Judging Freedom - Arms Control & Nuclear Disarmament Needed Now w/Scott Ritter fmr UN Weapons Inspector

Episode Date: August 2, 2023

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Thank you. Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Wednesday, August 2nd, 2023. Scott Ritter joins the show now. Scott, always a pleasure, my dear friend. Thank you for joining us. What is the state of affairs on the ground in Ukraine between Russian forces and Ukrainian forces? Well, the good news is you don't have to get my assessment on this one. We have a fresh report from General Sersky who just reported to General Zaluzhny. And this is a report that comes from Turkish sources who claim to have firsthand knowledge of this. General Sersky is the on the ground commander. Zaluzhny is the commander in the back. You're talking about Ukrainian commanders. Correct. And basically, Tversky's report to Zaluzhny is nothing's happened. Nothing's working. We're failing

across the board. We've been beating our heads against this Russian wall. We're getting no results. We're losing everybody. He criticized the use of cluster munitions. I think I've had this conversation with you where I said, A, they're not going to do anything to the Russians, and B, the Russians are going to hit you back harder with their cluster munitions. And that's exactly what Sersky said, having no impact on the Russians. The Russians are hitting them twice as hard, killing a lot of guys. criticized certain battles and decisions to continue certain battles, saying that in order to maintain the pressure on the Russians, he's had to deploy his elite forces, his reserves, the last ones he has. And he says they're getting slaughtered. There's nothing happening. The bottom line is Ukraine is losing across the board. They're eating up their reserves.

I've said it before, I say it again, they're on the verge of collapse. And when they do collapse, that'll be when the Russians achieve one of their major objectives, which is the strategic defeat of the Ukrainian armed forces, the destruction of the Ukrainian armed forces. We're well on our way to that happening. Notwithstanding what you've just said, which is a public report from the number one, two, or three general on the battlefield from the Ukraine side, we continue to hear the mantra from Joe Biden, from CIA, from Jake Sullivan, from MI6, even from a couple of leaders in Germany, Putin has lost the war. What do they think they can accomplish with that propaganda? I mean, it's self-delusional. It's being done to shore up domestic support at home. These are people who are going around asking their constituents or asking their representatives of their constituents to continue to pour good money after bad, to double down on stupid.

Because, you know, Biden's saying Putin's lost the war. It's not like Putin's going to be watching TV going, I should have had a V8. I mean, I didn't realize that. Biden, thank you, Joe, for telling me I've lost the war. Wow, I surrender. It's not going to change anything the Russians are saying or doing. They know the truth. It's not going to impact the Ukrainians. They know the truth. Even NATO generals know the truth. This is a political statement made for domestic consumptions so that the ignorant masses that continue to believe that supporting the Ukrainian government is sound policy, they will continue to be unquestioning about their tax dollars or euros going off in support of this failed cause. Here's somebody else who's been delusional in the past. I'll be anxious to hear what you think about him, General Petraeus.

I think they need to be doing what they actually are now doing, having adapted their plan. Of course, no plan survives contact with the enemy. And it was quickly clear that these miles-long minefields, anti-personnel, anti-tank minefields, tank ditches, dragon's teeth, trench lines full of Russian soldiers, all overwatched by forward observers and drones with artillery on call, that these were going to be very, very difficult to breach, given the shortcomings that the Ukrainians have in certain assets that we would have deployed in this kind of situation, in particular, massive air power. We would have just carpet bombed the whole area of these minefields, tried to blow up as much as we possibly could. And then very substantial, heavily armed, essentially bulldozers,

D-9 bulldozers that just plow their way through this, supported again by close air support, attack helicopters, and the rest. They don't have that. So they've adapted, I think, impressively. Where is he going with this? Again, he lives in fantasy land, Petraeus fantasy land. I think we need to just be straight on the record here, and I hope, General Petraeus, you're listening. You've lied to the American people repeatedly. You testified falsely before the United States Congress about both Iraq and Afghanistan. You put forward assessments of the situation that were so far deviated from the truth that one can't say you made a mistake. You deliberately misled Congress into continuing to support a war in Iraq,

continuing to support a war in Afghanistan long after it was clear to everybody we weren't going to win. You're doing the same thing with Ukraine, General. You're lying to the American people, but you're not even being clever in your life. Carpet bombing. When was the last time we carpet bombed anything, General? Really? Serious? Come on, when?

