Judging Freedom - Col. Lawrence Wilkerson: Taiwan, Ukraine, Israel - US failures

Episode Date: May 31, 2024

Col. Lawrence Wilkerson: Taiwan, Ukraine, Israel - US failuresSee 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. 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. Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Friday, May 31st, 2024. Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson joins us now. Colonel Wilkerson, thank you very much for your time on this beautiful, sunny, almost summer Friday afternoon. I want to ask you about

the three hotspots in the world in which the United States purports to be involved, Taiwan, Ukraine, and Gaza. Let me start with Taiwan. I heard some comments you made the other day that intrigued and pleased me. What are we to gain by war games on Kinmen Island, that small island off of Taiwan on the mainland side of it. Provocation. I can't imagine anything else. You're talking about us. Yes.

I mean, do you think that the president has sent troops there as a, I'll use your phrase from other conversations we've had, a trip wire. Yeah, it's such, we used to say this about, sometimes about the Fulda Gap in Europe, when there were 10 Soviet motorized or armored divisions under Ogarkov, whose operational theory was Blitzkrieg, Par excellence. We used to say the same thing about the troops we had in the Fold of Gap, principally the ACR there, the Armored Cavalry Regiment. A tripwire? They will be oil for the treads on the Soviet tanks. What do you think the United States contemplates if something goes wrong, somebody fires a shot, somebody gets injured, or somebody dies, or if Taiwan is surrounded by a significant amount of naval vessels of the

Chinese Navy. I mean, Donald Trump, we'll put aside his most recent issues, said about two weeks ago, if he were president and Taiwan were surrounded, if he were president and the Russians invaded Ukraine, I'm going to tell you what he said. I think it's absurd, but this is what he said. He'd bomb Beijing and bomb Moscow. I don't know if he means it. I don't know if he gave any thought to it. I don't know if anybody advised him on it. I don't know if he contemplates the likely response. But is it possible for the United States military to repel the wishes of the mainland Chinese military to occupy Taiwan? Is it even feasible? No, and we wouldn't. It's just that clear. I've war-gamed it enough. And let me tell you that the capabilities with which I war-gamed it

versus the Chinese capabilities at the time were vastly different than they are today. Two things. Chinese capabilities are vastly better and our capabilities are vastly worse. So there's no way we would do that. At best, we would try to inflict some sort of attrition on the Chinese forces over time. We wouldn't even contemplate re-invasion of the island. I'm revealing some things here that colonels know. I'm increasingly convinced that people like the flag officers in the United States Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps don't know it, which is a real shock. But there's no way. So as the Soviets used to say, the correlation of forces, mainly because of geography, but not totally because of geography.

The Chinese military is much bigger than ours. It's just out of whack. You'd be insane if you tried to retake it after they had taken it. Now, let me follow up by saying I don't think the Chinese will try that kind of force on Taiwan. I think it'll be a telephone call, followed by subsequent telephone calls from various ministers within the Chinese hierarchy, Wang Yi included. Wang Yi may even be the one who orchestrates it for Xi Jinping. And those telephone calls will essentially say, we will destroy you if you don't shut up and do what we tell you to do. And what we're going to tell you to do is not going to be draconian. We're going to do it carefully, slowly, over time, but you're going to reunify with the mainland. Do you understand that?

All of us agreed that it didn't matter who the Chinese leadership was. We all agreed that that was the Chinese strategy that would be employed, and Taiwan was increasingly vulnerable to that. Now, I'm talking about 2006 and 2007. They're even more vulnerable to it now. Whatever you think of the Chinese nationalists, the people that Mao Zedong chased to Taiwan. I mean, that is really ancient history. Doesn't the United States government have a one China policy? And if it does, where is Joe Biden's head? Stuck in some Cold War era mentality? Well, Joe Biden's head was clarified for its insanity when he started talking about strategic clarity, as opposed to what we've done since Nixon and Mao met, strategic ambiguity,

which is working just fine, thank you very much. Strategic clarity means you just disregard everything I just said, and you say, okay, we're going to defend Taiwan. Now, go talk to Lai Ching-du. Go talk to him, his friends, his English-speaking friends. Call him William. Go talk to him and give him the reality if he doesn't already know it. I suspect he already does. He's toned down his rhetoric a bit since the Chinese started exercising around his island. But he knows the reality, I think. And there wouldn't be any

