Judging Freedom - Can the US Support Two Wars? w/Col Doug Macgregor

Episode Date: October 10, 2023

Can the US Support Two Wars? w/Col Doug MacgregorSee 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 Monday, October 9th, 2023. Colonel Douglas McGregor joins us now. Colonel, thanks very much for your time. Much appreciated by me, and I know by a very, very large audience that's been waiting to hear from you today with the events that are going on, not only in Ukraine, but of course in Israel and in the Gaza Strip. What is happening in Israel as we speak? Israel is in the process of recovering from the surprise assault launched by Hamas over 24 hours ago. They essentially, shortly after dawn, attacked at numerous places along the perimeter that surrounds Gaza. They managed to infiltrate into Israel a thousand fighters. They were not expected.

The Israelis obviously had nothing in place with which to attack immediately. They came across in these sort of flying machines that you could launch with gliders, individuals. It's really quite amazing. It was an astonishing feat. And it's interesting because obviously during Yom Kippur, the holiday in Israel in 1973, something similar happened. The Egyptians surprised the Israelis. And I think it's important for us to understand what's behind the surprise, Judge, if you want to take a minute and talk about that. Yes, what is behind the surprise, and how could Mossad, MI6, and CIA not have known about this? Well, in 1973, the Israelis did see lots of practice repeatedly by the Egyptians moving

up to the canal, placing elements and forces there. But they did not believe that the Israelis had found any way to break down the sand walls and cross the Suez. Obviously, they had done that, but they hadn't seen it. So what was regarded as just another practice became the real thing. And then the other thing that surprised the Israelis was that the Egyptians didn't move very far. They moved across the Suez. They established what seemed to be an almost impregnable defense because the Egyptians were trying desperately to make it clear that they wanted back the Sinai. They were not necessarily in their alliance with Syria interested in destroying Israel. And I think that's very

important to understand. That made a settlement possible after, you know, the 73 war was over. But today we've seen the Hamas fighters who penetrated immediately deeply into the country. They've killed over a thousand Israelis. The dead pile up tragically at this point, very, very rapidly. We probably haven't seen the end of it. I've heard people estimate 1,200 to 1,500 dead Israelis. And their interest was in killing anyone they could kill. In other words, move into settlements, murder people, families, men, women, children, anything is possible. Take hostages, obviously, that could be used to threaten the Israelis in various ways and disrupt them. So the message is very clear with Hamas. If we have the opportunity and we can get into Israel, we will kill everyone. This is a very different set of circumstances from the circumstances in 1973. How could the intelligence services answer this? Is it Mossad the most effective in the world?

Well, you know, look, everybody periodically makes mistakes. The Mossad is very good, but the Mossad is heavily engaged in Ukraine right now, much to Russia's disappointment. They have been looking elsewhere. I don't think there was anyone who believed that this kind of well-coordinated, disciplined assault could be launched by the Arabs in Hamas. They had never manifested this ability in the past. That's why somebody asked me, what do you call this? I call it the Little Bighorn effect.

And that is that when Custer arrived with his 300 troops at the Little Bighorn and he saw thousands of Indians, he was inclined immediately to attack because historically whenever the Indians ran into a large force of regular army, they simply ran away. This time they didn't run away. And thousands of Indians that normally never cooperated to do anything cooperated with each other. So you got the little bighorn and

Custer was annihilated. I think we've had something similar in Israel. I think the Israelis simply did not believe that this was possible. And even if they saw some evidence for preparations, I think they dismissed them. And what's really tragic is that, yeah, I suppose you can't expect it every year forever, but 60 years after the 73 war, there was no formation in the south. I'm talking about an army formation, no formation up north facing Hezbollah either, that could then have been rapidly moved in to annihilate these people. They wouldn't have gotten them all, but they probably would have gotten most of them, but there was really not much there, and the Soviets seemed to have been relaxing and enjoying the holiday as well.

So Israel is not adequately defending itself. Its intelligence services are in Ukraine. I didn't know that, although maybe you or Larry or Ray has said that before. I guess, serving the CIA and the Ukrainian intelligence service. Its iron dome wasn't operating and its troops were asleep at the switch. How could that be? It's surrounded by people that want to destroy it. Well, remember the Israelis had also shipped enormous quantities of 155 millimeter artillery ammunition to Ukraine at our request and that ammunition has been very important to zelensky and his crew I think zelensky forged something of a relationship with the Israelis and that relationship may well have distracted them from watching their own borders we don't. But the other point is this. You can see evidence for

