Judging Freedom - Col. Karen Kwiatkowski : Proxy Wars Produce Enemies of the State

Episode Date: March 26, 2024

Col. Karen Kwiatkowski : Proxy Wars Produce Enemies of the StateSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Resolve to earn your degree in the new year in the Bay with WGU. With courses available online 24-7 and monthly start dates, WGU offers maximum flexibility so you can focus on your future. Learn more at wgu.edu. so so Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Tuesday, March 26th, 2024. Lieutenant Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski joins us today. Colonel, it's always a pleasure, my dear friend. Some breaking news today and in the past three or four days. So I'd like to address those items before we get to your incredible piece, When Proxy Wars Come Home, which is available at lewrockwell.com and at judgenap.com. Let's start with the news today. The High Court in Great Britain rejected six appellate arguments made by Julian Assange,

but did grant a few that would delay the extradition pending an assurance by the American government that A, he would not be exposed to the death penalty. B, he would be treated as American citizens are. He's obviously not being treated as British citizens are in this British hellhole where he's confined, and C, his First Amendment rights would be respected as if he were an American. I mean, are these judges naive? Who would believe any assurances from the United States government, much less one from the executive branch, guaranteeing what the judicial branch is going to do? Yeah, yeah. I don't think you can believe what the United States might promise, what the Department

of Justice certainly might promise, because they have lost all credibility in the way they've behaved, not just with the Assange case, but in many different situations. They're a very politicized Department of Justice. You just can't trust them. So I can't imagine that our word, the American Department of Justice, or President Biden's word, would be good. And if they want to bring him here, they'll say anything. And once he's here, they'll do whatever they please. You know, it's interesting. The Obama administration indicted Bradley Manning, now known as Chelsea Manning, for the theft of these documents and materials that Julian Assange

exposed. And they revealed very, very serious war crimes committed, not by the Obama people, but by the George W. Bush people. The Obama DOJ decided not to indict Assange based on the Pentagon Papers case and his First Amendment rights. It wasn't until the Trump DOJ came in. He had so many attorneys general, so I don't know which attorney general this was. It might have been Bill Barr. I'm not sure. If it wasn't you, attorney general Barr, I am not casting aspersions on you. I don't know which AG authorized this, but someone did. And at one point I thought, because Trump used to call me on pardons and commutations that I had talked him into pardoning Assange, either I failed or somebody changed his mind. But the Pentagon Papers case stands for the proposition that journalists can

publish anything of material interest to the public, no matter what it is, no matter what it says, and no matter how they got it, without civil or criminal liability. That's called a free press. That's the foundation of Western civilization, really. It's certainly something that we depend on here in this country. And, of course, the government doesn't like it. And wasn't it one of the Supreme Court justices who said, oh, the First Amendment really strangles the government. It really is constraining on government. It's like, duh, lady, that's what it's for. Correct. Correct. You know, the government always complains, oh, the Fourth

Amendment's a pain in the neck. The First Amendment doesn't let us say whatever we want. Well, that's why we have a constitution, so that the government is an obstacle to your interference with our fundamental liberties. But it doesn't matter we have not the natural right to speak we have the first amendment protected right to speak they'll still lock somebody up in a hellhole over the speech uh that he gave they'll still spy on people they have five years worth of his conversations from the basement of the ecuadorian embassy conversations with his wife and his lawyer yeah Yeah. There's somebody, there's some at a lower level of the Department of Justice in that Eastern District Court of

Virginia that prosecutes a lot of these types of cases. There's some people in there who are hung up about Assange. They feel personally betrayed or something embarrassed to the max by what was released, you know, the murder tape. I mean, the tapes that Manning was punished for revealing, that angered them so much, they will not drop this bone. And so I don't know what's motivating it, but it is not United States government. It's not United States interest to keep pursuing him and to keep the indictment going. And it's not in really most of the government's interest to do it either. There are people in government, maybe deep state justices or whatever, and even lower than that, like FBI agents who are determined that this guy's going to pay, kind of like the Pompeo attitude. There are people that

share Pompeo's attitude that we should do something about this. This was really wrong that he embarrassed the United States government. And this cannot stand. And these people have this attitude, and it's actually very un-American. It's very totalitarian, really. And certainly it hates the Constitution. And these people, we employ them. We also, in addition to everything else that we do that's terrible in this world, that's paid for by American taxpayer dollars,

prosecuting Assange and paying the salaries of the people that insist that this is something that must be done, that will really solve a problem. We're paying for all of that, just to remind everybody, you're paying for it. It's reprehensible. I mean, the Pentagon Papers case couldn't be more on point. I don't want to get into the weeds of Supreme Court history, but it's clearly the law of the land that journalists can publish whatever they get their hands on. Do you think there's any credibility in the intelligence community, either domestic or foreign, to the statements by the United States government within 55 minutes of the conclusion of the horrible attack on the Russian theater that, oh, it wasn't Ukraine, and it was ISIS-K. Who the heck would believe that? They hadn't even caught these guys yet.

