Judging Freedom - Col. Karen Kwiatkowski: Dangers of US involvement in the Middle East

Episode Date: October 19, 2023

Col. Karen Kwiatkowski: Dangers of US involvement in the Middle EastSee 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 18th, 2023. Lieutenant Colonel, Chris is here. Lieutenant Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski joins us now. Colonel Kwiatkowski, Karen, it's a pleasure. Thank you for joining us. Do we have, do you have explaining that, which is kind of interesting because the Israelis themselves hold their government responsible for allowing the breach. I mean, it is really unthinkable how it happened. So the questions are are being asked and we're hearing very little about that. I don't, the only insight I have is, you know, they were focused on different things. You know, I'm not going to go into some discussion that is on the Internet, of course, that, you know, this was let to happen. That the plan, you know, a long-term plan was put into play, and they needed a Pearl Harbor type event.

You know, we experienced this ourselves with our 9-1-1. You know, prior to that, people had been saying a Pearl Harbor event, and then 9-1-1 happened, and many of the plans that were in place were then actively and politically pursued with great gusto. Of course, all mistakes, you know, the last 22 years evident in our Middle East policy. Do you, have you seen evidence or do you have reason to believe that the Egyptian intelligence, which has a good reputation and stays below the radar, you don't see them on television boasting and explaining like other intelligence services, informed their Israeli counterparts

that something violent was in the works? I believe that. I believe that there's no reason not to say that. And also, you know, the Egyptians look out for Egypt, and their most dangerous ally, I shouldn't say ally, but their most dangerous and powerful neighbor is Israel. And they have a long history of helping Israel with regards to this kind of thing. So I have no doubts that they did. And plus, the planning for the Hamas attack a few weeks ago apparently had been going on for not just months, but years. There's a lot of controversy as we speak over exactly what happened to this large hospital in Gaza. The only thing we know that happened is it was destroyed and hundreds of people died.

The Palestinians are saying the Israelis brought it down. The Israelis and the Americans are saying that the Palestinians were shooting rockets at Israel, and one of the rockets went off the wrong way and struck the hospital. At the time you and I communicated, which was five, six hours ago, you mentioned something called an MK-83 guided bomb. What is that? I'm not an expert on it, but it's a good size bomb. It's large, large enough to have done damage like that. And it's provided by the United States.

But of course, data and pictures and imagery and reports are coming out. We don't know exactly what happened. I think the reaction of course the hospital was destroyed. You know globally the riots are set off. How do you calm that down even if the story changes, even if evidence comes out? It's hard to say what actually happened. But yeah, I think the important thing about the M83 and MK83 and other weapons like that of destruction is that they come from the United States, and we supply those to Israel. And Biden, and it could be the Congress, whether in this regard they stand together. You know, I think they want 10 billion emergency aid to Israel. That's on top of the almost 4 billion we give every year, most of which is defense related.

So we are pouring more weaponry capable of doing every building in Gaza. That's our response. So we are basically jumping on this kind of panicked rage reaction that is very understandable that Israel would have that. But instead of being a voice of reason, a voice, an evidentiary voice, I mean, we have certainly our spy equipment. We have the carriers out there. We're listening. We're watching. But instead of offering something to calm the situation,

we are rushing, rushing in Washington to sell arms. I guess maybe we will be able to sell arms in the future. We have to sell them now. I don't know. But the Russia war is really unfortunate. Imagine the United States without a military industrial complex. You know, the Israeli IDF at first admitted that it took down the hospital, and then it took down the admission, and the admission was made by somebody in the government.

It wasn't just someone on the ground with an iPhone taking a video. Yeah. Plus, they threatened. It's kind of like Joe Biden with his Nord Stream. He said they were going to do it. And then when it happened, I mean, people kind of thought they did it. And Israel certainly said, if Hamas is hiding in or near that hospital, we're going after them. They pretty much said that. It's hard to get a clear picture. First off, in America, on this side of the Atlantic, you're not seeing, we don't see, it's very difficult to even search for information sometimes. So you have to rely on global sources and each of the main global sources of information are also somewhat biased.

