Judging Freedom - COL. Lawrence Wilkerson: Does NATO Want Ukraine?

Episode Date: October 3, 2024

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Thank you. Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Thursday, October 3rd, 2024. Our dear friend Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson joins us now. Colonel, thank you very much for your time as always. Colonel, I do want your thoughts on whether or not NATO even wants Ukraine to join. But before we get to Ukraine, there are so many events of international significance happening in and around Israel that I'd like to address those with you, sir, first, if I could. Thank you. TASS reports that Moscow Russian ambassador to Israel advised Russians living in Israel to leave. intercepted Israeli missiles that were aimed at Lebanon from their position in the Mediterranean Sea because they thought they were coming too close to wherever this naval base is on the Mediterranean. What do you make of all this? How isolated is Israel?

How dangerous has Prime Minister Netanyahu made it? Let me add first to that concern that you just evinced. I'm hearing from reliable sources that the Russians have put a number of pilots in Iran and that the airframes will follow. I'm hearing that those pilots have instructions to get in those airframes and to oppose any Israeli strike on Iran. By airframe, you mean a jet fighter? Yeah, I mean jet fighters, state-of-the-art jet fighters. I'm also hearing that a similar edict, if you will, was issued by Erdogan to Netanyahu with regard to invading Lebanon.

And there could be more. The tapestry is unfolding rather rapidly, I think, on the incursion. I'm hearing that it's not going too well for Israel. I expected it not to go too well. I'm hearing they're taking significant casualties. I've even seen videos of some of those casualties. It doesn't look good for Israel any way you cut it. And yet Netanyahu seems intent on getting his wildest dream, which is to, in any event, draw the United States into a major conflict with Iran. Can we get it straight as to what General Carrillo told Prime Minister Netanyahu when he visited him twice in one week, do we know if he said, we'll back you defensively, but we're not going into Lebanon with you, which is what the Western media reported?

I think that's pretty solid information because there are some sources in the Pentagon that have reaffirmed that for me and told me that it was principally Austin that started the movement towards that kind of language. And I have to say that he must be feeling pretty grim right now because he stood right there by his airplane and he said he had talked to Yod-Galant. He told him multiple times that civilian casualties were already too high, referring to Gaza, and of course, presupposing that they were going to be that way as they are becoming in Lebanon, and that a diplomatic solution was the only answer and that their way to diplomacy using the military to force it was not going to work, that we needed to go to diplomacy right away. And he was very adamant about that. And within 24 hours, they invaded Lebanon. I can't imagine that Lloyd Alston is a happy camper, although he has a remarkable ability to disguise it. Colonel, in light of recent developments going back,

I think, correct me if I'm wrong, to 2006, is not the Israeli military exceptionally reckless, I'm being charitable in my choice of words, to conduct a ground invasion into Lebanon? Extremely reckless, in my view, because they are walking into what is, they have proven in four invasions, 78, 82, 2006, and now, and will prove in this one, I think are already proving, it is very hostile terrain to their type of military, which is principally artillery, tanks, and such, and mainline military forces that are used to operating

in almost a blitzkrieg fashion and overwhelming everything in sight. That's not what's happening here. The weapons that are arrayed against them are pretty formidable weapons, and the guerrillas are well-trained, and they're being added to in their ranks, I'm told right now, by lots of Lebanese. Not only that, you've got some 100,000-plus Syrians and Lebanese who are, imagine this now, Syrians who were refugees from the brutal war that occurred in Syria, in some respects is still ongoing in a simmering fashion, are going back nonetheless to Syria because Lebanon's become so untenable. This is unbelievably bad.