You know the answer. I know the answer. We used carpet bombing in limited fashion in the Gulf War. How many minefields did we blow up, General? None. Want to know why? We missed the target. Now, I'm not saying we're going to miss the target again, but it doesn't work the way you think it works, General.

The other thing, General, is there's a thing called air defense. The U.S. Air Force hasn't gone up against anything that closely resembles what the Russians have put in place in the Ukrainian theater. We've never done it. Even in Vietnam, where they shot us down like that. Even in Iraq, where they shot us down like that in the Gulf War. We lost a lot of airplanes, General. You know that. I know that. The Russians will shoot down even more than that. You want a a carpet bomb let me introduce you to the physics of carpet bombing you see carpet

bombing requires an airplane to fly over the target in a predictable manner where they drop the bombs carpet fashion that means that the enemy is predicting the flight of the aircraft and they're going to target it with missiles designed to shoot it down you'll lose your entire air force general but you know that you know that what you're saying is stupid. You know what you're saying is a lie, but you're saying it because you're being paid by your mainstream media masters to speak nonsense to the American public because that's what the U.S. government wants. They need you to tell lies to the American people so they don't question why we continue to pour billions of American taxpayer dollars down the drain that is the National Defense Authorization Act, to impose and install an inspector general to certify that the equipment we're giving to Iraq and the, God forgive me, to Ukraine and the

money we're giving to Ukraine is reported and being received where we intended it to go. 22 senators voted in favor, but the balance voted against it. What is the government afraid of? The truth. The government's afraid of the American people knowing what the government already knows, that 60 to 70 percent of the taxpayer dollars that are allocated to Ukraine end up in the pockets of corrupt Ukrainian officials, one way or the other. The vast majority of the money that we send is done in cash, not weapons. We give them cash. We literally ship greenbacks in a cargo plane from Dulles to Kiev. I don't know if we're doing that. We did that in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I think we're a little bit more sophisticated. We can put them in banks now, and then the Ukrainians can use the banks. But the bottom line is that money is in the pockets of corrupt officials. So we know this. We see, for instance, these mobilization mobilizations, these commissars, they're buying $10 million homes, $20 million homes, $40 million. Where the heck are they getting that money? These are, you know, recruiting officers and they have all this money. Corruption, corruption, corruption. We know what's happening, but we can't admit it because the American people would never tolerate it. And so God bless Rand Paul and

the 22 brave senators who voted for him, who are doing the right thing, saying if you're going to take American money out of the pockets of the American people and you're going to send it out to do something overseas, the American people have a right to know what's being done with that money. But the government's afraid to tell them because the government can't admit that we're literally funding the most corrupt nation on the planet. And sort of a corollary to that is, since we know that 60 to 70% of that money is disappearing in the pockets, we know that everything we're doing is doomed to fail. And that's even more frustrating. And then the final one is the moral question. We're throwing money into... Anyways, we're throwing money down the drain

in a cause that's sacrificing the lives of the Ukrainian. We're going to take a break. We'll let Scott deal with the little creature there, the lovable little creature. When we come back, the curious and mysterious case of Gonzalo Lira, right after this. Hi, everyone.

Judge Napolitano here, and the verdict is in. Everywhere I go, people are complaining how expensive things are and how their stomachs turn every time they get their IRA statement. Listen, many experts are predicting a recession. When, how, where, how bad, who knows? But why wait and see? Do what I did and learn how adding gold to your portfolio can help. Now, you all know that I am a paid spokesperson for Lear Capital, but I believe in Lear Capital. I trust them and I value

their products. Lear Capital is the company that I trust for buying my gold. Lear Capital has over 25 years experience and thousands of five-star reviews and a 24-hour risk-free purchase guarantee. Call my friends at Lear today and start protecting your retirement with gold. Here's the number. You see it on the screen. 800-511-4620. 800-511-4620 or use the internet as I do, learjudgenap.com and get your free gold investment guide and learn how to take control of your financial future. Now listen to this. My friends at Lear are offering to Judging Freedom customers only a $15,000 bonus in gold. Call today and see if you qualify for it. 800-511-4620 or Judge Knapp, excuse me, Lear, judgenapp.com. Scott, before we get to Gonzalo Lear, I want to uh play a clip for you from nbc news my friend

