Judging Freedom - Alastair Crooke: Afraid of Free Speech

Episode Date: September 9, 2024

Alastair Crooke: Afraid of Free SpeechSee 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 Monday, September 9th, 2024. Alistair Crook will be here in just a moment on who's afraid of free speech. But first this a divisive presidential election is upon us and the winner is gold. Let me tell you what I mean. Since 2016, our national debt has grown a staggering 70 percent and gold has increased by 60%. Do you own gold? I do. I bought my gold in February, 2023, and it has risen 33%. You've heard me talk about Lear Capital, the company I trust.

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Alistair, good day to you, my friend. And as always, welcome here with appreciation for all the time you give us. I do want to talk to you about your fascinating piece out this morning on the freedom of speech and its coming under assault in the West. But before we do, as usual, I want to go to the latest on Israel briefly and the latest on Ukraine. Reuters is reporting this morning that Prime Minister Netanyahu announced yesterday to the public that he gave an order to the IDF to prepare to invade Lebanon. Do you know if this is true? And if so, is it wise? Yes, I can tell you what he said. He said, I have instructed the Israeli army and all security forces to prepare to change the situation. He's referring to the situation in the north of Israel. And there is no possibility that we will continue in the current situation.

That's the Gaza West Bank situation. And we are obligated to return all the residents of the north to their homes safely. I think what's happened is that really two things have changed the situation. And the brief hiatus that we've had there, where things have just been continuing as before, both with Lebanon and with Gaza, really two things. It was at the end of last week, Netanyahu announced in an interview on Fox News to the effect that he was saying, look, there's no deal.

There's no deal even likely, imminent. And the idea that there is the prospect of a deal, which is the deal for release of hostages, if you like, and an end to the war in Gaza, the end of the conflict in Gaza. He said, that's false news. It's not true. So he completely contradicts the White House, and he says, there's no deal, and it's not imminent and not likely. So I think that left Israeli Israel only with two options.

With the deal ruled out, I mean, that was one option. The only other option is then to resolve the issue with Hezbollah. And so we've seen during this period already a change taking place, is being treated to the Gaza system. There are these major attacks. Palestinians in West Bank are being moved from place to place. They're told to leave this area, move to this area, a safe area. Really major attacks on the infrastructure of West Bank. And by infrastructure, I mean things like schools and public buildings. It's not military buildings. So lots of deaths.

It's really now taking on the appearance. And the Israeli military forces have been saying very clearly, you know, this can't go on for longer. It is explosive. The whole of, if you like, I'm now talking about the sort of smaller Israel, Gaza, West Bank, has become an explosive issue. So hence he's now saying, well, now I've ruled out any deal on Gaza, then we must now move to the next stage.

And the Israelis are both becoming more polarized, again, in their sort of sense of not opposing. I mean, Ashkenazi European Jews have been saying online very clearly, look, if there was a button by which I could remove all of the Palestinians from Gaza, I would pressure it in a flash. And this is becoming the most sort of popular meme in Israel at the moment. So it's becoming more polarized in both ways. And I think the, if you like, the European, the liberal segment of the Israeli population is now understanding and seeing that the rights are in the ascendance and that they are moving and there's not much the left can do to stop it.

They hoped that the protests would bring down the government. They're not bringing down the government. The government is continuing, and now they are heading into Hezbollah, and I think that's quite clear because the commander of the U. the US Central Command, General Kurilan, has been yesterday, was in the northern command of Israel, in Safer, in Israel, meeting with senior IDF officials there to review the war against Lebanon, the progress in the fighting in recent months, as he puts it, against Hezbollah,

and the extensive preparations for the possibility of all-out war and a wide campaign breaking out in the north. So, I mean, America is getting fully prepared. He's there checking it out. And I think the thing that has really triggered this shift, the end to the hiatus, was a message that was broadcast on Channel 13, which is a Hebrew channel, which said the government had sent a fairly clear message to Israel saying, we can't keep these carrier groups in the region forever. In other words, what's wrong with it?

So we must conclude that Netanyahu would not have made this statement without securing the support that he needs from the United States. But can the IDF afford to be spread so thin? He's not going to let up in Gaza. Where's he going to get the troops from to send up to the north? Well, I think, you know, the fact that Kurela is not just, you know, in central command, but he's in Israel discussing this operation against Lebanon was yesterday. And looking at the preparations. He's talking about American preparations as well as Israeli preparations. So it's clear he's got the green light for it.

