Judging Freedom - Col. Karen Kwaitkowski: Electrifying the Pentagon, Bankrupting the Nation.

Episode Date: January 10, 2024

Col. Karen Kwaitkowski: Electrifying the Pentagon, Bankrupting the Nation.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, January 9th, 2024. Lieutenant Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski joins us now. Karen, it's always a pleasure. Welcome back here. You have a great piece in LewRockwell.com, which obviously is tongue-in-cheek because it's entitled Joe Biden is Actually a Great Peacemaker. But just looking at it big picture, there are a lot of people in the Congress who believe that war is good for the economy.

I mean, it destroys things. It raises the debt. We all know that. But which is the path to economic prosperity, war or peace? It should be an obvious answer. Yeah. Well, of course. I mean, the broken window fallacy, I think, is embraced by most of Congress. You break something and you have to pay to fix it, then that stimulates the economy in some way. And they don't ever consider the unseen costs, which, of course, you know, their society is broken. Terrible costs that we can see. And then there's the unseen cost. What could we have done with a couple hundred billion dollars of American taxpayer funds? I mean, I'd like to see the debt paid down, but there's plenty of better things we could

have done with that money, starting with keeping it in people's pockets. Ah, you read my mind. Keeping it in the taxpayer's pocketbook. Exactly. The government, of course, would never think that way. I mean, just before we get along this path, I have to ask you something in your article that intrigued me because I'd never heard it before. Did Joe Biden actually say that his goal was in the next 10 years to have armored vehicles and tanks run by electricity? Is he that deep into the climate change nonsense that he would jeopardize the lives of our troops on the field if a battery ran down? Yeah, well, he did qualify that by saying he would have the tanks as hybrids so they could charge with the diesel, I guess, as they're going along.

But yeah, I don't think you can believe what Joe Biden says. I mean, he is part of a machine of government, but that machine embraces this fake environmentalism of battery-powered everything. And again, there's another example of the costs that are unseen. We can't dispose of these batteries. We get the lithium, whether we're fighting wars over it or children in the Congo are digging it for us. I mean, that's an unseen cost, an unseen terrible, you know, waste of not just energy, but it harms the environment. And yet that scene is the greenest thing you can possibly do. In fact, you should be condemned if you don't support it. So talk about unseen costs. The

Republicans in the House, the Democrats in the Senate, the president in the White House, they're about to add $1.6 trillion to our debt. Gee, aren't you glad that the Republicans took control of the House so as to restrain spending? I mean, this Speaker Mike Johnson and these folks in the House on the Republican side have just agreed to virtually the same deal that Kevin McCarthy and Mrs. Pelosi agreed to, which was enough to kick Kevin McCarthy from the speakership. And of course, he since has left Congress. But do you think they understand the hidden costs of $34 trillion in debt, $1 trillion a year in debt service, interest on the debt.

Well, they're going to feel it when it starts to eat into their so-called disposable income. But honestly, I think they are grifters. I think at heart, every member of Congress, for the most part, is a grifter. And so that person is looking out for what is good for me. And for a congressman, that means what's good for my district, always in the short run. I mean, a grifter is not known for, you know, building anything. Grifters grift off what other people have built. And that's what our Congress is. It's filled with people like that. So their perspective is, I don't need to worry about the future cost of what I'm doing right now. I'm not going to pay it back. And I think individually, of course, they're not going to pay it back. But I also think this country is not going to pay it back. And then what happens then?

Because our dollar is already a little bit vulnerable, less popular than it was, not backed by anything. We have all this debt. If they default, and I don't mean the government is put in default, but if we start defaulting in a number of different ways that they can do it, you know, what is that going to do to our country? And certainly it makes it less secure. It makes the country more vulnerable, both internally and externally. I happen to think that your grandchildren, I don't have any grandchildren your grandchildren uh will see the federal government collapse from its own weight it simply won't be able to pay its bills and it won't be able to borrow money and nobody will trust it and no one will want to work for it something will