richard engel uh showing uh the use of uh ukrainian drones to inflict pinpricks on russian banks in moscow and then a purported justification of this by President Zelensky, which is translated into English. Watch this. The drones exploded in the heart of Moscow's financial district on Sunday morning around 4 a.m. Russian officials say at least three drones were involved and blamed Ukraine. Russians can no longer turn a blind eye to this war now that it's coming home. Although Ukraine didn't take responsibility, President Zelensky gave what seemed to be the most direct admission of cross-border attacks into Russia yet and suggested a new chapter is

beginning. Ukraine is getting stronger. Gradually, the war is returning to Russian territory, its symbolic center, its military bases. And this is an inevitable, natural, and absolutely fair process, he said. Is this hogwash that the war is returning to Russian territory? Well, I mean, clearly the drones are impacted. I've been to Moscow City, that area that's a wonderfully modern place that would make anybody impressed by the high rise, the modern, clean aspect of it. It's purely a civilian center. Everybody knows this. And to attack it, and here's the rub, is a war

crime. I mean, Zelensky is saying it's only natural. No, Zelensky, it's not natural to attack civilian areas for the purpose of inflicting civilian casualties to achieve a political purpose. That is literally the definition of terrorism. So Zelensky is admitting that he is a terrorist. And what's shocking is that nobody in the West is calling them out on it. You know, when Russia launches a strike against Kyiv, and they have on many occasions, on occasion, civilian targets are hit. But every time, remember the shopping center? Oh, my God, the Russians hit a shopping center. Except then they showed the video of the Ukrainians putting the armored vehicles and the ammunition vehicles into the receiving area of the shopping center, which makes it a military target. Sometimes a building blows up and the Russians said, we didn't do it. Well, it was a Ukrainian service to air missile that went off course and hit it. The Russians don't deliberately target civilians. On a daily basis, the Ukrainians are targeting Russian civilians.

One side is a war criminal terrorist organization. That's Ukrainians. The other side is a nation carrying out the difficult task of war. Can Zelensky reasonably expect more NATO support by these drone pinpricks on Russian banks at four o'clock in the morning? No, no, this is done for domestic political purposes. This is done to raise the spirits of the Ukrainian people and so that they believe that the Russians are paying a price. What they don't understand is what I understand by having been to Russia.

The Russian people aren't a bunch of weaklings. They're not a bunch of cowards. I mean, that lady was crying because she was genuinely shocked. But her cries weren't cries of, oh, my goodness, let's surrender. This is a nation that suffered 27 million dead in the Second World War. They know what it means to sacrifice. They live with that sacrifice and remember that sacrifice every day of their lives, and they aren't going to bend. This is only going to make them stronger, more determined to see the job done.

Can't they shoot the drones down before they reach their targets? That's a million-dollar question. Every air defense expert in the world is trying to go, what's going on? The drones are slow, low-flying, non-reflective material. It's difficult for radars to get them. What is happening is that the Russians have deployed these drone guns. I saw them when I was in Moscow. When I was in Moscow on Victory Day, there were 12 drones that attacked Russia that day. They were brought down by the Russians using these electronic warfare guns, sniper rifles, high-power sniper rifles that are designed to shoot them down.

They bring most of them down. What happened with these drones in particular is they were flying into Moscow when the electronic warfare guns jammed their signal and the drones basically broke contact and went into an automatic turn that flew it into the building. Now, basically, by preventing the drone from going deeper into Russia, the Russians created the circumstances in which it hit the building that it did. You know, this is war. Drones are a new aspect of war. It's going to take some time and a lot of money before the Russians put together a layered defense that's capable of stopping all drones from getting into Moscow.

And that may be a mission impossible because, like I said, these are slow-flying, low-flying vehicles made with non-reflective materials. It's very difficult for radars to pick them up. Gary, let's play the State Department clip, the question about Gonzalo Lira. I asked you about Gonzalo Lira. He was the U.S. citizen arrested in Ukraine for posting dissident content online, and you told me the State Department was aware of his arrest in May. And we learned last night through a series of tweets by him that he had been tortured in the Ukrainian prison, and he was now on a motorcycle with a broken rib trying to flee to the Hungarian border. And so I'm wondering, you know, if this is true, given the State Department knew of his arrest and his detention, how has this been allowed to occur?

We have a U.S. citizen being arrested, being detained and perhaps tortured in the prison of one of our strongest allies. Well, you lost me with the perhaps and the if this is true. I think I'd want to verify those reports before I commented on it. Alex, go ahead. State Department work? Is the State Department investigating? I just want to verify anything before I comment. Go ahead, Alex. So the State Department doesn't give a damn and pretends it doesn't know. Who is he and why should we know about him?