something. You can see indicators, but you can then also deceive yourself. We deceived ourselves and we got the battle of the bulge. There were lots of people who saw things happening. Reports came up from the lowest level, but the senior officers involved didn't pay attention. For whatever reason in Israel, the decision was made that there's nothing to worry about, that they can cope, and they were wrong. And I'm sure that Mr. Netanyahu and his administration will pay a price for this. I'd be very surprised if Mr. Netanyahu is not gone in the next few weeks. Wow. Can the United States supply Israel with the 155 millimeter shells? Because supposedly we don't have any left. We gave them to Ukraine and then we substituted them with the cluster

bombs. Do I have that right, Colonel? Yeah, absolutely right. And I don't think we have any 155-millimeter ammunition to send unless we're going to pull in the stocks that remain for the forces that we're supposed to hold in readiness. So I don't know that we could do that. We can supply the Israelis with other kinds of things. But 155-millimeter ammunition is certainly not it. I mean, you've got O'Brien on the phone calling everyone in the world to try and scare up more 155 millimeter ammunition almost every day. So no, we can't send that.

Can we supply Israel and Ukraine at the same time? Or will Israel go to the head of the line because of its historic relationship with the modern U.S.? Well, that I don't know. You know, it's not so much a question of head of the line as to what can you do now we found apparently a thousand army tactical missile systems these are rockets that technically are out of date but we know they work and we've found them and we're shipping those to israel i'm told so that that's an enormous quantity of ammunition and firepower. Is that going to change the war and the outcome? No, not at all.

But it's going to present the Israelis, or excuse me, the Ukrainians, with the opportunity to attack Russians on Russian soil, which I guess is what they're interested in doing. But as far as Israel is concerned, we can certainly supply them with large quantities of ammunition, particularly for their air forces. And I don't think that their ground forces will really need anything, although I'm sure that at some point they will need more 155 millimeter ammunition. Simply because I think this war in Gaza is going to drag on for a while. And even when it finally sputters out, it's going to come back and haunt the Israelis again in the future. Because one of the things we don't know,

we know that the Iranians have provided assistance and advice to the Hamas in Gaza. We know the Turks have as well. The Turks and the Iranians both share deep antipathy towards Israel. This is not going to change. And we don't know what the reaction will be as the Israelis move into Gaza and level much of it, as I fully expect that they will. We don't know how that's going to be received in the rest of the Muslim world. Now, the Egyptians have already declined to allow us to intervene in any way, shape, or form through them to talk to Hamas. They've said, no, thank you. We're not going to have anything to do with it. We don't know what's going to happen in Jordan.

Jordan is a very fragile state. It's got more Palestinians in it than it does Jordanian Arabs. Then we don't know what the impact is going to be on Saudi Arabia and the Emirates, what they may feel compelled to do or not to do. And then, of course, there's Iran. And there's Hezbollah up north. Now, Hezbollah fired a few rockets, or at least someone connected with them did. But Hezbollah has not launched a decisive offensive operation against the Israelis. If Hezbollah stays on the sidelines and out of this fight, then I think the Israelis can crush

Hamas and restore some measure of security and stability for Israel. But if Hezbollah decides to put itself at risk, even at the risk of being destroyed, in an effort to support Hamas, the consequences for Israel could be very serious because the Israeli Defense Force would then really be stretched to deal with both threats. And we don't know what Iran might do at that point. Right, Right. There's a United States carrier group, which I assume is an aircraft carrier and other support vessels, in or headed toward the eastern Mediterranean. Is this to shell Gaza? Is this to attract some firepower, a sort of Gulf of Tonkin?

Why is it there? I think this is going over there to signal support for Israel, signal the Biden administration's readiness to support Israel in whatever way we can. Now, what can a carrier battle group do that's 50 kilometers offshore about what happens in Gaza? Probably not a lot. Would we be able to intervene and assist the Israeli Air Force if suddenly it had the two-front war that we were discussing earlier? Absolutely, they could do that. But carrier battle groups offshore don't have that much impact on land, but they certainly look great on the evening news, and they make everyone very happy that this great and powerful

force that is largely irrelevant on land is stationed right offshore from Israel. Do you think that with the now obvious loss of the spring, then summer, now fall, if it's still around, offensive in Ukraine, the American neocons and globalists might turn their attention to Israel and basically give up on Zelensky? You know, I've heard a lot of people ask that question. I don't know the answer. First of all, we have a long relationship with the Israelis. We have an interest in the survival of the state of Israel. Let's put it that way. I think everyone in the region knows that. That's important. I think the arrival of the carrier battle group reinforces that. As far as Ukraine is concerned, that's an entirely different animal

because we really can't bring much to bear against the Russians without risking a direct confrontation with them. And let's face it, every time you're involved in a proxy war where you're trying to hurt someone through someone else, there's always the danger that the proxy war suddenly falls to the wayside and you're in a direct confrontation with the Russians. And that's what I'm worried about at this point, because we've had some very stupid things come out of London, as well as Washington, about what we will or will not do with the Russians.

The example of Mr. Grant Shapps, the new Minister of Defense in England announcing that he's discussing a proposal to send British troops to Ukraine to train Ukrainians inside Ukraine is an invitation to a larger war that will involve Great Britain. And people in Britain had better wake up and get control of their government, because if they think they're going to sit in isolation on that island, if they put British troops on the ground in Ukraine. They are wrong. Here's President Zelensky in an address to the nation blaming, you can guess who, on the attack on Israel. Today was a very eventful day. Various meetings, and among them those related to the latest international developments are of particular importance. I held a meeting with the heads of our intelligence, main intelligence directorate, and foreign intelligence service, as well as with our

diplomats on the situation in and around Israel and on the overall situation in the Middle East. This is of fundamental importance for us, not only for Ukraine, but also for the entire Europe. According to the available information, a very clear one, Russia is interested in triggering a war in the Middle East so that a new source of pain and suffering could undermine world unity, increase discord and contradictions, and thus help Russia destroy freedom in Europe. We see Russian propagandists gloating.

We see Moscow's Iranian friends openly supporting those who attacked Israel. And all of this is a much greater threat than the world currently perceives. The world wars of the past started with local aggressions. We know how to counter this threat. We are preparing appropriate steps. And most importantly, we are defending the need for maximum unity in the world. Today I address the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, first of all, on the issue of unity. Every state in the world must now choose how it will defend international law.

Is there any evidence of which you're aware that the Russians fomented, supported, rejoiced in the Hamas attack over the weekend? No, I haven't seen any evidence for it. and i think as i pointed out earlier i know that the russians are probably very disappointed in the role that the mossad has played and in israel's decision to ship ammunition because as i'm sure many of your viewers are aware the russians have worked very very hard to maintain the peace in syria to prevent the war in syria from spilling into israel they have accommodated the israelis when the israelis felt obligated and the necessity to strike various targets and the Russians have told the Syrians that if they move anything from Iran into the country that could be threatening to Israel that the Russians would not protect them so I think the Russians are disappointed that after having cooperated closely with the Israelis

that the Israelis have not honored their relationship with Moscow and instead have turned suddenly to arm the Ukrainians. However, I don't see any evidence that the Russians are in any way, shape, or form involved. I'm quite certain that the Iranians, and I still think the Turks to some extent, have obviously helped the Hamas fighters. I mean, these Hamas fighters behave very differently from Arab terrorists that we've seen in the past. This was extremely well planned, very well coordinated. Everyone in these various fighting groups knew each other, where they were going to go, what they were going to do. And they've inflicted very heavy losses on the Israelis as a result.

So this is different. But no, Russia's had no hand in this. If I had asked you last week how militarily stable and strong and respected is Hamas, would you have answered the question differently than if I'm asking you that today? Oh, I think I probably would have said something similar to what the Israelis have said, that they're not capable of what they've done. But again, we were wrong. And the only point of criticism that I would offer is this came again during Israeli holiday, during Yom Kippur. That's what happened to them in 73. And one would have thought under those circumstances

That they would have taken precautionary measures That they would have had somewhat more force available Close to Gaza and close to the northern border with Lebanon Than they did Now it turns out that they did not And that may boil down to an assessment By the very senior intelligence people That was delivered to Netanyahu Re reassuring him that this was not the case.

In addition, I think Hamas thought that they would have more success because of the divisive nature of Israeli politics right now. Mr. Netanyahu is an extremely controversial figure. Either people love him or hate him. Perhaps they thought this was a good time to strike as well. We don't know. I'm sure we'll find out more in the days ahead. Here's General Milley, actually before Milley, here's an NBC reporter, an Israeli-American, reporting that the Israeli defensive dome, the Iron Dome, wasn't working or wasn't turned on. There is just a state of shock in this country that they could have been caught so off guard. Something else we've been seeing on the road,

the truck has moved away now, but we just saw a truck carrying a battery of Israeli Iron Dome missile interceptors. This is this highly sophisticated Israeli air defense system developed with support from the United States. It is the backbone of Israel's defenses. It is what Israel relies on to protect its civilians from this rocket fire from Gaza. But whatever happened in the early hours of this morning, the Iron Dome was not able to stop this barrage. The Israeli military says it was more than 2,000 rockets fired. Inexcusable on the part of the Netanyahu administration that the Iron Dome wasn't working? Well, it's hard to believe that there wasn't something more substantial closer to Gaza than there was.