replace it maybe it will break apart into 10 republics those who happen to live in this in Texas will probably have more freedom than those of us who have the misfortune of living in the Northeast, but we will break apart to 10 semi-autonomous republics because the government, like the dinosaurs, will die of their own weight. Yeah. Now, that's absolutely going to happen. It's going to happen, and I think I'm going to live to see it myself. And of course, my grandchildren will live through it. And it'll be a good thing. But one of the things that I am noticing, and I know many people are noticing, is that the various states, obviously Texas, but a lot of other states are looking at what their assets are, what is under

their control. And they're actually starting to assert themselves a little bit, thinking more nationally at this state level. They're thinking about, can we rely on FEMA, for example? And any state that's had a disaster has not really had a good impression of the FEMA response, right? Correct. So many of these states, I would say out of the 50 states, probably 30 or 40. And they're not just the ones run by Republican governors. It's it's it's irrelevant to the politics. But I would say about 30 states have already experienced a number of bad relationships with the federal government. And they are thinking the people there are thinking and their politicians, their legislators are thinking about how do we prevent this from happening again? And one of the big ways, of course,

is do not be dependent on, don't be dependent on the federal government, but also resist the federal government's so-called mandates and orders. Because as the federal government becomes more panicked, and we're living through that right now, our federal government is extremely panicked. That's why we have a robust surveillance state. They are insanely worried about what's going to happen and they're going to lose their power. They see the writing on the wall with that. But many of these states are pushing back

against central authority in a number of different ways. And I even see it with California, even with the Marxist over there. Who is the governor? Gavin Newsom. Gavin Newsom. During the Trump years, I remember discussing this with President Trump when he was in the White House. During the Trump years, because his response was typical, Gavin Newsom and the crazy lefties that run California thought about seceding from the union. So he said to me on the phone,

why don't I just let them go? Let them just get the hell out of here. I said, well, that'll be terrific. You'll lose a lot in income taxes. He said, oh, I forgot about that. Okay, I better think twice before I make a statement like Gavin just know. Well, I don't want to get into secession too deeply, but Vermont and Texas were independent countries before they became states of the union. And they negotiated treaties with the U.S. which governed their entry. And those treaties expressly reserved the right to leave, to secede. Now, that was before the war between the states. And the attitude about the federal government was different in those days. But every once in a while, you see a secession movement bubbling up in those two states.

You can Google it. You can look it up. They absolutely reserved that right to secede, which was considered standard at the time. When the 13 colonies became 13 states and then became the United States of America, five of them said, we're going to go along with this constitution, but if you don't add a bill of rights, we're going to leave. And the others knew that they could leave because secession was a given at the time. So they very quickly, James Madison, wrote and ratified the Bill of Rights. Is Joe Biden a war criminal, Karen, quite casually?

Of course. Yeah, he definitely is a war criminal, but he's not alone amongst American presidents that would qualify for that. But certainly Joe is a war criminal, I think, in terms of fostering what has happened in Ukraine. And of course, Obama started that. This is something, it's a long-term deep state elite government pursuit, which is to destroy Ukraine and turn it into a vassal state for us and maybe for Europe. That is criminal. You know, there was no declaration of war. And yet we are at war with Russia through a proxy that we are lying to on a daily basis about its role. To me, that's criminal. Now, I imagine, I don't know the law, but I imagine there are some things you can pull from that, and certainly deaths of people. Now,

when it comes to what's happening in Israel and Gaza, we are backing that up. We are funding it. We are providing the material of war, the bombs, the aircraft. There's two squadrons of F-35s over there. Now, they may have purchased those F-35s, most likely with our money, the bombs, the aircraft. There's two squadrons of F-35s over there. Now, they may have purchased those F-35s, most likely with our money because part of the military aid program that we've had for 40 years. But we are as vulnerable to a legal charge of war criminality, genocide, any of these various international court terms as Israel is. And of course, a very detailed indictment, I guess, against Israel came out of South Africa. And it listed and identified many of those things.

And I think the United States is as guilty. Well, 90% is guilty. I would push it to 100% if we knew in advance that it was going to happen. Israel is the easier case to prove because the United States is funding the war. And it is rather obvious if you read that South African complaint, it's just a complaint. However, it is based upon open source facts of deaths, open source facts about the intent of the Israeli government, words out of the mouths of the Israeli officials. A former prime minister, former general Ehud Barak is going to defend Israel, I should say attempt to defend Israel in the International Court of Justice on Thursday. I don't know what conceivable defense he has.

