Judging Freedom - AMB. Chas Freeman : Do Any Allies Still Trust Washington?

Episode Date: January 20, 2026

AMB. Chas Freeman : Do Any Allies Still Trust Washington?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Undeclared wars are commonplace. Pragically, our government engages in preemptive war, otherwise known as aggression, with no complaints from the American people. Sadly, we have become accustomed to living with the illegitimate use of force by government. To develop a truly free society, the issue of initiating force must be understood and rejected. What if sometimes to love your country you had to alter or abolish the government? Jefferson was right? What if that government is best which governs least? What if it is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong? What if it is better to perish fighting for

freedom than to live as a slave? What if freedom's greatest hour of danger is now? Hi everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for judging freedom. Today is Tuesday, January 20th, 2006, Ambassador Chas Freeman joins us. Now, Ambassador Freeman, a pleasure, my dear friend. Thank you for joining us. Thanks for accommodating my schedule. But what legal authority or diplomatic precedent or moral principle can the head of one government of a sovereign nation demand the removal of the head of another government of a sovereign nation? There's no such principle. In fact, that's entirely contrary to the world order that has existed since 1648,

when the peace of Westphalia established the principle of sovereign equality and the immunity of domestic politics from foreign intervention. It is an example of lawlessness. So not only did the President of the United States, States use overwhelming military force to invade, albeit temporarily Venezuela and kidnap the president and his wife. But just this weekend, without threatening to do the same, I don't think he could pull it off, if he tried, said that the Ayatollah must go.

I mean, when he says things like that, the Ayatollah must go. I can only imagine that that unites the Iran. people around their government. Of course. Suppose the Iranians, the Brazilians, the Russians, the Chinese, said that in response to the outrages in Minnesota, in which armed people purporting to enforce the law are violating the rights of citizens,

killing people, in fact, for no reason, that this would justify their intervention in the United States, either with covert action to support the protests and perhaps manipulate them to turn them violent, as was the case in Iran, or militarily. I mean, this is the law of the jungle. Well, the president himself has said he has no use for international law. That means he has no use for international law.

treaties, that means he fails to recognize that under our constitutional scheme, a treaty is the highest law, the supreme law of the land, along with the Constitution. And one could argue he has now used for the Constitution. What restrains him? He claims the only restraint on his behavior is his own morality, which is, in fact, not easy to find evidence of, and And I noted that when he, in his first term, he asserted, and he continues to assert that the actions of his predecessors do not bind him, that he's free to start anew to ignore whatever they agreed to, to ignore treaties, to ignore international conventions, to as he has now said, dispensed with international law.

And you can see this perhaps most clearly in the so-called Board of Peace. proposal for Raza, which is widely regarded internationally as an effort to substitute a personal Trump dictatorship for the United Nations Charter and the UN itself. It sets up a body in which every decision is subject to the approval of Donald J. Trump, not as president of the United States, but as an individual. He has no term specified for his authority in that body. It is pay to play internationally. If you pay a billion dollars, you can be part of it.

And we're beginning to see more and more countries, starting with France. But others as well decline the invitation to be part of this effort to bypass international law, and displace it with a personal dictatorship essentially over the world, and impose a joint U.S.-Israeli rule in Gaza that totally ignores the rights and the desires and the aspirations of the Palestinians who live there, in fact, proposes to force them out of their own territory in the latest version of the so-called Nakpa. Why is the Netanyahu government unhappy with an arrangement like this?

Well, it basically puts the United States, or rather Donald J. Trump, right in the middle of their effort to annex Gaza and settle it. And it also, by the way, you know, they don't, maybe everyone else bows down to our president, but Netanyahu does not. And we have just seen that. Part of the 20 points for Gaza is the opening of the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza. And the Israelis have just voted not to open that in their cabinet.

So they are in violation of the cease, so-called ceasefire in virtually every. respect, notwithstanding Donald J. Trump. Last night on the tarmac, I guess it was in Miami after the college football championship game, the president commented about just what you mentioned, France refusing to join the Peace Board. Get a load of this. He's going to impose a 200% tariff on French wines unless President Macron joins the peace board. Chris, let's watch this. Did he give any response to President Macron saying he will not join the Port of Peace? Did he say that? Well, nobody wants it because he's going to be out of

office very soon. So, you know, that's all right. What I'll do is if they feel like Costo, I'll put a 200% tariff on his wines and champains and he'll join. But he doesn't have to join. If he said that, you're probably giving it to me a little bit differently. But if he actually did say that. But as you know, he's going to be out of office in a few months. Did you invite President Pooke to join the... Yes, he's one of the people. He's the world leaders.

