Judging Freedom - Col Douglas Macgregor:Grappling with Ethical Dilemmas: Technology, Warfare, and Morality

Episode Date: November 27, 2023

Ready to grapple with some of the most challenging ethical dilemmas of our time? Today, we walk a tightrope between technology, warfare, and morality with @DougAMacgregor. We're kicking off by examining how an over-reliance on technology may have paved the way for mishaps like the event of October the seventh. As we dissect the difficult choices facing Israel in its conflict with Hamas, we ponder the potential gains and losses of various strategies - some of which are incredibly controversial. Sharing the same wavelength, we then rewind to a historical face-off between Teddy Roosevelt and John D. Rockefeller. As Rockefeller proposes a brutal plan to seize oil fields in the Middle East, Roosevelt's refusal throws a spotlight on the ethical predicaments that such actions bring. We use this story as a reminder of the moral lines that should never be crossed, regardless of the perceived necessity. We round off with an appeal to our listeners, and especially to the Israelis, to reach the same conclusion - that vengeance is not the answer. #GlobalSecurity #IsraelQuestion #WWIII #Geopolitics #MilitaryInsights #InternationalRelations #StrategicForecasting #SecurityAnalysis #ColonelMacgregor #GlobalAffairs #MilitaryExpertise #PoliticalRealities #GeopoliticalDynamics #FutureOfConflict #securitydialogue #IsraelEthics #MoralJustifications #ThoughtProvoking #EthicalDebate #IsraelPolitics #HistoricalAnalysis #PoliticalInsights #SocialContext #NuancedExploration #EthicalConsiderations #MoralDilemmas #CriticalThinking #IsraelDebate #globalethics #Israel #Hamas #Gaza #IsraelPalestine #MiddleEastConflict #PeaceInTheMiddleEast #GazaUnderAttack #Ceasefire #Jerusalem #PrayForPeaceSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Thank you. Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Monday, November 27th, 2023. Colonel Douglas McGregor joins us. Colonel, always a pleasure. Thank you for coming back on the show, my dear friend. Over the weekend, the New York Times reported that more women and children have been killed by the IDF in Gaza in eight months than were killed by the Russian military in Ukraine, excuse me, in eight weeks than were killed by the Russian military in Ukraine in 18 months. If these numbers are accurate, what does this tell you? Well, first of all, we don't know whether or not they're accurate, though I think there's probably a great deal of truth in them. I just don't know. I would tell you that the Israelis have done a great job of suppressing any

reports of casualties that they may have suffered and one always wonders what one hears from hamas however having said that amnesty international and some other agencies have echoed these findings i think it it tells you that if you drop 2 000 pound bombs whether theyguided or not, on a built-up area, an urban area, you're going to kill a lot of people. And I think it's pretty clear that this has been, certainly since the 7th of October, a vengeance campaign. Vengeance, of course, is emotion. Emotion is radicalization. And the radicalization means that you're not terribly careful about who happens to be in the neighborhood when you drop the bomb.

I think that's where we are. Emotions continue to run high. The good news is that at least we've had a three-day extension on the ceasefire. And that may not solve our problems immediately, but it gives people a chance to take a breather and think. Do these ceasefires have a tendency to spread or extend because of the good feelings that come about during them, or are they an opportunity for both sides to regroup and get ready to reattack, or both? Well, I think you could probably make an argument on both sides. There was a ceasefire during the First World War at Christmas in 1914, and that actually cultivated goodwill. You had units from the British and German armies that actually got to know each other, and then ultimately they had to be withdrawn from the line because they discovered that they had more in common than they did opposing one another. I don't know. I don't expect that would happen in this case in Israel and Palestine, but I just think anytime you can persuade people to stop killing each other, there's always a chance that the people

at the top will think about the alternatives to what's going on. That's about the best I can tell you. Okay. And that's a very interesting analysis. Vladimir Putin is not dropping 2,000 pound bombs on residential neighborhoods in Ukraine, but Netanyahu's folks are doing that in Gaza. Vladimir Putin is being a lot more surgical, careful, and patient than Netanyahu. Is this because one is motivated by a legal claim and the other is motivated by, as you say, the radicalized vengeance? Well, I think, you know, Putin has always regarded this war in Ukraine as a tragedy. He sees the Slavic Orthodox Christians in Ukraine as effectively first cousins or brothers of the people living in Russia, and indeed in the part of Ukraine where most of this fighting has occurred. Most of the people there are certainly ethnically or Russian