The Americans may try and sort of limit it in some way to try and contain it so that it doesn't become a wide regional war. But, you know, what was that famous saying? You know, everyone has their plans till you're punched in the face, and then everything changes, and you know, your plans disappear. What conceivable legal or moral basis is there for American troops or military or naval power or air force to attack Lebanon? Oh, none whatsoever. I mean, Lebanon is a sovereign state.

It has a government. It has a parliament. It is a sovereign state. It will be justified falsely as, you know, about Israel defense. But actually Hezbollah has not been attacking Israel per se. Yes, they've attacked pari passu, tit for tat, when Israelis attacked Hezbollah officers and Hezbollah members, they responded by attacking Israeli military forces. But there hasn't been an attack on Israel per se.

There has been civilian for civilian, military for military, military post for military post. These are the equations that were fixed some time ago. They're still in operation today. Those were ones to which Israel has consented in the past. It's not something new, not something exclusively Hezbollah. So no, there's no sovereign, there's no justification for it. And more than there's no justification, it's highly dangerous. Because, of course, you've probably seen, or maybe you haven't, because they haven't put

it on so much on Western Germany. I mean, but Jordan was sort of an explosive point over the weekend. A Jordanian military officer had killed three Israelis down by the crossings, one of the

crossings between Jordan into Israel by the West Bank. And the, I mean, the outpourings, the protests in Amman were enormous and very, very, you know, forcefully loud and calling for action directly. And I think this is, I don't want to say that this is going to happen from Jordan now, but what I'm saying, it gives you the flavor that, you know, this thing is, you know, it can catch fire very, very quickly and can change in a flash. So, I mean, the Jordanians' forces are not in it at the moment, but I mean, that could change with one event. I mean, it's virtually changed. It's very, very tense in

Jordan, Egypt, and in many other parts. So, yeah, it's very dangerous. What is likely to be the response from other nations to a significant invasion of Lebanon by the IDF backed up by the U.S.? We're going to see mobilization in many parts. We'll see much more action from the Houthis. We will see it also from, I think, Iraq. We will see it too. But we will see it on the ground in Jordan. And, you know, there is not much that would really stop stop um the jordanians just simply crossing um the river uh and entering the west i don't know that that'll happen i thought but there's been plenty of information that that has been part of the planning planning. Switching over to Ukraine, the latest death count on the military academy at Poltava is 720 dead. How significant is that? It's very significant, and it's a significant message.

I think from after Ramstein, there was a meeting of some 50 of the supporters of the war in Ukraine, sort of, you know, all together supporting the US. And it was quite interesting that Austin, who was there, did not support using long-range missiles into deeper Russia, nor did the membership on the ground. But one of the things they started talking about was doing more of the training, the training of soldiers and the training of technicians on the ground. And this is what's happened.

Of course, you know, Sweden is a NATO power now. And it was trying to train them to use a Swedish, if you like, AWAC, Advanced Radar and Intercept aircraft, the FRI-SARP. I mean, this is the area where, you know, NATO has, if you like, some advantage over Russia in what they call ISR, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance. They provide all the details straight into the targeting of the Ukrainians. So the Ukrainians just have to sort of push and the button goes and the missile goes forward. All of this targeting is coming from there.

And they're training them how to use it and how to take advantage of the Swedish AWACS system. And so this was a very clear message. You know, we're not going to tolerate this training going on in country. It is, if you like, a very calibrated escalation against trainers and the sort of behind the scenes, the back of office support by NATO for everything that Ukraine does. So that's part of it. And I do think, I'll just make the point, but I don't want to elaborate it,

but, you know, Russia is in tense talks with Tehran. And I think there is a very clear understanding, and also with China that they are calibrating together a sort of response to this period before the US elections. I'm not saying that they are going to have a coordinated military response, but I'm saying there is intense, if you like, interchange between what would happen and how to respond and how Russia would respond and how Iran would respond. Because, of course, Iran is a strategic partner of Russia now. And what Russia is concerned about is, as I said,

that something can happen in this period, like we just saw and what's happened in Jordan. The whole thing can ignite very, very quickly in this region. They understand that it's like dry tinder and, you know, a small incident can expand it. And who knows where that will take us. We saw over the weekend that Israel, which was slightly unusual, did major attacks in Syria on what it claims to be an Iranian,

an IRGC base. But quite a number of people were killed during those attacks. The attacks were mounted from Lebanon into Syria. Well, Russia is deeply involved in Syria. It's not just going to, you know, completely stand aloof. Yes, Putin will be patient, but there are limits. It's interesting that you mentioned Russia and Iran, since if you listen to the American, the Biden Department of Justice, Russia and Iran are the great satans who are using American assets unwittingly to foster what the government calls disinformation, basically free speech of which the government doesn't approve. But let's go back to Europe. Why do European elites, why are they afraid of free speech?

For the same reason, because they're dependent on the same structure. This war on, if you like, populism and disinformation, so-called, is a very serious war because it's undermined a really important principle, which is the, if you like, the charade that is imposed in order to make sure that whoever wins elections, either in Europe or in America, is committed to the deep state principles, those, what I call those weight-bearing, deep structures of interests of the establishment. I mean, whether they're the interests that are financial

or the interests like support for Israel, unqualified support for Israel, antagonism to Russia. These deep structures may not be challenged in their view. And so after 2016, both in Europe and in America, you know, the powers that be, the power brokers that we don't see, the unseen power brokers, came to the conclusion that democracy wasn't working for them. Previously, it was always arranged so that the right candidate, whether it was democratic or republican, would be a supporter of the policies of the deep state,

wouldn't challenge those key, if you like, deep structures that underline and actually support so much of U.S. interests across the globe, both financial, oligarchic, but all of these interests. Those are the unspoke secret, if you like, elements to policy that weren't supposed to take part in any election and to be discussed in any election, and that there should be just the figureheads that come up, who we know will support these. And after 2016, then we had this sort of extraordinary outburst by certainly in America that, you know, democracy, we have democracy undermining democracy,

in their view, is literally what they're saying. And New York Times was flooded with articles by saying, you know, the First Amendment can be a threat, the Supreme Council, is it a danger for the future? Other articles suggesting that, you know, democracy is not bringing the right home. If it can bring Trump, there's something wrong with democracy. And it's from that that we ended up with this, what I call, whole of society approach to dealing with populism, with to, if you like, debunk populist thinking. But they did it from a, business well, security well, and up to 60 universities paid billions to construct an ecosystem of defence against populism and against misinformation, disinformation,

as they saw it, in order to protect the ability to get the right candidates into position at any election. They couldn't afford to have elections where people who didn't espouse these things and could question things like Ukraine, question Israel. This was unacceptable to the deep state. So they had to form this sort of ecosystem, a huge ecosystem of pushback against us, of managing reality.

And the managing reality has given us a substructure of lies. Everything is lies. I mean, we us a substructure of lies. Everything is lies. I mean, we have a substructure of lies. If you listened over the weekend, the head of MI6 and CIA, you know, made some obvious statements about Russia and Ukraine, which are not reflected on the ground. All of these, you know, and I think what's changing with this war, statements about Russia and Ukraine which are not reflected on the ground. All of these, and I think what's changing with this war,

we saw that with the war on Telegram, with the war on Elon Musk, on Twitter, all of these things are not so much, if you like, yes, we can see the devil's. It doesn't matter to them that we can see that they're not true. They are, in fact, instructions more than that they're just, if you like, counter-propaganda. These are instructions which, if you like, you come out and you see what's happened in Gaza. There's been an incident in Gaza. Look, you know, the buildings are on fire and you see children, bits of children lying around in the streets. And it's like, you know, if you're on a motorway and the police come up

and someone says, listen, you know, please, you know, please move on. You know, this is not for you. Pay no attention. This is something else. Just move on and ignore it. You're being instructed, if you like, to ignore, to pretend you didn't see what's going on in Gaza, that we didn't see what's happening in Israel.

As if you had an accident, you know, there's been a huge roadside accident and you come around and you see all this and you go to the police and they say, no, nothing to see here, nothing to see here, please move along, all over. You're being instructed, if you like, to pretend you haven't seen it. And it's the same. All this nonsense we're getting, we're being instructed, if you like, to pretend we can't see what's happened to Ukraine. We can't see what's happening in Russia, to pretend this, because it's instruction and it's intended, if you like, to create the circumstances in which they can move

back and to reconnect with the deep state interests, those deep, unspoken, sometimes secret interests that are supposed to continue, you know, every four-year cycle. They're not supposed to be questioned. They're not supposed to have a Trump, if you like, question whether sanctions on Iran were a good idea. They don't want it to question some of the economic interests of the oligarchs around the globe on taking raw materials or interests from other states. That's not for being questioned is in their view. And hence 2016 was the watershed and produced this new management of society.

