Judging Freedom - COL. Douglas Macgregor: Is Israel In Retreat?

Episode Date: October 29, 2024

COL. Douglas Macgregor: Is Israel In Retreat?See 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 Tuesday, October 29th, 2024. Colonel Douglas McGregor will be here with us in a moment to talk about Israel and whether the Israeli leadership is having second thoughts about attacking Iran and moving up into Lebanon. But first, this. A divisive presidential election is upon us and the winner is gold. Let me tell you what I mean. Since 2016, our national debt has grown a staggering 70% and gold has increased by 60%. Do you own gold? I do. I bought my gold in February 2023 and it has risen 33%. You've heard me talk about Lear Capital, the company I trust. Let me tell you why. Recently, Kevin DeMeritt, who is the founder and CEO of Lear,

assisted the FBI in discovering a nationwide gold theft ring. And because of Kevin's good work, the FBI caught these people before they could steal anymore. That's why I have been saying the people at Lear are good people. They believe in America. They believe in their product and they're honest to the core. So take action right now, my friends. Call 800-511-4620 or go to learjudgenap.com. Protect your savings and retirement before it's too late. 800-511-4620, learjudgenap.com. Remember, hope is not a strategy but gold is colonel mcgregor welcome here welcome here my friend thank you very much for your time i'd like to explore your thoughts in some detail on israel but before we do to ukraine there is some some breaking news however russian troops according

to president putin himself at the brick summitan, have totally surrounded, you may have told us this a while ago, but now President Putin's acknowledging it, the troops that were engaged in the incursion. Apparently some were Americans in Kursk. And the main part of the Russian military, we understand, continues to move westward. What does this tell you? How much longer, no matter what the outcome of the election in America is next week, how much longer can Ukraine survive? Well, you know, that question is asked almost every week to everyone. And we always say essentially the same thing. As long as we continue to pump money into the governmental facade with Zelensky and his cabinet,

as well as the senior leadership of the military, I guess they'll continue to pretend that they're actually fighting and have a chance to win the war. I mean, obviously, the war is finished. They're not going to win, not now, not ever. Russia has essentially crushed the resistance. But as long as they can find someone to go out there with a weapon and they can pay them, people will go. So, Colonel, just about an hour ago, the Russian military spokesperson announced that an ex-Marine operating under an ex-American Marine, ex-American Special Forces operating under a Ukrainian flag was killed by Russian forces. They've identified this young man as Corey John Narocki, N-A-W-R-O-C-K-I. There are pictures of the American military equipment found with him. There's his body or a portion of the body, just the arm and the armpit showing tattoos. Do those tattoos indicate to you that it's more likely than not that this

person is an American ex-military? Well, he's got a tattoo that says he was in the 75th Ranger Regiment. I don't know what the Marine connection is. It's not impossible that he could have served in the Marines and also the Army at some point. I think this is probably genuine it's tragic he has what sounds like a Polish or potentially Ukrainian name but I think probably Polish and perhaps he was among many of the special operations forces volunteers people that had formerly served who were no longer on active duty that were recruited to go over and fight for Ukraine. And I imagine that's how he ended up where he is. Is there some prohibition on veterans fighting under the flag of a foreign country, even one supported by the United States?

Well, we had laws on the books about those things, but we have on the whole tended to turn a blind eye. We had the so-called Abraham Lincoln Brigade, which consisted of communists, American communists, who went to Spain during the Civil War to fight for the communist side, which called itself Republicans, but they were actually a mix of communists, socialists, anarchists. Most of those men came back, and I don't know that their citizenship was revoked, although given the laws that were on the books at the time, they could have had their citizenship revoked. I guess we decided not to do it. Of course, we have many Americans who serve in the Israeli Defense Force.

Once again, if you serve under a foreign flag or you vote in a foreign election, you can have your citizenship fact that he was wearing a Ukrainian uniform and fighting under a Ukrainian flag. And then he disappeared. I understand he's still alive, but he's no longer doing podcasts. Colonel, what do we know about the North Korean troops in Russia. Is it the case that North Koreans have for a long time trained in the far eastern part of Russia, where Russia and North Korea have a common border? Is it nothing more than that? Or have North Korean troops, as far as your sources are able to tell you, actually been transported to the area of the conflagration between Russia and Ukraine? As far as I know, the answer to the second question is no. Clearly, the North Koreans have a long history with russia the the north korean forces that attacked us in 1950 were essentially trained equipped and put into action by russian officers soviet officers at the time this was stalin's

plan to rapidly overrun the peninsula it almost worked obviously but other than that the koreans that, the Koreans have not directly participated in events in Eastern Europe. Now, there were Koreans and Mongolians and Tartars in the Waffen-SS of the German Wehrmacht. There were also many inside the Soviet army. But the Koreans I'm talking about were people that already lived in Russia. The Koreans that we're discussing today from North Korea have been in Russia to be trained. That's all. There is no evidence. I can't find any evidence. I've talked to everybody I know.

