Judging Freedom - America_s Role in Ukraine and the World - Scott Horton

Episode Date: May 11, 2023

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Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Thursday, May 11th, 2023. It's about two o'clock in the afternoon here on the East Coast. Our good friend, good friend of the show, Scott Horton joins us now. Scott, always a pleasure. Thank you for coming on with us. Happy to be here. Of course. Before we talk about the specific developments and rumors and announcements since last you were on, I'd like to go back and talk big picture for a minute. My understanding of the origins of all of this are either the misrepresentations made by George H.W. Bush and Jim Baker on where NATO would be and where it would stop, or the failure of NATO and subsequent administrations to abide by those representations if they were honest and truly felt to Mikhail Gorbachev at the time the Soviet Union unraveled,

and the American-led coup in Ukraine in 2014 and subsequent developments. I also understand and believe that what started out as a border dispute has now, due to the immoral end of NATO and the immoral introduction of American weaponry money and to a certain extent below the radar troops, What was a border dispute has now become existential for Russia. Can you pick up on those attitudes that I have, correct them if you see them differently, reinforce them with your extraordinary knowledge of the way these forces uh work as you see fit sure judge i'm happy to and um you know the my background here is of course i've been studying this stuff for working for antiwar.com for almost 20 years now and and covering it not as much as the middle east but covering it you know on and off the whole time on my show. And I'm writing a book now that is literally over

700 pages called Provoked, which is all about this. And yes, I promise to edit that down somehow and hopefully make it readable. Still a work in progress. But essentially, when H.W. Bush, you know, oversaw the American side of the end of the Cold War. I mean, Ronald Reagan started it, but H.W. Bush, his vice president, then, you know, essentially shook all the hands necessary in a way that helped to allow, to make it easy enough to be possible for Mikhail Gorbachev to pull his troops out of Eastern Europe, liberate Eastern Europe, and eventually leading to the unraveling of the entire Soviet empire. And it's, you know, complete destruction by the end of 1991. Now, part of that was they promised that they wouldn't extend NATO east inside Germany if the

Russians would pull out of Germany. They said, we're going to bring them into NATO, but we're not going to move our, whatever we have, you know, American bases in West Germany, we're not going to move all that stuff east. So that was the phrase was not one inch east of where they are now. And now here's the thing. So the pro-American hegemonists will say, that's all we ever promised was not to move east inside Germany. And that doesn't mean anything. But that's just not true. And people can look at the George Washington University National Security Archive, what

Gorbachev heard. And they have all the declassified memos that show that over and over and over again, the Americans, the British, the French, and the Germans all promised the Soviets they would not extend NATO. They would not take advantage of the Soviets' withdrawal from Eastern Europe by extending our sphere of influence in there. Now, here's the rub. Bush Sr. and his men knew they were lying all along. They told the Russians- Would you say that one more time, please? George H.W. Bush and his men knew that they were lying all along.

Including the sainted Jim Baker. That's right. I don't know who made him a saint. Well, sainted to the neocons, not to you and me and the people watching us now. Go ahead, please. He actually is a qualitatively better person than the neoconservatives in probably every single way. So I'll give him that even on Iraq. But point is, they told the Soviets, we're going to do what's called a

partnership for peace. We're going to turn NATO into a political organization and we're going to extend the partnership for peace. And it'll include Russia and even Kazakhstan and everyone. And we'll all be in this alliance together. Now, this was my New World Order conspiracy theory of the 1990s. One world government, one world army of the North with Russia brought into NATO or something very much like that. So that also would have been bad. But instead of the Ron Paul prescription, which would be abolishing NATO and coming home and let the Europeans work out their own common security architecture there in the absence of the Soviet empire and in a state of an extremely weak in Russia. Instead, they expand, they broke their promise and they expanded the NATO military