It's hard to get the information that we really need, and it's also hard to think about how much of it is being manipulated in order to get the reaction that the powerful countries of the world, and certainly the United States is part of that. What reaction does the United States want? I mean, we will manipulate information. I mean, if there's nothing learned in my lifetime is that our government will manipulate information. Well, that we know. That we know. Propaganda is a big business today, and we will get to Ukraine in a minute. It's the most propagandized war in history, at least up until now. Maybe this Israeli-Hamas conflict will exceed it in the level of propaganda. The Israelis say they are prepared to invade Gaza. How dangerous is it for an army largely made up of conscripts and reserve to engage in urban warfare for which they are not, because no one ever is, even the U.S. Marines aren't, adequately trained to do it?

Yeah, it's a very, very dangerous approach. And it's a threat that rings empty, I think, at least from people around the world who understand how difficult that kind of thing is. But what doesn't ring empty is Israel's ability, with our help, of course, with our financial assistance, in really raising and destroying every building in northern Gaza. I think that is certainly a possibility. Can they stand outside, as I read somewhere, as Hamas dig themselves out and then shoot them as they leave the rubble? That's not quite the same as hand-to-hand or door-to-door urban operations. I think they'll postpone that, but I don't think, I think if they're interested in, it depends on their anger and their rage,

and it depends on who's influencing and not influencing the leadership in Israel, what they're going to do. But certainly they are capable of, they've asked the people to leave. People are moving south. They can destroy, they can destroy all of Gaza City if they want to. And just let it rot. If they raise R-A-Z-E, northern Gaza, and turn it into, bomb it into the Stone Age, it's going to be from the air. It's not going to be from the ground, right?

That's right. They'll do it from the air. And I think they will avoid having this situation. And also, you know, Israel is much smaller than we are. And of course, all their young people serve time in the military. Those, the stories and the impact on the society of exposing soldiers and making them do terrible, terrible things like we did to our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is very destructive to the cohesiveness of a society. It's destructive to the cohesiveness of a military. It actually causes more problems for their government, I think, than just keeping their soldiers out of there and trying to keep them kind of protected from the brutalness and the inhumanity of what Netanyahu is actually talking about. So I think they will not want to do that. army will rebel at the concept of slaughter, unmitigated slaughter and destruction?

Some of them will. And those that don't rebel, maybe just because we live in a social media world, information will get out about what's happening, what it looks like. You know, the very images that enrage the world, both those that support Israel and those that support the Palestinians, those images are instant. They're out there. And I think if you put the population, the youth of Israel, and have them go and do this kind of thing, many of them already are not completely sold on the idea that Israel must take all of the Palestinian land and must form this Zion state. I mean, they may say they believe it, but they don't know what it entails. And when they see what it entails, then they start to question it. And

that is going to hurt Netanyahu. It's going to hurt the right-wing parties. It's not going to help them. So I think they're smarter than that think I would think, I know your field is military more than politics, but if we veer into that for a minute, I would think that Prime Minister Netanyahu is finished as soon as the wars are. He probably doesn't want the war to end because he knows when it ends, A, he'll be voted out of office, and B, he's already a defendant in a criminal case, and that will only accelerate, and his dream of neutering the judicial system will never come to pass because his government will be voted out of office. I would imagine as well that the vast majority of Israelis, even those in the prime minister's own Likud party, are harshly critical of him.

It was on his watch that this happened. These were decisions of his government to leave children vulnerable in a desert. Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, and we, you know, I think Israeli citizens, again, it's a smaller country, smaller population, highly educated population. Israelis are highly informed about how they know how their government operates. They very much know details about their politicians that that we only gloss over or will never know. It's not our country. We don't really need to know it. But Israelis know their leadership. They know their party system. They know, they understand and they see it for what it is. And many of them, in fact, I would say most of them do not want war. They want peace of some kind.

They can't define that. We don't, we can't agree on peace, but they don't want war and they don't want to be vulnerable. They were made vulnerable by Netanyahu on Netanyahu's watch. He's already unpopular. He's already kind of an indicted criminal. Yeah, he's toast. Is the Israeli-Hamas conflict an opening for Vladimir Putin to show statesmanship in the Middle East? Well, he already has. I mean, I think you mentioned before he's the only adult in the room, it seems, very often, and certainly in his observations here. I think, you know, Russia does have a relationship. Putin himself can speak with the Israelis and with others, and China can speak with others. And Russia and China both, of course, sit on the UN Security Council. So there's a place, there's a mechanism. I'm not a huge fan of the effectiveness of the UN, but there is a mechanism for both Putin and Xi Jinping to really put forth sanity.

And maybe, I mean, if any good can come out of this, and it's so painful and terrible to think about what has happened and what is going on, but some good could come out of it in the sense that we get off the dime and we stop kicking the can down the road, and maybe a new idea, possibly from the emerging BRICS countries and others, new ideas on how to really resolve this and make it work for the long term. I think everybody wants that. The clip we just saw, Karen, was President Putin arriving in Beijing. While all this is going on, while President Biden is stumbling and bumbling, and I'm going to play some of that for you in a moment, in Tel Aviv or

Jerusalem, I'm not sure where he was, I think it was Tel Aviv, President Putin is meeting with President Xi Jinping, strengthening BRICS, strengthening their relationship, China-Russia. And apparently, as you just pointed out, President Putin has spoken on the phone with Prime Minister Netanyahu several times. And with Abu Abbas, who's the head of the Palestinian government in the West Bank, who really can't control Hamas. But he has a large population of Palestinians there. And the last thing Israel wants is a revolt on that end of the country as well. So I'm going to ask you a question, and before you answer it, I'm going to play Secretary of State Austin answering it and President Biden answering it. So the question is, can the United States,

which is depleted of the most needed ammunition there is, the 155 millimeter artillery shells, can the United States sustain two wars? First, we'll show Secretary Austin saying, well, yes, of course, because we can project power in more places than one. And then we'll show President Biden on 60 Minutes with Scott Pelley answering the same question. And we remain fully able to project power and uphold our commitments and direct resources to multiple theaters. So we will stand with Israel even as we stand with Ukraine. The United States can walk and chew gum at the same time. And U.S. security assistance to Israel will flow in at the speed of war. The United States has Israel's back,

and that is not negotiable. Are the wars in Israel and Ukraine more than the United States can take on at the same time? We're the United States of America, for God's sake. The most powerful nation in the history, not in the world, in the history of the world. The history of the world. We can take care of both of these and still maintain our overall international defense. Paul Jay Very strong opinions on what each of them said,

but you're the guest. I want to hear your views first. Susan Glasser Well, I think what Austin, what Secretary Austin said is we can flow the weapons that we have into these theaters. He didn't say we could win. I didn't hear him say we could win. I didn't hear him say we could change things. And I think he knows very well he's not going to say that because it's not true. And in the case of Biden, you know, I'm sorry, he looks insane to me in that picture. And I think once he's no longer president, these images of him making statements like this will come back to haunt not just him,

but the whole Democratic Party and our country. It is a sad state of affairs that someone who is not in touch with reality to the extent that Biden is not in touch with reality is sitting as our president and has been for, I think, three years now. It's insane. This idea, the other thing that crossed my mind is I thought he said we weren't fighting against Russia. I thought he said we weren't engaging in war in Ukraine or, in fact, engaging in war in Tumas.

But he seems to believe that we are, and he's admitted it. So he's out of control. His handlers are not even able to control the things he says. This attitude that we're the United States of America, for God's sakes, the most powerful country in the world, in the history of the world. I think I'm quoting him precisely. This is an anti-Diluvian attitude. I mean, has he forgotten Vietnam? Has he forgotten Afghanistan? Has he forgotten Iraq? Has he forgotten nearly every land war we fought since World War II.

If you think he looks insane, Karen, take a look at him. He's seated next to, this is earlier today, he's seated next to Prime Minister Netanyahu. And Chris, this is the first of the three cuts, the one where he talks about slaughter. Terrorist group Hamas has slaughtered, as has been pointed out, over 1,300 people. And it's not hyperbole, it's just slaughtered. Slaughtered. And including 31 Americans as part of that.

And they've taken scores of people hostage, including children. They're committed evils and atrocities that make ISIS look somewhat more rational. You know, Americans are worried because we know this is not an easy field to navigate, what you have to do. Embarrassing, humiliating, and quite frankly, sad, Karen. Yeah, it really is. And his language of how powerful we are actually is undermined by every word that he says. And the fact that the people that deal with him on a peer-to-peer level, his counterparts around the world, see him exactly for what he is.