No, no. No, I think that's an example of the kind of people that are running our government. They don't even know how to proceed with a good lie. You know, they jumped the gun, which, of course, revealed everything. If in 55 minutes of a very confusing event and deadly and foggy event that happened halfway around the world, if in 55 minutes, you know who did it, you know, who didn't do it, you've got all that cleared up. That reveals insight. That reveals foreknowledge. So why would you not wait another, you know, six hours? But they couldn't.

They couldn't wait. They couldn't wait because they don't know what they're doing. But yeah, no, there's zero credibility with that. I mean, absolutely zero. The warning that they put out to our diplomatic posts in Russia that all of the Americans should stay away from concert halls. But they don't bother to reveal their sources or any information to the targets of this, which of course, we saw what happened. So yeah, they have zero credibility. You can't believe anything they say. And actually, the style is offensive. I mean, if you're going to be a good liar, come on. That's all they do is lie. We ought to be better at it

than what they are. Karen, can you connect any dots between CIA, MI6, GRU, the Ukrainian intelligence services and this event? Well, I mean, first off we've, we've seen as Ukraine is losing the war and it has been for quite a long time, really since the beginning. But as they run out of soldiers, they run out of money and Western support. He's fired a lot of his people. And what's left to them is terrorist type attacks. So you've got these drone attacks deep into Russia. attacks towards civilian targets, really, because they're hoping to either provoke Putin into an overreaction or to simply help their, well, we want this war to be unpopular in Russia.

And even though Russia is pretty much right next door, they don't really understand how the Russians view what's happening. But that's their tool. That's the only thing left in their toolkit. So terrorist attacks are part of what they've been using really for the last six or seven months. I mean, it's something you can see. And it's part of the end for Ukraine. I mean, this is all they have left. But then you have, you know, Victoria Nuland, right before she stepped down, retired, she said, we've got nasty surprises. Well, when you say the word nasty surprises, and that he she's talking about for Putin, nasty surprises, I mean, the normal person who watches or pays attention to what our government does, nasty surprise department is the CIA. That's who produces nasty surprises.

Our military does not do that. It takes, you know, lots of planning and publicity. Rarely does the military produce a nasty surprise, but the CIA is the house of nasty surprises. So when she says that, and then we see an uptick in terrorist attacks deep into Russia from Ukraine, and then we have this event at the Crocus Theater. These things all make a normal person say, well, I wonder if there's a connection there. And of course, it's probably why the U.S. this for three or four days now that there wasn't at least some foreknowledge on the part of the CIA or some willful indifference. And if that can be established, Karen, this is an act of war. an act of war, because there's no military benefit. There's no legal adversity between the United States and Russia, although we are fighting a proxy war against them. But there's no military benefit to this at all. This is not only an act

of war, it's a war crime if a state, if a government was involved in the slaughter. Yeah. If they can track it back to Americans in policy or to NATO people in policy or to U.S. connected people that are running Ukraine, if any of these connections come back and supposedly they use Telegram to make all the coordination. Well, you know, I like Telegram. I think it's great. But I think the CIA also likes it. And I think the CIA, you know, monitors it. So I don't think this is going to be a big problem for them to track back how this thing was put together. And if any of those

connections are made to the United States government, to NATO, to NATO countries, and with or without Ukraine's involvement, it probably has Ukraine's fingerprints all over it. But once the data comes out on that, yeah, that's an act of war. And I don't know, I don't know. See, our government is not led by people who really understand what wars mean. So I don't think Biden understands what an act of war is. So I don't think they're thinking like that. But indeed, from the Russian perspective, this is that existential threat, this war with the West that will require the type of combat that is conclusive. And so, you know,

we're talking the possibility of nuclear weapons. So Why would we do this in that environment? Again, I don't have an answer, but I think there's something mentally deranged about the people running our government. Well, the people running our government vetoed Security Council resolutions, calling for a ceasefire three times, then proposed their own. It was so watered down, it really would have affected nothing. And the Russians and the Chinese vetoed it and then abstained on one on Monday. Were you surprised or is this just another act of deception? Because the American ambassador and Admiral Kirby, you know, the Baghdad Bob of today, don't worry about it. It's not binding. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. That's the only reason they did it, because it's not binding. And they know that and they abstain so they can say, well, we didn't endorse it. This is a totally about domestic politics in the Democratic Party. That is, that's all that is. You know, Biden is losing a huge number of his liberal supporters who come from a I think a peace perspective in many ways. I mean, not all Democrat Democrats in Congress seem to be pro-war, but the average Democrat in this country is not pro-war, just like the average Republican is not pro-war. So he's trying to, you know, scrape back in some of his lost support. He thinks this will do

