Judging Freedom - COL. Lawrence Wilkerson: Can Ukraine Make It to Nov 5th?

Episode Date: September 18, 2024

COL. Lawrence Wilkerson: Can Ukraine Make It to Nov 5th?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 Wednesday, September 18th, 2024. Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson joins us. Colonel, I have a lot to discuss with you from deep fake bans in explosive devices that had been secretly planted in the pagers that many of them were carrying with them. About 2,800 are injured and about 12 are dead, including two children. Earlier today, about another 200 to 300 of these devices went off and injured the people that were carrying them. Where is this going to lead us? Well, not us. Where is this going to lead the Israelis and Hezbollah, and then where will it lead us? I think your lead question is the critical one, but we'll get to that.

I think what we're seeing here is another attempt, because the 100-plane strike didn't do it, by Netanyahu to provoke Hezbollah to some sort of action that he can then declare is warlike to the extent that he can do what he wants to do with them. Even though I'm told with great confidence in the source, source says that the latest two visits by the Central Command Unified Commander were to tell him that we would not be with him in the event of his going to war with Hezbollah that he provoked, nor would we be with him going to war with Iran that he provoked. And we made it quite clear that we would know if he provoked it.

So I have to declare that... You're speaking of General Carrillo. Yes. So Scott Ritter agrees with you. Doug McGregor says he can't imagine Austin and Blinken letting General Carrillo do that. It's very, very interesting. Is this, forgive me, General, Colonel, is this speculation on your part or is it based on sources? Promotion accepted. I want to be there for it. It's based on some pretty reliable sources. And here's the bigger picture.

And I hope the others told you this too. Biden's fury, and you could see it. He was seething when he met with the British prime minister. Yes, yes, we have that clip. He was out of control with anger. And what he'd just been told, apparently, was by the Pentagon, no dice, Mr. President. No dice on Ukraine and no dice on Gaza. And we're in charge now.

No dice, you're talking about no dice on the long-range missiles reaching deep into Russia, even though Tony Blinken intimated all week in Kiev with his British counterpart that this was happening. And Sir Keir Starmer, the British prime minister, had every reason to believe as he's flying across the Atlantic that Joe Biden's answer would be yes. He was embarrassed. He was embarrassed by the fact he was pulling out his maps with target data. And Biden told him, don't even pull them out. We're not going to talk about that. I've been told, again, by fairly reliable sources, that Blinken and Sullivan, Blinken primarily, but Sullivan too,

have been sidetracked. And what's happened is the Pentagon has taken over essentially diplomacy, as well as any action, militarily speaking, with regard to both theaters of war. And so they're now in charge. I have to change my evaluation of Secretary Austin if that's the case, because it means he listened finally to the people in the bowels of the Pentagon who know the truth, and he's reacting to that, and he's told President Biden that, and to Biden's credit, even though he was furious, he finally took that advice. Colonel, you once ran the State Department. How does the Defense Department engage in diplomacy? They engage in diplomacy every day, every day. Their four stars

in the various synctoms, the regions that they control, the AORs, are the true U.S. diplomats. And some of them are very good at it. I saw some of them. I work with some of them who are very good at it, better than any secretary of state. But it shouldn't be that way. That's a parenthetical remark. We shouldn't have the military leading diplomacy, but we often do. And Japanese prime minister once told me why, to my face. He said, Larry, when your East Asia and Pacific assistant secretary comes out here, he's not got anything but his briefcase. When the man from Honolulu comes out here, from Camp Smith in Hawaii, comes out here, he's towing air wings, submarines, battle groups, marine amphibious groups, army divisions. I listened to him.

