Judging Freedom - COL. Douglas Macgregor: Israel After a Year of Slaughter

Episode Date: October 9, 2024

COL. Douglas Macgregor: Israel After a Year of SlaughterSee 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 Wednesday, October 9th, 2024. Colonel Douglas McGregor joins us now. Colonel McGregor, always a pleasure, my dear friend. Colonel, Monday, October 7th, was marked a year since the assault on Israel by Hamas and the response by Israel on Gaza. How has the landscape of the Middle East changed in the past year, Colonel? I think the best way to sum it up is to suggest that Israel is now approaching what I would call the Little Bighorn moment.

And by Little Bighorn, I mean that Custer rode out to find Indians because his view was that if he didn't find them and pin them down, that they would escape. And he never thought that he was going to find very many. He rode out. He found that virtually every Indian within hundreds of miles was present, and they made short work of him. I think that Israel is on the road to the little bighorn, only it's in the Middle East. Virtually everyone in the region has turned against Israel.

I mean, we were looking at headlines for several weeks. Oh, the quote-unquote good Arabs are supporting Israel. What they really meant is that our billions of dollars were bribing them to stay out. It looks like the bribes no longer work, and there's no one in the region who is going to lend a hand to israel except for of course the united states and we're not even resident there which means that anything we do has to be done over a very great distance so i think the point now is that israel is not only a pariah state it's, with the exception of the United States, largely alone in this war of Israel against all.

Colonel, when you speak of U.S. bribes in the region, I think you're probably talking about Jordan and Egypt. No, I'm talking about several others beyond Jordan and Egypt. We send billions of dollars to many of the countries in the region. Obviously, Egypt is the biggest recipient, but Jordan as well. And I don't think there's much we can do about it. We bribed as much as we can. It's now become a matter of, I think, survival and also a sense of self-worth.

How do you support the larger Arab cause, which is, whether we like it or not, bound up with the Palestinian matter and still maintain relations with Israel? You can't. In fact, this morning, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia came out and said, it's time to hold the Israelis accountable for their criminal acts and that the leadership of Israel should be held liable and appear before an international court for the crimes they've committed. I don't think we've ever heard anything like that from the Saudis. This was the same crown prince who was within inches, if you'll accept that analogy, of normalizing relationships with Israel prior to October 7th and what the Israelis did in response, right? Yeah, precisely.

If this is the little bighorn moment, and if Prime Minister Netanyahu and the IDF are George Armstrong, Custer, and his cavalry. Who are the Indians? I think everybody, everybody in the region. That's the point. Iranians, Arabs, Turks. And the reason I say Turks is the Turks have increasingly prepared themselves for the very high probability that they will confront Israeli forces. And they've sent two ships to evacuate their citizens from Lebanon. Those ships are prepared for the worst case scenario. There are aircraft on the ground in Turkey ready to launch in the event that those ships are brought under attack, which is not by any means a remote possibility. So I think you've got everyone that's essentially in the region that's against Israel.

Some will be direct participants and some will not. And I think everyone is waiting for what they now think is inevitable, which is a massive response by the Israelis against Iran. I think that Mr. Netanyahu will throw everything he's got except the kitchen sink at Iran. And will the United States join him? Because Iran is going to be confronted by the most sophisticated Russian air defense system, is it not?

Well, it's a very sophisticated system, and they have hastily assembled it. When I say hasty, this is something that has not been thoroughly tested on the ground in Iran. There are Iranians working with the Russians, so we'll see how it works in terms of defending Iran. I suspect it'll turn into reasonably good performance, but there's a lot more going on in Iran besides air and missile defense. There's terms of defending iran i suspect it'll it'll turn into reasonably good performance but there's a lot more going on in iran besides air and missile defense there's been the arrival of large numbers of very lethal weaponry from russia itself including large numbers of hypersonic missiles of various ranges both medium-range ballistic missiles and short-range ballistic missiles there aren't any theater ballistic missiles in Iran, at least as far as we can tell,

and they don't need those to reach Israel. A medium-range ballistic missile is more than enough to travel the 1,100-plus miles to reach Israel. Are these the ones that cannot be intercepted, hypersonic? I'm sorry, can you say again? Sure. intercepted hypersonic i'm sorry can you say again sure are these the um uh projectiles that cannot be intercepted hypersonic yeah absolutely these are coming in at anywhere from 4500 to 6000 miles per hour we don't have capacity to stop them this is the problem with the air defense issue always icbms have always been hypersonic,

which means that defending yourself against an intercontinental ballistic missile and the multiple warheads it delivers is virtually impossible. The Russians have always said that. They can't shoot them down, neither can we, and that's why we had an ABM treaty, which, of course, as you know, we've walked away from. So now we're faced with uh something on a much lower scale in other words it's not theater or excuse me it's not intercontinental

but it's theater range and we can't stop it the israelis can't stop it and you know an awful lot of lying has been going on about just how effective uh air defenses have been in israel we know that they've taken a beating and that in the last strike of 180 missiles, most critical missiles that were hypersonic, those absolutely got through and they struck targets that really frightened the Israelis. Because I think the Israelis were not aware that the Iranians knew as much as they do about Israel and its military complex, and I think they were frightened by the sudden penetration that could not be halted. I think it's one of the reasons that, you know, you saw this clip of Prime Minister

