Judging Freedom - AMB. Craig Murray: The UK and Genocide

Episode Date: September 24, 2024

AMB. Craig Murray: The UK and GenocideSee 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 Tuesday, September 24th, 2024. Ambassador Craig Murray is here with us today. He'll be here in just a moment on the United Kingdom and genocide. 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% and gold has increased by 60%. Do you own gold? I do. I bought my gold in February 2023 and it has risen 33%.

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Protect your savings and retirement before it's too late. 800-511-4620, learjudgenap.com. Remember, hope is not a strategy, but gold is. Ambassador Murray, welcome back to the program, my dear friend. It's always a pleasure to be able to chat with you. In the United States of late, the Justice Department has indicted people for what it calls propaganda. This is, of course, a criminal prosecution because of the content of their speech, a prosecution that the First Amendment to the United States Constitution was written to prohibit, to prohibit the government from evaluating and acting upon and interfering with the content of a person's speech. What is the status of free speech in Great Britain today? I'm afraid it's even worse than in the United States. Of course, we've never had a First Amendment. We've really never had any proper statutory protection for free speech at all.

We have notorious libel laws in which if you defame somebody's reputation, and that's not necessarily by publishing something that's not true. You can defame them by publishing something that's true. You can be sued for huge amounts of money. And certainly you can be dragged through the courts and it can cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars just to defend yourself. So that's extremely chilling um and we now have new legislation coming in we have an uh online safety act so-called which is going through parliament at the moment uh and which will make it illegal to spread misinformation. And of course, it's the government which chooses what is misinformation and what is the truth. And there are many state narratives which people doubt in the extreme.

We've also a new National Security Act, which came into force at the start of this year. And that makes it illegal to publish information on behalf of a hostile government without really defining what a hostile government is. We're not actually at war officially with anybody. So, you know, who is hostile and who decides who is hostile and whether or not it makes any difference whether the information is true or not are things which are to be worked out. But I think it's fair to say that across the entire Western world there is a growing attack upon freedom of speech

and the very notion of freedom of speech. Why does the British government have an interest in suppressing free speech other than governments don't like to be challenged or exposed when they prefer to be authoritarian and non-transparent? I think the standard means of manufacturing and consent are starting to fail. We have an increasingly concentrated media ownership, and we have less of a range of views expressed across the media than used to be the case. But that's part of what has led to a mistrust of the media narrative. And people are now increasingly getting their information from the internet, from non-legacy media sources on the internet, and forming their own views.

And that's very scary to governments because governments want to be able to control a popular narrative which aligns with the policies which they wish to pursue. And I think partly the crackdown on freedom of speech is a reaction to, it's a panic reaction by those in power because they can't control what people think through a tame media anymore. To the extent that the British government has supplied Israel with the war instruments that it is using in Gaza, is the British government, like the American, complicit in genocide? And if you believe that, are you free to say it? I believe the British government is complicit in genocide.

It's not a major supplier of arms to Israel, but it does supply key components of arms. So it's an important supplier 80% of its exports of arms to Israel because of the ongoing genocide in in in Gaza but as well as that there are many other areas of complicity it's training Israeli military personnel it's flying Israeli military and personnel in and out of Israel via the RAF base in Cyprus. Well, it should be in Cyprus. It's a southern base area which actually belongs to the United Kingdom. It's United Kingdom territory located on the island of Cyprus. And from there also it's been running surveillance and intelligence interception operations and feeding that material

to Israel in order to materially assist the genocide. So I think the British government is extremely complicit. In theory, you can say so. It's not against the law to say the British government is complicit in genocide. But I and many others, and at least 10 people I actually know personally, are liable to be questioned and possibly charged under the Terrorism Act. And there are two main strands of that. One is it's an act of terrorism to support a prescribed organization. Hamas and Hezbollah are both prescribed organizations. So any support, expression of support for Palestine can be taken as an expression of support for those organizations,