This is the prime minister of Japan. Who told General Carrillo to tell Prime Minister Netanyahu, if you invade Lebanon, you're on your own? It was, I think, Austin. That's the chain of command. Austin conveyed that message to him, but I

think it was Austin that convinced Biden to give him that command so he could transmit it to Sorella. Okay. The attacks of the exploding mobile devices. whether or not America is involved, or will this just anger the people in the Pentagon who advised the president, we cannot go into this war, we just can't do it? I'm not even sure, Judge, that we didn't have some complicity in this operation. That was going to be my next question. How could CIA not have known about this?

Yeah, simply from the point of view that they wanted to see if it would work. And they had a great test case and they use it. That would be my surmise. Don't know that. Let me say that quickly. I don't know that. But I think we've opened a Pandora's box here that we're going to regret having opened because there is no society on the face of the earth, as people are always pointing out to me from foreign countries, particularly China, that is more vulnerable than we are to these sorts of things, whether it be the simple act of charging some pagers with explosives that you then ship in and later explode remotely, or whether it be taking down

your entire financial system, your entire electrical power grid, other systems and networks in the country, we're the most vulnerable in the world. And I saw that firsthand when we went through 9-11 and tried to do something about it in the years post 9-11 and did a little bit, but it's just too open. It's too widely spread out. It's too distributed. It's too vulnerable is the best term for it. I mean, we've seen that vulnerability expressed when people would drive around and shoot out of the window of a car and bring down an entire power grid by a 30-30 round through a transmitter in a key place. This is the sort of thing that scares the bejesus out of me because

I know how vulnerable we are. Colonel, do I have to, and does everybody watching, have to have our mobile devices opened up to make sure there's no explosive in them? Well, that's a good question. That's a very good question. And explosives today are so miniaturizable and so deadly, even in that miniaturized form, in a certain radius, as this proved, that you can do it with almost any kind of instrument. Well, back to the Israelis. Prime Minister Netanyahu has leaked that he is contemplating and negotiating firing Defense Minister Gallant. Do we care? I think I do, because amongst these cretins, these genociders, these murderers,

there are a few that are less affected than others. And he may be one of them. Plus, he's giving some advice that is absolutely trenchant if Israel is going to survive in any form that looks like a state afterwards. He's giving advice that the IDF is giving him to you. And that's the reason Netanyahu also wants to get rid of the chief of staff of the IDF. He wants to put his man in there, a yes man. A lot of opposition right now in the ranks, especially the officer ranks of the IDF. And he wants to get rid of that. And he wants them just to blindly continue to follow his policy of killing as many Palestinians as possible so that Ben-Gabir can get in there and start settling Gaza, certainly the northern part, immediately.

I've been told they're already doing it in the northern part. So he wants to clean house and get all these people out of there who are opposed to him, want the hostages to be brought back, such as they are now, and wants a ceasefire and eventual peace agreement and to stop the military operations in Gaza in particular, and not too happy about the ones on the West Bank too. So he's got a real problem with the leaders that are in there right now, no matter how much we may be disgusted by some of them. They are, in fact, presenting a situation that says, we need to stop this boss. We need to stop it or your IDF is going to fall apart. Chris, can you put up the full screen again? This major general who's relatively young, recently retired from the IDF,

we can read together what he said. Our soldiers are winning every tactical encounter with Hamas, but we're losing the war and in a big way. Major General Gadi Shamni, former IDF Gaza Division. Put that up there. Put that up there for 20 plus years in Afghanistan. Our soldiers are winning every tactical encounter with the Taliban, but we're losing the war in a big way. Same thing. Wow.

So Netanyahu does not want a defense minister who agrees with that. The defense minister Gallant, for all of his mowing the lawn language, was speaking in behalf of the IDF. They're exhausted. They're losing. Don't, don't send them into Lebanon. Absolutely correct. And I think he's right. From a military professional point of view, he's right. You do not want to do this. And Netanyahu seems to be implacable in terms of being persuaded that he's going to keep himself out of prison and he's going to do everything he possibly can to make sure Gaza has not a single Palestinian left living above ground. Netanyahu has appointed a retired IDF colonel, I don't know if you've heard this, you ready for this, as the governor of Gaza. You talk about a legally meaningless, utterly arrogant, bellicose and baseless act. Nevertheless, it is revealing of his mentality, which you just characterized.