And the answer is yes. World leaders do not want to be part of this particular carve out from international law. But the more interesting element of this, of course, is the entirely peevish juvenile belligerent, of our president to what he regards as a personal insult. And we've also seen this with a letter that he wrote to the Prime Minister of Norway saying that since you didn't give me the Nobel Peace Prize, I feel no obligation to think of peace anymore. And I can do what I want, use force or whatever.

And this is in the connection in connection with the land grab for Greenland. which risks destroying the NATO alliance. You think that the Kremlin will just sit back and watch the destabilization of NATO, something for which they have yearned since the termination of the Warsaw Pact? Well, they don't have to do anything. We're doing it for them. Right, right. I mean, this is Napoleon's famous adage, you never interrupt your enemy when he's making a mistake. And I know that, you know, and we're in a very ironic situation in which the Chinese are the only superpower that is actually respectful of international law on the United Nations.

And, of course, they are not perfect either. But, you know, even the Russians now have a better record than we do. And so look at the disruption that is going on. You mentioned Venezuela at the outset. I think we need to take account of fact that this is not our backyard, but Brazil's backyard. And Brazil is reacting to this much as though we would react or did react during our civil war when the French took over Mexico and threatened us from the south. In this case, we have tried to take over Venezuela.

and threatened Brazil from the north. So we're creating a great deal of instability. Apparently, we don't think in global terms, purely in bilateral terms, and only in terms of our own untrammeled ambition. How did MI6 CIA and Mossad so substantially miscalculate the ability of the Iranian government to intercept their communications and learn what they were up to and collapsed the chaos in the streets, which was intended to bring about a coup last week.

I mean, did they really think that could replicate 1953? This was a classic color revolution effort to chain to overthrow the regime. It rested on all sorts of miscalculations based on, on reliance on exile Iranians. McIovelli, among other insights in the Prince, counsels us never to rely on exiles because they have an axe to grind. They're not in touch with the realities in their own country.

They have an interest in misleading their foreign supporters, and they can't deliver. And that is exactly what happened here, despite the infiltration of approximately 50,000 receivers for Starlink, Elon Musk's brilliant satellite-based communication system, which Russian technology pioneered in the Ukraine war, apparently, was able to totally disrupt, and thus frustrate the guidance to the, those trying to take advantage of the protests, which were entirely justified by falling living standards and understandable.

But the instructions from abroad, presumably from Israel, maybe from us, maybe from N.I.6 were to have people infiltrate the protests and turn them violent. And in fact, about 100 law enforcement officers were killed over the course of this insurial. direction, basically. The other point, of course, is that there were a great number, they Iranians say 60,000 rifles infiltrated into Iran. There were people who came over the border from Kurdistan, Iraqi Kurdistan, which is very much a Mossad base, into Iran. But it all seems to have fizzled out. And the judgment, the regime was as fragile as our narrative suggested, just proved to be false. This, I think,

was originally timed to coincide with an attack on Iran by Israel, which the United States signed up for. And that, of course, has been postponed, largely at the request, apparently, of Prime Minister Netanyahu, who understands very well that the Iranians are well positioned to retaliate and wants American support for the air defense and missile defense of Israel. Now, the United States has just encountered two realities in that regard. One is that of our 11 aircraft carriers, eight are in maintenance. So we have hurriedly commanded the Abraham Lincoln, which was in the South China Sea, to appear in West Asia within striking distance.

of Iran and in a position to defend Israel. That takes eight or nine days. That order was issued on the 14th of January. So the Abraham Lake is not there yet. It should arrive in a few days. The second reality we encountered was that all of the countries in the Arab Gulf where we have bases, their bases, which we use, have told us that they will not allow us

to attack Iran from those bases. That's why the aircraft carrier has to come. And the carrier battle group accompanying it, of course. So we are learning some lessons about the limits of our power politically as people turn down the Board of Peace for Gaza, as people react strongly to the menace to Greenland and to an American ally, Denmark. And as we propose once again,

to collude in an assault on Iran, but is intended by Israel to cement its military hegemony in West Asia, which risks grave damage to Israel, as to us. Do you have any idea? I just want to go back to the clip that we played a few minutes ago, President Trump on the tarmac in Miami last night. You have any idea why he predicted that President Macron will be out of office in a couple of months?