Netanyahu, who was actually shaking as he read his speech. I think the whole experience frightened him. He's obviously recovered from his shakes, and now I think he's pressing ahead to throw everything he's got against Iran in the hopes that he can do so much damage that Iran won't be able to strike back. I think that's unlikely, and also because he thinks he's going to destabilize the Iranian regime. Does the IDF have the ability to reach Iran without refueling? Do they have missiles that can travel the same distance that the Iranian missiles can travel? I suspect they do. The question is how many. I don't know.

They are primarily reliant on their air power. And you're right. For them to launch a significant airstrike, they need air refueling support. Right now, I think we've got at least 80 to 90 percent of all the air refueling assets in the U.S. Air Force in the region. So I'm sure that we'll support them with air refueling. They had planned earlier to land in Azerbaijan and then launch their strikes from there. But I think the Azeri Turks said, nope, that can't be done under the current circumstances. Colonel, a year after October 7th,

is Israel stronger and more stable, weaker and less stable, or something in between? No, I think we have to understand a couple of things. Large numbers of Israelis have left the place. One wonders if they'll ever return. They may not. So I think we have to accept the very high probability that Israel is dramatically weaker.

They're entirely dependent upon billions of dollars from the United States to keep them afloat economically, entirely dependent upon us for ammunition and weapon system support. This is why you hear people repeatedly saying that we are complicit in the various atrocities which the Israelis have committed in the name of defense. We are complicit, we have financed those atrocities, and there doesn't seem to be relief in sight, no matter who wins the election in November.

Well, I think that's true. I would say there is a difference, though, between Ukraine and the United States, or Ukraine and Israel. Ukraine really has been a stalking horse for the neocons in Washington, the fools that thought they could pulverize Russia into submission. And I think the CIA and MI6 are continuing to run the show in Kiev. I think we're going to see some more deep strikes. There have been lots of ISR flights from private or civilian aircraft who are contracted normally with JSOC in the United States. And they've been flying back and forth along the edge of Russia in order to gather data. I think we're going to see more of that. And so if anybody in Washington tells you, well, we've told the Ukrainians not to do this. Well, they may say that publicly, but privately, the CIA and MI6 are in charge, and they have carte blanche to do

pretty much whatever they want, short of a nuclear strike. Now, when you go to the Middle East, it's an entirely different set of circumstances. Mr. Netanyahu is very definitely in charge. We are not. And it's clear that we are not because you've heard all of these pleas either leaked or stated publicly to the Israelis asking them not to hit this or that target array. I don't think Mr. Netanyahu gives a damn what anybody tells him in Washington right now because he controls everything. He controls the Hill. That's vital. So nobody from the Senate or the House is going to stand up and you know restrain him from doing anything and he's got control for all intents and purposes of most of

the U.S armed forces now there may be some out there who think that we will only engage if Israel is the subject of attack we will see but I think we're going to have to support the Israelis in their attack on Iran, or the Israelis might as well write it off. Does Netanyahu face any chance of the spigot being turned off if he continues to thumb his nose at the White House? it's doubtful, as you pointed out, because their assumption is if for some reason they have to pause and not ratchet up the intensity of the war, then it's only temporary because if President Trump wins, they are confident that he will come in and give them 100% support to do whatever they want. I guess they're confident on the same happening if Vice President Harris wins. Yeah, I think so, although they'd be more comfortable with President Trump. I mean, you've seen President Trump is very demonstrable in his support for Israel

and, more important, his support for Jews in the United States in his public behavior. So I think they, given the choice, Judge, I think they'd much rather have President Trump. But you're right. Even if President Harris is reelected, the pressure inside her administration and from their donors, some of whom are the same or at least overlap, they'll continue this. There's no question about it. The only way out of this, and this is very important,

the only way out of this is for the people in the region to fight back. And let's be frank, to date, there hasn't been much in the category of fight back. In other words, most of the Arab states have sat there and taken the insults and the bombings. I don't think that's going to go on much longer. But this is my point on the little bighorn moment. All of the tribes eventually gathered for that large battle. But it took a long time for those various tribes to put aside their differences and show up.