No Palestinians in Gaza, alive or dead. Yeah, I've seen a pricey of the plan that Smotrich and Ben-Gavir came up with. I'm told Ben-Gavir is the principal architect. But the plan is eventually to settle all of Gaza, but they're going to start in the north, of course. Wow. Switching over to Ukraine, Colonel, we already talked about the decision that President Biden reluctantly and angrily made. When the White House revealed this, they revealed it in a temporal sense. That is to say, they said there will be no announcement

Friday. That was last Friday when Prime Minister Stormer was there. There will be no announcement Friday on any long-term missiles. Is this subject to revisiting by the president? We know, Colonel, it cannot afford a obvious defeat or the perception of a Russian triumph before November 5th. That's what they're trying to do. They're trying to eke out another 50 plus days of we aren't cutting and running in order to assure they think the Democrats win the presidential election. That's the only conclusion I can come to. I have seen what domestic politics does, particularly short of an election to U.S.

foreign policy and security policy. And this is just another example, a rather egregious example. But that's what we're doing. We're trying to eke it out to get to the election. And if we're victorious, then even in the period between there and the inauguration, if we get through that in some sound shape, there might be some movement on board both theaters, because then they're assured of another four years. Until then, that's what's holding the sword of Damocles over both of these theaters of war. When President Putin said the following, and we'll play the clip, Colonel, before I want you to respond. How did the West perceive this? Chris, cut number five. It is not about allowing the Ukrainian regime to strike Russia with these weapons or not. It is about making a decision about whether NATO countries are directly involved in the

military conflict or not. If the decision is made, it will mean nothing less than the direct participation of NATO countries, the United States and European countries in the war in Ukraine. This is their direct participation and this, of course, significantly changes the very essence, the very nature of the conflict. This will mean that NATO countries, the United States, and European countries are fighting Russia. And if this is so, bearing in mind the change in the very essence of this conflict, we will make appropriate decisions based on the threats that will be created for us.

Prater, a promise. Putin also said, and I quote, the United States has made Ukraine a private military company fighting for Western interests in the heart of Europe. Putin is right. Yes. That is what we've done. I had an argument with a colonel just a few hours ago, and he was going on and on and on about how if Russia fought NATO, they would lose majorly. They couldn't even beat Ukraine. And so I said, wait, wait, wait, dude.

Russia's not fighting Ukraine. It's fighting the might of NATO through Ukraine. It's just not- Right now. Yeah, right now, this minute. And it's been defeated. Ukraine is on the road so badly right now that I hate to say this, but I think Zelensky's in grievous danger. Either he's going to step down and run to one of his dachas, or they're going to kill him. And they're going to have elections, they're going to stand down the martial law, and they're going to open negotiations. That's got to happen because there's got to be some sane people in Ukraine. Do you think that that statement by President Putin resonated in the Pentagon and threw

the Pentagon into the White House? Well, the Pentagon's talking with people in Russia. I'm convinced of that. And I've had one or two sources kind of indicate that. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. The America's chief diplomat, Henry Blinken, does not talk to the dean of the diplomatic corps, Sergei Lavrov, but Lloyd Austin talks to the head of the Russian defense ministry?

I know that Mark Milley was doing so, and I'm very confident that either C.Q. Brown or Austin or both of them are, and maybe even some of the service chiefs are, because they have contacts in the Russian military. They have not cut off those contacts because they realized it would be very dangerous to do so, just as it would have been during the Cold War when we talked to the Russians, and they had missiles on alert, and we had missiles on alert. The sanity is now coming from that region of the U.S. government where sanity with regard to war in particular normally comes from the soldiers, the sailors, the airmen, and the Marines, and the Coast Guard, and you have all harshly criticized the State Department for not speaking with its opposite numbers in Russia. And now we learn that the Defense Department is doing it and the communications are bilateral and getting through.

