Judging Freedom - Alastair Crooke: Crocus Concert Attack Is a Turning Point

Episode Date: April 1, 2024

Alastair Crooke: Crocus Concert Attack Is a Turning PointSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Resolve to earn your degree in the new year in the Bay with WGU. With courses available online 24-7 and monthly start dates, WGU offers maximum flexibility so you can focus on your future. Learn more at wgu.edu. Thank you. Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Monday, April 1st, 2024. In a moment, Alistair Crook is here on, was the attack on the Moscow Concert hall a turning point from which there is no return. 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,

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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. Alistair, welcome here, my friend. A belated Happy Easter to you and your family, and of course, Happy Easter to all of our viewers from all over the world. Thank you for joining us as always Alistair. Is the attack on the Crocus concert hall

a turning point? Yes it is already a turning point and it yet may become a more important turning point depending on the evidence that russia seems intent on producing it's quite clear from the recent statements and in fact there's been a formal statement by the investigative committee telling kiev ukraine that they are demanding the arrest and, if you like, the extradition of those who were involved in the planning and the undertaking of the Crocus massacre. So we're waiting to see. But what we hear is that already they have voice messages from the telephones that they've taken from the assailants and others from Ukraine, promising

them that when they arrived in Ukraine, they'd be treated as heroes and receive money and all of these things. Well, at the moment, this is not established. So let's be cautious and say it's looking very much, I mean, Petrushev, the national security advisor said, I mean, very bluntly, he said, of course, it's Ukraine. And so have the others. And they seem to have the evidence now.

So that will change it again. But what do I mean by it's changed now? It's at a turning point. It's changed now because you can feel it. I mean, the attitudes. I'm talking here about the Russian people, not about the leadership, but the Russian people have drawn a line on the sand with Ukraine. I mean, no more going softly.

It's going to be much more rigorous. And this applies not just to Ukraine, but what was quite clear in the aftermath of this, because Putin made it clear he thought that American and European service was behind this is that it's going to be much tougher and we've already seen the results of that by much tougher I mean he said if any French troops come into Ukraine we will treat that as an invasion and we will regard them as legitimate targets for killing and they've already if you

like shown that they are serious about that there's a town a defensive town which the Russians were almost on the point of taking and um recently it was hit by a zircon missile. That's one of the fastest, if you like, hypersonic missiles. It flies. Average speed is nearly 10 Mach 10. I mean, so you can't trace it or follow it. It's unstoppable. And they had a bunker there that was six stories deep, and they took out the entire bunker,

and it seems there were NATO, senior NATO officers, including one Polish general. And his obituary has already been published in Poland. It says he died of natural causes. Well, I think it's pretty clear that he was one of the ones in this bunker. And we've had also Zircon missiles attacking the energy system and attacking near Lvov, near the Polish border, which is the crossing point in which NATO have their sort of facilities.

I don't know exactly what has been hit, but they've certainly destroyed the airfield there, and they have destroyed parts of the energy system of Ukraine. So they're being very serious, and they've warned, if you like, Budanov, who's the head of the military intelligence, I mean, effectively, he's dead man walking, that he's on the list, and there will be others on the list and i don't and they're going to also say that they have on the list they know they think they know um others and that might include americans and it might include british so um there seems to be a generally sort of developing theme that the British were really more responsible

for what happened at Crocus than America, which is an interesting observation. Has it been established with any satisfaction or credibility that the Americans warned the Kremlin? Before you answer, has it also been established that Mossad warned the Americans? On the last one, we just don't know where it came from, whether it came from NASA, GCHQ, or from Mossad, or where the American intelligence came from NASA, GCHQ, or from Mossad, or where the American intelligence came from. Just, we don't know.

But on that first point about it, I mean, certainly the warning was not passed on to the Russians. They said, the ambassador in Washington said, I had nothing. I mean, this is the channel that it would go on. If they had anything solid, it would go through the ambassador in Washington, the Russian ambassador. He said he had nothing. And that what he had, if anything, was very much it was, there was a sort of at one time a sort of general warning that ended after 48 hours, which would make it the 9th of March.