even if you don't name them. And the legislation is framed in such a way that you do not have to have intent. It specifically is framed a way that you do not have to have intent specifically as things so you to say that you don't have to have intent um it's if you have the effect of causing support for hamas and hezbollah how you judge whether your language has that effect i don't know but um and then then you also have the stopping at airports under section seven of the terrorism act where the police are allowed to stop people at airports and it specifically says in the legislation without reasonable cause it actually says they do not

need reasonable cause they can just stop anyone they want and then they can under that section 7 you do not have the right to remain silent you do not have the right to a lawyer you must hand over all of your electronic devices and you must hand over any of the passwords and under section 12, support for Hezbollah, for expressing an opinion in support of a prescribed organization, the maximum sentence is 14 years in prison. 14 years in prison for expressing an opinion. And under Section 7, if you fail to answer a question, if you try to ask for the right to remain silent, you get two years in prison. So, you know, these are draconian laws. We're not talking fines. And if you go about saying the government is complicit in genocide, they will pick you up under this legislation.

And I have myself been picked up under this legislation. This is like the old Soviet Union or the old East Germany. You mentioned ten colleagues without invading anyone's privacy, but because we know him and love him, is one of those colleagues the great George Galloway? Yeah. I think rather surprisingly, I don't think George has in fact been picked up under anti-terrorism.

I think they don't dare quite take on George. use of pager devices with explosives to kill the person who was holding it, a war crime, as the Israeli intelligence services apparently did in Lebanon last week. Yes, there's a specific protocol to the Geneva Convention which outlaws the weaponization of portable civilian devices. And, of course, a number of these pages were held by doctors and nurses and civil servants and many other people. It's simply not true that they were all held by fighters. And, of course, some killed children.

But it is a specific crime. It's not actually open debate. It is a specific crime to booby-trap civilian devices. Have any governments in the West, notably the US or the UK, condemned this? Not at all. No. There's been a very notable lack of condemnation. And a very notable lack of condemnation of the subsequent extremely heavy bombing attacks and indiscriminate bombing attacks on Lebanon, which have followed. Could you imagine if Russia or China or Iran or North Korea employed the booby-trapped, walkie-talkie pager procedure? There would be an outrage, it would be perceived as an act of war, and there'd be massive retaliation. No?

Undoubtedly. I mean, more or less any country apart from Israel. It's quite extraordinary the way that Israel gets a free pass for completely egregious violations of international law. Here's the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights at the UN on Saturday. Chris, cut number four. These attacks represent a new development in warfare where communication tools become weapons, simultaneously exploding across marketplaces, on street corners, and in homes as daily life unfolds.

Authorities have reportedly dismantled unexploded devices in universities, banks, and hospitals. This has unleashed widespread fear, panic, and horror among people in Lebanon, already suffering in an increasingly volatile situation since October 2023, and crumbling under a severe and long-standing economic crisis. This cannot be the new normal. What, if anything, can the UN do about it? The short answer is probably nothing, because the United States will veto any UN action that purports to restrain Israel. No?

That's true. The United States will veto anything. And the British will either follow suit or remain neutral. The British will probably abstain because, much as they want to support the United States, they have a huge issue with public perception at home and public opinion at home, which is very, very strongly pro-Palestinian. Now, the latest poll I saw from a very reputable polling company showed that British people five to one tend to support Palestine rather than tend to support Israel when the question is put in that way to them.