Yes. And we talked to people in Hitler's Germany. We talked to very high-ranking people in Hitler's Germany in 1943 and 1944. It's absolute nonsense to refuse to talk to your enemies. It's more important at times like these to talk to your enemies than it is your friends. Witness the poodle in London. It wouldn't hurt us if we never said a word to London again for a decade. Wow. Yesterday, the Ukrainian drones destroyed a Russian missile warehouse in a place called Toropets, T-O-R-O-P-E-T-S, Russia. 300 Russian Iskander missiles were destroyed together with

other anti-aircraft equipment, ammunitions. The explosion was so loud and dramatic, it was recorded on Russian, Ukrainian, and Eastern European seismographs. How significant is something like that? You didn't see this in the press, by the way, but how significant is something like this? Well, it's significant only in the sense that, you know, the seismographs went off the charts, maybe. It's not significant in saving Ukraine from its fate. Its fate is it is roundly and soundly defeated.

And all that will transpire from this moment on, actually from a few days ago on, will be more Ukrainians dying, more Russians dying, probably at a less rate, and nothing being accomplished other than maybe escalation that would be extremely dangerous. Because as you just indicated, this election business truly worries me. I don't put it past us for a moment to try some intermediate steps to escalate in order to make it look like we're not abandoning them and we're okay going into the election. Those steps could be misinterpreted. Those steps could be very dangerous, extremely dangerous, steps like the one you just talked about. I don't think that particular one is, but you never know when one is going to just convince Putin that he's got to do something and it's got to be big and

it's got to be extremely escalatory. Paul Jay Does the United States ever engage in false flags? Absolutely. Absolutely. Look at the Nord Stream pipeline, and we tried to blame that on a little crew of rowboat people from Ukraine. Good. Colonel, here's somebody that disagrees with you. This is for laughs, although he's purporting to be serious. But please note that as he speaks, seated next to him is one of your late boss's successors.

Without 40 or 50 pounds, he lost a lot of weight. God bless him, I give him credit for that. But you'll know who this is in a minute and you'll recognize who's next to him. Chris, cut number seven. As for the role the Ukrainians could themselves play in stability and security in the Euro-Atlantic area, it's obvious. Thanks to the heroism of the Ukrainian armed forces, they've been fighting for more than two years, almost three years. They are the most accomplished armed forces in the whole continent. And it's easy to see how they could play a very, very important role in peace and stability on the European continent. One of the arguments I think we should make to our American friends is if they want to take back some US troops from

the European theater and save a few billion, a lot of billion, Mike, then I'm sure the Ukrainians, having defeated the Russians, and there's nobody more effective at defeating the Russians than the Ukrainians, I'm sure the Ukrainians would be only too happy to backfill in Europe. Anyway, those are some of the things, some of the ways in which I think Ukraine can be a force for stability. Blood on his hands, Colonel. He's corroborating what an absolute ass he is. He reminds me of the cable that was sent from the station chief. I think he was in Beirut at the time, but he had about four or five different stations in 46 and 47. And he was really there posted to those stations to begin to work up a plan for the CIA, fresh caught and right off the Wild Bill Donovan board, if you will, to fight

the Soviet Union, because they realized the Soviets were going to be quite an antagonist. This guy sent a cable back to Washington, and he reinforced it with several more that said, hey, man, you guys need to get your act together. The real enemy here is not the Russians. It's the British. And he was right, because they were trying to reestablish their empire and continued to try right up to 1956 when Eisenhower put the stop to it. So the British are as much of our enemy as anybody else.

In fact, we maintained war plans to fight them for a long, long time. We only got rid of them a few years ago. We maintained war plans to fight the British where? Oh, yeah. In London? We maintained war plans to fight almost anybody of consequence. And we thought the British were of consequence when we knew they were diabolical. After all, they taught us all we know.

