Judging Freedom - Col. Douglas Macgregor : IDF vs. Netanyahu

Episode Date: June 21, 2024

Col. Douglas Macgregor : IDF vs. NetanyahuSee 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 Friday, June 21st, 2024, the first day of summer. Colonel Douglas McGregor joins us now. Colonel McGregor, a pleasure, my dear friend. Thank you very much for joining us. I'm going to guess that you were not surprised at the summary rejection by Western leaders of what I thought was a thoughtful peace offering set out by President Putin since last you and I were on air together. No, and unfortunately, I don't think President Putin was surprised either. I think this was sort of a final step, alerting everyone that this is really the last opportunity to negotiate any sort of solution on the ground in Ukraine that would result in anything positive, probably, for Ukraine and the West.

And why would the West not take it seriously? We all know that Putin doesn't bluff. We all know how weak NATO is. We all know how determined he is to assure the Russian people of a neutral non-NATO Ukraine or whatever remains of Ukraine? Well, you're dealing with people in Washington who just cannot reconcile themselves to a world that is very different from what they imagined it to be. They're having difficulty coping with reality. They're losing on every front everywhere. The world is effectively walking away from the United States, certainly away from Washington and to a large extent away from the West. So what do you do? You can't easily go to the electorate that puts you in power and say,

look at the job I've done. No one wants to deal with this. Everyone's abandoning us. We are militarily incompetent. Our equipment isn't very good, and the Russians are victorious. And things aren't going very well for our supposed ally, Israel. Before we get to Israel, how outmaneuvered, outflanked, and even embarrassed was the U.S State Department by President Putin's trip to and agreement with North Korea well you know it's it's very it's very hard to tell uh we've always had misguided views on North Korea North Korea was never a Chinese satellite. Everyone acts as though China is this sort of evil force behind North Korea. You are the second person to correct me on that this week, because I thought

for years that it was. Ritter says no, and you say no. Please. Yeah, I mean, it just isn't. Never was. The Chinese were always very angry with the Soviets because the Soviets dragged them into war in Korea that they never wanted to fight. They didn't want to fight with us. We didn't want to fight with them. That was one of those wars that could have easily been avoided, but for a whole range of reasons, it wasn't. But afterwards, the Chinese were sort of stuck with the bill, if you will.

But from that point forward, between the koreans and the chinese were very very hostile and they still are i mean quite frankly privately they have frank discussions but they're not friendly at all but the on the other hand moscow has seen north korea as somewhat useful from time to time particularly particularly when Moscow wants to horizontally escalate. And that's really what Putin has been doing, not just in North Korea, but also with his trip to Vietnam. He's demonstrating not only that much of the world has actually defected from us to Moscow and Beijing, but he's also showing us that he has the ability to create enormous trouble for us. And obviously, North Korea is an easy choice. North Koreans are desperate for whatever the

Russians are willing to give them. The Russians have provided them food and kept them from starving to death on more than one occasion. So right now, the North Koreans will build as much artillery ammunition as the Russians need. In fact, the North Koreans, I'm told, have promised or at least offered to send forces, troops, to fight in eastern Ukraine. Now, the Russians don't need that, but they nevertheless have made those offers. So I think this is another signal to us. You're going to play in our backyard. You're going to threaten us. You're going to try to destroy us. Well, we have abilities to do enormous damage to us. You're going to play in our backyard. You're going to threaten us. You're going to try to destroy us. Well, we have abilities to do enormous damage to you.

Do you think or do you fear, I should say, that this agreement between Russia and North Korea will regenerate Kim Jong-un's dreams of a unified peninsula under his domain? Well, I'm not sure. I think North Korea is still very weak. You know, this is a population that if you look at the average height in North Korea, it's substantially smaller than the average height in South Korea. The diet is poor. Living conditions are terrible. You know, there's been no improvement in life for the people that live in North Korea at all. So I'm not sure that you can really imagine such a thing happening. I think the real tragedy here is that Donald Trump had an opportunity to denuclearize the peninsula. That's something that China wants, because in return for denuclearizing the peninsula, China is quite willing to let South Korea take the place over and run it.

I mean, if you look at North Korea and South Korea, it's similar to what East Germany was to West Germany. Right. Moscow had to make a choice, and Moscow said, I'm going with West Germany. It's productive. It's more successful. When it reunites with East Germany, it's going to be a big trading partner and a useful scientific industrial partner for us.

Same thing is true for China. They'd much rather have the North Korean regime gone and the peninsula reunited. The problem is that that can't happen as long as we insist on staying there. And now that North Korea has reaffirmed its commitments to Russia and Russia has reaffirmed its commitments to North Korea, the probability of reunification peacefully is very low right now and probably won't return for many, many years. In the meantime, given the trajectory in the United States, we're on the path to bankruptcy, let's be frank. Nassim Taleb's black swan is hovering just ahead of us. I doubt seriously that in 10 years we'll be there. I think we'll probably be gone within the next three to five years. We simply can't afford to stay everywhere. How dangerous to the west coast of the United States is North Korea? It's not dangerous at all, because if they were to launch a nuclear weapon at us,

they would be incinerated in the space of a few hours. There's nowhere to hide in that country. So they're no danger to us. They're not contrary to popular belief in saying they're not going to commit suicide if they're asked to do so by Moscow. Moscow is not going to ask them to do that. They like the situation that they've got right now. They've got a firecracker that they can light anytime they care to that will draw attention away from what's happening in Europe or anywhere else and become a magnet for U.S. resources and military power. And that's really what it's about. So Putin is trying to, if I were to ask you what's in it for Putin, you would say driving the Pentagon and the State Department crazy and

getting us to waste our resources. Sure. And it also makes it hard on the Republic of Korea down south. They have to travel to Moscow. They have to negotiate deals and try to find a way to keep North Korea under control. China doesn't like it, but China recognizes that the opportunity for anything good to happen is gone for some time as a result of the current administration. So they'll live with it. The Japanese are unhappy about it. They don't want this to go on, but they understand what it's about. We're the ones that don't seem to understand what it's all about. And for the Russians to be in Vietnam, to be in Cuba, to be in Venezuela, to be in North Korea, these are

pluses. These are opportunities to poke us in the eye and remind us that they can create a lot of trouble for us whenever they choose to do so. Much as we're creating trouble for them in Ukraine and with NATO. Exactly. Exactly. Also, since we spoke last, Colonel, I don't know if it was the White House or the State Department or the Defense Department, one of them made an announcement about Ukraine getting to the head of the line with respect to receiving serious offensive missiles from the United States. How dangerously low is the American supply of missiles if, God forbid, we need them for our own defense? I'm told that our stocks are very low. And the larger problem is not the stocks,

it's your ability to surge production. This is something that we've been talking about behind the scenes for 20, 30 years in the Department of Defense. We've lost our surge capacity. The kind of thing that you've seen Russia do during the Ukraine war, which is to suddenly dust off the factories, breathe life into them, and produce vast quantities of munitions, rockets, missiles, tanks, artillery, we don't have that capacity. That's been allowed to atrophy for many, many years. We end up spending a lot more as a result for one-offs for these missiles that we do not maintain in great quantities we could go through your theater missile defense stocks within the space of a couple of days that's that's the

problem right now and we've been shipping whatever we have available, not only to the Ukrainians, but obviously also to the Israelis. And both of those states have gone through these arsenals very, very rapidly. We have the proverbial little old lady in tennis shoes walking up and down the assembly line to put missile parts together. These things are hand assembled. It takes a long time. It's all very, very delicate. And we're not operating in shifts. I mean, the Russians immediately went to 24-hour production.