And he is a senile man in the early stages of dementia. He is run by a very narrow group of ideologues in terms of foreign policy. They recognize that. And he can't be trusted. Because it's not sure he knows even what he's saying at any given time, or that he remembers it. And I wanted to say on these wars that we've had in the last 45 years, he's been serving in politics. He's been fighting those wars, but he's never participated in them. I mean, to them, I'm sure he sees them as something that he can view from a book or from a movie screen.

They're not real to him. Karen, you spent the bulk of your career in the military. How do military officers and grunts, the ones that really expose their bodies to destruction, feel when the commander of chief sounds like he hasn't slept in a week? Yeah, well, certainly not inspiring. And, you know, they say that the soldiers always in every war in every country, you don't fight for your president, you fight for the guy next to you. And thank God for that. Because, yeah, it's a huge embarrassment. And I think, you know, talk about we can't recruit people. I wonder why.

You know, just one, you know, you've got Biden. That's an anti-recruitment poster. Every time he walks somewhere, every time he opens his mouth, I don't know if you remember when he was campaigning and he called names, they didn't get the right amount of applause on a military base I don't know if you remember when he was campaigning and he called names. They didn't get the right amount of applause on a military base, and he called them a bunch of names. It's a disaster. I'm going to show you one more in which he refers to Hamas as the other team, almost as if this is a football game.

Chris? I was deeply saddened and outraged by the explosion at the hospital in Gaza yesterday. And based on what I've seen, it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you. But there's a lot of people out there who are not sure. So we've got to overcome a lot of things. I'm not a fan of Prime Minister Netanyahu, but boy, I feel badly for him. Does he feel so out of place sitting next to old Joe dithering on like that? I don't know.

Maybe they had a rough flight over on Air Force One, but he just looked terrible. Yeah. His drugs are wearing off. It is sad. And this language doesn't help. And also what I saw, I had watched that video before and it very much, it seems like he's talking about the propaganda campaign, you know, when he talks about the other team and, you know, we have work to do. I don't think anything Biden says is believable. And I think increasingly we're seeing people, much as the Arab countries pushed away the visit with both Biden, and I think Lincoln was pushed away too and treated badly, they really want some space between them and the American president. He is not respected. He's not trusted. And it's, you know, we really, we have to hope Russia and China and maybe a few other global, you know, leaders will step up and resolve this problem because I don't think we're capable of it. Notwithstanding the statements by Secretary Austin and the President,

Ukraine can't have much hope left, can it? No, I don't think so. And the secreting in of the attack on us and the use of them actually was one of the first times I've seen the U.S. and Ukraine operate as if they're in a war, because you don't want to advertise your weaponry and, you know, you want to keep an element of surprise of some sort. But I think we are very at the very desperate end of our ability to send more weapons of any types into Ukraine. And I think the Ukrainians themselves are done with it. And, you know, again, the investors have their eyes. The vultures are ready to start a new phase for Ukraine.

Paul Jay Wall Street wants the world over because they want to start lending money to construction companies to rebuild what was destroyed in the war. That's right. That's right. And the wheel turns and the cycle continues. Go ahead, Karen. I worry about Zelensky and I've been worried about him on a personal level. I mean, he's chosen the path that he's on, but, you know, he is probably not going to be able to work in the next phase, which is not war, but rebuilding. And, you know, I don't know how they're going to resolve the Zelensky thing because Zelensky is still actually he's he's like the only one left that's saying, oh, we have to keep fighting. We have to push the Russians all the way back. You know, he's he's talking in last year's language when all the money is talking about 2024 language. And he's the odd man out. He's going to have to be dealt with in some way. But again, who's to judge? I mean, we have Biden as our president.

So I'm really going to be careful about criticizing other people's presidents. Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski, my dear friend, always a pleasure. Thank you very much for joining us. Thank you for having me. Okay. More as we get it, of course. Tomorrow at 2.30 in the afternoon, Colonel Doug McGregor will be back. At 2 o'clock, Professor Michael Rechtenwald, a brilliant libertarian theoretician,

will be here to discuss the evils of war and the evils of government. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. I'm out.