speakers. So he's never seen this in a positive light from that standpoint. We don't give the man credit. We attack him constantly. And it's interesting that the people that have attacked him, and he has been careful, as you point out, and his troops have tried to be, are the ones that are pressing us to support this vengeance campaign against the Arabs in Gaza. And I think Americans have been systematically over time subjected, I wouldn't say to brainwashing, but certainly to preparation for this by seeing Muslim Arabs in an almost exclusively negative light. Here's an interesting clip, Colonel, from a former president of the United States in 2006, defending the right of the Palestinian people to their own lands. His new book is called Palestine, Peace, Not Apartheid.

President Carter, why did you use the word apartheid in the book's title? Well, let's look at the entire title, if you don't mind. The first word is Palestine, which involves the land that belongs to the Palestinians, not the Israelis. I didn't refer to Israel because there's no semblance of anything relating to apartheid within the nation of Israel. And I also emphasize the word not, that is peace and not apartheid. That's what I hope to accomplish with this book, is some move toward that goal. But there's no doubt that within the occupied territories, Palestinian land, that there is a horrendous example of apartheid. The occupation of Palestinian land, the confiscation of that land that

doesn't belong to Israel, the building of settlements on it, the colonization of that land, and then the connection of those isolated but multiple settlements, more than 200 of them, with each other by highways on which Palestinians can't travel and quite often where Palestinians cannot even cross. So the persecution of the Palestinians now under the occupying territories, under the occupation forces, is one of the worst examples of human rights deprivation that I know. 2006, I can't imagine an American politician saying that today and not suffering extraordinary blowback in the U.S. Well, you picked the President

of the United States who is probably the least popular figure in the history of Israel's relations with the United States, let's be frank. Right. The hatred for him is pretty substantial. This is a part of the world that reminds me a little bit of the Balkans. In Bosnia-Herzegovina, you could not be friendly to the Serbs without making enemies out of the Croats and Bosniaks. You could not be friendly to the Bosniaks, or at least Muslim in culture and tradition, without making enemies out of Serbs and Croats. I mean, it's an either-or proposition. So I think everything that he said was certainly well meant, and we understand his views, but you've got two implacable enemies,

two irreconcilable worlds. That's one of the reasons that I think Mr. Netanyahu described this as a civilizational struggle. In many ways, it is. You have two fundamentally different peoples with different cultures, different attitudes, different values, and you can't reconcile them. And that's why bringing some sort of ceasefire to bear is in itself a miracle and should be exploited to try and find some alternatives to the fighting. But we should not expect any resolution anytime soon. Can the other regional players that have military assets, Iran, Egypt, Turkey, Hezbollah, force a two-state solution? Or prevent the total eradication, the total elimination of the Palestinian people from Gaza?

I think we are on the road to a regional war. We may have some pauses over the next few months, but I think inevitably this dispute will be resolved on the regional level. What I mean by that is that when this ceasefire ends, I don't see any evidence for a new strategic end state other than the elimination of Gaza and its population from Israel. That's where we're headed. And when the ceasefire ends, I think we will see a resumption of the kind of thing that we saw in northern Gaza in Khan Yunus and in southern Gaza when that commences I think you will see a more defiant uh Alliance of states in the region that will begin to coalesce into something that eventually will result in a regional war directed in Israel the real question is will Israel survive that my greatest concern from the beginning was always

that this would move beyond proxies proxies meaning hezbollah hamas to nation-state conflicts and i think it will you know i know that others have looked at this and they dismiss it out of hand again they continue to view the arabs through the lens of the 1970s and 80s. They view the Muslim world through what I think is an anachronistic lens. They don't see how profoundly the region has changed and its readiness to fight and, if necessary, destroy Israel. The EU, according to our friend Alistair Crook, has attempted to bribe Egypt and Jordan with tens of millions if they will take Palestinian refugees, and both told the EU leadership to go take a hike. What is the EU's game here?