it. And don't worry, wink, wink, nod, nod to Netanyahu. Doesn't mean anything. Just do whatever you want. And oh, by the way, we didn't stop any money. We didn't stop any weapons. They're still coming. Don't even worry about it. You're good to go. That's pretty much the message. And this whole idea that Netanyahu angrily withdrew his delegation that was going to come talk about the invasion of Rafah with Joe Biden and the Congress, that was all fake anyway. I mean, were they really going to make a decision and do a strategy? Congress does not involve itself in war strategies. And Netanyahu doesn't have to listen to Biden. And Biden doesn't even know where he is half the time. So that's all for show. And so now Netanyahu can

say, oh, Biden really, he really put airspace between Zionist Israel and the White House. And I'm so angry. I'm not going to send my delegation. As if that delegation was going to change anything as a result of coming to Washington. It wasn't. All for show, including that resolution. How dangerous is the blowback when the United States government, any government, we'll just concentrate on the U.S., engages in proxy wars, whether they're trade wars, monetary wars, or hot wars. Now, this is a fascinating, fascinating subject. If you are interested in the subject, Colonel Kwiatkowski has written a definitive piece. It's only maybe 1,200 words, but it's definitive, which you can see at judsnap.com. But Karen, please address this,

the lying, cheating, stealing, murdering, use of non-state, sub-state actors that comes about in proxy wars. Yeah. Well, particularly in proxy wars where we engage with really the lowest levels of society. We engage with mercenaries, criminal groups, rebellious groups who are already very much accustomed to terrorist type campaigns. And we involve ourselves with them very much like we did with the drug war too. In the drug war, you know, the CIA and DIA very much embedded themselves with major drug manufacturers and transporters. And a lot of corruption happened as a result of that. And we learned from each other. They learned from us, we learned from them. And when we engage in these proxy wars, particularly Ukraine is a good example, but

we have many in the 21st century for sure. We gain skills. First off, we associate with people that we would never associate with in a public life. You wouldn't. You just would not do that. But our government and our soldiers and our people that are in the ploy of the government are associating with the scum of the earth, people who are actual criminals, and we're paying them and we're hiring them and we're encouraging them and we're setting some of them up, as we've seen in some of the domestic plots that the FBI had. You know, we'll talk people into things and work with people that really we would never

work with, but it serves a purpose. But what happens is, and my point in writing this was your government, the United States government develops a certain skillset when it plays these games. And pretty soon that skillset starts to take away from what, what Americans expected their government, which is a defensive force, you know, like the Army, the Air Force, Navy, that kind of thing. We expect them to defend the American continent. We expect them to defend real American interests. But we spend all our time and effort in working with the criminal element so we can do proxy wars and do coups and color revolutions and manipulate because we think it's saving us money, or at least the

government thinks it's saving them money. We gain a skill set, we end up becoming strong. It's like if you only exercise one arm, that arm is going to get really strong. The other arm may atrophy, and that's kind of what we have. But what's atrophying is the constitutional role of government. What's atrophying is our own capabilities to defend ourselves in this country. We have very little of that anymore. But what's strengthened is the ability to use other people and con people and buy things to change governments and to change populations and even to do things like mass murder, that kind of thing.

Do you think that all of this, that the impetus for all of this is to transform the American Republic into an empire? I think we're already an empire. I think they want to maintain the empire, number one. And they also, and the reason we have recent empires even evolve is because they want resources that are beyond their borders and they don't want to pay for them. They don't want to trade to get those resources. They want to have them. They want to take them. And so we have been an empire for many decades, many, many decades, really over a century.

We've been an empire that has taken. We get our eyes on something that we think will be useful to us. We want to take it. We want to control the governments that have think will be useful to us. We want to take it. We want to control the governments that have it so that they do what we ask them to do. So we are an empire. That empire is failing. It's ending. But there are people that don't want it to end. So they're like, okay, well, if we could just change this government or weaken this enemy, but we can't do it directly because American people don't want war. So we'll do it with proxy wars. We'll do it with proxy wars. We'll do it with proxy forces.

We'll do it with ISIS. You know, I mean, we are responsible for ISIS and all of its little sub elements, you know, and we use them to assault our enemies or at least assault our government's enemies. So we practice this, but the empire is ending and the writing's been on the wall for that for a couple of decades already. It's ending.

