big exchange, and that would be the exchange which involves quite a lot of senior military officers, Israeli military officers.

There's even, I think, a general amongst the hostages. So I think it may last the whole process, really. At the end of the 16 days, then you start the process of discussing part two. And I think we should expect from this that something, I mean, the nature of Israel, the psychology of Israel as it is in the wake of 7th of October, there will be a reaction. It's very hard to tell how the actual sight of these hostages being released,

which has been very emotional for many Israelis, these three girls coming out in good condition, looking well, smiling. It's going to be a shock. That is going to be a real shock to Israeli society. We don't know how much effect that will have. But Netanyahu believes, I think very clearly, that he needs something stronger. I don't think there's any agreement with Trump about any of the next steps. I think Trump keeps his cards very close to his chest. But I think Netanyahu will want something. Will it be Iran? I don't know. Certainly Israel

and Iran are preparing as if there will be a conflict there. I don't think he has, Netanyahu has any assurance that America will back it up beyond a certain limited point, air refueling and things like that, but not go all in. So we have to wait and see. But meanwhile, Israel is sort of falling apart, is becoming very divided, and there are views, no one knows quite what it is. And I just give you, if you give me two minutes, an anecdote from my past when I was in South Africa and dealing with trying to get a ceasefire,

which the South African government wanted, with SWAPA in Namibia. Because the South African government could see that whereas the South African Defence Force was going in and destroying Angola and Mozambique, you know, rather like the Israeli forces are destroying Beirut and Sana'a and Yemen. Very similar.

And yet the South Africans at the time were saying, you know, okay, we're very destructive. Maybe people are fearful of that. But what is the political dividend? What are we going to get from this and then actually the ceasefire that i was involved then failed because the south african public were not able to cope with the idea of a ceasefire with a group that they considered both terrorists and marxist a double does the israeli public want a long-term ceasefire? I don't think they know quite what they want at the moment.

They would like to have, if you like, a victory that would bring a lasting, if you like, quiet to the region. But I'm not sure. I think that this is the question that is coming in their mind, rather as it did in South Africa. What are you going to tell your grandchildren? You know, the future of your country, what is just to kill more Arabs every year, to do more damage to the infrastructure of the region? Is that the future that you're promising your grandchildren?

Is that the best we can do? Is that the solution for Israel? Permanent Jabotinsky, permanent armed war, permanent threatening all of your neighborhood with death and ruin unless they submit to you. I don't know. In South Africa, it took some time, but eventually it was the Afrikaners who turned around and they said, you know, this won't do for our grandchildren.

We have to find some sort of solution. Before we go, Alistair, what is the story with Netanyahu and President Trump's inauguration? Was he invited and then disinvited? Was he invited and said yes and then changed his mind? What happened? I don't think he was invited. I don't think he was invited. I don't think he was invited.

I think we have to wait and see. You know, Trump has got plenty of surprises. He specializes this ahead. But I think there's two things we should prepare ourselves for. Firstly, Trump is not going to change his position of support for Israel at all. I mean, I think that will continue and he will support Israel strongly in this field, albeit that he does not want, if you like, wars to continue in in in in in the region so i think that um i hear i don't think that netanyahu and i think what changed it why we have a ceasefire at all is because of the trepidation towards trump um for the first time and this is consensus in israel by

the way not elsewhere but in israel it's you know, that it was Trump and the sense that he really is in awe of Trump, in which he wasn't in previous eras, that caused him. And also his envoy, Witkoff, who went there and just said, listen, sign this. Come here. I don't give a damn about Shabbat. You come here. Sign the deal. You make it work.

And by the way, afterwards, I'm going to come and visit Gaza to see what's really happening in the ceasefire. That type of tactic seems to have really shaken Netanyahu, and he's not sure some of his, Ben-Gavir is likely to leave the government, but he's still providing Smotrich and Ben-Gavir. Smotrich has about seven seats, and Ben-Gavir has six seats in the Knesset. Ben-Gavir can leave, and he still has a stable majority, but if both of them leave the government in protest, the Knesset. Ben-Gavir can leave and he still has a stable majority,

but if both of them leave, the government in protest, because they want to see, if you like the Nakba, they want to see the Palestinians removed from Gaza completely. Those two and the right wing still wants the Arabs out and to be able to resettle Gaza. Alstair, thank you very much, my dear friend. Thank you for putting up with my scratchy voice. Thank you for suffering it. I feel much better than I sound.

We'll see you again next week. All the best. Thank you so much. Thanks. Coming up later today, Ray McGovern at 10, Larry Johnson at 11, Max Blumenthal at 2. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. So At Ritual, we know what goes into a magical holiday season. The potluck planning, the gift giving, the spreadsheets. This new year, take a moment for yourself with simple daily rituals that help you put your foundational health at the top of your to-do list. Ritual's Essential for Women 18 Plus Multivitamin is a clinically backed multivitamin featuring nine high-quality key essential ingredients to help

you fill key nutrient gaps in your diet. Or maybe you're stressing your daily protein intake, or you want to double down on support for your gut microbiome. From plant-based essential protein to three-in-one pre-, pro-, and postbiotic strains with Symbiotic Plus, Ritual helps you focus on supporting your body after a long season of juggling everybody else. And for a limited time, do it with 30% off a 3-month supply at ritual.com slash podcast. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.