The EU doesn't have a game. The EU is another loose coalition that probably isn't going to survive over the next few years. They've got so many internal problems, contradictions. But in the short run, this is the globalist elite. And the globalist elite rules Western Europe and the United States. I don't think they're going to be with us too much longer. I think they're all going to be removed and replaced. We're not going to see a dramatic change overnight, but it's coming. And I think this is a last gasp effort to try and do what they've done successfully in the past, which is to bribe people in the region to cease and desist from attacking Israel, to abandon their

co-religionists, brothers, whatever you want to call them, other Muslims in the region. I think those days are over. And I think that General Sisi knows that if he were to take the bribe and try to find some place to stash the unwanted Palestinian Arabs, he would not last long in Cairo. He would be removed. And I think all of the elites in the Arab states know that. They no longer have the option of either sitting it out or walking away from destruction of their Muslim brothers in Palestine. They've got to stick it out. And then, of course, you have Iran and Turkey.

And the Iranians desperately want to avoid a war, but they know that if they want to be leaders in the Muslim world, they can't. The one man who understands this with greater clarity than anybody else is Erdogan. And he's set up a wonderful test for us and for the Israelis, and that's called the Flotilla of Humanitarian Aid that I guess is now scheduled at some point this week to sail, I think Wednesday. And when will that arrive? Perhaps Friday. I don't know. But when it does, we're going to find out where things are really headed because the Israelis have sworn not to admit that.

And that's going to be a tough issue for us. The flotilla, as I understand it, Colonel, is about a thousand commercial and private ships. These are not military ships. And their goal is either to deliver aid to the Palestinians or to block imports coming to the Israelis. Do I have that right? Now, the last time this happened, the Israelis attacked and killed some of the Turkish operators of one boat. Now it's a thousand. This podcast is sponsored by Talkspace. You know, when you're really stressed or not feeling so great about your life or about yourself, talking to someone who understands can really help.

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Well, I don't know about the blocking anything from going into Israeli ports. That's a new one on me. If somebody has thought that up, I don't think that's going to work very effectively. In fact, if that is done, that will give the Israelis the excuse they need to go after the whole flotilla. Then the question is what do we do you know we've got a fleet sitting out there in the mediterranean and are we simply going to stand by and watch it are we going to watch as the israelis sink these vessels uh for that matter what will erdogan's naval forces do will they watch it and do nothing i don't think so again i think this is this is a test for the Israelis,

but it's a big test for Washington. You speak of the global elites switching gears to the other hotspot. Have the global elites in war and is a disaster, and that the agreement that Russia and Ukraine entered into before Boris Yeltsin, not Boris Yeltsin, forgive me, Boris Johnson, sorry, from heaven, Boris Yeltsin, before Boris Yeltsin at the beck and call of the U.S. talked them out of it, should have been entered into. Well, listen, I forgive you for mixing up Boris Yeltsin and Boris Johnson. Two world-class blowhards.

Right. In fact, I give Yeltsin more credit. I think he was actually more sincere. But having said that, no, I think privately, everyone inside NATO, particularly the Europeans, but I think increasingly in Canada and the United States, has realized, look, this thing is over. And I think privately, Zelensky has been urged to chart a course towards some sort of negotiated settlement. And this is, I think, a mission impossible for Zelensky. Zelensky is the one that insisted that they press this to the very nth degree because he was promised everything. And you have this man Stoltenberg, who is a prize fool, who, I guess we're going to have to do something else. It's absurd.

NATO is falling apart. NATO has had it. This is not going to survive, Judge. And that's what Soltenberg said. He said, if we can't win this, then it's an existential question for NATO. If we can't defeat the Russians in Ukraine, then what is NATO for? Well, I don't think NATO was for the purposes of waging war against Russia and Ukraine. I never did, but he did. And that's what everybody in Washington thought, and they've lost. So what's the future