And as I say, we're not actually even asked to believe it. We're just asked nothing to see here. Come on, move along, pretend you haven't believe it. We're just asked nothing to see here. Come on, move along. Pretend you haven't seen it. Fascinating, fascinating argument. Last week at the Eastern European Economic Conference attended by President Putin of Russia, the Prime Minister of Malaysia had some very interesting comments to make about people pretending not to see what they have seen. Cut number seven. I think the majority of countries have taken a position, including the coalition in the state of Palestine.

But why is it not happening? Because of the intransigence of Israel and unfortunately with the total support of the United States. In fact, giving him a standing ovation when atrocities are being committed. That's why I ask my colleagues even in the West, where's the humanity? Why do you talk about justice? Why do you preach to us about human rights and democracy? Why is there contradiction when it comes to treatment of issues happening in the world? And again, you know? He's right, isn't he? Yes, but, you know, all of that and all of these things underline the basic point is there is widespread dissolution in Europe.

We saw in the German elections. We see it in America. There's a widespread distrust of the elites. We have a widespread distrust of the elites. We have a widespread distrust of the media. And so they're trying, and it is rather a desperate attack, to try and enforce through this, if you like, this ecosystem of countering disinformation, if you like, to tell us instruct us that we have to

continue pretending everything is fine and that they're doing fine in managing it but everyone can see it's it's just doesn't make sense it's not working and the thing is that the you know the back office you like, is now becoming much more visible. It's, if you like, bursting through to the front office, and we can see the false, and we can see what's going wrong. On Saturday, we all saw something that I don't think you've ever seen before, notwithstanding your history in the field of diplomacy. And that was the head of MI6 and the head of CIA appearing together in the same room

at the same time in a public place in front of an audience. What was that all about? Well, what they said was interesting because they said nothing. Nothing. interesting, because they said nothing. You mustn't. I think it's a very clear sense that they were underlining the principles. They talked about that Russia is weakening, Ukraine is doing well. I mean, as I say, you know, exactly, but we're not supposed to believe it. This is the instruction going out to Europe after the German elections, which showed that in the states of Thuringia and Saxony,

a half of the population wanted an end to the war in Ukraine, wanted peace with Russia in these big German states. It will be reflected too in Brandenburg on the 22nd of September. They see the shift in popular opinion, 60% in Thuringia and 46% in Saxony, of the non-establishment parties. Immediately, some of the establishment media started saying, well, you know, those people who voted for AFD or for Sarah Guggenheim, listen, they're not really diplomatic votes.

That's not diplomacy. They're populists. So they don't count as much. So really, the establishment parties ought to form the government and ignore the results of the elections. I mean, this is part of the messaging. We can see what the head of mi6 and cia said i mean for most i mean not all of course in in the us and in europe are following it very so closely they're more concerned about you know day-to-day things but nonetheless i mean you know this was the message we say you know this is it pretend this is what you see pretend this is what it is. Because otherwise, the message is very clear, I think, to people other aspects of your life. Now, this is the point that they're making. They know that's the instruction. The instruction is consider carefully

your career. Consider carefully whether your bank will ask you to end your association with. This is the, if you like, substrata to that message. Alistair Crook, thank you, my dear friend. Fascinating, fascinating information for us here in the U.S. at the crack of dawn, starting the day and starting the week. Deeply, deeply appreciated. We'll see you next week, my dear friend. Okay. Thanks so much. Thank you. Of course. Coming up later today, we have a full day for you.

Ray McGovern at 10 a.m. Eastern. Larry Johnson at 11 a.m. Eastern. Anya Parampal at noon. Ralph Nader, the great Ralph Nader. that Ralph Nader at two o'clock Eastern. And my dear friend and former colleague, Charlie Gasparino, one of the smartest people on the economy that I know at three o'clock Eastern. You all know our goal is to reach 500,000 subscriptions by Christmas time. We're well on our way. We're approaching 440,000. Please like and subscribe. It helps us get the message out to you. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. I'm out.