Judging Freedom - America Holds the Keys to Peace in Ukraine? w/Scott Horton News.AntiWar.com

Episode Date: August 31, 2023

America Holds the Keys to Peace in Ukraine? w/Scott Horton News.AntiWar.comSee 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 Thursday, August 31st, 2023. Scott Horton joins us now. Scott, always a pleasure, my dear friend. Thank you for joining us. I have some fascinating clips of an interview that my friend and former colleague, Tucker Carlson, recently did with Viktor Orban, the prime minister of Hungary, in which he makes some very strong statements with which I think you and I know I, and I'm confident our audience will agree, will hold them for just a minute because of some other crazy quotations. Mitt Romney, I know you know this because it was on the website, as absurd as it is, of antiwar.com, recently called the proxy war in Ukraine, quote, the best national defense spending, close quote, the U.S. has ever done. Is this a typical argument or honestly held belief by the war party in Congress, which I will define, you'll probably agree with me, as about 95 percent of the Republicans and 95% of the Democrats. Yeah, I'm not certain the percentages,

but it's certainly the ruling factions and the majorities of both parties. Yes, sir. And yes, and, you know, I'm writing this new book forever here about this called Provoked. And I have a section where I'm just collecting all of these quotes of American politicians talking about, you know, we, isn't this fun and, you know, interesting

and inexpensive. David Ignatius in the Washington Post somewhat infamously, I think, at least in certain circles, wrote recently about how this war is just going great we are costing the russians so much money at so little cost to ourselves and we are gaining so much for our interests and then he literally used parentheses except of course for the ukrainians being slaughtered whose country's being destroyed who just through due to the fighting not deliberate ethnic cleansing but just due to the fighting you have you know the vast depopulation of the entire country was seven million people have fled something like that that was actually as of six months ago judge um. So, you know, it's an absolute catastrophe for them.

But you hear, you know, as Tom Woods says, no matter who you vote for, you always get John McCain. And that's not just for president, but that's your congressman too. Well, you know, Tom is right, certainly with respect to war. Yeah. No matter who you vote for.

It could be Donald Trump. It could be Barack Obama. It could be Ronald Reagan. It's the Barack Obama. It could be Ronald Reagan. It's, it's the same. It's, it's the war party. And what that really stands for is not just the violence,

but what a simpleton John McCain was. The guy didn't know anything. The guy would just spouted platitudes and slogans and talking points, whatever he thought he was supposed to think and say famously, he went to Iraq and accused Iran of training Al-Qaeda fighters. And Joe Lieberman had to whisper in his ear, just say militants, John, because he didn't even know who was on whose side

in Iraq War II, the war that he had mongered and caused. And it's the same thing here. You hear him judge. They go, well, we're killing Russians. We're sending Russians home in body bags. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. But that's really a good, and everybody knows it. What they're failing to recognize is the reality on the ground,

which is that it's our military aid that has caused the slaughter of the Ukrainian soldiers, and they're getting slaughtered at a rate of seven to one. Senator Richard Blumenthal chiming in with Senator Mitt Romney. The U.S. is getting its money's worth in Ukraine because this is how twisted their logic is, Scott. And you may know this quote. Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut. The U.S. is getting its money's worth in Ukraine because Americans aren't dying. I guess we're getting our money's worth because Russians and Ukrainians are dying. I was going to hold off on the

Viktor Orban, but let me play this one because it's relevant to what we're talking about right now, how the prime minister of Hungary, who's right there, says it is certain Ukraine will lose. In the United States, the view is that Ukraine is winning this war. It doesn't sound like that's true. No, it's a lie. It's not just a misunderstanding. It's a lie. It's impossible.

Everybody who's in politics and understand the logic, the figures, the data, no way. Why is it impossible? Because that way, the poor Ukrainians die every day. Yes. Hundreds and thousands, you know. So my heart is with them. It's tragedy for Ukraine. But they will run out earlier from the soldiers, number of soldiers, than the Russians.

