Judging Freedom - Col. Karen Kwiatkowski : Who's doing the thinking in Washington?

Episode Date: October 31, 2023

Do you think that Biden or any of his people can say to Netanyahu, stop killing the innocents because you're going to bring Iran, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Turkey into this war and we don't feel like fighting them for you? - Well, Israel does what it wishes, we fund it and we continue to fund it and we give them extra money when they run out and they don't listen to us. Now, there is something that Biden could do and the whole world is asking that he do this and that is to demand a ceasefire and he is not and this opportunity, this most recent hospital tent massacre is certainly one more opportunity to demand a ceasefire. And this would further, this would be something 'cause the rest of the world also wants this not just the United States, but see right now we are continuing by day, ruling out any ceasefire. Who's doing the thinking in Washington? Because it sounds to me it's Netanyahu doing the thinking in Washington.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, October 31st, 2023. Lieutenant Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski joins us now. Colonel Karen, thank you very much for joining us. How dangerous to international stability do you think might be or is the unleashed Israeli military into Gaza? I think it's extremely dangerous. Israeli military into Gaza? I think it's extremely dangerous. I'm on the side of people who are extremely worried about potential for this to expand, not just out of control there, but have ramifications that we in the United States are not prepared for and much of the rest of the world has not seen before. And, you know, it's not, I'll repeat something I heard on a military guy, this is not the world of 20 years ago.

It's not the world of 40 years ago. You know, we have whole new generations now that have grown up connected information-wise, visually connected, you know, connected emotionally to other people. We have, the West is filled with people who have been raised that we should have peace and justice, even though their governments don't believe in this, the people themselves expect it. And so what we're seeing and what's happening and what's likely to continue to happen in Gaza is going to have an impact, which I don't think we're prepared for.

Right before we went on air, the Israelis admitted bombing a refugee camp in Gaza. We don't even know the number of casualties, but it will be a lot, and we'll be hearing about it very soon. And then they boasted, well, there was a Hamas leader in there, and we were after him, and all the other deaths are collateral damage under the laws of war. Well, that is an absurd reading of the laws of war, but it is characteristic of what we might expect to see as the IDF marches southward into Gaza. Do you think, I know you're not an infantry person, you're Air Force, but do you think that this is a lure to lure them into a pincer movement, a trap, or do you think they have the upper hand and will continue to demolish the whole society there, human and infrastructure, as it existed on October 6th? I think the intention

of the Israeli government, the current government, if they can do it, if they can get away with it internationally and if they are capable militarily of doing it, is to demolish it, to clear. It is to depopulate the Gaza, depopulate it initially of Palestinians, both Hamas, other Palestinians. They want the people out of there and they need to eliminate the possibility of that second, that constantly concerning second front or first front. But they have two borders they're particularly concerned about, Israel, and this is one of them. And so they want to solve this problem. This is a problem-solving exercise. And one of the national newspapers, one of the, I forget which one, in Israel, published a leaked document that put forth exactly this plan as the recommended plan by the Ministry of Intelligence, which is not organized the way ours is.

But the very fact that that would go out and I say leaked, well, everything that's leaked is leaked on purpose. And it is expected that this was put out into the local paper, the national paper in Hebrew, not translated, but put out there to see if the Israelis themselves would support this in their anger and their frustration and their fear that they're going through right now. Would this be something that could work? And of course, one of the big problems, and they admitted it, they said, this is one thing we have to take care of is international opinion, because it will look like we are exterminating a defenseless population. That's what it will look like. So can we, how do we shift and shape this to make it work? So I think they clearly of regard. But do you think the Israeli public supports Netanyahu in this campaign, knowing as it must what will happen,

how the rage of the rest of the Arab world, we'll show you President Erdogan again in a minute, and what this could do to Israel? Yeah, I think that they are not on board completely. And we know already prior to October 7th and this event, this attack that was so frightening, they were not on board with Netanyahu at that point. I mean, he has divided the country politically in a number of different ways. He is a lightning rod as an individual. He's making changes that many in Israel don't want. So they weren't really supportive

of him. But what we see is what we always see when a country is attacked. People fall behind even the worst and the most incompetent of presidents. And we certainly did it ourselves behind the great George W. Bush after 9-11. So it's expected that there will be a honeymoon period, I think, where Israel will support and not go against Netanyahu because it's a crisis, it's a war, it's a wartime government. How it plays out over the next weeks and months and how the world attention goes and what the reaction is, that will make the difference. But, you know, Israelis, I mean, they live in a small country surrounded by ostensible enemies who don't want them there. They care very much about

survival. They don't want to move anywhere else. If Israelis wanted to move somewhere else, they certainly could. The world is open. They live there because they want to live there. They love it there. So they don't want their life and what they have destroyed. Okay. Nobody does. And they certainly don't. So I think there's a potential for, I guess, peace. We're not allowed to use the word ceasefire, but I think there is a movement, as there always is in countries, particularly like Israel, that is a peace movement. That is a movement for how do we make something work? And of course, obviously, when you're blinded by emotion and rage and a really bad political leadership, it's a problem to see how this is going to come out.

I think that the Israeli public will turn on Prime Minister Netanyahu as soon as the war is over. This happened on his watch. This happened while he slept, figuratively and literally. And his great claim to fame, every time he ran and won for prime minister, it was, I and I alone can keep you safe. And here, this is the greatest attack in the history of their country, because his intelligence, his community, his military, and the political community slept. And he knows that once the, they're not going to change horses in the middle of the war but once the war is over the wrath will rise up against him uh take a look at uh the latest uh clip from president erdogan of turkey and tell me if you think uh this is dangerous hey israel how did you come here how did you enter here Ya İsrail sen buralara nasıl geldin? Nasıl geldin?

Sen bir işgalcisin. Sen bir örgütsün. Dolayısıyla Türk milleti bunu biliyor. İsrail biz de seni savaş suçlusu olarak dünyaya ilan edeceğiz. Gazze'de savunma değil açık ve asla bir katliam to the world. What is being done in Gaza

is not defense, but an open and despicable massacre. This determined and faithful stance exhibited by Gazans will be written in history as a glorious epic of resistance. All right, now here's a country many times the size of Israel, with a military many times the size of Israel,

with a leader who would love to be the general, generic leader of public opinion amongst Arabs, Raoul, and rising up about 500,000 to 750,000 people on a Sunday afternoon. Wow. Yeah. And as I'm watching him, you know, for many years, Turkey was Israel's friend in the region. I mean, a trading partner. They worked together. And I know when I was in the Pentagon, we considered that relationship to be one that advantaged us to some extent, because Turkey being NATO and, you know, both our friends working together. For him to, you know, he's a political leader and he understands the people's concerns. And those crowds are everywhere, not just in Turkey. So he is definitely on the right side

of the global opinion, at least mass public opinion about Israel. Yeah, Israel's being isolated. That's what I, isolated in a way that however, how will they get back into the society of polite nations? I don't see it happening. And this goes beyond them dumping Netanyahu, which I agree he has failed them in many, many ways and taken a gamble with what he's doing. But even if they stopped, even if they did the ceasefire now and stopped invading and decimating Gaza, called it even, even if they did that, Israel is already in a hole that will take far better leadership than they've had and maybe more money than they have to dig themselves out of with the rest of the world community. Do you see the American military coming to Israel's aid if outside forces try to oust Israel from Gaza? Yeah, see, this is the problem. You know,

we shouldn't. We shouldn't do that. But when you have all these aircraft carriers, you've got two in the Med or soon to be two in the Eastern Med. We've got a Persian Gulf carriers. I think there's, I think someone was saying there's a third of our fleet sitting there as sitting duck potentially for all the various folks that might want to do something to one of our carriers as either a false flag or as an actual reaction to military threat or military action. Yeah, we're there. Our government speaks as one with Netanyahu. How we got to here, I don't, I can't believe it, but it does. And so we are highly vulnerable to being sucked into this very deep hole that Israel has dug for itself. Do you think that there is a danger that other countries will get involved? You wrote

a compelling piece recently published at lewrockwell.com called Imagine. I'll just read the first few lines. Imagine a big war, a global war with the U.S., the NATO artifice, and tiny Israel against the rest of the world. Can you imagine that the neocons in the American government, those who lust for blood at all counts. Somebody quoted for me the other day, my friend Tom Woods, whom I think you know, saying in America, no matter who you vote for, you get John McCain. On foreign policy, that seems to be the case. His acolyte, Lindsey Graham, is trying to outdo the late Senator McCain. But we'll keep personalities out of this. Do you think the neocons are so

thirsty for blood that they would allow Israel, that they would generate a big war and then not come to Israel's defense? I think in the neocons' perspective that the United States is invincible. And so they not only wish to promote and support Israel in its wars, which is it doesn't have much peace. So most of what Israel does seems to be like in the United States, and the neocons want to support that. But neocons do it with a perspective, very ignorant perspective, that we are invincible in the United States, that the world is afraid of us, that we will prevail against any enemy or any combination of enemies. And that's not true. They are mistaken about that. They aren't military strategists.

They aren't great minds. As far as I'm concerned, most of them are poorly educated in strategy. They don't really understand what they're advocating for. So I think that they would sink the United States, Israel sinking itself, and we're helping. But when Israel sinks deeper into war or becomes an expanded war, we will be right there with it, fighting and being fought with. And in the neocons' view, that's a good thing because we're invincible, okay? But they haven't been following- Well, where have they been for the last 30 or 40 years if they think we're invincible? Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, where are these people? Well, they certainly don't fight in any of these wars, and they don't have any relatives that are

in the military. You know, a lot of folks get an image of how good or not good or how effective or ineffective our military is because they have relatives or they themselves have been a part of it, or they closely monitor, and they have a perspective that allows them to understand this is good and this is not good. This is effective, this is not effective. The neocons are a very isolated group. There's none that have worn a uniform of the United States, maybe an IDF uniform, not an American uniform. They don't have relatives or children in the military.

They don't have cousins in the military. They don't really think about the military. They don't really think about the military. And they just figure it's there. It's there to be used. It's never going to change. It doesn't evolve. It's not impacted by other factors. They think it's there. It's like a given. And that is a huge mistake because our military is not in any way, shape, or form capable of conducting a one-front war a two front war, or a three front war. We can't do any of that. And certainly we can't do it in the Med and in the Persian Gulf. That is the death knell for our military capability. And I don't know, maybe they think they'll skip all

that and go straight to nuclear war. I don't know. That's what concerns me a little bit, because they are so unrealistic and poorly educated about how military combat works. And I suppose you have to add a parenthetical phrase here, and they surround the President of the United States. Absolutely. Absolutely. They're isolated in Washington, but they are far more influential in decision-making of the Congress, our president, even to some extent our military leadership, which has been criticized as being, and I think I criticized them more than one time, but our military leadership itself is not a thinking, we don't have a thinking man's army. We do not have an army that is well-led, an air force that's well-led. The Pentagon itself is just another arm of the defense industrial establishment. So no one up there in D.C. is getting very good information, unless they're watching your show or some of the other places where people talk, frankly, with a variety of people who understand how some of these things

work. They don't pay attention to that. They are not educated by that. And that endangers all Americans. It endangers us. And most of us are paying attention. And we don't, we are going to be surprised if something really terrible happens. When is the last time that our military was world class? When Dwight D. Eisenhower was the Supreme Allied Commander? Probably, I mean, in my opinion, maybe after World War II, by the standards of the day, we were last standing and I think had probably had high quality people. We had a lot of skilled, experienced people. You know, I would like to say that it extended past then. But if you look at Vietnam as a case study or even even Korean War, but if you look at Vietnam specifically as a case study, already we were seeing extremely bad military and civilian leadership treating the military