alliance east. And there are a lot of other things that Bill Clinton did to them, but that's the worst one. And it is NATO physically present in what was the old East Germany, East Germany. I realize Germany's united, but the geographic area that the Soviets dominated from the end of World War II until 1989, is NATO physically present in that area? I believe so now, but beside the point, because they have a permanent presence in Poland and in Romania with their anti-missile systems. And this goes to, in 1997, Bill Clinton made a compromise with the Russians and created the Russian NATO Council. And they had a deal that was called the NATO-Russia Founding Act. And in there, they said, essentially, the Russians acquiesced because they had no choice, that, okay, fine, you can expand NATO East, but we want to be part of this new deal with you, this consulting arrangement. And you have to promise not to move any of your military equipment into any of what used to be the Warsaw Pact. So you can bring them into your alliance, but not station bases there.

And then the Americans just broke that promise. And I have a quote of Bill Clinton in the book, very unsurprisingly in his character saying, yeah, right, until we wake up one morning and change our mind, which is exactly what he did. Is it fair to say that where NATO is are substantial offensive armaments aimed at moscow sorta now here's where we get to w bush and we're skipping you know exactly all the nato expansion bill clinton and we're painting with a broad brush here that's right and i'm doing this for a reason because after you is jack devine who's a crazy loopy the cia can do no wrong but he's fun and funny and my people love to hate him. So I'm setting him up by asking you these questions. Okay. So what W. Bush did was he, first of all, he brought nine countries into NATO. He was the one who really expanded. Bill Clinton brought in three. W. Bush brought in nine

more, including the Baltic States right on Russia's border. And he tore up the anti-ballistic missile treaty in 2002. And that limited us, it was Nixon's treaty, it limited us to a couple of anti-ballistic missile sites in North America. And he tore that treaty up and he installed these anti-missile sites in Romania and Poland. Now, judge, this is complicated, but I'll try to be fast. W. Bush and later Obama insisted that this is to protect Eastern Europe from Iran, that somehow Iran was going to run missiles. That's right. I know it's absurd that Iran was going to launch missiles that they do not have with a range they cannot reach

to deliver nuclear weapons that they do not possess and are not making. To a land that poses them no threat and is not their enemy. That's exactly right. So nobody believed Bush when he said this, and I can never find this anymore, but I'll still cite it because I remember it. Bush said this at some meeting in Europe and they all busted out laughing. Which Bush? I'm sorry? Which Bush? W. Bush. Now, this would be, you know, early 2000s or mid 2000s here. So now now W. Bush now. OK, so the Russians say, well, we're worried that you're changing the policy from mutual assured destruction to a first strike capability here. If you can shoot down our retaliatory strike, then you're nullifying mutually assured destruction and upsetting the

balance of power. So W. Bush responded and said, no, come on, because look how many missiles I'm putting in. It's not enough to shoot down a salvo from the Russians. It would only be enough for a limited strike, say, from Iran, which is a fair argument, Judge. So then Putin said, well, then maybe that's not what it is. Maybe it's the fact that the Mark 41 missile launchers can also fit Tomahawk cruise missiles, which can be fitted with hydrogen bombs. And this is now W. Bush essentially breaking the spirit of the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty with this so-called Aegis on shore. So it would be fair to say that where NATO is defensive weaponry that can be converted to offensive weaponry also is. That's right. And relatively quickly. Bring us to 2014 in Ukraine and the involvement of the CIA and the State Department? Well, so what happened was the, first of all, W. Bush prevented Yanukovych, the Ukrainian president, from taking power with the bogus Orange Revolution of 2004.

Then the people who won the Orange Revolution with America's help in 2004 ended up being run right out of power. And the guy that they prevented from taking office ended up winning again in 2010. And his name was Viktor Yanukovych. And he was from the Russian leaning party from the east of the country, the party of regions. And he was working on a deal with Paul Manafort was his advisor. And people say, oh, Manafort was Putin's agent. That's a lie. Manafort, if anything, was probably CIA, at least, you know, an asset or a friend of theirs. Clearly, he was trying to get Yanukovych to move west. He wasn't representing Russia's interests. He was representing America's interests there. And Yanukovych was doing so.