What finally will count is boots on the ground. And the Russians are far stronger, far numerous, more numerous than the Ukrainians. There is more of them, many more. So this strategy that we are just supporting is a bad engineering of the strategy. It's not a misunderstanding. It's a lie. Very, very profound profound very strong words and and and an accurate argument look at the kill rate is seven to one i hate talking about something like this scott but let's get it over with let's pull the band-aid off seven ukrainian soldiers killed for every one russian and if the russian population is two and a half times uh Ukrainian population. How much longer can this last? Yeah. Well, I don't know exactly what the ratio is, Judge, but either way, I mean, it's

just we've known this from the beginning that Russia is a bigger, more populous country. And it's just as simple as that. There's only so many fighting age males in Ukraine and there are far many more in Russia. So it comes down to it. Let's say that the Ukrainians really all of a sudden did great. Their summer offensive just completely started whooping the Russians all up and down the Donbass. Well, then you would have a full scale invasion by Russia, right? So they act like there's some zero-sum game here. They're going to make some progress in this offensive. First of all, they didn't. But even if they had, they still would just be waiting for the next reaction from the Russians to come. And so they really, they should have stopped to deal. But, you know, back to these quotes of

these politicians, Judge, where you hear that the course is meat and potatoes for your book. Yeah, sure. Look, I mean, there's really it's very simple. You know what? What Blumenthal is saying there, in other words, is that Russian soldiers, they have value. It matters to us to get them killed. American soldiers have value. We don't want to lose any of them. American tax dollars, they don't have value just because you work hard. That doesn't mean anything to a politician. And Ukrainian soldiers' lives are worth as much as Americans' tax dollars.

Nothing to the American politicians. They say it in their plain language. To them, that's not a cost on the American politicians. They say in their plain language, it's to them, that's not a cost on the ledger. It would only be a cost if it was American soldiers who had to die. And even then, that's only because it would be political pressure on them, not because they care about American cannon fodder any more than they really care about the Ukrainians. They're monsters. That's who runs the American empire. They're the worst.. Sorry to say I agree with you. I mean, I'm not sorry to say I agree with you. I'm sorry that that's the state of affairs. It is. United States and not all, but many of its NATO allies are negotiating some sort of an agreement with Ukraine, which will go into the next presidency, whether it's Joe Biden's second term or fill in the blanks first term. and Victoria Nuland are attempting to prevent future presidents from ending the war in Ukraine.

Yeah. I don't know how much longer it's going to go. I don't know what his off-ramp is. He obviously wants to be able to point to something progressive that happened in the war between now and election day. It's getting worse and worse. Our military people are telling us it can't go on much longer. It's not going to make it to the winter. You heard the president of Hungary. But does Joe Biden really think the American public wants this thing extended? Well, I mean, you got to look at it from his point of view. This is what it's got such a funny name,

Judge. I'm not sure who coined this. I guess it was James Buchanan coined the term public choice theory. It sounds like wonky and nerdy, but all it really means is that politicians are individuals and they care about themselves. There really is no national interest. They do what's in their interest, what's in their agency or their department's interest. And it has nothing to do with what's good for the American people overall. So what's bad for Joe Biden, Judge, is losing this war before the election. Right. Just like George W. Bush in 2003 and four, the insurgency is getting worse and worse and worse. Well, what's he going to do? Cut and run? No, he's got to double down and just make sure the thing keeps going past election day so that the promise that, well,

we prevented the worst remains. And so that makes no sense. I mean, the Wall Street Journal had this giant piece about what the spring offensive of 2024 is going to look like. Are you kidding me? The same people who just said that they were going to win with the spring offensive of 2024 is going to look like. Are you kidding me? The same people who just said that they were going to win with the spring offensive of 2023 that turned into the summer absolute catastrophe of 23 here. And the only idea is to continue. One of our colleagues and friends, former Marine Corps major and State Department official Matthew Ho has been arguing. American hero. Yes, a great human being.