But let's understand something. If you compare Hezbollah to Hamas, Hezbollah has 40,000 rockets and missiles. Think about it. Look at the damage done by just 5,000. Let's assume that the Iron Dome had been there. The Iron Dome is good, but it is not capable of stopping everything. And what you have to expect in modern warfare, whether it is a proxy war, as we see in Ukraine, or this kind of sort of semi proxy war in Hamas against Israel, you've got to expect that these rockets and

missiles will be fired in such quantity that they can overwhelm any defensive system. You're never going to build a defensive system that's going to knock all of that down anyway. So yeah, I'm sympathetic to the question of why was there nothing operating down there, but at the same time, I think we have unrealistic expectations of these defensive measures. Gary, play both clips of General Milley, who maybe this is the last time we have to deal with him. He's in uniform, so this must have been taped before he left in the first one, Colonel. He says the counteroff offensive is still going on. This is dated October 8, which is yesterday, but he must have been taped 10 days ago before he left

office. The second one will blow you away saying if Vladimir Putin wins, expect the American military budget, the Defense Department budget to double in the next year or two. Here he is. The counter offensive that the Ukrainians are running is still ongoing. The progress, as many, many people have noted, is slow, but it is steady and they are making progress on a day-to-day basis. But expelling 200,000 Russian soldiers, no easy task. Very hard, very hard. How long is this going to look like this? A year, five years? Well, you can't put a time on it, but it'll be a considerable length of time, and it's going to be long and hard and very bloody. If Ukraine loses and Putin wins,

I think you would be certainly increasing, if not doubling, your defense budget in the years ahead, and you will increase the probability of a great power war in the next 10 to 15 years. I think it would be a very dangerous situation if Putin's allowed to win. I guess he's looking for a job on one of those defense industry boards of directors. Oh, he'll find a home in any number of different so-called think tanks, which we know are really advocacy tanks

funded by people who want perpetual war. I wouldn't worry about that. I think two things are worth noting. First of all, Ukraine as a state and certainly its armed forces are now effectively on life support. Ukraine is the 51st state. We're supplying almost everything. We pay their bureaucrats, we pay the armed forces. Of course, you know, a lot of the soldiers aren't being paid properly, but that's because their officers and corrupt individuals in the government

are pocketing a lot of that cash, obviously, just as they don't get all of the weapons and ammunition because it's resold and shows up somewhere else. I'm sure we'll find some evidence for that in Hamas before this is over. So Ukraine is effectively on life support. The real question is, what are the Russians going to do? They're sitting in Kupyansk. If they wanted to launch an offensive and immediately seize Kharkov, it could be done within days. They could then move straight on to Kiev or Kiev.

Why they don't is anybody's guess, but they're in a position to do so. It's all a function of what the leadership in Moscow wants. Now, secondly, the notion that if Putin wins, Judge, the defense budget is now roughly the same as the trillion that we owe every year to service our national sovereign debt. He is in fairyland if he believes that we're going to double this defense budget for a future war with Russia. If anything, I think we should anticipate the collapse of NATO. I'm not even sure the EU will withstand this mess once it finally comes to an end.

And as a result, I don't think we're going to end up staying in Europe for another 75 years. But of course, all of the army generals and air force generals that I run into are desperately afraid that what I just described will happen. Because if it happens, large numbers of headquarters and general officer billets will go away. Funding lines will dry up. We'll pull out. And nobody wants us to pull out. In the meantime, you've got millions of Americans who are begging for the United States Army to come back to the border. You know, we say that are roughly 10,000 illegals boarding buses in Panama headed

north to the Mexican border every day to join us up here. We have over 7 million that have come into the country. I've talked to someone at Homeland Security and I said, well, the official number is 11 million illegals in the United States and 2.3 million have come across since Biden was in office. And they just burst out laughing, said, where are you getting this stuff? It's at least 7.3 million have come across since he took over. We brought 28 million illegals. Now everybody will run around and say, well, that's not verified. That's not what the government says. Well, what's the last time the government told us anything that made any sense it was true? So I think we're in a lot of trouble. And I think he's absolutely off the reservation. He needs to go into therapy. We're not going to do anything remotely like what he described.

Colonel McGregor, thank you very much. Thanks for your time. Thank you for your insight. Okay. Thank you, Judge. All the best. Coming up, five o'clock Eastern, three minutes from now, Professor Jeffrey Sachs, Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. I'm going to go ahead and close this video.