as really a plaything of Washington, not for defense of the country, but just something that they could move along a chessboard. And if they made a mistake, that's okay. We'll just, we'll pour more money. It's been in decline really since before Vietnam, but I wish it wasn't that way. You know, I'd like to think we have a very powerful and effective military, but honestly, I cannot get out of my head the lost F-35 in South Carolina. They're running, they're putting public service announcements to the public in South Carolina saying, have you seen our airplane? This is the top, this is our top aircraft that fights battles for us. And we can't even track it on our own airspace after, you know, after the pilot ejects. I mean, I don't, why did he eject from the airplane? Why do they have to ground the F-35? I mean, this is very, very concerning. And I think

people that see our military honestly have these concerns and our politicians are willing to go. Let's go. Let's go fight a war on one, two or three fronts. Let's just do it. We'll win. They will not win. We will not win. Very, very frightening to me. What do you think will be the result of. Take that back. What is the purpose of those aircraft carriers where they are? One of them has 3,000 Marines on there. I suppose if you ask the Secretary of Defense, he will say, well, to help in evacuation if we release the American hostages. But why would 3,000 Marines

actually be there? Is that not a provocation? I said three, I meant two, 2,000 Marines in the aircraft barrier in the eastern Mediterranean. Right. Yeah, it's definitely a provocation. It's a preemptive threat, I guess, to tell various countries that might fire on Israel that they better not do it because we will retaliate with our standoff weapons and potentially come ashore. That's what Marines do. They come ashore. That's kind of their job. I think it's a threat. And the question is, what's backing it up? What comes after? What are we planning for? I think some of my concern is our president is not aware of much. I'm not sure who's running Washington. So the folks around him don't have military experience.

They don't understand history. They don't understand strategy. So they're putting this over there as if a very simple one dimensional answer will be OK. We're going to tell them if they fire on Israel while Israel is evacuating the entire country of Gaza or territory, that if they do anything, we will fire on them. OK, what's what's what comes after that? And what comes after that? And after that, I don't think they can find out. What can Joe Biden do? Well, hundreds, hundreds were killed in the attack on that camp that I just told you about. Hundreds of defenseless, innocent refugees in order for the Israelis to kill one Hamas commander. And the Israelis are defending it from the perspective of international law.

I don't even remember what I was going to, oh, I know what I was going to ask you. Do you think that Biden or any of his people can say to Netanyahu, stop killing the innocents because you're going to bring Iran, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Turkey into this war, and we don't feel like fighting them for you? Well, they could say that. We have, first, no credibility. We don't tell Israel what to do. Israel tells us what to do, and that's been that way for quite a long time. We'll give them $3.4 billion a year. That's right. That's right. We give them a lot of money, but it's all with no strings attached. We have no policy or usage requirements that we place on that. We never have. And whenever

someone suggests it, it is shot down in Congress. We don't want any reason. They can do whatever they want. They don't listen to us. But let's say we had a different president or an awake president, a live president, and he said those things to Netanyahu. This is the situation. You need to rein it in or these things will happen and we can't. We can either help you or not,

but we may not be able to. Just tell them the truth. It's not going to work unless that president has past credibility. And our whole series of presidents that we've had for the last 30 years have no credibility. Israel does what it wishes. We fund it and we continue to fund it and we give them extra money when they run out and they don't listen to us. Now, there is something that Biden could do and the whole world is asking that he do this and that is to demand a ceasefire. And he has not. And this opportunity, this most recent hospital tent tent massacre is certainly one more opportunity to demand a ceasefire. And this would further this. This would be something because the rest of the world also wants this, not just the United States. But see, right now we are continuing by day ruling out any ceasefire every day.

No, no ceasefire. The United States does not support a ceasefire. So who's who's doing the thinking in Washington? Because it sounds to me it's Netanyahu doing the thinking in Washington. I didn't I don't recall seeing him on my ballot. Colonel, dynamic, dynamic analysis, dynamic and courageous. You're so good. Thank you very much. The the viewers appreciate you I love you and we'll keep it up and we'll see you next week. OK, sure enough. Thank you. Thank you, Judge. All the best. Wow. Well, if you like that, more coming. Scott Ritter himself, 430 Eastern. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. I'm