But he's been arguing very effectively that this is the most propagandized war in the modern era. Just a few hours ago, the Wall Street Journal reported, we all know that there are three rings of defense through which the Ukrainians would have to go in order to move eastward into eastern Ukraine. The Wall Street Journal reported that the Ukraine military had breached the first ring. Since that report, silence, because the report from the Wall Street Journal of all places came from one Ukrainian soldier speaking to one Wall Street Journal reporter with no corroboration whatsoever. courageous american videographer was came to us from a a trench on the eastern side said they're nowhere here near here no way no how yeah well look judge i would encourage people to pull up one of these war maps if you can and look at the purpose of this uh supposed summer offensive. It was to try to cut through basically just east of Crimea

in the eastern part of Zaprosia province to a town called Melitopol. And I'm sure I'm pronouncing that terribly, but it's the next big town west of Mariupol. And they were supposed to march all the way through those three barriers that you talked about, those three rings of defense, and then through Russian lines and march all the way to this town on the Azov coast. And then what? Like the underpants gnomes, question mark, question mark, somehow profit. But instead, look at the reality. Even if that had succeeded, which they have completely failed, but if that had succeeded, which they have completely failed, but if that had succeeded, well, they'd have just been completely surrounded.

They still would have had all those Russian forces in the western part of Zaporozhye and Crimea to their west, and they'd have had all of the Russian forces in the Donbass to their east. It would have been like they'd parted the Red Sea, but then they were still just standing in the middle of it and unable to hold the tide back. It would have just been crushed anyway. So what in the hell was even the purpose of this thing? It made no sense. And that's not me talking. That's Daniel Davis, who is a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army and really is an expert in this stuff. I was just saying, this strategy is not even a strategy. And by the way, speaking of the journal, they admitted on two or three different occasions, I have the quotes,

that this essentially was a public relations stunt to show the West that the Ukrainians still have enough fight in them for us to continue to want to back them. I don't know what's going to happen with the backing because we can't tell. I don't even know if antiwar.com can tell. Nobody can tell exactly how much money has been spent. The Pentagon keeps coming out with confusing numbers. Right. The Nancy Pelosi led House of Representatives gave Joe Biden a blank check for 113 billion as he spent all of it because he just asked for another $28 billion. Now, Republicans are as much in favor of this war as Democrats. There is a cadre of progressive Democrats and a cadre of libertarians slash, I'll call them

traditionalist Republicans who are opposed to this. I don't know that they're enough to stop it. But whatever it is, Joe Biden wants more money to tide him over so that he can keep fighting this war at least until election day of 2024. He's probably going to claim some sort of a victory. Whether they're able to sell it on the American public remains to be seen. But everything you say is profound, Scott. They don't care about innocent human life. They don't care about foreign human lives. They don't care about American human lives. They don't care about American tax dollars. They don't care about money being borrowed in our names. And the press is with them. not you, not me, but all the mainstream press, including my employer of 24 years, is with the war and supporting the American government in one of the most horrific foreign policy decisions ever made. Yeah. And look, never mind, you know, libertarians and certain kinds of points of view.

Like, let's just say you're just a regular plain old American and you look at the situation. Before the war, the Russians were saying, we want a new treaty. We promise neutrality. You promise not to put missiles in there. You promise not to bring Ukraine into NATO. And you implement the Minsk Two Deal, which essentially means statehood, strong federalism for the far east of the country. NATO and you implement the Minsk two deal, which essentially means statehood strong, you know, federalism for the far east of the country. And then we're cool. Right. And now what do we got? They've lost virtually all of Luhansk province, about two thirds of Donetsk and about half of

Zaporozhye and half of Kherson. And at this rate, even though they won Kharkiv back, they might lose Kharkiv again. And they could even lose Odessa, which is an extremely important port city there on the southern coast. And we have even the war party in all the major papers saying, well, of course, at some point we have to negotiate. Maybe it should have been sooner.

Maybe it'll be a little bit later after another year of this or another two years of this. But in other words, they concede. They concede by saying we have to talk. That means that Ukraine is going to have to give up major portions of the east of their country in order to have peace here. When they could have had peace and they could have kept all of that land as part of Ukraine without having this war at all. But then we couldn't have sent Russian soldiers home in body bags, which is the highest good. So then Zelensky is really caught between Iraq and a hard place, almost literally. He can't call for a ceasefire or a stalemate

because the right wing will consider him a traitor. He's never going to get back the real estate that they lost. They're never going to get anywhere near Crimea. I don't know how he gets out of this other than running to his villa

in Egypt or his cond in egypt or his condo in miami or his townhouse in paris yeah hey that's such an important point judge i'm so glad that you brought that up this has occurred and anyone can look this up of course i'll have all the footnotes for you in the book but this happened to the previous president poroshenko and it happened to zelensky as well Time and again, the neo-Nazis say that if the president tries to make peace, we'll kill him. Correct. And judge-