And Israel's going to walk right into a buzzsaw. It's already walking into a buzzsaw, is what I'm hearing. Do you think the United States, either Secretary Blinken or National Security Advisor Sullivan or the president himself, sat down with Netanyahu and said, this is insane? Or do you think they said, we're the US, we give you whatever you want? I think it's probably the message more or less from people like Blinken and Sullivan. Don't think it's the message from Austin. And I'm not quite sure about Biden because I don't think Biden is capable of delivering a coherent message over a period of time. So when you get Biden,

you get whatever flows out of his mouth at that moment, which is basically what he's just rehearsed with the person who got to him right before he said it. I don't know what that means in terms of real pressure on Bibi Netanyahu, but I have seen, I have seen up close and personal real pressure on Israeli prime ministers, including Bibi. And I've seen nothing that even remotely resembles that from this administration. All I've seen in Biden's behalf is a passionate love for Israel that transmits into Bibi, you can do anything you want to. And a little bit of restraint on the part of Lloyd Austin, because he understands what this means. Should the United States have to

get involved in a significant way with an Israeli main force, if you will, attack on Iran? It means so many things. It means a shutdown Persian Gulf. Look at the Chinese. The Chinese are not going to accept a shutdown straight up or moves. They're not going to accept a slowing or, God forbid, a stoppage of their oil coming out of there. China is getting most of its oil from Iraq now. Great outcome of our 11 years in Iraq. China is the main benefactor of Iraq's oil. And Iraq has the potential ultimately to pump even more oil than Saudi Arabia once they get everything going the way it should be. And that's not too far into the future. So you're putting a stop on the flow of oil to people who are not going to tolerate that stoppage. And China would enter this fray, I think, if it meant

that they had to do something to open the Strait of Hormuz. How effective was the Iranian missile barrage the other night? We know for sure that unlike the Israeli missiles and artillery, which are aimed at civilians, the Iranians were aimed at military and intelligence targets. Did they do any significant damage to the targets at which they were aimed? We also know that at least a dozen or 15 of the 180 or 200, nobody knows the exact number in the West, that got through. I'm hearing two stories. I'm hearing a sort of semi-official story coming from some contacts in the government that tell me that, no, it was orchestrated again. Again, we were warned. Again, we knew the approximate number

of missiles coming in and the types of missiles. We knew the approximate trajectories and timings. And so we were able to assist and we were able to allow Israel to have that information and understand where they should have their positions and where they should shoot. And that took care of the majority of the missiles. On the other hand, I'm hearing people who are telling me from, I admit, they're from outside the region and they're journalists, principally, and others who know the region pretty well, who are telling me, no, that some of the missiles really did get through

and some of the missiles really did strike their targets. And like you said, their targets were principally military targets to include the airfield that had the F-35s on it. But I agree with others who have said, unless the Israeli Air Force was stupid, and I don't see that very often, they took those airplanes off when they got the warning from the United States. They were in the air when the missiles hit. So the idea that they might have damaged some F-35s, maybe one that was in maintenance or

something like that, but any airframes that could fly were gotten out of there. And when I say any airframes that would fly, that would mean some that not even were supposed to fly, but would. They got them out of there. Do you know that airbase, Colonel, from your own experience in the military or the State Department? I know it only from the approximate size and what it looked like, say, 15 years ago. I haven't been there in a long time. Is it like Andrews or McGuire is to us? Is it huge and something they rely on all the time? Yeah, it's pretty good size. And it is, as has been said by a number of people about other Israeli installations, something that they constantly talk about with regard to Lebanon and

other places, it is with civilians around it. And so it's kind of hard sometimes if you're going to target it not to inadvertently hit some civilians. Israelis, of course, when they target things, they don't give a damn about civilians. They hit them all. This question may induce you to segue into American politics. It depends on how you want to hear it. Professor Gilbert Doctorow this morning on this program pretty much startled me when he analogized America's support for Israel with America's support for Ukraine. And I think a fair summary of that analogy goes like this. Everyone knows that the U.S. is using Ukraine as a battering ram against Russia. Ukraine is more or less a vassal state of the U.S., and all the military aid we're

giving there is really Ukraine doing our dirty work. The same is the case for Israel, and that unlike what the West thinks that where Netanyahu has an iron grip on the American government, in fact, the American government has an iron grip on Netanyahu and the American government wants him to fight the wars that he's fighting. Do you accept that contrarian view? I accept it for some people. I accept it for those like Lindsey Graham and Josh Hawley and a number of other people in the Congress, for example, who are very happy with what Netanyahu is doing because what he's doing is their writ. He is doing precisely what they want him to do. Sometimes they will put it as crassly as he's killing Arabs. We'd have to be killing them if

he weren't. So better that he killed them than our boys and girls have to go do it. That's their philosophy. And ultimately, it boils down to not just Arabs, but Persians too. And for people like John Bolton and others, Lindsey Graham, the Persians are more important than the Arabs, but both are in the same category of potential enemy, potential terrorists, and therefore, who cares? In fact, let's do it if we kill them. I want to get back to the tail wagging the dog. Who's the tail and who's the dog between Biden and Netanyahu? Let me take Biden out of it because of his mental degradation between the American government and the Israeli government. But before that, here's John Bolton, whom I'm going to guess you know,

and of course, I know him as well from his years at Fox and elsewhere. But here he is last night, cut number six. It's very likely that the nuclear program could be a target for several reasons. First, this is something that Prime Minister Netanyahu, beyond any other Israeli politician, has recognized as the existential threat for Israel. And I think people should understand that with now 300 some ballistic missiles having been fired at Israel since April, they have to worry that the next time they see a ballistic missile aimed at them, it could contain a nuclear weapon under a nose cone. So that is a motivation to solve the nuclear problem now.

Is that a fear-mongering or a realistic worry? Can the Iranians simply take nuclear material and put it in an empty space in a warhead and send it toward Israel and expect it to detonate as a nuclear bomb would? No. I went through with Sig Hecker and other physicists, nuclear physicists, in 2002 and 2003, the whole panoply of what's necessary with regard to Young Beyond and reprocessing facilities and so forth in North Korea. So that's preposterous.

John is postulating things that John likes to postulate because John has this incredible hatred for Iran. And John wants us to take Iran out. And it's not just their nuclear program. It's the whole panoply of Iran. He does not want Iran to exist in any way, fashion, or form as it currently does. He would gladly bring the Shah back and the SAVAK, the CIA-trained secret police, and all that apparatus and put it in Iran and get another 28 years of absolute obeisance to the United States. That's John's whole objective. And by the way, John is not one who's going to do it himself. When he was talking that way about

now North Korea to me and Jim Kelly, the Assistant Secretary for East Asia and the Pacific, after we were upbraiding him for saying things before the Congress he shouldn't be saying, he looked at me and he said, you're a military, aren't you? And I said, yeah, that's my past. And he said, well, that's your bailiwick. I don't do war. I said, wait a minute now. There are probably a quarter of a million Americans who will have to be evacuated from Seoul when the North attacks. And a lot of them are going to be killed or injured. And a lot of Koreans are too. I don't do military things. That's John Boat. I don't do military things. Is it fair to say that the senators whose names you mentioned earlier,

the names that come to mind are Lindsey Graham, Tom Cotton, Josh Hawley, are in the same boat, even though at least two of them, Cotton and Graham, have a military background in their youths. I don't give Lindsey Graham credit for being anything but a JAG lawyer. Tom Cotton, I don't know, but yes, I'd put him in the same boat from his rhetoric. Now, is he sensible enough to know as a military individual that this is really stupid. Probably in his darker moments, he understands that this is not too smart to be advocating this, but it's his political hay, and so he feeds there. Let's go back to, before we jump to Iran, excuse me, Ukraine, Colonel, let's go back to Professor Doctorow's tale, Wagging the Dog. This is the first time I've heard

anybody say, after years of studying this in the past three years, analyzing it with people like you and Colonel McGregor and Larry Johnson and Ray McGovern and Scott Ritter and Professor Mearsheimer and Professor Sachs, the first time I've heard anybody say that in The Tail Wagging the dog, Netanyahu is in the subservient

and not in the dominant position vis-a-vis the American government. Have you heard anybody make that argument? Is that a credible argument in light of the iron grip on the American government that AIPAC and the donor class have? I think it is with some of the neoconservatives. Now, it's pure philosophy with them. They do believe, and it's this simple, that if Israel weren't killing Arabs and Persians ultimately, that we would have to.

