Judging Freedom - Amb. Charles Freeman: Ritter, Ukraine, and Israel - #ScottRitter

Episode Date: August 9, 2024

Amb. Charles Freeman: Ritter, Ukraine, and Israel - #ScottRitterSee 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 Friday, August 9th, 2024. Ambassador Charles Freeman joins us today. Ambassador, thank you for joining us. Thank you for accommodating my schedule and coming on. What is the crack of dawn here in the East Coast of the United States? Two days ago, our dear friend and a mainstay on this show had his house raided by the FBI. I say raided. They were executing a search warrant. They removed many, many boxes of materials, including his notes from when he was the chief UN arms inspector in the 1990s, and including the draft of his next book, as yet unpublished, of course. They took all of his electronic equipment, about 35 boxes of papers. Scott Ritter, of course, is defiant, and rightly so, and believes that he was targeted by the

United States government because of his active, aggressive, passionate opposition to the tenor of American foreign policy, specifically with respect to Ukraine and Israel. What are your thoughts on this, Ambassador? Well, it looks to me like a classic case of the use of the prosecutorial and investigative power to cripple a critic of government policy. We've seen things like this before in our history. I remember the, I was not alive, but I know of the Palmer raids under Attorney General Palmer after World War I, which targeted people with dissident opinions and in some cases jailed them, critics of the war that we had entered in Europe. McCarthy era, the same thing. The power to investigate, to call before a congressional committee was a power to destroy the reputations of people and

silence them. And we've seen in recent years that, as I said, the power to prosecute is the power to destroy, because you can basically force someone to run up legal fees to such an extent that you bankrupt them. And you also, of course, smear their reputation. And this looks to me like that. Scott Ritter has been on the Ukrainian enemy list, which apparently was put together with the U.S. Department of State for years. They've been trying to silence him. He has been the most potent corrective to false information on what is happening on the battlefield that we've had, other than perhaps Doug McGregor.

So there's been an effort to silence him. His passport was confiscated as part of the investigative process. But it doesn't seem to me that he's done anything that a journalist or an academic doesn't normally do. Ambassador, here's Scott on this show on June 4th of this year. That's the day after the feds seized his passport. By the way, when they served the search warrant yesterday, they quite properly gave him a copy of the search warrant and a receipt for what they took. And he said he had no complaints whatsoever about the FBI on the scene. He obviously has complaints about the people who dispatched them. When they took his passport at JFK Airport, they didn't

identify themselves. They didn't give him a receipt. They didn't give him an explanation. He doesn't even know who they were. He came on this show the day after and pretty much summarized what the State Department has been doing to him, not knowing, of course, what was going to happen two days ago. Cut number 16. The State Department, using government-appropriated monies for this purpose, created a Center for Countering Disinformation as an adjunct of the Ukrainian president's office. They did this in 2022. One of the first things that this Center for Countering Disinformation did under the guidance and direction of the State Department of the United States was to issue a blacklist of people that they called information terrorists.

And on that blacklist were a large number of Americans, including myself. And this list, this center since that time, and here's the important thing about being called an information terrorist. That's a specific term being used by the Ukrainians backed by the United States government. They said that an information terrorist must be hunted down and brought to justice the same way any terrorist would. And so I've been accused of saying things that make the Ukrainian government unhappy. They now say that I must be hunted down and arrested, detained, killed, as would any other terrorist in the world and other Americans as well. They have made me this center, again, with the U.S. State Department's support, has put out a list that, you know, a weekly list where they say, I'm the number one threat to truth. Orwell warned us in 1984 about the destructive power of words. You start calling somebody who

speaks out against you a terrorist and make that person the moral equivalent of a bomb thrower, and people are going to want to silence and harm the person or cheer you on when you, after having demonized him, raid his house and prosecute him. Scott, of course, is not one easily to be silenced ambassador. I just wonder if this is the tip of the iceberg. Well, I think it is. We have seen the other day Tulsi Gabbard put on a terrorist list and stopped and searched every time she gets on an airplane,

apparently accompanied by plainclothes marshals and bomb experts. She's an active member of the U.S. Army Reserve, former presidential candidate, commentator on Fox News. And she says things that people, the administration doesn't like. And so they're basically using the same sort of terrorist charge to harass her. This is all too common. And I would note also that there is a real need for people like Scott Ritter