And that, of course, has changed massively in the last year. So the British government would probably abstain. But we are seeing, working through all the procedures at the International Court of Justice, they are beginning to have effect on domestic legislation. Certainly in the UK, we've only seen so far very limited restrictions of arms exports, but we have seen some restrictions on arms exports. And I think that's a start. In the Netherlands, we're starting to see it. And I think in time, that process, the legal

judicial process coming down, if you like, from the ICJ, will increase in pressure as time goes by. Of course, it's not on time to stop the genocide in Gaza, but it may have a restraining effect on Israel in the future. Let's proceed over to Ukraine. About 10 days ago, there was an embarrassing incident in the White House where Sir Keir Starmer, the British Prime Minister, was fully expecting President Biden to join Sir Keir in announcing that they had authorized the Ukrainians to use British and American long-range missiles to reach deep inside of Russia. This had followed two days of talks in Kiev between

British Foreign Minister David Lammy and United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken, at which Secretary Blinken made clear and unambiguous hints that this permission would be given. And then apparently the Defense Department, the American Defense Department, sat down with the president and said, do you realize what will happen if you do this? Do you understand the significance of the retaliation and how much of it we can't defend against? What is your take on what happened in Washington when Prime Minister Stormer actually showed up with maps to designate where these long-range missiles were going to strike, and President Biden angrily said, we'll make no announcement today.

I should start by saying, one thing that's astonishing is how little publicity this has had in the UK and how few people realize in the UK this completely mad, warmongering proposition being touted by their prime minister. I think, of course, the other key event that happened there between the consultations with the Department of Defence and then the meeting with Biden was a very strong intervention by Putin,

saying this is an absolute red wine and making plain that Russia did not rule out reacting with nuclear weapons and saying that Russia would be at war with NATO. And I think a realization that Putin is serious, that you can't simply take it as a complete bluff and risk the entire future of humankind on the notion that Russia is going to accept to have parts of its country obliterated by long-range NATO missiles and is not going to try to do anything in its own defense. We, the situation in Gaza and the Middle East of course leads us to despair at any restraint or moderation in the White House. But thankfully, actual, you know, mass suicide, world suicide, does appear to be a step too much for those around Biden. Here's Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov on Saturday.

It's a very brief clip, but I'd like you to listen to the last sentence that he uses. Cut number 10. time and again. Let me assure you that we have weapons which, if used, will cause grave consequences for the masters of the Ukrainian regime. These weapons are available and on full alert status. These weapons are available and on full alert status. Now, this statement was made after President Biden and Prime Minister Starmer had their meeting at which no announcement was made. But it's clear the Russians are still fearful and animated about this. But this statement, these weapons are available and on full alert status, means nuclear weapons are available and on full alert status.

And all they have to go through to prepare them has already been done. Does that give the British government pause? It's very, very hard to understand the motive of the British government, to understand why they are so ridiculously gung-ho about the situation in Ukraine and what they are seeking to achieve. With Israel and Gaza, their politicians are personally in the pocket of the Israeli lobby. That's simply true. They get a huge amount of money personally and for their parties

from the Israeli lobby. And you can understand that that affects their view. What it is that makes them so crazily anti-Russian that they're willing to risk World War III over bits of eastern Ukraine, it's very, very hard to understand. It's very hard to understand the ideological position they are taking because, plainly, there's going to have to be a negotiated settlement. I've been saying for a long time that the only way Ukraine could recover

all of its territory would be to inflict so much devastation on Russia itself that it would be bound to provoke nuclear war. There is no military outcome to this which could recover the territory of Ukraine without provoking nuclear war. It's just not possible to do it by local victory. You can't achieve local victory, as we've seen, you know, as is absolutely obvious. In the U.S., the government's foreign policy decisions, whether the president is a Republican or a Democrat,

are all made by the same mindset, a mindset that we generally refer to as neocons, neoconservatives, whose animosity toward Russia is well-known, long-established, and irrational. But the American people don't have this animosity towards Russia. Do the British people, the British public, have the animosity toward Russia that the British government does? I think, unfortunately, quite a high proportion of them do, in fact, have animosity towards Russia, largely because they're fed a daily diet of anti-Russian stories and so much popular culture. You know, if there's a detective series or a thriller series,

it very likely features Russian gangsters and villains. Russophobia and anti-Russian sentiment has become the acceptable racism of our age. You can be as racist as you like and produce as negative stereotypes as you like and say as awful things about the Russians as a people as you like, and there is no societal blowback, as I say. And it's become very ingrained in popular culture, which is very worrying. We're going to run a little clip of the governor of Pennsylvania with Prime Minister, with President Zelensky yesterday

at a munitions plant. That's Governor Shapiro right there. Look at what he's doing. Those are 155-millimeter artillery shells manufactured at a plant in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Footnote, Joe Biden's hometown. He's actually signing the artillery shells. This is the level of obligerance and animosity that prevails. This is not a federal official, this is a state official, the state of Pennsylvania, or they call themselves the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. But this is the level of animosity that pervades over States poses the threat to Russia. We have a United States senator, the prince of neocons named Lindsey Graham, who has publicly asked President Biden to send a team

of killers to assassinate President Putin. That's how extreme all of this has become. What are your thoughts? Yeah, I mean, that kind of glorification of violence and glorification of killing where politicians want to associate with it. Of course, none of these politicians are brave enough to go and fight themselves, but they like to be associated with it by signing something with a pen. We saw, we had the British Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, making the utterly nonsensical claim that if Russia were to succeed in Ukraine in consolidating its territorial gains, then it would invade the rest of Europe. It's plainly just not true. Putin has no desire to invade the rest of Europe. It's been very obvious for a long, long time that Putin wants to reintegrate into Russia some of the Russian-speaking areas of the

former Soviet Union, which were in other republics at the time the Soviet Union broke up, other Soviet republics and ended up outside the Soviet Union. So there are areas of Georgia, there are areas of Ukraine, and it's quite possible in a perfect world he would like to reclaim Belarus and even there are some areas in the Baltic states he might like to reclaim. Russia because under the USSR the borders of the socialist republics, the Soviet republics, were pretty arbitrary. So who ended up inside and who ended up outside Russia wasn't always entirely rational. That's quite destabilizing and it might be better if he didn't pursue that vision much further. But that is the vision. That's what it is. He's never tried to do anything other than reintegrate some pockets of Russian speakers

back into Russia. And that's what he's trying to do in Ukraine. The notion that he has wider territorial ambitions than that, there is no evidence for whatsoever. And I don't believe he does. I think it's completely nonsensical to say that he's attempting to do more than that but that's the fear that they're trying to use in order to drive forward this ultra belligerent policy uh not too long ago the uh Financial uh Times uh a newspaper widely read in uh a British, as you know, but widely read every day in New York

and in Washington, held an unusual public gathering, unusual because it featured two speakers in sort of a free-flowing conversation with each other. One was Sir Peter Moore, the head of MI6, and the other was William Burns, the head of CIA. As far as I know, the head of MI6 and the head of CIA have never appeared in public together and subject to questions from the audience. In the conflagration in Ukraine, that it began in February 2022 rather than in 2014 when MI6 and CIA fomented a coup against a popularly elected but not decidedly Western government. And in the course of those conversations, the head of MI6 said Putin is losing and the invasion into Kursk,

now believed to have been engineered by CAA and MI6, was a success. Nearly everything that Sir Peter said is absolutely incorrect. Is there any blowback when things like that happen? No, unfortunately not, because it's the propaganda line the government wants to put out. In a sense, we're in a situation where the government's truth doesn't matter. What matters is what they wish people to believe.

It's going to be increasingly impossible to claim that Kursk is a success over the next few weeks. But of course, they're desperately trying to hold on and hold the line and keep the thing going until the US presidential elections. But what they don't want is a collapse of the Ukrainian front line before November, because that is going to be a disaster for the Biden administration. So we'll increasingly see more and more NATO weaponry shoved in there. And Russia, in effect, is fighting a large degree of the might of NATO because modern warfare doesn't rely on artillerymen. It's largely equipment-based. So it's an extraordinary war, which is only in a certain sense now a proxy war. It is becoming Putin's right.