Well, I mean, Gazelle O'Leary is a Chilean national who has American citizenship, dual citizen. He had a previous career of being a film director, filmmaker, lifestyle coach. You know, that's his thing. But when the war started, he was in, I think, Kiev originally. He got kicked out of Kiev by the Ukrainians. He moved to Kharkov and he started posting online content using social media platforms that were critical of the Ukrainian position. He was calling the Ukrainian government

out on its lies, et cetera. And he developed quite a large following. He already had a following from his lifestyle coach business, but they carried over and it expanded. And soon he was a well-known online personality on YouTube, on Telegram, on Twitter, who was hosting these roundtable forums. He would bring in people. He brought me in twice to talk with him about these issues. The whole time, people like myself were saying, how can you get away with this? You're in the middle of Kharkov. That's where the Azov Battalion came from. There's a lot of Nazis running around. They're cracking units down there in the middle of war. And you're posting stuff that gets people like me and others on a death list. Gonzalo Lula is on the death list, but he's in Ukraine. Why is he alive? He was arrested by

the SBU, disappeared for a number of days, was released, and was given back his phone and his computer and allowed to continue to do the same thing, which raised a red flag in some areas, but that's either here nor there. He was rearrested earlier this summer, and he was released in July. He claims he has a trial date, which would be today, the 3rd of August. He says that he'll be convicted and go to jail for the rest of his life. And so he was fleeing. Whether you agree with him, disagree with him, whether you believe him or not, here's the crux

of the problem. Push all that other side away because it doesn't matter. He's an American citizen. What is the American government doing to help an American citizen who's been imprisoned by a dictatorial regime for the crime of free speech? Again, you don't have to agree with Gonzalo Lira. You don't have to agree with Gonzalo Lira. You don't have to agree with what he's doing. He is allowed to say what he wants to say. He was arrested by the Ukrainian government. According to Gonzalo, he was tortured. He has been extorted of money, all these things that are bad. What is the U.S. government doing? Gonzalo claims that on two occasions while he was in prison, a member of the U.S. government doing? Gonzalo claims that on two occasions while he was in

prison, a member of the U.S. embassy showed up and offered support, but nothing more, nothing less. They didn't try to get him released. We claim to stand for something until the Ukrainian government's involved. Just like with Rand Paul, who claims, the United States government claims that we believe in accountability, that we believe in responsible spending of taxpayer money. Until Ukraine's involved, then we don't care. We claim to care about free speech, about human rights, etc., especially when it involves American citizens overseas, except with Ukraine. We don't care. And that's the bottom line.

Ukraine gets a pass because the United States is willing to sacrifice everything we stand for in the cause of bringing pain to Russia. Scott Ritter, thank you very much. Before I let you go, what are you doing and where will you be Sunday afternoon? Well, on Sunday afternoon, I hope to be in New York City. There's a rally at the Dog Hammer Show Plaza outside of the United Nations from 1 p.m. until 4 p., if they actually drive through and take Crimea, we're going to nuke you. There's no ifs, ands, or buts. We will nuke you. Let me stop you. I want you to tell us what you're going to say. But here's Dmitry Medvedev. Here's a full screen of what he said. Just imagine that the offensive in tandem with NATO succeeded and ended up with part of our land being taken away.

Then we would have to use nuclear weapons by virtue of the stipulations of the Russian presidential decree. There simply wouldn't be any other solution. Our enemies should pray to our fighters that they do not allow the world to go up in nuclear flames. He said that four days ago. What I'm going to tell the people listening is that every night you go to bed, there is no guarantee you're going to wake up in the morning. Because we live in a world where there is the real possibility, and we're inching towards probability of nuclear conflict between Russia and the United States. And whatever problems you have, I don't care if you're a global climate change activist, if you're about right to life, gun control, whatever your touch button issue is, it doesn't matter if you're dead. Nuclear weapons will kill us all, and we're on the

cusp of thermonuclear warfare. If you don't make getting rid of nuclear arms, if you don't make getting arms control back on the foreign policy agenda of the United States, because it's not there right now. We are not engaged in meaningful arms control. We stopped doing that and we're headed towards a war. You have to make arms control, nuclear disarmament your number one priority because nothing else matters when you're dead. Scott Ritter, always a pleasure. Good luck Sunday. Thank you very much for joining us today. Thanks for having me. Of course. More as we get it. Colonel McGregor tomorrow. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. Thanks for watching!