to stand up and tell us what is happening on the ground in Ukraine, or for that matter in Gaza, which he does. He does not wax indignant morally. He sticks to the facts. His expertise is military matters, and he's an unquestioned expert in that area. And countering him are, you know, is Admiral Kirby, for example, who reminds me of Baghdad Bob, if you remember him. Yes. And state departments and spokesmen who are smarmy and totally without any credibility at all. So we're in a moment and, you know, I was reminded because I gather yesterday, former President Trump again boasted about the size of the crowds he draws, in this case, January 6th. But if you remember Sean Spicer, his spokesman

coming out after his inauguration and claiming it was the largest crowd on the mall ever. This is the kind of nonsense that we have in our official statements these days, and it needs to be corrected. Yes, yes. You know, you talk about Tulsi Gabbard. She is, of course, also a former member of the House of Representatives. I remember when the Bush administration put Teddy Kennedy on a terrorist watch list, and for a couple of weeks he couldn't take a plane from Reagan National to Boston Logan. It's unbelievable what the government, and this was because of some statements he had made in support of the IRA, the Irish Republican Army, and its fight against Great Britain. It's unbelievable what the government will do to punish speech. So when Prime Minister Netanyahu spoke to Congress two weeks ago, and he was interrupted 51 or 58 times by standing ovations in an hour and five minute speech, the longest standing ovation for him, one that went on for longer than a minute. Try standing up and clapping for a minute. Your hands and your arms get tired, no matter what kind of shape you're in. The longest standing ovation was when Prime

Minister Netanyahu condemned American demonstrators outside of the Capitol building for demonstrating against his policy. And 400 members of Congress, each one of whom took an oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution, which includes the First Amendment, which is the essence of the freedom of speech, applauded him. That's where we are today. That was disgusting. I would note that the level of selectivity in what just happened to Scott Ritter is quite notable. Many journalists get paid for writing things. That's how they make their living. Many people, including members of Congress, go abroad and give speeches and get paid for them.

Academics are invited to conferences in places like Taiwan, Israel, and so forth, and go and they get an honorarium. So the notion that somehow or other interaction with a foreign country and expressing views that may coincide with some of the views of that country somehow makes you a foreign agent is not just preposterous, but really, really disgraceful. And I agree with you that this is a fundamental challenge to the First Amendment and all of the freedoms that flow from it. Here's a foreign agent speaking to the United States Congress, Prime Minister Netanyahu on July 24th. For all we know, Iran is funding the anti-Israel protests that are going on right now outside this building.

Not that many, but they're there and throughout the city. Well, I have a message for these protesters. When the tyrants of Tehran, who hang gays from cranes and murder women for not covering their hair, are praising, promoting, and funding you, you have officially become Iran's useful idiots. Pretty clear that the useful idiots are the members of Congress. You nicely put. I have a number of friends that were in that demonstration, including regular contributors to this show. Some that you know, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, Max Blumenthal, Aaron Maté, Anya Parampil, none of whom was paid anything by the Iranian

government. This is a total fabrication on his part, and it was shameful that the members of Congress chose loyalty to a genocidal maniac over their fidelity to the Constitution. How dangerous a position is Israel in today, about to pick a fight with Hezbollah, about to pick a fight with Iran? I think it shows every sign of imploding. It's alienated its foreign partners and friends. The protests are part of a general move toward very negative views of Israel in response to its behavior. The latest polls show that a majority of Americans do not believe the United States should come to Israel's defense. There are partisan differences there. For Republicans, there's a slight majority in favor. Democrats are mostly opposed, and independents somewhere

in the middle. So the foreign support for Israel that's been essential to Israel's existence is attenuating. Domestically, Israel has never been so divided. A couple of years ago, Mr. Netanyahu, in order to save his bacon from being in jail for corruption, moved to remove the independence of the Israeli judiciary. That set off massive protests. October 7 and the hostage taking has led to very correct charges from the hostages' families that Mr. Netanyahu is not interested really in recovering them. It's come out that the Israeli armed forces were responsible for almost half of the deaths on October 7, not just Hamas.

The ultra-Orthodox in Israel have been told that they're to be conscripted. They're protesting, some of them saying they'd rather die than go into the army. The generals in the Israeli army have condemned their own prime minister for lacking a strategy and running a pointless war in Gaza. They want a ceasefire. He won't give it to them. He has just assassinated the chief leader on the Hamas side with whom he was allegedly negotiating hostage release. You don't assassinate the negotiator on the other side of the table if you're serious about negotiating, and he clearly isn't. And now he's trying to produce a wider war, and that too is dividing Israelis. There are, of course, a couple of hundred thousand Israelis who have been displaced from their homes by the turmoil that has ensued since October 7. Both Hezbollah

and Hamas fighters have made parts of Israel unsafe. And so we have an economy in Israel that's down by about a third the GDP. There are many thousands of small businesses that have closed. The military on the ground are saying that they're exhausted. They're wrung out. We have conscientious objectors appearing for the first time in significant numbers, and probably 500 or six hundred thousand Israelis have emigrated out of whatever, you know, either because they in good conscience can't be part of what's going on,

or because they fear for their safety. There are about two million Israelis who have second passports, and we don't know what they're going to do. This is not a country that is in any kind of good shape. And Mr. Netanyahu doesn't have any path, apparently, out of the abyss that he has led his country into. Ambassador, your career is in the area of diplomacy, the peaceful relationship between nations. Has the United States, does the United States ever say no to Israel? We haven't done so for a very long time.

You have to go back to George H.W. Bush and Jim Baker to find an example of the United States really using the leverage that we have on Israel. Israel can't do very much of anything without our support. And we have given them sternly about their behavior, but there's no consequence whatsoever for their continuing it, you're just wasting words. There is no diplomacy toward Israel. Diplomacy is getting the other party to see that what you want them to do

is in their interest. Israel resolutely resists any attention to American interests as opposed to its own. Does the United States enjoy any military, geopolitical, diplomatic benefit to its obeisance to Israel? We may have done so during the Cold War to some extent, but the Cold War is long over. Israel is basically an albatross around our necks. The opprobrium that it has generated through its behavior, including most recently this disgusting spectacle

of authorizing, approving of sodomy, the sodomization of Palestinian prisoners, and actually a live stream show of a rape for the benefit of the Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben-Gavir, this is just spilled over to us. Our reputation has nosedived along with Israel's. Our influence has taken a huge hit. And, you know, I don't,

Israel in the defense area basically receives gifts from us. It does useful research and development work, but that could, in my view, just as easily be done in New Jersey. It doesn't have to be done in Israel. Switching gears, Ambassador, and prevailing upon your experience in the Department of Defense, of what value, as you see it, was the short-lived invasion of Kursk by a crack team of Ukrainian soldiers? And you can add to that, of what value is it flying 40-year-old,

one-seater F-16s over Kiev? Well, the incursion into Kursk basically, I think, was at political purposes rather than military, although there may have been an effort to divert Russian attention from the Donetsk front, in which case it didn't really succeed. Politically, I think Mr. Zelensky and company were trying to boost Ukrainian morale, which is very low, given all the losses that Ukraine has taken. And I think he was trying to show his American and European backers

that he could still punish Russia, hurt Russia, which is the major objective of this war from the Western point of view. It's not about saving Ukraine. It's about isolating and weakening Russia. And that hasn't succeeded. So this was, I think, an act of desperation, mostly for political effect. I don't know whether these forces, I have not heard whether these forces are still even alive. They're going to have a hard time.

You always take more losses on the battlefield when you attack than you do when you defend. And they have walked right into a Russian trap, in my view. The F-16s are, you know, sort of a magic talisman that we have waived for a long time. You know, they're going to... This is like the... You know, we were going to send Abrams tanks,

and that was going to turn the battlefield over to us. And it didn't happen, and they didn't work. And now we're going to see whether F-16s can survive the world's most effective anti-aircraft missile system, which the Russians have developed. And my guess is this is going to prove just as empty a gesture as the transfer of the Abrams was. How much longer do you think Ukraine can last? I'm going to guess, and of course, my field is not military or defense, at least until election day. I think that's a very good guess. What I note is that Mr. Kuleba, the foreign minister, has been to Beijing and Mr. Zelensky, who once said that he made it illegal to talk to the Russians, now says the Russians have to be at

the table if there's a peace conference. Mr. Kuleba said, well, if they negotiate in good faith, we're ready to negotiate. Mr. Putin, on his part, had said he wouldn't talk to Zelensky, but he seems now to have backtracked from that. So I think there's some realism in the air on both sides, and both appealing really to the Chinese to help them find a path forward. And I should also mention that the prime minister of Hungary, now the six-month president of the European Union,