And of course, as your listeners will be aware, the actual attack took and made any effort to, if you like, renew or, if you like, re-warn citizens, American and British citizens, to stay away from concert halls. It finished at that point. Why is the West so adamant that ukraine had nothing to do with it is it is it a fear of a an advancing by the russian military on ukraine or is it a fear that these crumbs will lead to the west itself to london or washington or i guess i should say Langley. I think there are two elements in it. I think we've seen some reports of meetings by the sort of neoconservative elements and former cabinet members in the United States who are clearly pushing all very hard on the Europeans, all of those that they can persuade by one means or another, pushing very hard on those Europeans to continue the proxy war against Russia

because they see it would be a strategic disaster for the United States for this to fail. It would be a humiliation and a strategic failure for the United States. It would be the end of their ability to give orders, if you like, to the rest of the world. And in Europe, it's caused something rather different. Europe is in a sort of rudderless state where it doesn't know quite what to do. They're under huge pressure from parts of America to go on. The language across, the narrative across all of Europe is absolutely uniform. Everyone sticks with it. There's no debate. There's nothing allowed other than

Russia was warned. And what this shows was how defective Putin's security services are. They don't work out any of the connections or try and analyze it. This is just, it's pushed really very, very hard. Every newspaper has the same line, almost the same words. You know, there's nothing to do with Ukraine. But for Europe, I mean, they built their policy, their whole policy of trying to build Europe into a supranational power. They call it a geopolitical European Union, in the words of von der Leyen. In other words, one that sits at the top table with China and the United States, etc. Well, for them, the whole story, the narrative

about Ukraine was that this is Europe. You know, Europe ends with the Dnieper River, and these people were Europeans, and they stand for European values, and this is what we are fighting for, European values, and this is what we have to defend. And of course, it's not really going to look so good for European values, or for the project as a whole, if, and I say if, you know, it subsequently emerges that Europeans or and or Americans or European services knew or somehow were involved in some way with an attack that ended up with 40 plus civilians killed and the building burnt to cinders and the roof falling in on them. It undermines the whole point. It makes Europe look weak and it is also, therefore, bringing out this argument within Europe.

Macron has said, well, maybe we should send missiles. The task of Poland, the prime minister of Poland says, we're in a pre-war situation. We need to prepare for a war with Russia, taking a very hard, the sort of extreme of the neocon line. But other states are saying, we don't want a war with Russia. And we don't want, and it's not practical to militarize ourselves and turn us into a sort of military state that can fight Russia.

And we don't have the money for it either. So is Europe, are the elites in Europe still subservient to the United States, even though the president of the United States is arguably the weakest and most disengaged president in many years, are the Europeans still subservient to the wishes of the U.S.? Resolve to earn your degree in the new year in the Bay with WGU. WGU is an online accredited university that specializes in personalized learning. With courses available 24-7 and monthly start dates, you can earn your degree on your schedule. Thank you. No, not to the US, but to the CIA and to the deep state. Yes, many of them are recruited and paid for by the CIA

and are effectively their tools. And they have a huge influence across the media and in parliament and in other places. It's not entirely that, of course, because, you know, there are many Europeans that are inherently Atlanticists, shall we say. And, you know, if they're given a choice of moving closer to Russia or to the United States, they would say, well, obviously we want to be closer to the United States. But the point about this is, and the point about why it's so controversial,

is that leaves Europe as a vassal of the United States. All Macron's talk about autonomy, strategic autonomy for Europe, sitting at the top table with Russia and China and America deciding the geopolitical future of the world, tumbles down and crashes on the floor. And with it, their effort to try and elevate Europe from being a collection of sovereign states to give up their sovereignty and to move it up to

transnational level which is Brussels davos the liberal if you like globalist level and many people in Europe are opposed to that what happens when the West realizes that Ukraine has lost or is crumbling or can't withstand the Russian onslaught any longer? Do they begin an asymmetric warfare on Moscow? Is there a plan B? No, there's no plan B. I mean, the asymmetrical warfare that Victoria