I mean, he has a six-year term. I don't know when it expires, but it's not in a couple of months. No, that's nonsense, of course. But the fact is Macron is very, very weak politically. That is the case with almost every government in the West, now including President Trump's own administration, which is underwater in terms of public opinion and sinking as we speak,

due to the misbehavior of elements like ice in places like Minnesota, but throughout the country. And the effort to militarize law enforcement, law enforcement is probably the wrong word. This is the enforcement of illegal decisions by the executive branch. and the Congress is, as usual, missing in action. Is the United States a trustworthy negotiator or ally? Well, the basic principle of international relations since Roman times has been Pacta-Suntzerwanda, meaning agreements must be kept. But the United States does not feel bound by agreements. We are, the classic example, of course, is the JCPOA, the nuclear deal with Iran, which we unilaterally repudiated after it had been approved by the Security Council and therefore become part of international law.

But there are many other instances. And more recently, we have used the convening of negotiations as a cover for a tax. That is what we did in the case of the last round of negotiations with the reason. Iran, which was to take place in Oman, Muscat, capital of Oman. That negotiation was used as a cover for the Israeli and American attack on Iran. We also, of course, there has been a peace process so called over Gaza. Israel very much in tune with us on this, never keeps its agreements. It was the gathering of negotiators from Hamas in Doha, Qatar,

to mount an assassination attempt. So this is all completely lawless and unpredictable and dishonorable. And of course, no one trusts us. Here's a fact. fascinating and thoughtful statement from President Putin last Thursday, January 15th. It's obviously aimed at President Trump. I mean, you could argue that President Trump tried to kill President Putin by authorizing the CIA to dispatch nearly 100 drones on his country residence.

And you can imagine the reaction, if the Russians had dispatched drones to Mar-a-Lago. Nevertheless, here is a very, very thoughtful, almost philosophical and historical analysis of where we are today and where we have come since World War II from President Putin. Chris, cut number one. 80 years ago, our fathers and grandfathers,

great-grandfathers, having won the Second World War, were able to unite, find a balance of interests, and agree on the fundamental rules and principles of international relations, and enshrine them in the UN Charter in all their totality, completeness, and interconnection. The imperatives of this foundational document, such as equality, respect for sovereignty, non-interference and internal affairs, and the resolution of disputes through dialogue, are now in demand more. than ever. This principle is enshrined in fundamental international legal documents. Disregard for this basic, vital principle has never led and will never lead to anything good. This was clearly

demonstrated by the crisis around Ukraine, which became a direct consequence of many years of ignoring Russia's legitimate interests and a deliberate course toward creating threats to our security, toward the advance of the NATO bloc to Russia's borders, contrary to the public promises given to us. I want to emphasize this, contrary to the public promises given to us. I recall that Russia has repeatedly put forward initiatives to build a new, reliable and fair architecture of European and global security. I want to emphasize this, contrary to the public the promise is given to us. We all know what he's talking about. Exactly. This is, of course,

the greatest irony of our age that we find the Russian president and the Chinese president defending the world order that we sponsored after World War II while we tear it apart. And that is exactly what is going on. And why is that? Because law, whether it's domestic or international, is the means by which the weak are protected from the strong. And we have an administration which both in the person of the president and his principal advisor, Stephen Miller, suggests that their law of the jungle should replace the rule of law, both domestically and internationally.

So I think I have to say this. As an American, I am deeply distressed. I see the twitches and convulsions of our republic as it dies and takes with it the international order that Americans created that kept the world safe and much of it free for most of the 20th century. Why is it in our interest to tear down what we built? I do not understand. I think we'll leave it at that. A very, very articulate and profound statement and a very profound question, Ambassador. Thank you very much. Thanks for your time.

As always, we'll look forward to seeing you next week, my dear friend. Thanks for what you do. Thank you. Coming up later today, we have a full day for you. At 10 o'clock this morning, Colonel Bill Astori, at 11 this morning, Colonel Douglas McGregor, at 1 this afternoon. Pepe Escobar at two this afternoon, Matt Ho, at three this afternoon, Colonel Karen Koukowski, Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom.