Judging Freedom - COL. Douglas Macgregor: Ukraine: A Collapse In Slow Motion.

Episode Date: November 6, 2024

COL. Douglas Macgregor: Ukraine: A Collapse In Slow Motion.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 Wednesday, November 6, 2024, the day after a tumultuous and decisive American presidential election. Colonel Douglas McGregor joins us now. Colonel McGregor, welcome here. Always a pleasure, my dear friend. We both had late nights last night. I want to talk to you at some length about the collapse of Ukraine, as you have said, in slow motion. But of course, we need to address the likely changes, if any, in American foreign policy attendant upon the election of Donald Trump. You served in Trump's Defense Department as a senior advisor, I believe, for the last year, year and a half, two years of his first term. Recently, he mentioned that among his candidates to become Secretary of Defense would be, of all people, Mike Pompeo and Tom Cotton. He has notoriously a $100 million

debt to Mrs. Sheldon Adelson, taking into account your knowledge of the Defense Department and these facts, the debt to Mrs. Adelson and the interest in Cotton and Pompeo, what does this tell you? Well, let's keep in mind that he's now on his way to being commander-in-chief. And while the donors exert enormous influence,

as you rightly point out, he is now commander-in-chief, and he has to make decisions that he thinks are in the interest of the American people first and foremost. Whether or not he picks from the slate that you just mentioned or decides on another course of action is unknown. You and many others, Judge, I think Ron Paul was someone else, Rand Paul, Mike Lee, many people have said to him repeatedly over the years, personnel is policy.

I think he understands that. I think he knows it. So we can't be 100% certain of whatever the rumors are right now. Frankly, we do have to be patient, wait and see, because I can tell you from my interaction with him that it is heart of hearts. This is someone who is absolutely opposed to war. This is someone who doesn't want any wars, doesn't want conflict. And if he's got the flexibility and maneuver room to avoid it, he will do so. And I think he does. I think it's actually very good that we are at a kind of standstill in the Middle East right now.

And I think given what's happening in Ukraine, that can be closed out quicker and sooner than obviously the Middle East. But I think that's his inclination. And he's beset with so many challenges. The last thing he needs is conflict overseas. It's not going to help him here at home. It's not going to help him achieve what he wants to here in the United States. And as we've always said, and I think he believes this as well, the most important things happen right here inside the United States,

not beyond our borders. Colonel Mrs. Adelson gave him a hundred million to expand the borders of Israel. And the first phone call he took last night, two o'clock in the morning, was from Benjamin Netanyahu. And he said a month ago that he told Netanyahu he'd give him whatever he needed. So I don't share. I don't have the knowledge of the way the Defense Department works or the way the military works.

I know the way his head works from all the time I spent with him. But I don't share your optimistic view that the neocons will be banished. I mean, why would he even be considering people like Cotton or Pompeo unless he wants a World War III, a trigger-happy person, somebody who's happy to fund 850 foreign military installations no matter the cost to the taxpayer. No, I can't refute your argument. I think that's a good point. We've seen in the past, though, that regardless of whomever is there, he continues to think for himself and does what he wants in spite of all the advice he gets. Now, the good news, I think, if there is any, is that the people in the Defense Department at lower levels in the armed forces, especially the Army and the Air Force, and I think to a lesser extent the Navy, are all acutely sensitive to the prospects of a major, major war in the region.

And we're not prepared for it. And he knows we're not prepared for it. I'm sure he's been told that. Not necessarily by the Harris administration, but by others who are in a position to know. So it would be very, very foolish for him to pursue a course of action that guarantees future conflict. Now, beyond that, I don't know what he's going to do. Expanding the borders of Israel sounds great, and then you've got to look at the map and figure out how you are going to reach some sort of amicable agreement with hundreds of millions of people who are affected by those changes. You and I know that's a tall order. Netanyahu, whose behavior seems to be utterly and totally devoted to preserving his own time

in office and his own legacy, consider fighting a war with Iran without a promise from President Trump to back them up? I think it's unlikely, although you don't know the extent to which he feels he can trap the future president as well as the current administration in a war that they would otherwise not want to fight. This was always my concern that things would get off the ground before the election, presenting whomever was voted into office with a fait accompli. So, you know, that's no longer on the table. But here, consider this for a second. There are a lot of people with greater expertise than I have in the Middle East, and many of them have told me that the Iranians have also waited for the outcome of this election.

And given his very forceful rhetoric, very belligerent rhetoric towards Iran, the thinking in Tehran is that they might as well let loose and do as much damage as they can to Israel regardless, because there's no point in exercising any more restraint because there's no evidence that Mr. Trump is prepared to exercise that restraint. So that's a good example of what the impact of the election is, at least in the minds of the Iranians. Now, on the Israeli side, it may be the opposite. They may feel that they're now entitled to use whatever they have to destroy the nuclear facilities and potentially go after the oil production system. Who knows? Again, this is all speculative, and I wish I knew more,

just as you do, but I think we have to reckon with those kinds of feelings right now. Well, one of the certainties is that Lloyd Austin will be back on the Raytheon board. I shouldn't laugh. The revolving door is reprehensible, but well known and acknowledged by the people who enjoy the benefits of it. Yesterday, as if to time this with the American presidential election, or perhaps to time it with the revelation of embarrassing national security, Israeli national security documents showing that he, Prime Minister Netanyahu, effectively undermined the ceasefire negotiations. The Prime Minister fired

his defense secretary or defense minister. The defense minister gave reasons why he believes he was fired. We'll run a brief clip on that in a minute. The Israeli FBI announced that it has been investigating Netanyahu since June of this year as to what he knew and when he knew it about October 7th of 2023. What do you make of all this? held responsible for the disaster in 1973, ostensibly because she decided to disregard warnings about an imminent Egyptian attack across the canal. Now, in those days, it was a little different. The Egyptians had practiced assaulting the canal so many times that the Israelis became convinced that they were watching something similar to what we used to see in East Germany when I was stationed there. The Soviets would also practice these moods that looked like imminent attacks toward the West,

and then just before they reached the border, they would halt, turn around, and then go back to their barracks and prepare to repeat the same sort of thing in the future. That was a terrible mistake. There was also a view that there was incompetence in 1973 in terms of the way things were set up and the very weak manning of the line in Suez. So the Israelis know what they're doing when this sort of thing comes. And I do think that it will become very, very clear that 7 October was allowed to happen, that it shouldn't have happened. And I think that will come out.

And that, of course, will be the end of Mr. Netanyahu forever. The question is, will the Israeli state itself survive all of this in the long run? And I still think that's very much up to uh well it's simply unknown here's um now former defense minister uh gallant this is a 10 minute statement but uh chris has edited it down to uh less than a minute giving what he says are the three reasons why it was fired they're all very interesting for our purposes uh colonel it's in hebrew but there is a translation, of course. Sonia, cut number six. This dismissal comes as a result of a dispute on three issues. The first, my firm stance that everyone who is eligible to be drafted to the military must be drafted to the military. They must serve in the IDF and protect the state of Israel.

Second topic, our moral obligation to return our sons and daughters, the need to implement learning from the mistakes of the war. I support a deep investigation into looking into who is responsible, and I call for a national commission of inquiry. So none of this should come as a surprise, Colonel. I suggest that the argument that everybody who's capable of drafted must be drafted refers to the orthodox and ultra orthodox. The Israeli Supreme Court, by a vote of six to one, said that their reading of the law was that the orthodox were subject to the draft. Netanyahu obviously resisted that, notwithstanding the lopsided vote in the Supreme Court because of the right-wing members of his cabinet who didn't want it.

The second one, I suggest, refers to those documents showing that Netanyahu was willing to sacrifice the hostages in order to extend the war. And the third, I suggest to you, has to do with an investigation of Netanyahu himself. Does this make sense to you? Oh, I think it does. Something most Americans don't understand is that, contrary to many of their assumptions and beliefs, Israel at its founding was by no means a religious state. The Israeli state was founded by Jews in the ethnic, cultural, racial sense of the word. Most of them were absolutely not religious. And in fact, in the discussion, someone raised the question of whether or not they might consider barring the immigration of the Jewish sects that

you're referring to into Israel. And the consensus was we don't need to do that because life here is tough. It's hard. It's dangerous. They'll never come here. Well, of course, they were wrong. And now they are a substantial portion of the population that wields real power. So I think that's a sore point for most of the Israelis

that serve in the armed forces and have served in the past. Secondly, I think Gallant is also signaling that he was not responsible for what happened on 7 October and is quite anxious to see the person who is held accountable. I suspect that will be Netanyahu. But Gallant also knows that when you take a job like this as a defense minister in the middle of a war, you're inevitably going to end up at some point somebody's scapegoat or sacrificial lamb. So I think he was also making that clear. And finally, he's talking about the lessons that have to be learned that weren't learned. Well, let's be frank.

Things have not gone well in Gaza. They haven't gone well in southern Lebanon. And the Israelis have done everything they can to conceal that particular truth. Now, how high were the casualties? I don't know. But you don't have to go very high in Israel before it has a profound impact on the population. And I think that's another earring for him. I think he was also someone else that said, look, we have to practice economy of enemies. And you'll remember a few weeks ago, we watched a cabinet meeting where Netanyahu said, we're fighting on five fronts. And then subsequently it was on seven.