These proxy wars, they don't succeed. I mean, look at what's happening in Ukraine right now. They don't succeed, but we get better at it. And as the empire ends and as it contracts, our government has a great number of skills that they are bringing home. So I was talking about proxy wars coming home. What I really, I guess, meant was the government's skill at manipulating, propagandizing, and murdering populations and using the criminal element and other non-American forces to do it. They're going to bring that home. I think it's already

starting to come home and we're seeing it to some extent. But that skill set is what we as American citizens, not only did we pay to have it, we weren't paying attention as they developed this skill set. It's going to be used on us. It's being used on us in many ways. I mean, the surveillance state that we say, oh, that's for foreign countries that are our enemies, you know, that's so we can help turn countries into democracies or whatever. That surveillance state is used on American citizens on a daily basis. And this, I mean, how many, 10 years ago when Ed Snowden explained how it worked and, you know, the NSA was violating the constitution. So they changed

some rules and slapped somebody on the hand and that was all they did. But we are, we are the targets. The American people are now the targets of their own government and the government skills, what we're doing. And this is why you have to pay attention to foreign policy. And we don't, we don't normally do that. But if you look at how our government operates and who they use and how they get what they want, who they associate with, how they use money, how they lie, how they propagandize, how they murder innocent populations if they think it will help them out. As we look at that, we have to realize that's our government. And when they come after us, they're going to use all those tools. Every one of those tools is going to be used at home because abroad proxy wars do not succeed. They just cost you a lot of money and kill a lot of other people.

They don't really succeed. The age of empire, the age of the American empire is over. And we are now in the contraction stage. And unfortunately, we have a government that's very good at doing very terrible things. Terrific,, Karen. Let me just transition before we finish. Why does Israel always seem to get its way with the United States government? Did Chuck Schumer run that speech past APEC?

Did they agree with it? Is the donor class going to turn on Joe Biden? Is Joe Biden going to flip over to the interests of the Palestinians in Michigan? No, no. Is there any morality underlying these foreign policy decisions? No, there's no morality. There is some money. There is a fact of money that Congress is bought and paid for. And some of the people that have helped buy them is, of course, Israeli lobbies and Zionists in general, whether they're American or otherwise, very interested in how the resources of the United States are used to help Israel. But from the United States perspective, we really see Israel as a Western proxy in the Middle East. A lot of Americans have kidded themselves, certainly in the government side,

that we can manage Israel, we can control Israel. And then back home in Israel, they're saying the same thing about us. Oh, don't worry about Americans. We can handle them, we can control Israel. And then back home in Israel, they're saying the same thing about us. Oh, don't worry about Americans. We can handle them. We can control them. But the idea of, again, the reason I mentioned them in this article is because they are a proxy state for the American empire in particular, vis-a-vis the Middle East and oil and that kind of thing. So, and we benefit greatly from their criminal acts and from their intelligence and from their ability to do things that are unconstitutional for the United States to do. Of course, not that that stops the United States government, but it's kind of like how

the CIA uses the mafia or did back in the day when the mafia was useful. The mafia can murder people. Well, can the CIA murder people? CIA uses the mafia or did in the back in the day when the mafia was, was useful. You know, the mafia can murder people. Well, can the CIA murder people? Well, sure they can, but you know, it's a little bit not, it's frowned upon. So yeah, we we've used them. They, they've used us and that relationship is about empire. It's about extending and maintaining empire. And that, that story's over with. It really is. And now all we're left with is what we're seeing. The United States is, you know, we are funding the slaughter and the destruction of Gaza. And we will continue to do that until there's nothing else to do. And then the whole world's going to turn against Israel, which it mostly already has, and also against the United States. And this is how empires end. It's not pretty. It's very

painful for the people that are part of it, but that's what's coming. And I think many people realize this, but it's not going to be easy and it's going to hurt as we go to being a normal country. We're not there yet. Great, great analysis, my dear friend. Thank you very much for your time. It's a great piece for those of you that want a nice, serious, but not very long study of this. When proxy wars come home by the great Karen Kwiatkowski, just Google it and it'll pop up or go right to judgenap.com

and you'll see it there. Karen, until next week, my dear friend, thank you for your time and look forward to seeing you, of course. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you, Judge. You're welcome. Tomorrow, Wednesday, Colonel Douglas McGregor at 11 o'clock in the morning Connor Freeman from libertarianism.org and antiwar.com at 2 o'clock Phil Giraldi at 3 o'clock Aaron Matei at 4 o'clock and Professor John Mearsheimer

at 5 o'clock an important day for all of us Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. We'll see you next time. WGU is an online accredited university that specializes in personalized learning. With courses available 24-7 and monthly start dates, you can earn your degree on your schedule. You may even be able to graduate sooner than you think by demonstrating mastery of the material you know. Make 2025 the year you focus on your future. Learn more at wgu.edu.