And it would be very costly for us. So why not put Israel out as our attack dog and let her do it? I don't think those people dominate the government at any given time, but I saw what they did in Iraq. I saw what they did in Afghanistan. I know what their capabilities are. I saw what Victoria Nuland was planning and what she ultimately did in Ukraine. These people are deadly people, and they've never been rooted out. They've never been held accountable, and no one ever takes them to the bar. If Victoria Nuland's ultimate goal was a war, Ukraine against Russia, Ukraine financed by the

United States mainly and partially by the West,n't that plan been a catastrophic disaster? What is the status of the war as we speak? How much longer can it go on? But she got what she wanted, and she has bled Russia to a certain extent. Now, I would say that she's also revived their industrial base and revived and made much better their military, so much so that they might be more of a threat now than they ever were before. You speak of Russia, not Ukraine, of course, right? Yes, yes. But she got what she wanted, and she got what she wanted for her buds who made tons of money off of it, including those Ukrainians who are her buds. And I would bet you, Judge,

I would bet you are funneling money back to her causes. Oh, boy. Colonel, how can President Zelensky deal with the disaster in Kursk, the inexorable Russian advances, and the coming winter with massive fuel shortages? I'll be very blunt and say I think he's going to deal with a bullet between his eyes. I think they're going to take him out. I think there's going to be a coup, not unlike the one in 2014, except it might not go as smoothly. And the people who take over in his wake are going to have one objective in mind, and that is stopping this nonsense, saving what they can of Ukraine that is left, and getting as much as they can out of the negotiations with regard to how they might administer and run that Ukraine afterwards.

I think that's going to be their motivation. And they're probably going to tell NATO and the United States to go to hell. Colonel, we all have our eyes on November 5th. Obviously, no one knows what the outcome is going to be. One day the polls are one way, the next day the polls are the next. But do you fear an October surprise involving the military or some foreign event? I'm not sure it'll be orchestrated, but I can see very clearly now, sad enough to say, that we might be in a war with Ukraine, a war with Iran, before the elections. Hard to figure out who that helps, if it helps the late president or if it helps the former president. It's hard to say.

It usually helps the party in power if a war starts and they are seen to be the responsible entity or the responsible management structure, if you will. People are really reluctant to switch horses in the middle of a battle. But I don't know in this case, because I think the American people are waking up to whose responsibility they might lay it at the feet of in terms of it's happening. Right. Colonel, how badly have these reckless decisions, as you and I have called them, of Prime Minister Netanyahu destabilized Israel? As I've said before, there will be no Jewish state in the Levant in the future. There might be a liberal democracy if they could affect

that, and it'll be called Israel-Palestine or Palestine-Israel, whatever they want. And it will eventually, the Palestinian Arabs will outnumber the Jews, unless the Jews really start migrating, and I certainly don't see that happening. And that's the only way it's going to continue to exist is a liberal democracy. If it stays a Jewish state, it will be an apartheid state, and the world's revulsion will kill it. It will not be able to exist. So Israel is over as a Jewish state, finished, period. Colonel Wilkerson, thank you very much, my dear friend. Thank you for your time.

Thank you for the candor and the sharpness with which you answer all of these questions and enable me to engage in what I believe and what I know the viewers believe are very meaningful, important, and I look forward to them, conversations every week. Well, thank you for what you're doing. I just did a couple of interviews with Berlin, one with Munich and one with Tokyo. And I can tell you that the only thing that seems to be seeping through to people who really think in those countries is things like you. Well, thank you, Colonel. I hope you'll come back and visit with us again next week. Surely. Okay. All the best. Coming up at 3 o'clock,

Professor Mearsheimer and our dear friend Max Blumenthal, who had some technical issues, which is why he wasn't with us at 1 o'clock today, will be with us at 5 o'clock tomorrow. Tomorrow, Friday, 4 o'clock, the boys, the Intelligence Community Roundtable, 5 o'clock, Max Blumenthal. Today, 3 o'clock, the boys, the Intelligence Community Roundtable. 5 o'clock, Max Blumenthal.

Today, 3 o'clock, the great, brilliant University of Chicago professor, John Mearsheimer. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom. I'm out.