Are we operating 24-7? No, of course not. One would think with all the money borrowed in the taxpayers' names, making its way into the military-industrial complex, they would be only too happy to go 24-7. How could we possibly, we spend $886 billion with a B dollars a year on the Pentagon, how could we possibly not have enough weapons with which to defend ourselves? Two things, No strategic analysis before we undertake anything. Every strategic decision is impulse-driven. It's based on a set of assumptions that are largely inaccurate, if not totally wrong. And then finally, remember, you've got a Pentagon budget,

a Department of Defense budget, that you cannot possibly audit successfully. We don't know where all the money goes to begin with. So if you don't know where your money is going right now, and you're spending a trillion a year, effectively, when you lump in the intelligence budgets and the black budgets, who are we kidding? I mean, it's a mess. You have 44 four-star generals. How many SESs do you have, senior executive service types? You've got all these people. Then you look at the actual forces it can fight. How many of them do you have? How ready are they? Are they kept in any state of readiness? The whole thing is a debacle.

And we're in trouble because we have been bluffing. And I think that to some extent, people on the Hill, as well as in the White House, don't realize that they're bluffing. I think they believe something is there that isn't. Switching over to Israel and Gaza, what is your take, Colonel, on the public spat, inconceivable in America, between Prime Minister Netanyahu and the IDF? Well, Mr. Netanyahu, he's dissolved his war cabinet, as you know. He's now essentially the man at the wheel on the ghost ship sailing through the ocean. And he's having people telling him what he can and can't do, and it doesn't make any difference anymore because he controls everything.

I think the Army spokesman was telling the truth. And as I recollect, you and I, months ago, shortly after the 7th of October, we asked the question, can the Israelis ultimately destroy Hamas? And as I recollect, you and I, and I'm sure others all said, very unlikely, highly improbable. Almost to a person, the experts that appear on this show, military, intelligence, academic, have said the same thing. So eight, nine months later, we're being told we were right. Not that that helps matters. It still leaves Israel in a terrible position. But what's more important here is the army has taken thousands and thousands of casualties. We're talking about the Israeli Defense Force, the ground force. Thousands of people that are very badly injured,

that will never lead normal lives again. Remember, you're talking about an exceedingly small population of a little over 6 million Jews. They have to provide the bulk of the manpower. These young men that have gone in there and fought have taken some very serious hits. provide the bulk of the manpower. These young men that have gone in there and fought have taken some very serious hits. So the Israeli population is increasingly aware of it, and there's a lot of evidence that inside Israel you now have armed gangs, very vigilant police,

and very vigilant surveillance on the scale of the NKVD and the KGB and the Soviet Union, monitoring everything and essentially acting decisively to beat down any evidence for resistance or even questioning what's happening so i think israel has become a fortress state now and the fortress state is being directed to war in southern lebanon this is this is very reminiscent, you know, Hitler who leaves in his rear Great Britain, let's put it this way, undefeated and still potent because we obviously are there, we're there to help them, but the British were undefeated and he suddenly turns on the Soviet Union. Now, there are all sorts of reasons why he did that. That's beyond the discussion here. But the point is, why would you go after Hezbollah,

which is infinitely stronger, infinitely more powerful, infinitely more lethal, if you haven't got Gaza under control? And then we haven't even talked about Egypt. Egypt is explosive. The place is on the verge of blowing up because the people there are hugely frustrated with Sisi and his, essentially, his willingness to take bribes. I mean, we basically bribed Sisi and said, if you'll let whatever Arabs are still alive in Gaza move into your country, well, we'll forgive your $180 billion debt. We'll cover it for you. Egyptians know what's going on, and they're disgusted with him. They see him as betraying not just Egypt, but the whole Islamic world. That's the tip of the iceberg. Things are getting much worse now

for Israel than they've ever been before. And we know if he goes against Hezbollah, he's going to end up fighting with Iran. And he knows that Russia is not going to allow Iran to be destroyed. And then, of course, you have the Turks, and the Turkish population would love to engage in this war. They're being kept out by Erdogan for many of the same reasons that Sisi is sitting quietly. One wonders how long these ruling elites in the Muslim world can survive. And then you have Amos Hochstein, the Israeli-born IDF veteran who enjoys dual citizenship, but who is the Biden administration's chief representative or negotiator for Lebanon, the West Bank, the IDF, and the Netanyahu administration, saying the U.S. is ready to back Israel against

Hezbollah if diplomacy fails. What does that mean? It means exactly what he said. We have a carrier battle group on its way to the eastern Mediterranean. We've already exchanged targeting data, and if and when, and I think it'll probably be around the 24th or the 25th of June because that coincides roughly with the arrival of the carrier battle group. When that happens, when the Israelis decide to launch against Hezbollah, I think you'll see United States naval air and missiles and so forth being launched against Hezbollah in support of Israel. I think that should not surprise anyone. Hochstein, in that sense, is being absolutely

honest. We're going to do that. Hezbollah recently flew a drone over Israel, which sent back remarkable videos showing, I mean, shocking footage is an understatement, showing all sorts of targets. I don't know if you've seen this, Colonel. Many of these targets were blotted out, but this had to scare the daylights out of the Netanyahu government. No? I think it probably does. But on the other hand, if you're committed to this insane idea of destroying Hezbollah, regardless of what it costs, you may regard that as the unfortunate cost of doing business. Israel has always been at a disadvantage because it doesn't have much strategic depth. The Israelis are only too acutely sensitive to that. But the assumption is that between us and the Israelis that we can pulverize Hezbollah into submission. And as I've said before,

I would not exclude the possibility that the Israelis would use a tactical nuclear weapon against Hezbollah. They know only too well how extraordinarily well dug in and prepared Hezbollah is. I hear figures now, people telling us that they have a million rockets and missiles and so forth. I don't know about that, but they certainly have hundreds of thousands. And many of these are far, far better than what we were used to say 10 years ago when most of it was unguided now a lot of it is actually quite precise and just as we've said before judge yes of course the israelis and we will benefit from satellite-based surveillance and targeting and intelligence and reconnaissance so will will Hezbollah. Hezbollah will have that from Iran, and I suspect they'll have it from other sources.

The Chinese and the Russians obviously are not going to abandon Iran, and everyone is sensitive, especially in Northeast Asia. China, Japan, Taiwan, Korea, everyone is, to any blockage of the Persian Gulf and the Straits of Hormuz. So all of this is coming together in ways that anybody with any strategic sense can recognize. And yet our government has decided to let it all happen. In addition to that, we're jumping on the train to destruction. And Americans are not really aware of the danger that's lurking out there. Are you warning against the probability of two extended wars, NATO led by the U.S. against Russia and Israel against Hezbollah backed by the United States?

And God knows who else is going to get involved, Iran, Russia, Turkey? I think the danger in the Middle East is much higher than it is in Ukraine. And the reason I feel that way is because I do have good communications with large numbers of people in Europe. Remember, I lived over there for many, many years and served there the european people will not support a war against russia if you're a german or a pole a dane or an italian it doesn't make any difference and schultz has come out and publicly said we're not sending any soldiers into ukraine if the germans won't i can guarantee you nobody else will so i don't see that danger in the same sense. Now, I continue to worry about, you know, misreading things. The Russians are looking at a lot of what's happening,

and they do believe there's a real potential for NATO to strike at them. And that's one of the reasons that they move forward their tactical nuclear weapons. I hope that cooler mines will continue to prevail in Moscow. But there's no guarantee for any of that in the Middle East. And as we've said before, the Iranians are within a short distance of building nuclear warheads. They haven't. They haven't because they've chosen not to. They understand that when you build a nuclear warhead and a nuclear weapon and you can deliver it, you've crossed a Rubicon. It's not easy to retreat from that. At the same time, the Pakistanis have offered the Turks nuclear weapons, nuclear warheads.

The Turks know that. That's one of the reasons that Mr. Erdogan said, don't threaten us with your weapons. We know what you have. We're not afraid. And that was a message to Mr. Netanyahu. If you use a nuclear weapon or are thinking about using it against us, we'll have it and we'll use it against you. I think the situation in the Middle East is much, much more dangerous than the one that is in Ukraine. Do you agree with Colonel Larry Wilkerson that the best army in NATO is the Turks,

and that it's a better army than the American army? Well, when we say better, we have to understand something. As a fighting force. Right now, the Turkish army is well-disciplined, which is more than I can say for the European armies and our own. So they have good discipline. They have determined and resolute leadership. And they have a martial spirit and a long tradition. Anyone who knows anything about the history of the Turkish people knows that these people are superb soldiers. So in that sense, yes, I agree with him. But at the same time, I don't think they're fools. As we've said before, the only states in the region that are interested in going to war in the Middle East are Israel and the United States. That's it. Nobody else wants to do it, but they have all said essentially what Nasrallah said, this is the man that leads Hezbollah. We don't want a war,

but if you force one on us, we will finish it and we will finish you. And I think Israelis are starting to pay attention to that. I received some information today from an Israeli who says, you know, this is insane. Why are we going after Hezbollah? We've made a mess out of Gaza. This will finish us off. I mean, literally, that's what they think. Well, they have a right to think that way, because Hezbollah can level most of Tel Aviv and probably Haifa. How, you mentioned earlier, and I had not heard this many other source, the existence of roving gangs in Israel, I assume suppressing dissent and the type of things that gangs do, beating up people they perceive as adverse to them without any modicum of justice.

But how is Israel today economically in light of its military is a civilian military for the most part. Everybody, young people, serves in that military. They've suffered vastly more casualties than they ever expect. They don't even tell the truth about their casualties. What kind of shape economically, we know politically and we know diplomatically, economically is Israel in from your understanding? Well, I'm told that the Israeli economy is at ruins, but we're heavily subsidizing it. So we're keeping the Israeli economy afloat. I mean, the hidden costs of bankrolling Netanyahu's desire to build greater Israel, regardless of the costs, is pretty high.

But no one is going to admit that to you. That's why I think Hochstein, when he is telling the truth, we're going to back them. And I think Blinken has made it very clear. Now, the interesting thing is that some friends who were recently in Egypt and do business there on a routine basis asked how the most recent meeting between Blinken and the Egyptians had gone. And they sort of hung their heads and said, well, the Egyptians said they're not going to bother with him anymore.

And I said, well, why not? He said, because they're tired of listening to him repeat Mr. Netanyahu's talking points. Again, I think this reinforces the truth that mr netanyahu really is in charge he's not just in charge there he's in charge here in the united states we are an extension of their power now when he talked about the the gangs that have been mentioned to me roving around enforcing support for the netanyahu regime they too are an extension of the israel Israeli police and military. So this is very well organized. They're going to hold things together no matter what happens,

as long as necessary to quote-unquote win the war. The problem is they can't win the war against everyone. And I don't think they're going to be able to win against Hezbollah and at the same time secure their borders against problems in Gaza, and for that matter, Egypt, Jordan, and the rest of the Middle East. It's hard for me to believe that Israel, which is basically a liberal society, would tolerate roving gangs, whether they come from Netanyahu or not. Well, they had this, I was told by several Israelis that they'd experienced something like this in 1948

because there was resistance to what was planned in 1948. There were Israelis, in other words, Israeli Jews who were opposed to the Nakba that we hear so much about. Israel has always had numbers of people with a conscience. And I think this is a unique time in the history of that state. And the problem is that the people with a conscience are oppressed, let's face it. And it looks very much like a sort of fascist Soviet-style state at the moment. How long can that go on?

Well, you know, once you've got a monopoly of control over the weapons of destruction, which is what they have, the military power, they could last a long time, unless, of course, they're destroyed in a war. And right now, I think there are a lot of people in Israel who are justifiably concerned about that. Would the United States put boots on the ground to fight Hezbollah? I think we already have, you know, certainly in Gaza with some special ops forces. No doubt Marines that are nearby could be put in there. But the problem is that we don't have sufficient numbers

of ready, trained combat ground troops to go and fight. We just don't. Most of them are sitting right now in poland and romania and i guess we'd have to pack them up and and move them from poland romania and germany lithuania latvia estonia and move them to israel i don't see any effort being made in that direction so i think it's you may have some but it's going to be largely air and naval support which to be frank is what the Biden administration and its predecessors have always liked. They prefer the air and naval approach, let other people take

the casualties. But this time around, we may be surprised at the losses we sustain in our air and naval forces. We just don't know. Just circling back to Ukraine for a minute before we finish, Colonel, do you have a feel for when that conflagration will be over? When it'll be obvious even to Zelensky and the crowd around him that they can't go on much longer? I think Zelensky and his friends will obviously know when there are Russian tanks in Kiev. I'm afraid that's what it's probably going to take. And I think Mr. Putin has figured that out. And I sense that something really big is coming.

Remember, they have over 100,000 Russian troops in Byelorussia to the north of Kiev. They have 700,000 or so in and around Ukraine. These forces can be moved and concentrated very quickly in any number of different directions. What's left of the Ukrainian army is now taking a quickly in any number of different directions. What's left of the Ukrainian army is now taking a beating in front of Kharkov and falling back towards Kiev. It's a matter of making the decision to pull the trigger and move decisively over the upper river and then down from the north. And I think that's probably going to happen. I mean, how else do you make your point and i think putin again as we've discussed before is the one russian who has always been most favorably disposed to us in the west

he's lived in the west he knows the west this is the last thing that he wanted he has no interest in conquering anything he doesn't want toering anything. He doesn't want to cross that river. He doesn't want to have to govern Ukrainians. That's the last thing he wants. He's not a fool. He wants very much what Solzhenitsyn wanted, which is this Russia, only Russia, with a few exceptions, because there have always been non-Russians in Russia. And many of them, as you've seen with the Chechens and others have fought very valiantly for Russia this was true under the Czars but this is not something that he wants in Ukraine he knows that the people in the West want to govern themselves in fact the in the Kremlin people

openly chuckle over the polls and their interest in Western Ukraine and the view is if the polls are dumb enough and want to go in there, let them do it because they all know how that worked out in the past. The Poles and the Ukrainians have killed each other with great glee and enthusiasm. You know, the Ukrainians during the German Second World War, when the Germans were in Ukraine, killed 100,000 Polish men, women, and children. There's so much hatred, blood, and violence left over in that country that the Russians don't want to go in there.

But if the Poles want to go, they're saying, yeah, good luck with that. I think they just want this to be over and get back to normal. There's never been, as John Mearsheimer has said it a thousand times, every time somebody brings up this nonsense, well, Putin wants to conquer Eastern Europe, restore the Soviet empire. That's Lindsey Graham's nonsense. Yeah, it's absolute bull. It's not true. And I hope that people in Europe are waking up to it. I think they probably are waking up quicker because again, here in the United States, Judge,

most Americans don't care. They're not interested. You know that. That's the problem. Because when it's not that we're complacent, I mean, actually speaking, I think it's very healthy for most Americans to worry about their own country and stay in it. I think that's a good thing. And they're much more worried about the border and this migrant invasion, and they should be. But the problem is that gives license to people like Lindsey Graham and the multitude of globalists and neocons over the last 30 years that have dragged us into all of these countries. Nobody really understands it. Nobody pays much attention to it. Unless you kill 3,000 or 4,000 Americans on one day, nobody wakes up and pays much attention.

That's the problem. Colonel McGregor, it's a pleasure to listen to you. Thank you for your analysis. I know we were all over the place, but you're very informative and very, very much appreciated by my team, by me, and of course by the huge viewing audience. Thank you, sir. Have a great weekend. Same to you, Judge. Thank you. All the best. Coming up, the end of the week, the end of the day, the Intelligence Community Roundtable, Johnson and McGovern, 415 Eastern. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom. Thanks for watching!