It is becoming a war between Russia and NATO. We're going to play for you the clip of Sir Peter Moore, the head of MI6, in a minute. But Chris, do we still have the clip of former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson that we ran last week. Perhaps you can look for that while you run the clip of Sir Peter Moore, head of MI6, seated next to Bill Burns, head of the CIA, two weeks ago in London. Typically audacious and bold on the part of the Ukrainians to try and change the game in a way.

And I think they have to a degree changed the narrative around this. The Kursk offensive is a significant tactical achievement. It's not only been a boost in Ukrainian morale, it has exposed some of the vulnerabilities of Putin's Russia and of his military. If you notice, Sir Peter, first he said game changer, and then he said narrative changer. Yes, it changed the narrative for a couple of weeks, but now those troops are utterly surrounded, and most of lot of equipment will be lost because they put in an awful lot of their best armor in there in the situation where they're pretty well bound to lose it. There are probably some bits that the Russians haven't yet had before in order to reverse engineer. So, you know, in many ways, that's not a very good tactic for NATO. It's extremely sad because there has to be a negotiated peace. But you can't end up with total surrender on either side.

It's not going to end in total surrender on either side. NATO, because for either side to go for total surrender, would risk nuclear war and risk massive escalation. And the negotiated peace in the end is going to now, because of the way things have shifted on the ground, it's going to be a little bit more advantageous to Russia than it looked like it would be a couple of years ago. It's not going to be that different. This thing could have been settled.

Hundreds of thousands of people have died. Millions have been displaced for no reason other than politician belligerence, really. And, of course, for massive profits of the arms trade. Well, here's the politician who was the head of the government in Great Britain at the time and who flew to Kiev and said to President Putin that agreement that's been negotiated in Istanbul was an inch and a half thick. Every page had been initialed by the Russians and the Ukrainians. Throw it out. Don't assign it because we and the Americans will have your back. Here is Boris Johnson. This is laughable what you're about to see at his boorish, most foolish self. As for the role the

Ukrainians could themselves play in stability and security in the Euro-Atlantic area. It's obvious. Thanks to the heroism of the Ukrainian armed forces, they've been fighting for more than two years, almost three years. They are the most accomplished armed forces in the whole continent. And it's easy to see how they could play a very, very important role in peace and stability on the European continent. One of the arguments I think we should make to our American friends is if they want to take back some US troops from the European theatre and save a few billion, a lot of billion, Mike, then I'm sure the Ukrainians, having defeated the Russians, and there's nobody more effective at defeating the Russians than the

Ukrainians, I'm sure the Ukrainians would be only too happy to backfill in Europe. Anyway, those are some of the things, some of the ways in which I think Ukraine can be a force for stability. Does he retain any credibility, Ambassador? Not if he says things like that. I complain that Ukraine is suffering massive troops shortages and degradation and the idea that it has a large military which could take over and backfill from American troops in Germany. It's just absolute nuts.

He's a sideshow now. He wouldn't have been there if he wasn't being paid. I think that's one thing you can say about him. Really, there's just not enough sense at any of his points to make them worth countering. Well, we thought after all the gloom and doom we've been talking about, we would present some humor at the end. Ambassador Craig Murray, it is always a pleasure to be able to pick your brain. I hope the next time you and the great George Galloway run for Parliament that you are successful, and I can't wait to hear your speeches on the floor of the House of Commons.

Best of luck to you. Thank you for joining us. I do hope you will come back and visit with us again. I should love to. Thank you. Thank you, Ambassador. Coming up later today at 12 noon Eastern, Professor Jeffrey Sachs at 2 o'clock Eastern, Matt Ho at 3 o'clock Eastern, Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski. Please remember to like and subscribe. We're up to 444,000 subscriptions. Our goal, as you all know, is a half a million by Christmas. We are well on our way there. And if you're going to be in the northeast of the United States this coming weekend, please join Scott Ritter, Anya Parampal, Max Blumenthal, Gerald Cilenti, and me at a rally for peace and freedom in Kingston, New York. You won't be disappointed. We'll see you later today.

Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. Thank you.