Nuland talked about before she left office, and she said she was there and she talked to Budanov, who is the head of military intelligence and the man who's been behind many of these things, the killing of Daria Dugin and others. And he said, well, you know, and he came out and he said, yes,

we're going deeper and ever deeper into Russia, asymmetrical war. But I just want to make clear that, you know, I don't see this as asymmetrical war. I see this as pure terrorism of Western states turning to killing civilians because none of these efforts, they started slowly. They've been gathering more steam. It started with a few drones being fired into Crimea, then missiles, then it was invasions into Russia, then it was attacks on refineries, and finally crocus. And, you know, it's not asymmetry warfare because it does nothing to the military. I mean, it's not defeating Russia militarily. It is designed simply to upset, destabilize the Russian civil population.

And they hope, make them question Putin and his competence. I mean, it's all about, you know, this is Moscow too after the Maidan revolution um in kiev the maidan coup and now they wanted the coup in moscow to to to be the follow-up um and so this is we call it asymmetrical warfare but it's a misnomer this is just simply attacking um a civilian infrastructure civilian people um in the hope that it will undermine the legitimacy of the president. But we've just had the elections and we saw what happened. You know, nearly 80% voted for him. And there was a huge turnout, record turnout of the electorate in Europe, as well as in

Russia itself. It wasn't a fake connection. Is there a belief that Russia will change its military tactics in Ukraine from and after Crocus? Yes, it does. And become more aggressive? Or will Putin continue the slow, methodical, surgical targeting of military targets only? No, it's already changed. And I think we can see some of the contours of that.

There has been a very clear element. First of all, there have been about three or four major missile attacks on the energy system. This time, not the distribution of energy, but on the production of energy, right down from Lvov, right across, and also things like the gas storage facilities, which is going to hurt Europe, by the way. This is, if you like, demilitarization of Europe, not just of Ukraine.

So, yes, but they've, as I say, also, I mean, been very clear in attacking decision-making centres. Whether or not NATO are embedded in them, it doesn't matter any longer. This is a change that's already happened. Like I mentioned, the bunker in Chasafia, but also the SBU headquarters in Kiev and the GUR headquarters, all of these have been hit by missiles. But what looks like it is not a sort of big, if you like,

offensive military, you know, tanks and troops on the ground. It's still too early for that, possibly, in one sense. It's still the muddy season in Kiev, this famous black mud. It's almost ending. In April, it'll be gone. But what you're seeing is all of these towns that are left, there were no proper defensive lines after Avdeevka fell. And so the Ukrainian troops are more or less in the fields and dug in in the ground in the mud there.

And one after the other, these towns are just falling and falling. And soon they will be back to the Dnieper. And then that seems to be the purpose. They've taken out the electricity for the big city of kharkov and and the aim is that i mean civilians will have to leave after a few days there's no heating no gas no electricity they want people out of the way of conflict they don't want you know civilians to be used or be in the middle of this conflict, the Russians. And then eventually, I mean, we come to the point, will they destroy the bridges across the Dnieper, which they carefully left intact? But then you'll have the Ukrainian forces on the wrong side of the river with the bridges cut and logistics almost impossible and they will be encircled and they will either

have to give up or or they will be destroyed so i mean we are moving to another to another stage and what is so clear is that with these bombs the the i'm sorry to say this because it gives me no pleasure but the casualties are are going up enormously on the Ukrainian side. They're using these big guided bombs, and the casualties are very, very heavy. They don't have proper defensive lines, and the casualties have gone up, by some estimates, by about four times what they were earlier. Do former officials from the West, whether elites, the Davos types, or the intelligence community types, or actually foreign ministry types, get together from time to time and delude themselves as to what the facts are. Very clearly.