However, the Treaty Against Genocide, to which Israel and the United States are parties, and the United Nations Charter both define genocide in addition to the act of attempting to eliminate a racial or cultural or ethnic group, funding, the knowing funding of the elimination of a racial, ethnic, or cultural group by violence, it is clear that Joe Biden, who knows what he knows, it is clear that the United States government is funding genocide and could easily be a defendant in this litigation. You know, this is not a criminal prosecution. It's just a declaration of violation of international law, which will further humiliate Israel. Right now, Israel has only one friend amongst international actors, and that's the United States.

This is from one of the documents backing up the case. 15,000 people were killed. It's now up to 22,000. You can't get a document out that is accurate because the number of deaths keeps going up. I think this can be catastrophic for Israel, which has already lost the PR war, but this will further isolate it, don't you? Yeah, it's definitely, we're seeing that, obviously, that isolation is happening. They've lost some erstwhile neighborhood friends and trading allies. Those guys are gone. Turkey, Saudi Arabia, they can't count on any of those

anymore. They're turning away from Israel. And with this Red Sea operation, a lot of the trade going into Israel, one of the big carriers said, we're not shipping anything else into Israel. That's it. We're done until this thing is straightened out. And so the impact on the Israeli economy, plus the impact of war. And this is an economy that is somewhat dependent on United States gifts, not just government gifts that we give, but the gifts of American Israelis and Israelis around the world who help subsidize Israel's economy. And then you have the economy itself, which is a wartime economy, meaning much of the energies and the imagination and the skill sets of the people, the spirit of the people is wasted in a defense that's been made up, really, to kind of this, I think, an artificial defense posture in many ways. And, of course, they would say, oh, of course, you know, we're surrounded by enemies.

It's not an artificial defense posture. Well, turn your enemies into your friends and you don't have that problem. And they refuse to do that. One of our writers or viewers reminds me that the official death toll is now north of 24,000 in Gaza. Going back to Ukraine, I'm going to play an interesting clip for you from a former Ukraine ambassador to Russia who was one of the negotiators in Istanbul when they came to an agreement. That's the agreement that was blocked by Boris Johnson and Joe Biden. It's interesting to hear what he has to say about how much Vladimir Putin wanted the agreement. Take a listen to this karen and to my mind very quickly after invasion in 24 of february last year he very quickly understood

his historical mistake and i was in that moment in the group of Ukrainian negotiators. We negotiated with Russian delegation practically two months, March and April, the possible peaceful settlement agreement between Ukraine and Russia. And we, as you remember, concluded so-called Istanbul communique. And we were very close in the middle of April, in the end of April, to finalize our war with some peaceful settlement. For some reasons, it was postponed. But to my mind, Putin, this is my personal view,

Putin in one week after started his aggression in 24 February last year, very quickly understood he did a mistake and tried to do everything possible to conclude an agreement with Ukraine. Everything possible to conclude an agreement with Ukraine from the mouth of one of the Ukrainian negotiators. That was December 22nd last year. So that was just two and a half weeks ago that he made those statements at a conference in Geneva. How profound was the error of the United States and the United Kingdom to have interfered in that negotiation. Oh, yeah. Now, to me, that's criminal, to promote a war where others die and others pay for it.

When peace was almost in their hands, I mean, what this guy is saying is we had a peace deal ready to go, all sides agreed. And it was good for, you know, it seems like it was something Ukraine was going to accept also. And you know what, what's, what this, what this shows is that we don't live in a world that is static. You know, at that time, that was the time to grab for peace. We refused to let that happen. Now, when the peace comes, Ukraine will lose a lot because Russia is not the same Russia that it was. Its military is in much, much better shape. It's not using mercenaries. It's using its regular forces.

Its military production has geared up wonderfully. It has survived Western sanctions and thrived. That's different than two years ago. So all of that could have been prevented if we cared about, if our leadership cared about what they say they care about, we would have, that peace would have happened. And Russia would not have exercised its military strength and its strategy and its mobilization of society that it did. So this is, this is the cost of stupidity. Right. So since Boris Johnson flew to Kiev and said, Joe and I, meaning President Biden, will back you up. Don't go along with this nonsense.