of NATO? I think it's over. You and I both read an interview over the weekend with retired four-star General Harold Kuyat, a German general, a former head of the military part of NATO, who basically agrees with everything you just said and condemns the intervention of the United States and NATO and in the person of Boris Johnson and interfering with that agreement that the Russians and the Ukrainians had before the war started. And he was in charge of all this, basically said, we shouldn't be here and shouldn't be doing this and shouldn't be a military installation. And we've made a mess. I should also add for our viewers, and this is a point of pride for me because of your and my friendship and personal

collaboration, this four-star German general, whom I don't think you've ever met, cited you as an authority for some of his arguments, not the least of which was the extraordinary number of young soldiers, Ukrainian soldiers, who suffered unrecoverable injuries, either death or such a severe injury that they can never go back to the military. This tragedy is the greatest tragedy is, of course, the destruction of the Ukrainian nation and people I don't know that Ukraine can actually recover from this I suppose it's possible they've certainly been through hell before but this is this is terrible and that's really what he was talking about but the implications are are unambiguous can NATO survive this no I don't think so uh we've we've led the ukrainians down a path to certain suicide remember

we said from the beginning judge ukrainians have no more chance of winning a war against russia than mexico would have of winning a war against the united states no one listened instead you were immediately pilloried or castigated as a putin agent right a russian age or some other nonsense which had nothing to do with it. And the same thing has been happening with Israel. You know, anyone who questions unconditional support for Israel is immediately on the spot accused of anti-Semitism. Of course, there are an awful lot of Jews now in the United States and around the world, and even in Israel, who are questioning that. So I suppose that puts

them in the same stack with the rest of the world. But the bottom line is this. The United States has destroyed itself. When I say destroyed itself, what I'm talking about is the government in Washington, by pushing these inane policies, by condemning Russia and condemning effectively the Muslims in the region for their unwillingness to tolerate Israeli policies, for the Ukrainians' attacks against the Russians that led ultimately to their intervention. There's no future in this. All we've done is destroy our influence in Europe, and we are destroying our influence in the Middle East, because we've treated everything as black or white. Either you supply Mr. Zelensky until the last Ukrainian, and you supply Israel with

whatever it needs until the last Israeli soldier is killed, or you are the enemy. This is a dead end. And I think this is the end, as many people have said in many other settings, not just of the post-war liberal order, whatever that was. And I think we know that it was just an order set up to enrich us, and probably also of our imperial aspirations. I think finally Americans are going to step back after all these many, many years of failed interventions and meddling and say, what are we doing? This is insane. This has got to stop. And that's why no one will come forward publicly and admit to anything being wrong. You know that, Judge. So where's Ukraine as I see it. There's

political infighting between the head of the government, President Zelensky, and the head of the military, General Solutioni. Elections in 2024 have been canceled. They have blocked borders so people can't leave. And they're talking about imposing a draft on everyone, both genders, from age seven to age 70, inconceivable by our standards. But that would tell me this is the end of the Roman Empire for them. This is the end of it. Does Ukraine have a war plan for 2024, which is just a month away, Colonel? No, not at all. In fact, Avdivka, and I apologize to the Russian and Ukrainian speakers if I got that wrong,

because my command of Slavic languages is poor, if any, Avdivka is on the verge of surrender. That is a large body of Ukrainian troops. I don't know precisely how many, but let's say several thousand. It's the last sort of bastion of Ukrainian resistance. And there are talks ongoing right now about a mass surrender of those Ukrainian forces to the Russians. I think it's going to happen. When that happens, it's over. And Zeluzhny, I think, knows that. And he has made statements indicating that it's time to come to terms with that particular reality, which explains why Zelensky and others have called for his head. Remove him.

Replace him. We fight on. It's not going to happen. The real question is what happens to Zelensky. Right. I was going to ask you that next. What do you think? Does he flee? Does he get assassinated? Well, I think he's on the same path as Mussolini. I think that's pretty clear. The sooner he goes is probably the better for him. But again, I think as I mentioned the last time, this part of the world is a tough place.