And I mentioned that there was this meeting that had taken place, sort of, that was reported by David Goldman, where there were a number, I think, about 12 former cabinet members. Then there were people from the think tanks and officials, ex-officials. And it was bizarre because they were saying the narrative that Russia is weak, it's economically failing, and others were saying, you know, that's nonsense. And they admit it's nonsense, but they just don't, you know, the facts didn't matter. The fact was they want Russia to be weakened and they want the proxy war to continue to hurt Russia. And this is why I say it's so, I mean, this is why I said it's such a crucial point that we're coming to. Because, you know, they don't have the means to do it

in conventional terms the ukrainian army is collapsing crumbling from the outside inwards there's no doubt about that they don't have uh ammunition they don't have weapons they don't have the man men part to to to to power to go on fighting. And this is why village after village town is slowly being defeated up to the river Nipah and beyond. And so they know this, but they can't move on. And I just want to say that because it's the same in Israel. It's the same in the Ukraine.

There is a parallel here. The West has stuck with doctrines and dogmas from the Second World War and doesn't move on and doesn't really change its doctrine. It's still, in many ways, and look at what we're seeing in Gaza. It's still Dresden. It's still, in many ways, and look at what we're seeing in Gaza, it's still Dresden, it's still Hiroshima. How do we sear the consciousness of the Palestinians by having a psychological defeat that makes them docile and ready to deal and accept Israel?

I mean, this has been happening for some years. And in the same way in the Ukraine, I mean, we were fighting, the West was fighting what we call, you know, this was set up for colonial wars, you know, colonial wars that the West was fighting and the British and the French were fighting elsewhere. What do you have? You don't, you know, you don't try and understand the enemy. You don't understand the tactics and the French were fighting elsewhere, what do you have? You don't try and understand the enemy.

You don't understand the tactics that the enemy uses. You don't try and get into his mind and see what his objectives are, whether it's Russia or whether it's the Houthis, because you say, oh, it's Russian propaganda. We don't pay any attention to what people say. Then you go in the Houthis and they're just barefooted tribesmen. We don't take any account of that. So we get stuck in old ways of strategy. And we don't realize that there's been two military revolutions taking place. One in the Middle East, where there's a complete revolution of military strategy and thinking. You know, underground, new missiles, cheap drones,

cruise missiles, a different approach to war. And in Russia, they've done it in a different way. They've gone back to conventional principles to override the Western way of war, which is about confronting, if you like, a terrorist movement or a rebel movement, massive far-fetched, you go and call in the aircraft, crash everything down, then you withdraw. But you don't have a strategy. You don't have an understanding of what the war's about. You don't have an understanding of why this war is being fought and therefore how you should fight it. Instead, we just go back to these old remedies we've done for so long.

This is just like a colonial war that Britain and France has fought elsewhere. It's not the whole thing. The Russians changed the paradigm. And in the Middle East, the resistance groups are changing the paradigm. And the conventional thought is, oh, you know, they can't win because we have better, more sophisticated weapons and we have, you know, we're much stronger and we're a bigger force and therefore, you know, all these resistance groups.

I mean, this is just nonsense. We don't have to take it seriously. We don't have to understand them. We don't have to understand that actually what we're doing in Gaza is actually radicalizing the next generation of resistance members and fighters. We think that, you know, now America's now giving a lot of big bombs to Israel, two-ton and one-ton bombs along with many aircraft, and it's clearly geared for Lebanon. And we will see Rafah, and then we will see Lebanon, and it's still the same narrative coming out of Israel,

which is a European-American narrative. You know, you bomb them enough, then, like at the end of the Second World War, and the Japanese became totally, if you like, docile and pro-American as a consequence of having their consciousness seared by the end of the war. You have drawn some parallels between the war in Ukraine and the war in Gaza. Before we go, a couple of questions for you about Gaza. Over the weekend, Prime Minister Netanyahu had surgery, which required general anesthesia, which required him to sign over the powers of his office, just as the American president resignation for a variety of reasons, the corruption charges, the fact that October 7th happened, the fact that most of the hostages still haven't come back. Is that the type of demonstration likely fomented by MI6 and CIA, or is that the type of spontaneity