Boris Johnson is sort of a laughable example of that. Consequence, we knew they were diabolical. After all, they taught us all we know. Boris Johnson is sort of a laughable example of that. Boss's best known, most controversial and most despised successor said the following about the freedom of speech on Rachel Maddow's show, number 17. Russians, just as Mueller indicted a lot of Russians who were engaged in direct election interference and boosting Trump back in 2016. But I also think there are Americans who are engaged in this kind of propaganda. And whether they should be civilly or even in some cases criminally charged is something that would be a better deterrence because the Russians are unlikely, except in a very few cases, to ever stand trial in the United States. Do you believe that? Are we going to bring back the Alien and Sedition Act, whereby if you criticize American foreign policy, you could be prosecuted? She would. That woman would. That woman never got my vote. She never got my opinion that she could be elected president. That woman is a disaster. She was a disaster as first lady. She's a disaster as secretary of state. She's a disaster now. Now, what would I do? What would I do if I went to her and I said, do you know what we did in this election, in that election, starting in 1948 with Harry Truman and the Italians?

Do you know what we did in this, that, and the other election in the last five years? Well, what if Putin demanded at the UN Security Council, for example, some kind of accountability for those actions? You're a bitch, lady, and you need to go hide yourself somewhere. Colonel, I can see Chris and he's roaring over this. Can we cut what you just said and feature it? You know, we laugh about this it's quite serious california governor newsom just signed a law making these ai uh memes uh these deep fake things uh illegal you know some people put together a

satire of uh kamala harris it's hilarious it's not her but it looks like her and it sounds like her we're not gonna we're not gonna run it. How can that be against the law? The Supreme Court has held that satire, propaganda, harsh, caustic, antagonistic, obscene, hateful speech, all protected. All protected. We may have to play with a lot of finesse in this world of AI because I've seen some of the things that are waiting for us around the corner, as it were. And they're pretty deadly.

And in order to figure out how the law to apply them is going to be complicated. But that's what we need to do. We don't need to just start taking action to ban free speech. We need to see what really is dangerous, if it's weaponized, and deal with it, kind of like these pagers, things like that. This opens up, as I said before, it opens up an area of warfare that we at the Pentagon were always very careful not to try and open up because we knew how vulnerable we were. Colonel, it's a pleasure, my dear friend. Thank you for your candor. Thank you for your colorful use of language.

She's the one who said, we came, we saw, and he died, referring to Muammar Gaddafi and the horrible way he was killed in the street. That was the most impolitic remark any American would-be diplomat has ever made. And then she giggled. She laughed after she said the word died.

Yep. This graduate of Yale Law School would flunk the basic exam in constitutional law if she thinks that Americans can be prosecuted for what she calls propaganda. But I don't know where this is going to go. I mean, they are prosecuting Americans for propaganda. Two Russian-American citizens, citizens of both the U.S. and Russia, who live and work in Russia. You know Dimitri Symes. I know Dimitri Symes.

I don't know Mrs. Symes. They're both being prosecuted for what they said in Russia somehow is a violation of American law. You know, the man ran the Nixon Center, as I recall, for a long time and ran it with great, great results. And advised Ronald Reagan, which is when I met him. You know, Hillary Clinton should be convicted of being an enemy of humanity. That's what she should be. Another one for you, Chris.

Colonel, a lot of the viewers are writing in and saying, promotion accepted and well-deserved. I mistakenly called you general. It was my heart of respect coming out for you. Thank you, Colonel. I appreciate it. We hope to see you again next week. Thank you so much. You too. A great conversation. Coming up at three o'clock, somebody who's madder than a wet hen

at Hillary Clinton and Bibi Netanyahu. You'll hear him shortly, Phil Giraldi. And at 4 o'clock, the always worth waiting for, so wicked smart, Aaron Maté. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom. Thank you.