And he had told his own government that you guys need to pipe down. I'm signing this association agreement with the European Union, a step toward, you know, a full membership in the EU and a trade agreement. But the thing is, the European Union, meaning Germany mostly, and the IMF were running a really hard bargain in terms of all the austerity measures and all the debts and all this stuff. Putin came in and said, well, I'll give you a bunch of money. A better deal. That's right. And a discount on gas. And so that way you'll choose me. And that was what he did. And at that point, there were people who from the very beginning, it was people who work for George Soros organizations in Kiev,

Hamdraki TV, which is founded by, you know, with George Soros money from the very beginning, was one of the founders of that organization, was the guy who called the protests in the Maidan. And then all of the National Endowment for Democracy associated groups poured millions of dollars in to create this massive protest movement all winter long in order essentially to destabilize the government. What year is this now? This is now, we're talking late November and into December 2013 and into January and February 2014. Tell me about Victoria Nuland. Right. So Victoria Nuland was essentially the ambassador to the EU, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European Political Affairs or something like that. And she's working with

Jeffrey Pyatt, the ambassador to Ukraine. And they're caught red-handed on the phone plotting who is to take power after the regime change is successful. And they're caught red-handed on the phone plotting who is to take power after the regime change is successful. And people defend that and say, no, they're talking about under a compromise under Yanukovych, but I don't think that that's true. And I explain in detail why in the book, but essentially they had rejected Yanukovych's offer already before this conversation took place. So they're plotting who they want in there. And with John McCain and Senator Chris Murphy, they all went there and got on stage and told the protesters that we are with you. America, the world's superpower, supports you. Don't give up.

Don't give in. Don't wait for the next election. Let's overthrow this guy. That's what they were doing. And, you know, as Joe Loria points out, revolutions are for dictatorships and monarchies. In republics and democracies, we just have an election so that we don't have to fight. That's the way it's supposed to work here. But the Americans, you know, who are these evangelical Democrats, supposedly, they'll overthrow any government that votes the wrong way at the drop of a hat. All right. Who, who, um, who replaced Yanukovych when he fled to Moscow? Uh, well, essentially people from the fatherland party, which was the party of Yulia Timoshenko, the so-called gas princess who was part of the orange revolution and had been overthrown back then. And her front man, Arseny Yatsenyuk, became the

new prime minister. And then a few months later, Petro Poroshenko, the billionaire chocolate oligarch, was elected and came to power. Now, right after the coup, judge, the new government threatened to kick the Russians out of their year-round warm water naval port at Sevastopol on the Crimean Peninsula. And it was only then that the Russians seized the peninsula and then shortly thereafter annexed it with the assent of the vast majority of the population of the peninsula, by the way, at the time. And then they also, and I think, you know, it's fair to say that the Russians did have a hand in this. It was not purely a homegrown operation, although there was definitely domestic support for it. But there was basically a separatist or an autonomous type

movement arguing for very strong federalism, essentially, inside Ukraine that broke out in the east. And immediately the new government declared a war on terrorism. At this point, is Zelensky the president of Ukraine? No, no, he doesn't come until 19. At this point, it's, you know, Barack Obama is the president of Ukraine. And he and John O. Brennan, as you know, the leader of Al-Qaeda in Syria, his former CIA director, he went to Kiev and gave them their marching orders, go to war. And then the Russians, of course, in two major battles, sent their special operations forces across to assist in the first year of the war there. But mostly it's a homegrown resistance,

militia movement that was fighting there. And they've got what was called the Minsk One and Minsk Two deals from November 14 and February 15 that was supposed to bring an end to this thing. And it was the French and the Germans that led on the Minsk deals. Barack Obama gave them his rubber stamp and so did the United Nations. So there's supposed to be official deals that were supposed to end the fighting. But then Barack Obama and then later Donald Trump continued to pour weapons in, which of course completely disincentivized the Ukrainian government from making a deal. And later, and in fact, just in the last few months here, Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande and Zelensky and Poroshenko have all said that, yeah, they never meant to abide by the Minsk deal.