Don't cave to him. Ten million Ukrainians have fled the country. And as you pointed out, Karen, a half a million young Ukrainian men are either dead or so disabled that they can't go back to the military. Now, if that war ended tomorrow and Ukraine attempted to return to its normal economic activity, there's a whole generation of young men, whether taxi drivers or factory workers or farmers or teachers or students that are gone, that are not there to operate those levers of economic activity. That's right. Then you can't get that back. That's the whole generation lost and it's not going to come back. And those that are injured will require state funded care. I mean, that's pretty well, you know, what what happens. They're going to need help all their lives.

They will not be most of them. The injured will not be productive in the sense that they would have been. And, you know, we also have in modern warfare, we are even in Ukraine, you know, we can save people. And so, you know, the kind of injuries that people can survive in modern war are horrendous. So many of these people in terms of an economic productivity, they have none. They are going to be burdens on what's left. And what's left is, you know, what the women and the children who come back without fathers and brothers, many of them are not coming back. Anyway, the European, many of the European refugee, the Ukrainians who are living in Germany and Poland and elsewhere, they don't plan to come back because they're smarter than we are.

They understand that what has been done to Ukraine is really irrevocable. It's going to take more than one generation to even get it back to where it was. We were being a little sarcastic earlier about aren't you glad that the Republicans took control of the House and then look at what they did. Well, at the same time that that Speaker Johnson announced the one point six trillion dollar funding of the government for the next eight months that the Democrats are applauding, he said, and we'll probably be able to get that $68 billion to Ukraine as well. Oh, good Lord. What will the Ukrainians do with the $68 billion? Their government is a shadow of its former self. You might as well just put it into the bank accounts of the people that have been stealing it. They need human beings

to man the military. They are on their last leg. That $68 billion would be... Listening to Lindsey Graham on this is just catastrophic. We also fund the entire civil government, the civil sector. Correct. Correct. We pay for the Veterans Administration hospitals.

Yes. So these guys in Ukraine, those who are able to get their hands on some of this aid, whether it's USAID or anybody else's aid, they see the writing on the wall. They're much more in touch with the future of their own country than we will ever be. And that money will disappear into pockets. And some of those pockets will save lives of certain government bureaucrats. And some of those pockets will enrich some of the oligarchs or their relatives. But that money will disappear and it will be for nothing. And I would be delighted if the American people understood that. I think many of them do understand that it's like throwing dollar bills on a fire so you can watch it burn. So I want to tell you something nice.

I received a text from one of the viewers. You know, they don't always use their names. A lot of them have these handles that are a little off the wall. So I won't even repeat this person's handle, but she said she runs a girls' school. And a lot of young women are watching, Judge, to see what it's like to be a colonel in the Air Force and a lady. Wow. I thought you'd want to know that. Talk about secession. And we don't talk about it much, but the states and the legislators and the people are all thinking about what is possible. And this is why Texas having had a treaty,

Vermont having had a treaty, and other states who have talked about how can we be more independent of a Washington DC that we don't agree with. And under Trump, that was was Democratic-run states. And under Biden, it's Republican states. But it ends up covering most of the states. But if we can imagine it, we can do it. If we can see it in part, we can take steps towards that. And that's why I'm very confident that we will see a successful series of secession movements in

this country. Maybe not completely in my lifetime, but it's going to happen for sure. And if young ladies want to be smart colonels in the Air Force, imagine it and they can do it. That's exactly right. Thank you, Karen. Thank you, Colonel Kwiatkowski. Thank you, ladies, for watching. We'll see you again.

It's a pleasure, Karen. It's an absolute pleasure to work with you. We'll see you again next week's a pleasure, Karen. It's an absolute pleasure to work with you. We'll see you again next week. Absolutely. Coming up for the rest of the week, Scott Ritter, Colonel McGregor, Professor Mearsheimer, Professor Sachs, Scott Horton or one of his colleagues, Kyle Ancelone, Phil Giraldi, and of course, the Intelligence Roundtable at the end of the week. Thank you.