that we haven't seen in Israeliraeli street demonstrations since october 7th uh firstly let me just say about the operation because it you know people might think there's something more profound happening it was a simple hernia operation right which is you know which loss it takes about half an hour to complete but you do it under anesthetic so technically he had the hand over if you like for half an hour to to someone else but you know after that operation you just come out and you go home i mean you don't even stay in hospital for for it it's a very simple um surgical operation i don't think it'll have a big impact. Now, the protest, yes, I mean, but the point is, some of them will be genuine, some of them will be spontaneous, and by people who are seriously concerned about the direction of travel of Israel. I mean, it's not a surprise they should be concerned about it. But the point is that for the right, for Netanyahu,

he will see this again as an attempt to remove him of office, just as Clinton, he believes, removed him, managed to ensure his election defeat in 1990, I think it was. So he believes that because this is why he has adopted this very antagonistic approach to Biden. He used it against Obama, blaming Obama, turning him into a pariah in Israel. And he's now using it against Biden, because he believes that the Americans will try and unseat him from power, just as he did lose the election. When he came back in the 1990s, you know, he'd learned the lesson. And that's why he approached, first of all, Obama, and then

now Biden in this very different way, and is using him. Why? Because he knows there's no great victory coming out of Gaza for the Israeli government. He knows that there is no great victory coming from the hostage negotiations. They're stuck. They have misjudged the hostage negotiations by assuming Hamas would just simply fold and concede to their terms, and they haven't.

And so he needs a victory somewhere. And all of Biden's and the US recipes, their whole policy framework, is completely unacceptable to the majority of Israeli citizens and won't work for him. And he loses his election. He'd lose his post if he tried to implement it. So he bypasses this by blame Biden. Blame Biden for the failure on hostages. Blame Biden for what happens in Rafah because the Americans put it in. Blame Biden for the failure on hostages. Blame Biden for what happens in Rafah because the Americans put it in. Blame Biden for trying to push a two-state solution down the Israelis' throats. And the Israelis are moving closer to Netanyahu as a consequence.

You know, he can blame Biden all he wants, but he should thank Biden for the 2,000-pound bombs, which keep coming every day, and the-pound bombs which keep coming every day and the artillery shells which keep coming every day, sometimes three flights a day from Dallas. No, he doesn't. No, no, he doesn't. He doesn't thank him or even feel he has to thank him. He knows he is better at manipulating the American system than Biden. He knows Biden is on shifting sands within his own party. The party is splitting and is divided. You know, you can't be now any longer a liberal and a Zionist. And so the party is dividing. Some of them are moving towards the Republican Party. So he's on shifting sands. So, I mean, if nothing else, Netanyahu has shown

his experience over the years that he understands the American system really well, intuitively. And what he's doing is he's going to mobilize elements of the, if you like, the lobbies, the AIPAC and others, and he is going to try and engage the Republican hardliners who don't like what they're seeing coming out of the Democratic Party. I mean, it's really into domestic policies. They see, you know, that this is sort of wokeism. And the Republicans, some on the right of Republicans, are beginning to say this is, you know, just as the Democrats are supporting Black Lives Matter. I mean, so, you know, they're also supporting Palestinians and they're equating the two. It's a completely false equation. But this is politics in America.

And then now knows how to manipulate it. Well, who knows? He thinks he can. He thinks he can manage the American diplomatic scene much better than Biden. Maybe he can. and now in Israel and Gaza. All my best to you and your family this week. I know today's a holiday in Europe. We're back to work here in the U.S., but thank you very much. We look forward to seeing you again soon. Thank you very much, and I hope you did have a good holiday.

Thank you. It's Monday. It's a work Monday here in the U.S. Coming up at 10 o'clock Eastern, Ray McGovern. At 11 o'clock Eastern, Ray McGovern. At 11 o'clock Eastern, Larry Johnson. And at 3 o'clock this afternoon,

Anna Parampil. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. MUSIC