When I say correct, I mean, that's what they say. I'm not saying correct, that's what they should do. That's right. And look, even Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty, which is American, you know, European, American government propaganda station, even the New York Times and the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal admit these are credible threats. This is not like when some

crank in Alabama says he wants to hurt Joe Biden. And let's say he really meant it. The Secret Service would just wrap him up. He wouldn't get anywhere near Joe Biden and nobody thinks he would. Right. But in this case, even the New York Times says, hey, the president really has to take this into account when these Nazis threaten to hang him from a lamppost because they overthrew the government before and they can do it again. I want you to listen to Viktor Orban on the difference between American culture and Russian culture. Is it freedom or is it security and national integrity? To understand the Russians, it's a difficult thing. So when we speak about politics, I mean Westerners,

what is the focus point of our conversation? The focus point is freedom. How to provide more and more freedom to the people. When you speak on politics in Russia, this is not the number one issue. The number one issue, how to keep together the country. That generates a different kind of culture and understanding of politics. That creates a kind of military approach, always on security, safety, buffer zone, geopolitical

approaches. But we have to understand that we cannot beat them as we do just now. It's impossible. They will not kill their leader, They will never give it up. They will keep together the country, and they will defend it. We finance more, they will invest more. If we send more technical equipments,

they will produce more. So don't misunderstand the Russians. So they're not going to get sick of Putin and throw him out. Come on, it's a joke. Tell that to Victoria Nuland, who, you know, wants to use, and when I say Victoria Nuland, I mean her mindset, Tony Blinken, Joe Biden, if he's thinking about this, Jake Sullivan, Lloyd Austin, want to use Ukraine as a battering ram with which to drive President Putin out of office. The best analysis I ever heard was the one that Prime Minister Orban just gave to Tucker Carlson.

Right, absolutely. Well, if you go back in history, the Russians have been invaded by way of Ukraine three major times in recent history. Napoleonic France and then the Germans twice in World War I and World War II. That was their route to invade Russia. If you look at Moscow on the map, Judge, there's no river, there's no mountains, there's no hills, there's nothing but plains all the way to Moscow. And they have no natural kind of boundaries. They have a necessary paranoia, the way he describes there. And look at our situation. We got Mexico and Canada, neither of whom even have a war plan for attacking us ever,

right? We got plans for them. They could never even conceive of threatening our country. We've got the oceans on either side and the world's greatest navy, etc. No one threatens us. Russia is constantly threatened. And, you know, ever since the 1990s, the beginning of the 1990s, the end of the last cold war, the Americans have recognized just how well, uh, obsessed with security the Russians are and how seriously they take it and how paranoid, if you want to call it that, they are about American intentions. And yet the Americans

continue to expand their military alliance into Russia's neighborhood anyway. And they say repeatedly, I got all the quotes, they say it over and over again, Madeleine Albright and William Perry and under George W. Bush and under Barack Obama, too. They say, what are they going to do about it? Come on. We're the superpower. They're not a superpower anymore. They're a bunch of chumps. There's McCain said a gas station with an arm with some nuclear weapons so we can push them around just like they thought they could just push around Ho Chi Minh. What's he going to gonna do we can do whatever we want and yet then they find out that no actually there are red lines they can only push these things so far we'll end it on that it's about as articulate a grasp on modern

american imperialism as i've heard scott it's always a pleasure. Thank you very much for joining us. Have a great Labor Day weekend. When is that book coming out, by the way? Oh, I really hope by the end of the year, the beginning of next year, Judge. How many pages have you written? It's 955 pages. I know, you got to edit it down, man. It's a doorstop.

I love the, I would way rather show you than tell you. So I have these massive block quotes that that's going to be my first priority is cutting all that down. All the best to you. Thank you very much. Thank you, sir. Appreciate it. Of course. Well, if you like what you saw and I suspect you did like subscribe, tell a friend, tell a co-worker, tell people at cocktail parties or barbecues or cookouts. We call them cookouts here in New Jersey on the holiday weekend. We're just approaching 193,000. Our goal is still 200,000 subscriptions to Judging Freedom YouTube by Monday, by Labor Day. Friday afternoon,

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