Viktor Orban, has made a valiant effort to jumpstart some kind of diplomatic dialogue and produce the possibility of a negotiated resolution of this war. For that, he has been castigated by us and some Europeans, supported by others. But, you know, there's clearly an effort being made in Ukraine, in Russia, internationally, to find a basis for bringing this war to an end through a negotiation, which all wars have to end. This one is overdue for ending, in my view. To take us back to Israel, because you're mentioning Russia. If Israel and Ukraine engage in significant hostilities, do you expect Russia to back up? Excuse me, if Israel and Iran engage in significant hostilities, do you expect Russia to back up Iran?

To some extent. We've seen Sergei Shoigu, the former defense minister, now the national security advisor in Moscow, go to Tehran. So we have this juxtaposition. Interesting. General Kirillov, the head of the U.S. Central Command, sitting in Israel, and the head of the Russian national security apparatus in Tehran, suggests that the U.S.-Russian rivalry is being drawn into this mess. But Mr. Shoigu's message included a letter from President Putin to the new Iranian president

asking him to use restraint and offering to mediate between Israel and Iran. I don't think that will be accepted by the Iranians, but they are taking their time to work out a means of retaliation, reprisal, to which they're entitled under international law, that would not bring the United States into a wider war. So it's all very interesting, a little bit dangerous. And the Russians, again, as they did in Syria, if you remember with the issue of nerve gas, the Russians are using the fact that they can talk to everybody

in the region, whereas we can't, to increase their influence and possibly solve the problem. Colonel McGregor reports that yesterday the Israelis attacked a base in Syria, a base known to be manned by Russian soldiers. Makes one wonder if they really don't foresee the likely consequences of their behavior. Well, I think for some time, well, let's start with going back decades. Prime Minister Netanyahu has always wanted to trigger a war with Iran that would draw the United States in on Israel's side. And more recently, he's spoken about Israel being at war on seven fronts. And in fact, Israel has been essentially at war for 76 years.

It's only a question of the intensity and the location of the battles now israel has in addition to the an enemy in syria where the russians support the assad government it has the danger of a counter-attack by hosballlah in response to its assassination of Fuad Shukr in South Beirut. It has the possibility of an Iranian attack because of its assassination of Ismail Aania at the presidential inauguration in Tehran. It has got the Houthis after it, not only in the Red Sea, but occasionally with direct pot shots at it. And it has done something truly remarkable, if you think about it. It has united Sunni and Shia

Muslims for the first time in 14 centuries against a common enemy. Ismail Hayniyah was a very diehard Sunni hardline Muslim, and he is being feted in Tehran, the capital of Shia Islam. Mr. Erdogan of Turkey, who is also Sunni, a different strain of Sunni Islam, is now making common cause with Hezbollah, which is Shia. So Israel has really united the Islamic world against it. And I think it's working pretty hard on starting a wider war in its region that would draw the United States in. And some people in Israel are talking in apocalyptic terms. The danger is, let's not forget, that Israel has nuclear weapons, and it has something called the Samson Option in mind,

which would mean that, like the great strongman Samson in the Bible, who pulled down the Philistine Temple rather than accept direction from the Philistines, Israel is prepared to go down with a nuclear blast at everybody around it. So this is very dangerous, and not just in terms of the interaction between the United States and Russia, or Iran and Israel, or Lebanese and Israelis. Ambassador Freeman, thank you very much for your time this morning. Thank you for your analysis into your fidelity to first principles.

It's always a pleasure. I hope you'll come back and join us again next week. Thank you. Of course. Next week, all of your regulars, all of your favorites. Justin Paul Tanawan for Judging Freedom. Thank you.