We see no evidence for any sort of Korean military force anywhere near Ukraine. And we don't understand what this is other than a false flag. It strikes me as this is an effort to try and somehow or another resuscitate resistance to the Russians in eastern Ukraine on the basis of this lie that the North Korean forces are going to help invade eastern Europe. It's all nonsense. You know, there's a Reuters report out this morning saying that there are leaks out of the Defense Department that if North Korean troops show up and fire at Ukrainian troops, then the president will authorize Ukraine to use American offensive weaponry as deep as they want to inside of Russia. Does this make sense to you? No, because it's a lie and uh the pentagon knows that aren't

we're not going to see any north korean troops in in ukraine the russians don't need them there if you look at the language barrier and all sorts of things there's no reason for it doesn't make any any sense at all but it certainly serves the purpose of trying to reinforce the big lie that what happens in eastern Ukraine threatens everyone in NATO. It does not. It certainly doesn't threaten us. But I think the lie might be pandered or promoted in order to justify letting the Ukrainians fire long-range strike weapons into Russia. I hope not, because I think it's been made very clear by President Putin that if we do that, he will consider us and everyone associated with Ukraine as a

co-belligerent. So I hope we are not going to do that. Seriously hope we're not. Here's President Putin, Colonel, on Friday responding to a question from an American reporter. This is at the very end of the BRICS conference in Kazan, and he says exactly what you just referenced. Chris, cut number one. Satellite images are said to show North Korean troops here in Russia. What are they doing here? And wouldn't that be a massive escalation in the Ukraine war? Now as for our interaction, relationship with North Korea, you know, we ratified our treaty

on strategic partnership, which contains Article 4, and we have never doubted the fact that North Korean leadership is very serious about their commitments to us and engagement with that. But as for how we do and what we do, it's up to us to decide under Article 4 of this treaty. First, we need to hold the relevant talks about implementing Article four of the Treaty on Strategic Partnership with North Korea. We're in contact with our friends from North Korea. We'll see how this process develops. That said, the Russian armed troops are moving forward very steadily. No one can contradict that. It's moving forth at all the parts of the line of contact. Seem to make sense to you? Of course. There are agreements in place. What specifically

is stated in those agreements, I don't know. But keep something in mind. North Korea is very dependent upon Russia for all sorts of reasons. It's otherwise largely friendless. The Chinese absolutely detest North Korea. Xi in Beijing would love to get rid of it, which is why he was willing to push Donald Trump's plan to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula when he did. And that's why he told Kim from North Korea

to go to Hanoi and sign the agreement. Tragically, we missed the opportunity. We could have had a denuclearized and ultimately neutral Korean Peninsula, which would have been a good thing for everybody involved and remove the danger of serious war. Well, here we sit.

Nothing's changed. Now we're trying to make the argument that the North Koreans are being asked to come in and do something. They're not. The Russians don't need their help. But I am quite sure that the North we would like to involve the Republic of Korea in any way we can in NATO, which of course, from the vantage point of most people in South Korea, is ridiculous. But we are always in the business of trying to globalize our alliances. Russia is not. And there will be no Koreans on the battlefield in Ukraine. I can say that with considerable confidence. I appreciate that, Colonel. Switching gears over to Israel, Colonel, Israel apparently caused little or no damage to Iran last Friday and Saturday when it responded to what Iran had done 10 or 12 days before, but it did turn around and call off its second and third

planned strikes. According to our friend and colleague Alistair Crookwell, according to his sources, the Israeli pilots confronted some sort of defensive posture with which they were unfamiliar and which confused their radar. What does this tell you? Well, first of all, my information suggests that they only had two waves structured for operations. Maybe there were three. I have no idea. Secondly, I'm not sure what the rationale was for breaking off the attack. It's certainly plausible that they may have discovered that they were up against a far more technologically sophisticated opponent than they had anticipated. I've always been concerned about that because we have this unfortunate tendency to dismiss Iranians as just more underdeveloped people. That's absolutely wrong.

You're talking about an extraordinary talent in cyberspace and certainly missile and rocket technology. So that may have been the case. There are others who are suggesting that Mr. Netanyahu is responding to pressure exerted by President Biden and his team in the White House. Given the behavior of Netanyahu to this point, that seems to me to be unlikely. In fact, what I'm hearing is that the Israelis

are already trying to put together another strike. If anything, they want to escalate from this point forward. So, you know, I don't have the kind of specificity that Alistair Crook has, but I can say that I think this war is going to continue for some period of time. Anybody who thinks this is over is wrong. I mean, I've had people call me and say, oh, this is wonderful. Eventually, both Iran and Israel will be nuclear powers. It'll end up like India and Pakistan. I don't see that occurring at all.

I think this is a fight to the finish. And I think the Israelis have begun to figure it out. Whether or not that's going to make any difference in the short run, I can't say. Well, if it's a fight to the finish, what is the likelihood that Russia and the United States will be involved? It's very good. I think the likelihood is high. And that's one of the reasons why, you know me, I've been arguing against this for years. Right. We don't want to be involved in a war with a continental power.

We can't, we cannot win wars against continental powers. A great continental power like Russia, it's impossible. Or for that matter, Iran. All you have to do is look at the size and the distance. The task is overwhelming. We are primarily an air and naval power, and we have very, very small ground forces, most of which are not equipped for high-end conventional warfare on the Eurasian continent. So the idea is crazy. We shouldn't even consider it. But right now, we're sitting still and taking orders from Mr. Netanyahu, and he seems to want to continue.

Colonel, yesterday Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., said that Iran is a threat to the United States. On Sunday, I realized this was a political gathering in Madison Square Garden. Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, in a very hyperbolic statement, said the Iranians want to kill us. Colonel, does Iran pose the slightest threat whatsoever to American national security? No. In fact, you have a large Hezbollah chapter down in Mexico,

and there is no doubt that there are many Hezbollah operatives here inside the United States. We've had open borders for how long? Who knows? We just haven't guarded our borders. We haven't managed immigration. We haven't controlled anything. Frankly, we haven't enforced our own laws. So the real question is, if all of that is true, why have they not yet attacked? Why have they not yet done enormous damage to us? And I think that's because the Iranians have absolutely no interest under any circumstances in going to war with the United

States. On the contrary, this president of Iran is sort of dismissed out of hand as this sort of spineless, moderate leader in Iran who really has no power and can do nothing. Well, that's wrong. He came to his office with the goal of restoring relations with us in particular, ending the sanctions, building a new relationship. Every time something like this occurs, and it has happened previously, it happened right after 9-11, the Israelis and their agents in this country go to work to stop it. And we've seen that again. Where did this meeting occur with Giuliani and Greenfield? In New York City.

Gosh, what are you going to say in New York City? Well, you're not going to say, look, we don't need to go to war with Iran because everybody in New York City wants to go to war with Iran. The rest of the country is not interested. I'll play this for you. It's really over the top, but I'd like your thoughts on it. It's Mayor Giuliani at President Trump's rally at Madison Square Garden on Sunday evening. It's about a minute long. Cut number four, Chris. They are our best friend. I worked for Ronald Reagan for eight years. Ronald Reagan said, we have to be there for Israel always because they are always there for us. Hamas is not there for us. Iran is not there for us.

Iran is not there for us. They want to kill us. And the Palestinians are taught to kill us at two years old. They won't let a Palestinian in Jordan. They won't let a Palestinian in Egypt. And Harris wants to bring them to you. They may have good people. I'm sorry I don't take a risk with people that are taught to kill Americans at two. I'm on the side of Israel. You're on the side of Israel. Donald Trump's on the side of Israel, and they're on the side of the terrorists.

All right, I get the hyperbolic histrionic delivery given the environment and the crowd that was there, but is there any serious argument to be made that the Iranians want to kill Americans? Or, if I may, as Prime Minister Netanyahu said to the Congress, we're fighting your war when we fight Iran. Well, that's completely and utterly false. Here's a couple of things for consideration. Before Cap Weinberger passed, I had the opportunity as a relatively new colonel to meet with him privately. He was interested in my book, Breaking the Phalanx. We had a good conversation. It lasted for over two hours, but towards the end, I asked him to share with me

his views on foreign and defense policy. And he talked about the bombing of the Beirut barracks by the Shiite forces there that took the opportunity to drive us out. He said that he'd gotten a call from Ronald Reagan before they sent the Marines to Beirut from his office and said, George Shultz just left. Come on over. I want to talk to you. So he came in and found out that President Reagan had authorized the commitment of our Marines to Lebanon. And Cap Weinberger was furious. He said, why? He said, we're not going to win any friends over there. What are we doing there? Well, we're helping Israel. We're trying to divorce the Palestinian PLO from fighting the Israelis and so forth. He said, look, we got to get out of there.

Those Marines are going to be in a lot of trouble. And he said, well, look, I'm sorry, Cap. I guess I should have talked to you beforehand. But I made the decision they're going to go. So in 1983, shortly, several months later, he gets a call. Please come over to the Oval Office right away. So he races over there. He walks in the door.

And, of course, the news had come out that the Marines in this hospital were completely unguarded, unsecured. And a truck bomb drove in and killed 300-plus Marines. And he looked at Cap and he said, Cap, you were right. I was wrong. I will never listen to George Shultz again. Now we need to get our men out of there now. And, of course, you remember what he said. He came out publicly, and he said, well, we're going to find out who is responsible.

We're going to chase him to the ends of the earth, and so forth and so on. But what did we do? We got out. We got out. As Reagan understood, we should never have gone in. Are the 200 acknowledged American troops on the ground in Israel, theoretically 100 of them guarding one THAAD facility and 100 more or less guarding

the other THAAD facility and 100 more or less guarding the other THAAD facility tripwires. Well, I would say that from the standpoint of Prime Minister Netanyahu, that certainly seems to be the case. Right now, Israel is behaving, you know, like as you would expect a small power that has a great power for an ally. The small power wants the great power to adopt its enemies, adopt its interests, to commit itself to the small ally. Well, that doesn't make a great deal of sense. Russia did that in World War I with Serbia, and it destroyed Russia. Serbia was ultimately benefited in some ways after the war, but it was occupied, it was destroyed during the First World War.

This is not something we want to be part of. There is no benefit to it. The thing that we should be most interested in, both in eastern Ukraine and in the Middle East, is peace, the stability that, is peace, the stability that flows from peace, finding a way out of this morass, not widening it into a larger war. But that's exactly what we're doing. Is there any benefit to the United States of America to the continued support of the slaughter in Gaza? No, of course not. And the whole world is shocked.

We were always seen as being on the other side of that issue, as being absolutely fundamentally opposed under any and all circumstances to the mass murder and expulsion of people from anything, from anywhere, regardless of race, color, religion, or anything else. We have been utterly opposed to that. We opposed the Armenian genocide during World War I. Our ambassador did everything he could to save as many Armenians as possible. We were never, never willing to go along with anything like this

under any circumstance. The same thing in Cambodia. This is the problem that I have with people that say, well, why aren't you supporting Israel? I have damn well supported Israel. I would like Israel to survive. This is a path to destruction. This is not the Israel that I know. This is something very different. Here is a statement from a United States senator, the likes of which I have not heard from anyone in either house of the Congress since October 7th of 2023, and he happens to be Jewish. Cut number six. I understand that there are millions of Americans who disagree with President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris

on the terrible war in Gaza. I am one of them. It did not have the right to wage an all-out war against the entire Palestinian people. It did not have the right to kill 42,000 Palestinians, two-thirds of whom were children, women, and the elderly, or injure over 100,000 people in Gaza. It did not have the right to destroy Gaza's infrastructure, housing, and health care system. It did not have the right to bomb every one of Gaza's 12 universities. It did not have the right to block humanitarian aid, causing massive malnutrition in children, and in fact, starvation. And that is why I am doing everything I can to block U.S. military aid and offensive weapon sales

to the right-wing extremist Netanyahu government in Israel. We're at the tail end of three, four months, depending upon when you say it started, presidential election campaign. The whole House of representatives and a third of the senate is up and hundreds and hundreds of local offices i haven't heard anybody saying anything who's running for office quite like that have you no uh i wish we would hear it from every member of the house and the senate and senator sanders is someone who has been courageous on this matter on more than

one occasion. You know, the whole thing is baffling to me. The Lancet Journal in Great Britain, as you're aware, the medical journal, very respected, been there for over 100 years, has reported 189,000 casualties in Gaza. Well, what does that mean? Does that mean deaths or does that mean death plus injury total? Both, both killed and wounded. Okay. And pointed out that more than half of the killed and wounded were women and children. And of course these bombings continue and the situation worsens. There will be more dead before we're through, a lot more dead because there is no interest under any circumstances in Israel to stop this. Only we can do that. Nobody else can. Now, I suppose potentially if the Muslim

world consolidates into a true block against Israel, the Turks and the Iranians together could very definitely put an end to it. But barring that, and I don't see that happening anytime soon, this will continue. And people in the United States really don't understand it, Judge. It's not because Americans are hard-hearted. It has nothing to do with it. They are simply not informed. The mainstream media doesn't tell them the truth about anything.

Did the Israeli Air Force have to fly over Jordan's airspace in order to reach Iraq airspace and from there shoot missiles at Iran? And if they did did does that further jeopardize the stability of uh king abdullah's monarchy well the answer is yes and yes our position in the region is destroyed whatever happens from now on whatever credibility we had in the rest of the region and the rest of the world that's muslim gone. It's completely vanished. It will take us decades to recover from this. Now, many people will respond, well, who cares? Well, I think it's time to stop regarding people living in the developing world as irrelevant. They're very relevant. You know, there are over a billion Chinese, over a billion people living in India. Indonesia runs of a close second.

And then the rest of the world is filled with people, all of whom are watching this, and all of whom are shocked by the behavior of the United States. They're not necessarily surprised at the Israelis, because they know the Israelis and their feelings. But they're quite shocked by us. So I think at this point, our position there is ruined. Now, as far as the refueling assets that circled overhead above Iraq and Jordan, I think there were some RAF, British refueling assets that helped the Israelis.

That's going to have to continue. Now, they're not going to fly over Turkey because they risk being shot down. And I think the Turks have made it pretty clear to their Azeri friends, who are also Turkish, that they will not look kindly upon any attempt by the Azeri Turks to help the Israelis. Remember that Azerbaijan, which is where the Israeli Turks live, was in fact assisted in its war with Armenia by the Israelis. So you can't just fly anywhere you want right now. But Jordan and Iraq are largely incapable of interfering with the airstrikes. We ultimately control the airspace. So that's going to continue. Further to your comments on the Lancet and Gaza, two days ago, or maybe it was yesterday, New York time,

the Israeli Knesset voted by a substantial margin to prohibit the United Nations relief agencies from setting foot in Israel. Does this surprise you? Does this make things, must make things worse? They won't allow a relief agency bringing food, water, and medicine into the area, the infrastructure of which they have demolished. The Israelis and obviously the Israeli lobby here in the United States and their agents, all view the United Nations as inherently anti-Semitic. In other words, it doesn't make any difference what comes up for discussion, whatever laws they consider, resolutions they consider, everything is fundamentally anti-Israeli.

And within New York City itself, there's enormous animosity and antipathy towards the United Nations. We have often derided the United Nations. And look, sometimes the United Nations deserves it. On this particular occasion, though, it's pretty obvious what the Israelis are interested in doing, which is killing as many people as possible inside Gaza. And they still have lots of people there who are going to die as a result. They don't have decent water. They don't have any medical care.

They don't have anything to eat. This is not going to improve anytime soon. They know it, and they're waiting the world out. Their assumption is eventually the world will just forget. Remember Hitler's comments many years ago? He said, well, who remembers the Armenians? How many of them died? I think that's the same attitude right now.

Wow. Colonel, thank you very much. We really covered the gamut, but I am deeply appreciative of your time. You and I are doing a program together on election day, which is a week from today. I can't wait until the election season is over, but I am looking forward to that program on another venue, but looking forward to it and we'll help promote it here. So all of your fans here will know when and where they can see you and me together.

Sure. And I hope that, you know, you'll be able to come on a couple of times just to give us your view as this election develops over the night. You know, you're someone who is really regarded as objective and fair. And that's important when we look at these elections coming up. I appreciate that. I will send you my column, which is coming out tomorrow. You may not like it, but I will send it to you. It's called Tweedledee and Tweedledum.

I can't imagine what you're referring to. Thank you, Colonel. All is the 29th of October. We have a little bit under two months to go. Well, okay, Christmas, we'll stretch it until New Year's Eve, but our goal is a half a million by Christmas. Please help us get there. Like and subscribe. The more you like and the more of your colleagues and friends

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