And if Custer hadn't been looking for them, he might not have found them at all. So the Israelis have turned this revenge campaign for what happened on the 7th of October, even though, as we've discussed in the past, I have serious doubts about 7th October happening without Israeli collusion. And it's a tragedy, but I really think the evidence is mounting that supports that contention. But whatever they started out to do, at least in theory, is irrelevant now. This has become truly a kill or be killed war, a war of annihilation waged against the House of Islam. And the House of Islam is going to have to come to terms with that and decide whether or not it plans to survive.

I think they're getting closer and closer to the kind of unity that will spell the end of Israel. But I think the time when everyone was willing to sit by and watch it happen and do nothing is over. Tell me about Prime Minister Netanyahu. Is he a reliable person? Is he an honest person? Does he have his own interests ahead of his country

or his country's interest ahead of him? I realize this is a multiple question. Forgive me. Attack it however you see fit, Carl. A multiple choice. This is like you're back at West Point. I'm sorry. We didn't get multiple choice questions in the old days. My point is, does he know the damage that he's doing

to Israel? Ambassador Freeman says Israel's become its own worst enemy. Well, of course, I agree with him, but that's because of Netanyahu and his supporters. If you are Netanyahu, you have promised the population that is electing you that you are going to, quote unquote, annihilate all of their enemies. In other words, the proposition is Israel will only be safe when it is devoid of any Muslim Arabs or Arabs, period. That's the first thing. And its external enemies, principally at this point in time, Hezbollah and ultimately Iran, are destroyed. That has to be understood. That's the way they see it. So they talk about a five-front war. You have the various militias in Iraq and Syria. You have the Houthi militias. You have the problems inside Gaza and the West Bank. You have Hezbollah. So you're engaged in a multi-front war that is a win-or-be-destroyed outcome. It's very similar to, frankly speaking, Hitler in the last part of the Second World War. There were many opportunities, even within the first couple of months of invading the Soviet Union, for him to accept several possible deals that at least would have suspended fighting for some period of time.

He rejected everything. And having, I think we have Netanyahu has fundamentally rejected any negotiation, any compromise of any kind on the grounds that he has control of us. I think that's the key variable. Everybody says it, but I don't think they understand how important it is. He's got control of us. Our armed forces are with him. He has a limitless supply of munitions and weapons and rockets. He's got U.S. forces already integrated with his to conduct the intelligence surveillance reconnaissance operations, the overhead surveillance. We are cooperating with him at sea there. You know, he's, he's thinks he's in the driver's seat.

He's convinced himself that he can win. However, I think he's also taken the position judge that if he can't win, he'll go down fighting. So this is kind of the, the same thing at April 45 in Berlin, either we win or we all die. President Macron of France just four days ago made an interesting comment, a criticism of the United States and of Prime Minister Netanyahu

with respect to ceasefire. I'm going to play the clip in a minute, but nobody talks about negotiations for ceasefire anymore. Does that mean that people like Amos Hochstein and McGurk, I forget his first name, forgive me, and Bill Burns, the head of the CIA, have recognized that they were duped into believing that Netanyahu would seriously negotiate for a ceasefire, or they've been outed as being complicit in Netanyahu would seriously negotiate for a ceasefire, or they've been outed as being complicit in Netanyahu's never being serious about negotiating for a ceasefire? If you could address that before I run President Macron. I think complicit is the right answer. Most of these people, if you go back to Ambassador Jeffries, who was operating in the Levant, in Syria, Lebanon,

and so forth, he actively subverted any attempt by President Trump to withdraw forces from the region. I think all of these people are complicit. They are part of the conspiracy to drag us into war in the Middle East. Here is President Macron, Chris criss-cut number one. I regret that Prime Minister Netanyahu made a difficult choice and took on this responsibility, in particular for ground operations on Lebanese soil. And so, yes, if we call for a ceasefire, the consistent thing to do is not to supply weapons of war. And I don't think that those who are supplying them can call for a ceasefire every day and continue to supply them. An interesting backhand at Joe Biden.

You can't call for a ceasefire at the same time you're paying for the opposite. Of course. Well, the same thing is also true in Ukraine. So there's no evidence for any fundamental course change coming anytime soon. We're going to be bystanders at the destruction, I think, of Israel and the final annihilation of this regime in Kiev. Colonel, I want to play for you a question that was put to Matt Miller, the spokesperson for the State Department. offered a brilliant summary of the duplicity and failure to accept responsibility of the current State Department. Cut number seven. So Israel is still poised to strike Iran. And in July, Blinken said that Iran was one to two weeks away from developing a nuclear weapon. So I guess for all we know, they might have one by now. Meanwhile, in Ukraine, they've struck deep within Russian territory several times, as deep as 300 miles