They were only buying time to arm up, to go back to war and to increase the war. So now I'm not trying. I know we're short on time here, Judge. I'm not trying to sit here and take the Russian side and say that what they did was justified. In my analogy, the way I think of it, America had their back to the wall, but not necessarily all the way in the corner. And I think that there were methods short of war that they could have resorted to. All right. A couple of questions and a couple of points. All of this begins with an act of deception by Jim Baker and George H.W. Bush. Agreed? Yes, sir. All of this is furthered by Barack Obama's willingness to underwrite either directly

or indirectly, but using American CIA and State Department, a coup against a popularly elected and popular government. Agreed? Yes. And even the Washington Post admitted in all of their polling that he was still the most popular figure in the country at the time that he was overthrown. What will Jack Devine say when I accuse the CIA of being involved in the coup of 2014. Well, you know, I don't have specific CIA fingerprints on this, Judge. They don't need to use the CIA, and they very well could have coordinated the thing. I'm not apologizing for them. I'm just saying I don't see any direct indication of that, but that's what the National Endowment for Democracy is for, and that's what Pierre Omidyar

and George Soros and all of these so-called independent oligarch billionaires are. They act as auxiliaries of the State Department and they pour in millions of dollars to support so-called pro-democracy groups, but that always means pro-Western groups, the ones that they want to support at the expense of the others. Imagine if the Russians had really done one-tenth of what they were accused of in 2016, the American media and government call that a declaration of war, an act of war on the United States. Okay, before we wrap up, we know from the documents that the government says Jack Teixeira on his own release, whoever released them,

documents that the authenticity and accuracy of which the government has not questioned or publicly challenged. We know from those documents that the government's military experts expect Ukraine to lose and recognize that Ukraine's air defenses will have been degraded down to zero in another two weeks or three weeks at the end of May. Notwithstanding that, this morning, the White House announced, it may have been last night, another $1.2 billion to Ukraine. This time, not in direct military equipment, but in credits. You buy what you want from Raytheon and we'll pay the bill. Question, what end game can there possibly be for this administration whose military people have told that it's going to lose, whose intelligence community must have

told it the same thing, but whose politics depends upon some sort of a victory or a politically acceptable off-ramp. Yeah, I mean, they clearly think that they're getting the better end of this, that they're bogging Russia down and bleeding them to bankruptcy. But of course, we're spending north of $100 billion on this effort ourselves. But they've said all along that what they want to do is just keep the war going as long as possible. And in fact, if you go back to the beginning of the war, everybody assumed, even the Ukrainian military assumed, the American spies and everyone else assumed that the Russians were going to roll right over their army and that we were going to be

backing an Afghan style insurgency all along. That was plan A. So plan B was, oh, great. The military's able to continue to stand and fend the Russians off for all this time. We'll continue to pour all the weapons we can into them to keep that going as long as possible. But then that raises the real question is if and when the Russians are able to essentially completely smash and route the Ukrainian military, if that does happen, it's still a land the size of Texas. And I don't think they want to take the Western half of it. But then if they don't, that leaves a rump Ukrainian state led by right-wing nationalists allied with NATO and armed to the T, still prepared to fight an insurgency against them for the long term. And

I predict that I presume that that is NATO's plan, that even if, let's say, the Ukrainian army falls apart tomorrow, that they'll go back to plan A and try to keep this thing going until Putin has to resign in disgrace. Suicidal and crazy. But Scott, what a brilliant and gifted, because so accurate, so informative, and so succinct history of how we got to where we are today. We'll pick up on this with you next week. Thank you so much, my friend. All the best to you. Appreciate it, Judge. More as we get at 3.30 this afternoon Eastern, the man you all love to hate, Jack Devine. I don't think he's going to be able to challenge anything that Scott Horton just said, but we'll see what happens.

More as we get it. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom.