Judging Freedom - AMB Chas Freeman : Is Saudi Arabia Collapsing?

Episode Date: October 13, 2026

AMB Chas Freeman : Is Saudi Arabia Collapsing?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 October 13th, 2006. Ambassador Chas Freeman will be with us in just a moment. Is Saudi Arabia collapsing? But first this. Today's headlines aren't just bleak. They're an indictment of a government that has abandoned the Constitution. You are witnessing the direct result of the Federal Reserve's relentless war on the value of your dollar. For centuries, gold and silver have been the ultimate shield against the state's favorite tools. Monetary expansion and runaway inflation. To protect your wealth is to protect your liberty. And you can do that with gold and silver.

I own both and continue to buy because J.P. Morgan is now lying gold at over $6,300 an ounce. And Bank of America is suggesting silver could reach $300. That's great news for precious metal investors. don't wait for Washington to fix a mess they created. Secure your freedom today. Take possession of your precious metals or diversify your IRA by adding gold and silver. Call 800, 511, 4620 to see if you qualify for up to $20,000 in bonus medals. That's 800,5114620 or go to Learjudgeonap.com. Ambassador Freeman, welcome here, my dear friend.

and thank you for accommodating my schedule. I'd like to ask you a few questions before we get to Mohammed bin Salman's self-inflicted wounds. What is your view of the Department of Justice investigating five television networks because in response to President Trump's banning several of them from the White House, they decided to stop covering the White House. And the DOJ is now investigating whether or not this is an antitrust violation. Am I missing something here? No, you're not.

This is classic Trump vindictiveness, retaliation, completely illegal, no respect whatsoever for the First Amendment of the Constitution, or for that matter, other provisions of the Constitution. And you see this pattern, not just with the press, but look at the search of Ilhan Omar's house this weekend in D.C. That is part of the same pattern. It is the use of the Department of Justice

as an instrument of revenge or pressure or intimidation against an American, this case, an American Congresswoman, but the press as well. And we've seen this pattern in this administration from the very beginning when the Department of Defense or the Board, it now calls itself, was able to restrict access of the press to virtually everything. We have very little information that's accurate,

about the several wars that we are engaged in directly or indirectly. And we're watching the death of our democracy. So Paramount can buy Warner Brothers, CNN, CBS. That's not an antitrust violation. That's not a restraint of trade. But five networks decide to poke the president in the ribs because he denied three of them the ability to show up at the White House, and that is an antitrust violation. The Attorney General should be ashamed of himself. Well, we know he's

not qualified to be the Attorney General. He's still Trump's personal lawyer. No, I think it's unspeakable. But then, of course, I have to say, the instrument, which was intended to keep our our economy in a capitalist competitive state has been grossly violated over the years. We now have an economy that is dominated by oligopolis or monopolies that are, and our political economy is directed by oligarchs, who apparently believe they can correctly, at least under the Trump administration, well, not uniquely under the Trump administration. There's also the Biden administration. the same thing.

They can get away with anything they do. And the concentration of wealth is not impeded at all. It continues. You mentioned the Department of Defense, which the Secretary of Defense calls the Department of War. He announced the other day that the Department of Defense, would engage sharpshooters to execute a convicted prisoner and this would be live streamed for anybody to watch. Now, whatever you think of the death penalty, I'm a fierce opponent of it, but not to get into a debate on the death penalty. Whatever you think of the death penalty,

what do you think of this, what I would call repulsive pornographic live stream? Well, this is clearly a violation of the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution, which prevents cruel and unusual punishment. It's cruel. The man is in a wheelchair. He's been on death row for, I think, 13 years. He wants death. And this is being exploited, as you said, for really quasi-pornographic purposes. It's cruel. It's unusual. We have not seen a public execution apparently. In some time in the 1930s when there was a spectacle that turned everybody off on the idea.

This is a return to barbarism and it can't be called anything else. I don't share your opposition to the death penalty. I think Nadal Hassan deserves a die. He agrees with that, actually, the intended to die during the horrible attack that was conducted so good. But to do this, diminishes the United States, it shows the world a part of the United States, a kind of America that really is disgusting. It's October, which means it's Cybersecurity Awareness Month,

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We're looking for the clip in which a rather nervous and ill-at-ease Secretary of Defense, Secretary of War, however he calls himself, defends the public nature of the execution and the live-streaming. I mean, the last time the United States publicly executed was before Woodrow. Wilson was president. There's only about three countries that still do this, Iran, Afghanistan, and North Korea. Why would we put ourselves in that category? Well, there's no answer to that. I mean, the United States, for most of our history, until very recently, has been an example of a country that aspired to a higher level of morality, more a higher standard of civilization. This is a relapse into a very ugly past history.

And it disgraces our country. It doesn't benefit it in any respect. I guess it serves the interest of a few people in cruel vengeance. I don't see that as anything that any of the religions we espouse in this country endorse. I think it is immoral in a profound way. Why is Ansar Allah systematically taking Saudi Arabia apart? Well, this has deep roots in Saudi Yemeni interactions. And really it ties back to a mistake that Mohammed bin Salman and the defense minister in Saudi Arabia made when he decided to go after Yemen militarily.

Traditionally, the Saudis have managed Yemen by their neighbor by paying off the tribal groups in the country and setting them against each other. a sort of divide and rule approach which kept Yemen at bay and in a state of some turmoil, but not amenous to Saudi Arabia. Ansar-law is the product of a religious revival in Yemen. It is actually a federalized organization of the Uthis being the main element in it. And there was a truth between the Saudis and Ansala, which foolishly was broken by the Saudis when they assisted or came to the aid of the rival to Ansala in Yemen, the government in Aden that they support and bombed the Sana'a airport in an effort in an effort to keep members of of Ansar al-Assad from attending the funeral of Ali Khanmane, the leader of the supreme leader of Iran, who we killed and we assassinated. So this war has been going on. It is it is connected only tangentially

to the war with Iran. And it is very dangerous. It has done huge damage already to Saudi energy infrastructure. It is reciprocating earlier Saudi destruction of Yemeni airports with the destruction of King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh. It is building up a tremendous reconstruction bill for Saudi Arabia. And by taking out energy facilities and generating a requirement, probably a couple of trillion dollars worth of reconstruction costs to go over five to seven years. I think this war is cementing higher energy prices for everyone. In other words, the prices we're experiencing now, which are mostly attributable with the Iran War,

are going to be locked in and increased because Saudi Arabia will no longer be the buffer for the world, the supplier of last resort. And in the kingdom, the very extravagant modernization plans of Vision 2030 are going to have to be set aside in order to reconstruct the destroyed energy infrastructure. This is a very dangerous and damaging war.

And, you know, there's the, I think, Malévin Salman and the Saudis have been trying to get the United States to come to their aid, and Donald Trump has not. not done so. I expect because he understands, or people in the government that work for him, understand that if the United States does intervene, the blockade of the Vbal Mandib that the Hansar al-Lah is carrying out, which is currently directed only at Saudi vessels or vessels proceeding to and from Saudi Arabia, will be extended to American vessels and be right back where we were five years ago when there was a total blockade of the Bablamanda.

And the danger of that is well illustrated by the fact that byte and Sir Alas focus on the Saudis alone, a container ship from China was just hit as it went through the straight, even though it was advertising that it wasn't anything connected with Saudi Arabia. So this is a big deal. President Trump said last night that the United States might get involved. Chris cut number 14. You said that there would not be another strike on Iran until after the midterm.

Did this latest attack in Saudi attack? Well, we're going to take a look. Have you decided whether to join the Saudi strikes on the hood? We may. We're going to look at it. We may we're going to look at him. It's a non-committal answer, but I guess it does show that it's something on the white. houses mine. How precarious, I think you probably know him from your years. Well, I shouldn't think

I should ask you. Do you know him from your years as ambassador or was he just a young man not high up in the ranks in the government? He was a rug rat when I was there. I was shaking hands with him, but I don't know him. I want to go back to, if I may briefly, to what President Trump just said. This, the failure to come to the aid of Saudi Arabia is the latest in a long chain of such failures. And it completely discredits the United States as the protector of Saudi Arabia, which is our traditional role. And it marks the collapse of American prestige and influence in the entire Virgin Gulf region in a very dramatic way. I think Muhammad bin Salman is very concerned about the possibility of assassination,

probably mostly by a Saudi, possibly a member of the royal family. For the simple reason that, well, let me go back a little bit. The traditional Saudi system, which was in place when I was ambassador to Riyadh, was an expression of the Islamic term Shura, or meaning consultation. Government that was by consensus. It was the job of the King to discover and proclaim a consensus on policies. This required him to consult not only with the royal family, many branches of them, 27 at that time, later fewer, but also with the powerful

merchants in the western province of Saudi Arabia in Jeddah, Makkah, Medina, and with the less powerful business people in the eastern province. Tribal consultations were part of this. All of this was brought to an end by Maham bin Salman, who concentrated all the power in himself, nominally in his father, and basically ran a constitutional coup d'etat shortly after he assumed So I was very confident despite there's a long, long history of people proclaiming that Saudi Arabia is about to collapse. Virtually everything else in the region collapsed, Saudi Arabia did not. And the reason for that was, as I said, you know, this was a table with 27 legs to it. You can't turn something like that over too easily.

So now it's got one leg. And it is vulnerable to being overthrown. And why would it be overthrown? Because Mohammed Seth in Salman has been an incredible reformer. He has advanced the rights of women against the opposition of reactionary clergy. He has brought in entertainment of a sort that was forbidden by the very austere version of Islam that prevailed in Saudi Arabia previously. He has liberalized society in multiple ways. But in order to do this, he has offended virtually every constituency of the royal family. And so he's also offended the reactionary

religious establishment. So he's made a hell of a lot of enemies as he has carried out reform. That doesn't invalidate his reforms. It does not mean that he does not retain populace popularity among youth in Saudi Arabia, who recognize what he's done, but it means that there are a lot of people probably out to get him. Alistair Crook has advised us that Muhammad bin Salman, the greater threat to Muhammad bin Salman comes from within Saudi Arabia, not from Ansar al-A. Do you agree? Yeah, I think that is correct. I don't think the Ansala has a history of assassination or has particularly personalized its conflict with Saudi Arabia.

And as I indicated, Mohammed bin Salman, by trying to do good has made a huge number of enemies. Wow. How precarious is his totalitarian leadership as we speak? Well, I don't know. He controls all of the instruments of power, Ministry of Interior, and its intelligence services, the border, the Frontier Force, the National Guard, which is the tribal levy, the Army, the Air Force, the Air Defense Force, the Navy. Navy is not too relevant because there are no canals going to Riyadh, but the others are very relevant, and there's a long history in the Arab world of the overthrow of monarchy.

It's facilitated because Islam in the Holy Quran is actually very much against monarchy. It's ironic that so many Muslim countries live under autocracy that is not approved in the religious documents, but the fact that Islam rejects one-man rule in favor of Shura consultation, and solidive policymaking just adds to the danger to anyone who presents or who runs an autocracy, which, now have been son, and clearly it does. I want to go back for a minute to the public execution of Hassan Nadal. Here is Secretary of Defense, a rather jittery, as you'll see, Secretary of Defense,

Heggseth, defending himself and stating the reasons for. this news that came down regarding firing squad can you tell us about how that came about and and what led to that decision process no brainer execution by firing squad army major betrays his country radical islamist kills a bunch of americans at fort hood of course we're going to do it at fort hood and do it on a thursday we're going to do it at one o'clock which is when he did it and it's going to be soldiers with rifles executing the firing squad it hadn't been since world war two since we've done that well i kind of like the mentality we had in world war two which was win, which was understand when the enemy attacks you, you need to stand your ground. And so he's going to get a firing squad of soldiers, as it should be. And we'll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it's public, because people need to understand that this is, there's serious consequences for these types of things. Has Major Hassan made any final request, reach out to the president, anything like that to your knowledge? Don't care. Well, I think he's pretty obviously understood that he's gone way over his.

skis on this with this decision. And by the way, the executions by firing squad in World War II, if I recall correctly, were for cowardice and other offenses desertion in the face of fire. They're not relevant. They weren't televised. They clearly, this is an anomaly. It is an expression of the mentality that, Unfortunately, Mr. Higgsath has exhibited from the beginning,

ensuring measuring testosterone levels in people, a kind of extreme machismo. The Washington Post this morning called Hagseth Trump's Minister of Manliness, which of course is the impression he attempts to project. He seemed like a skittish condescending weakling there ill at ease with articulating his own monstrous order. I don't think this is going to happen. I think a federal judge or common sense will intercede. But who knows, this guy seems to think that this is, he does think that this is an appropriate thing to do. Common sense is not in great supply these days.

in government. And I don't know how a judge, maybe a military judge, would intervene. But this is really cruel and unusual as exactly as the Eighth Amendment. Yeah. Very unusual for a military judge who usually has the rank of lieutenant colonel or colonel to overrule his boss, the secretary of defense. so there would have to be some federal implication here in order to invoke a federal judge, a state judge, and Texas is not going to interfere with this. In the other hand, public pressure on the president may cause him to dial back. Hague Seth, although the president, of course, approved this and seems very much in favor. But we'll see what happens.

It's still a month and a half away. Ambassador, thank you very much for your time, my dear friend. No matter what we're talking about, it's always a pleasure when I get to pick up. your brain. Thank you. Sure. All the best. We'll see you next week. Coming up later today, if you're watching us live in 26 minutes at 9 o'clock this morning, Professor John Mearsheimer at 10 this morning, Aaron Matae at 2 this afternoon, Matt Ho, at 3 this afternoon, on this topic of the televised execution. Colonel Karen Kowkevsky, Judge Nipal Tano for Judging Freedom.

Thank you.