And we're going to settle accounts effectively with everyone. We're going to go and we're going to destroy everyone. I think Gallant was one of those people who said, that's not possible. We have to rein in or suppress these expectations. We have to look at our resources, our capabilities. We have to focus like a laser on what we need to do quickly and win, as opposed to what you're planning, which is effectively a limitless war. Of course, all of that is predicated on unconditional support from us for whatever they do. And I don't think Gallant was someone who believed that that was going to work over the long term. The other side of the coin is that Gallant is a committed Zionist.

He just has a softer approach to all of this. Colonel, do we know the nature and extent of the, if any, damage caused to Iran, to its missile defense system by the abridged Israeli attack 10 days ago? Let's put it this way, and I haven't seen the photos, but I've been briefed on the sidelines. The Israelis succeeded in doing more damage than people thought at the time. The Iranians obviously weren't interested in advertising that, but they struck some vulnerabilities, especially the missile production system. And I think that's had an impact in Iran. On the other hand, their air and missile defenses worked brilliantly in the sense that it became very clear that they could not essentially break through the air and missile defenses and eat with ease and bomb at will, which was the plan. In other words, we go in, we defang the Iranians, and then we can fly with impunity anywhere we want. That was not possible. So I

think the Iranians are acutely sensitive to what happened and they're working very, very hard right now to compensate for those vulnerabilities, if not eliminate them. And that's why, you know, the Russians are shipping in Su-35s. The Iranian pilots are working closely with the Russian pilots to learn how to fly them properly. I still would not rule out the possibility that Russian pilots end up flying some of those in the future. Colonel, I want to play a clip for you from General Jack Keane on Fox News, who has his own unique view of the damage he says was caused by the Israelis. I invite your attention to the last five or six words that he uses. I won't jump the gun. You'll hear them. This is only about

half a minute long. Sonia, cut number three. Military effects of that strike is beyond what's being reported because they have literally taken down most of the Russian air defense system, the so-called S-300 missile defense systems that the Russians gave them years ago. And that's what's really protecting their nuclear enterprise, their oil and gas industry, and other key strategic assets like the missile production factories that the Israelis did destroy at multiple sites. Those are ballistic missile factories, by the way. So yes, this air defense system destruction is really powerful because Iran is sitting there essentially naked. Is Iran sitting there essentially naked, Colonel McGregor? No, no, that's an exaggeration.

But he's half right. And he's saying exactly what I told you, that this was more destructive and more effective than was originally reported. And most important, the missile production capability was damaged. The S-300 is a much older system, and it's not the only system that's there. They have the S-400 as well. And again, I think much of that has been repaired. And we'll see in future operations to what extent the Iranians have, as I said, compensated and repaired the problem. The

Israelis are doing the same kinds of things. And they experienced something very similar when the hypersonic missiles found their targets and demonstrated that the Israelis could do nothing to stop it. So I think you have to say on both sides right now there's a realization of their respective vulnerabilities. The problem that I have with Israel's determination to start this war with Iran is that there are almost 100 million people in Iran in a nation that's the size of Western Europe. Compare that with Israel. And Israel cannot sustain the kind of damage it wants to inflict on Iran,

which could ultimately end up being inflicted on them. That's the point. Colonel, switching gears to Ukraine, Ukraine. What's to stop the Russian military from its continued march to achieve President Putin's geographic goals? Well, I think he's achieved his geographic goals with the exception of having secured Odessa. I mean, Kharkov is in ruins. It's his for the taking. But he originally looked at the areas that were historically Russian, where the Russian population lived. Remember, Odessa was the site where Russians were herded into burning buildings and murdered. And this had an enormous impact in Moscow,

as you can well imagine. This was one of the rationales for subsequent Russian intervention, which is to protect the Russian population inside eastern Ukraine. I think he's largely accomplished that goal, with the exception that I pointed out. Right now, the conditions on the battlefield in Ukraine are truly horrific. They're losing thousands and thousands of people, needlessly and pointlessly. This is not an army as you would think of it anymore. These are formations and units streaming west, trying to escape the destruction that is following them.

The Russians are moving very deliberately and very carefully. They're not interested in taking any unnecessary casualties. And you as we talked the last time they've made good use of these uh glide bombs because the is the ukrainians have no air defense at all that means that the aircraft can fly up in relatively close proximity to the target launch the the glide bombs and they launched as many as 1100 of these in a week and the damage is is it is something from which the ground force cannot recover. So I think it's over in Ukraine. I think everybody in Europe knows it. When I say everybody, I'm talking about the elites that have been on the wrong side of this

question from the beginning. The Ukrainians are dying. We gave them some life support. You know, sending $400 million or $500 million over to Ukraine right now, that satisfies the appetite for cash with the various people that are running things and the government and the bureaucracy and the leadership of the military. But it's like giving a heart patient that's on his last legs a haircut and a shave. It's not going to change a damn thing. And at least we haven't seen any more stupid, long-range strikes into Russia, which only guarantees more Ukrainian losses. So I think everybody knows it has to stop.

The question is, will we do what we have to do? And what we have to do is simply say, that's it. We're suspending all military aid and we're getting all of our citizens in uniform and out of uniform out of Ukraine. That's what has to happen. If that happens, the whole picture changes and this war can come to a very rapid close. President Zelensky said after meeting with Donald Trump before he was reelected last night, met with him about three weeks ago at Trump Tower in New York City, that he was very happy with the meeting. He's got to be deluding himself if he thinks that President Trump from and after

January 20th of 2025 will continue the level of military support into this feudal cause? Well, Judge, I wouldn't have expected him to say anything else. He's been lying through his teeth for months and months and months about everything. And it's impossible for him to do anything other than put a smiley face on the dead rat, which is essentially his regime right he's going to keep it up as long as he can when the cash runs out so will he and all of his friends that's coming it's inevitable we saw it in afghanistan we saw the same sort of thing everywhere we've ever been when the regime that we propped up fell apart, that was the end. And that's where we're headed in Ukraine.

Can Ukraine survive the onslaught by the Russians after January 20th of next year? Well, it depends on where we are. I think that by then the handwriting, proverbial handwriting will be on the wall. The regime in Kiev has to go away. Russians aren't going to waste any time negotiating with them. And regardless of what President Trump says, Putin is the sort of person who's going to want to see action.

And the actions that I just described, stop all the aid, end it, and pull out everybody who's an American citizen in or out of uniform, CIA, military, whatever it is. If he sees that happen, then all sorts of things are possible and it will make sense for him and his government to talk to President Trump. But to be frank with you right now, there's no reason why the Russians should believe anything we say about anything. Well, that's where we are. The other thing is that if we want to get to some sort of closure in the Middle East, we've got to have a satisfactory closure in Ukraine first. Otherwise, our position in the Middle East is equally untenable,

as we're going to discover once the missiles begin to fly again. So this presumes a Secretary of State who will speak with his Russian counterpart, Foreign Minister Lavrov, and who, with respect to Prime Minister Netanyahu, will not act as if he's Netanyahu's lawyer, the anti-Tony Blinken. Agreed? Yes. I think I'm looking at the anti-Tony Blinken. Agreed? Yes. I think I'm looking at the anti-Tony Blinken. Well, I wouldn't hold my breath on that one, Judge. But the bottom line is, no, you're correct. And that's why this whole business of, as you've said, and Ron Paul, Rand Paul, and others, personnel is policy.

We'll have to wait and see who is announced as occupying what position. And of course, if the president says, it doesn't matter because I make all of the decisions, then we're in a lot of trouble. Because that means that he hasn't learned from the first term, the first four years. He's presiding over the largest corporate structure in the world. And this thing is extremely unresponsive, as you and I know. So he's got to do two things simultaneously. He's got to deal with what we've been discussing. And that corporate monster, the Leviathan, has to be cut down to size. And he's got executive order power.

He's got a number of authorities as president that allow him to do many, many things with the executive branch. He's going to have to act very decisively. I hope he has a stack of executive orders ready to go because that's what happened to us with Biden. You can say what you will about the Biden administration, but they came in with executive orders designed to utterly destroy their opposition, which is us, and to permanently alter the character and composition of the American people. They came in ready to fire, you know, a broadside, and they did. That's what President Trump needs to do now. Conor McGregor, thank you very much, my dear friend. Your time and your thoughts are always appreciated. now. Conor McGregor. Thank you very much. Uh, my dear friend, uh, your time,

uh, and your thoughts are always appreciated. I know it's been, it's only Wednesday. It seems like it's been a couple of weeks since we were last together. I hope we can see you again next week. And thanks for joining us last night. We really appreciate it.

We were, we were up over 300,000 viewers. It was enormous. Glad to see that and happy to have played a small part in it. Thank you. We were up over 300,000 viewers for the live stream. It was enormous. Glad to see that and happy to have played a small part in it. Thank you. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Thanks, George.

Sure. We'll see you again soon. Right. Bye-bye. Bye. Coming up later today at 2 o'clock this afternoon, Professor John Mearsheimer at 3 o'clock, Phil McGregor at 4 o'clock,

Aaron Maté at 5 o'clock. Professor Jeffrey Sachs, Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. Thank you.