And I'd be surprised if he escaped the old ice pick in the skull at some point, whether he stays or leaves. And I think the world will discover what a terribly corrupt and despicable individual he really is. I remember, you know, being castigated for making comments that Zelensky was by no means a patriot or a hero, by pointing out that Zelensky could not speak Ukrainian, that Zelensky was a Russian speaker. And Zelensky's ties to anything in Ukraine were really questionable. Yet he was picked, he was installed, he rode in on a peace platform, and then he signed on for unending war and destruction for the people of Ukraine. He's not going to escape accountability for that. And I'm not sure about Zeluzhny either. I mean, Zeluzhny still retains some measure of respect from some people, but he's been on top

of this thing. At some point, people are going to ask, you know, the best thing I can tell you is if you go back to March of 1943, on the 2nd of February 1943, Stalingrad fell. And then Hitler's birthday came up on the 20th of April. And all the four stars in the German armed forces signed a birthday greeting declaring their loyalty to the man. And several people privately stood around and said, what? After Stalingrad, which was absolutely his fault, you're signing a pledge of allegiance to this man? I think Ukrainians are going to start asking the same kinds of questions. What is going on with the generals?

But the generals, Ukrainian generals, and even Zelensky know how to count. Presumably, they don't have the manpower. They don't have the women power. They don't have the reserves. They must know that this can't go on any longer. And Joe Biden is still feeding them ammunition and equipment that they don't have the human beings to use it. Well, this is something else that General Couillard pointed out in his interview,

and he was very right to do so. He talked about the time and effort that was required to train people to cooperate between arms and across service lines. In other words, what we call joint warfare sometimes, I like to call it integrated combat operations, where people know how to integrate all the various capabilities, whether it's indirect fire, artillery, mortars, rockets, missiles, attacking ground forces, mounted, dismounted. That takes years, and you have to have some sort of institutionalized

memory for any of that to work in battle. And he pointed out the Americans, as always, have focused on technology. We have this view that if we just spend enough money and buy the right stuff, that we are going to win, that technology solves all the problems. It doesn't. And we're finding that out in Ukraine. And I think this will be found out in the Middle East once this regional war begins, which I fear more and more that it will. a reliance on old-fashioned presence of military to shoot people when they come over the border with weapons in their hands, and old-fashioned human reliance. The Israelis thought that they could rely on surveillance and also the reputation that Hamas had for bumbling any opportunity.

Well, the Israelis are really left with two options in my judgment one is look at the strategic landscape measure what you may gain by what you might lose what do i mean by that let us say you've got voices saying let's complete the job let's get it over with let's drive all these people out let's flatten gaza if you do that do you get? I think what you get is a regional war. You get the entrance of Turkey and eventually Iran and all the Arab states in the region. On the other hand, you have the possibility of thinking through this whole business and saying, look, we can't do that. Even if we want to, we can't get away with it. I recall an incident involving Teddy Roosevelt and John D. Rockefeller. John D. Rockefeller came to Teddy Roosevelt when he was president and said,

I've got great news. We've discovered oil. And we know where it is. It's in the Middle East. And Teddy Roosevelt says, oh, that's interesting. And he said, well, what I want to do is I want to land an army. I want to kill everybody and take over the oil fields. And Teddy Roosevelt says, well, I'm not giving you the army or the Navy to do that. He says, I don't need that. I have my own army and my own Navy. I'll do it. Teddy Roosevelt said, that's out of the question.

That's unacceptable. That's morally repugnant. It cannot and will not be done. And the answer was, well, we did some of that to the Indians, didn't we? And Teddy Roosevelt said, not anymore. We some of that to the Indians, didn't we? And Teddy Roosevelt said, not anymore. We won't tolerate it. It's wrong. I think, you know, the Israelis have got to look at this thing and reach the same kind of conclusion. That vengeance is wrong. Yes. Colonel, thank you, my dear friend. Thank you for your time and for your incredible analysis.

Okay, thanks. By the way, we broke 240,000 subscriptions just a few moments ago. Thanks in no small measure to your work with us. Thank you, Colonel. We'll see you again soon. Sure. Bye-bye. Bye. Well, keep the subscriptions coming. We did break 240,000 just a few moments ago. We have another 10,000 to go to meet our self-imposed

goal of a quarter of a million by Christmas. I'm very confident that with your help and continued support of the show, we will continue to do so. We have all of our usual guests coming to you the rest of the show, we will continue to do so. We have all of our usual guests coming to you the rest of the week. Thank you for watching. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. I'm out.