from the border. And in that case, we don't have to guess. We know that Russia has the largest nuclear arsenal on the planet, as many as 6,000 warheads. And so one of the risks of arming militaries that are striking in the territories of nuclear powers is that one of those gets deployed and then it could escalate very quickly from there. So it's rarely discussed, but it's important to address that the nuclear risk is real and it could very abruptly mean the end of, you know, what humans have worked for thousands of years to collectively achieve. And us today are very lucky to live in with the fruits of that achievement. And I feel like we're treating the risks kind of brazenly. So my question for you is, you know, we often hear in response to

these concerns that, well, Putin, Khomeini, you know, they're war criminals, they're terrorists, as if they're too inherently evil or immoral for us to negotiate with. But meanwhile, this administration has financed a genocide in Gaza for the last year. And every day you're up there denying accountability for it. So, I mean, what gives you the right to lecture other countries on their moral? So if you have a policy question for me, I'm happy to take it. If you want to give a speech, there are plenty of places in Washington where you can give a speech. Yeah, but people are sick of the bullshit in here. I mean, it is a genocide. You are abetting it and you are risking nuclear war in Ukraine for this. Plenty of other places to give a speech. Go ahead.

First, what did you think of the young man's question? And second, what did you think of, sorry, of the State Department response? Let's be frank. The man was spot on. He's right. The only thing I would add right now is Americans need to wake up. They need to understand that the response to the first hurricane that came through recently and the devastation that it wrought was abysmal. The administration continues to perform badly. FEMA has been a joke. The population, the American population suffering in places like Asheville, eastern Tennessee, and other areas are wondering if there is any real leadership

in Washington that gives a damn. And I think Americans need to look at this because I would argue they don't. They're pouring far, far more money and resources into caring for illegals, providing them with free health care, free housing, moving them all around the country to make it difficult to eventually expel them in the future. And at the same time that we are being devastated by illegal immigration and weather, we're being dragged into arguably a situation in both Ukraine and certainly in the Middle East where we could end up in a nuclear confrontation because the Russians are deadly serious about Iran. They are not going

to abandon Iran. We seem to overlook that. We seem to act as though it doesn't mean anything. And we continue to pretend that everyone in the region is a backward fool. Now we have the Turks that are on their way to the Lebanese waters. They're going to evacuate their citizens, their arm to the teeth. I don't know what the Israelis are going to do, but they were so brazen and arrogant in their attacks on Russian facilities in Syria. I would not be surprised if something similar did not happen with the Turks. I think everybody's had it with this unrestrained violence from Israel. And they've had it with us because we've done nothing about it. But now it could go nuclear. And we've always known that this was in the background. But all we can do is hope

that cooler minds prevail in Washington. But if Israel gets into the position I think it is headed, this little bighorn moment, the temptation to use that is going to be overwhelming. Meanwhile, here at home, Americans are focused correctly on what happened during the hurricanes and the new one that's coming through right now that's about to devastate more of Florida. And potentially, I mean, we don't know where it'll go. It could cross and go east, north, west, south, whatever. I understand that. But Americans need to pay attention.

This is not some fulfillment, as they think, of prophecy. This is a disaster, period, that confronts us. We've walked right into the bear trap. We need to get out of it. But to do that, we have to pull the plug on Netanyahu, and we need to pull the plug on Zelensky. Of the two, I think ultimately we'll pull the plug on Zelensky long before Netanyahu, and it may be too late at that stage. Colonel, is there any respect internationally amongst diplomats for the United States Department of State? I think everyone all over the world has become accustomed to being bullied or lied to by us for a long time. We were given the benefit of the doubt, I think, for many years, even when President

Trump was in, and we saw everything he wanted to do actively subverted by the people around him. People in the international system said, well, you know, we understand. We think President Trump really does care and is trying to do the right thing. So I think a lot of people gave us a pass. I think those days are over. There's no more pass. And all you have to do is look at BRICS. You know, you've got 84 countries standing in line to join. Turkey, which has been a paper alive, frankly, for some time, has effectively joined the Russian European states, they'll be the only ones that are not members of it and part of it. And now I'm hearing stupid things, you know, from the Trump camp about we'll punish anybody who refuses to use the dollar. Well, that's absurd. But that's where we're headed right now.

We think entirely in terms of punishing, bullying, threatening. We don't understand. That's over. The world't understand. That's over. The world has changed. It's not going to take it anymore. Colonel McGregor, thank you very much for your time, my dear friend. We ran the gamut from hurricanes to the Middle East to Ukraine, and you were kind and generous with all of your answers.

Much appreciated, my dear friend. Hope to see you again next week. Thank you, Judge. Of course. Great conversation with a great man. Coming up later today at two o'clock this afternoon, all times Eastern as always, Ambassador Charles Freeman at three o'clock,

Phil Giraldi at four o'clock, Aaron Maté. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. I'm out.