fight that would take place, I don't think, because China would make the ultimatum one that he had to accept. Is there any military reason for us to interfere in the relationship between the mainland government of China and Taiwan. 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. Well, you asked me that question when we've interfered in Ukraine and we haven't interfered in Gaza. So it's very difficult for me to judge an administration which on the surface and increasingly the interior looks to me to be deranged. I don't know what they would do. I really don't. If they thought

it was going to be a real blow to our Pacific posture, that is to say that Japan would then doubt us, Korea would then doubt us, all of our allies in the Pacific, including Australia and New Zealand, would then doubt us to the extent that they would not maybe flow into the Chinese camp, as it were, but would flow into neutrality and then eventually into the Chinese camp. After all, that's a very strong magnet coming out of Beijing. Then they might take the risk and they might start a general war. And then that general war is going to be nuclear. I can almost guarantee every American citizen that might be listening to the sound of my voice that if we go to war with China over Taiwan, over that issue, possibly any issue, but it's probably going to evolve to a nuclear exchange.

I mean, how would we even fight such a war? How could we even get the number of ships, planes, missiles, and troops there that the Chinese have just a couple of miles away? We think we're going to mobilize, Judge. And General Dennis Leitch and I have been methodically over the Army Reserve, the Navy Reserve, the Air Force Reserve, the guards in each of the states and so forth. We are a hollow force right now. It's our conclusion that all measures of readiness, and that's training, personnel, equipment, and so forth. In all measures of readiness, the Army Reserve, which is the linchpin of our mobilization capability, is broken. It's as bad, we agreed, it's as bad as it was in the early 70s after Vietnam.

So there's no way we're going to mount a land war in China in the first place, unless we're just totally idiots. And there's no way we're going to mobilize to do it, because we just don't have the mobilization capability today. It would take us longer than it did in 38, 39, and 40 today to mobilize because we were sitting on a latent capability at that time, partly because of the Depression. FDR, credit to FDR, more credit to other people within his administration. They knew that once you unleash the productive capacity of the United States, sort of like Russia with regard to Ukraine, once that threat was there, once it looked as if it were existential to Russia, she unleashed that latent industrial capacity and now has directed

eight to nine percent of her GDP to that capacity. That excess over the six that was going is just for the military. We can't do that today. We have $35 trillion in aggregate debt. Our interest payments on that debt next year are going to be a trillion dollars a year. You can't just print that. You can't just say, I'll pay that. You got to pay it. Otherwise you default. We're in sad shape, judge. And the idea that we're going to fight a country like China that's growing more powerful every day with the kind of strategy that we're, for example, proxy strategy we're using in Ukraine. Here's what I heard from a Luftwaffe general two days ago. Very articulate man, quoted Clausewitz. Every German quotes Clausewitz.

But he also quoted Alexander the Great, Harlan Ullman, George Friedman, all manner of people. He said, I finally, NATO guy too before, I finally figured out the U.S. strategy. The U.S. strategy is quite simple. It is to bleed Europe, but unify it through that bleeding and bleed Russia through the Ukraine war. Take that unified Europe under the rubric of NATO and with it together and Russia's sideline, take on China. Now think about that for a minute. That's crazy. I think he's right. I think that's what they think they're going to do. Wow. We all know from statistics that Russia is significantly stronger and more prosperous now after the imposition of Joe Biden's sanctions than before. Let's transition to Russia. to attack inside Russia so long as their aim, their goal, is to attack the place from which Russia has fired at Ukraine. As if not to be outdone, says cut number 11, Chris,

Secretary Blinken yesterday said the following. Over the past few weeks, Ukraine came to us and asked for the authorization to use weapons that we're providing to defend against this aggression, including against Russian forces that are massing on the Russian side of the border and then attacking into Ukraine. And that went right to the president. And as you heard, he's approved the use of our weapons for that purpose. Going forward, we'll continue to do what we've been doing, which is as necessary, adapt and adjust. Correct myself, you saw the date there.

That was today. That was a few hours ago. That was not yesterday. Colonel, how ill-advised is it for the French and the Americans to do this? If they're giving munitions to Ukraine or have already given them to Ukraine to attack Russian forces that are clearly involved in killing Ukrainian forces, I don't think that's an escalation. And I think it's to be expected on the Russian side even. If, on the other hand, as has happened so many times previously, Zelensky and the Ukrainian military decide that they want

to do things different. They want to use those weapons to attack Russia elsewhere to include, as you well know, the attack on one of their early warning devices for ballistic missiles from the U.S., a very dangerous thing to do, then it's not a very good move. But either way, it's a bad move from the perspective of Russia has won this war. The Luftwaffe general also said, when asked, what would you do? He said, an immediate ceasefire and go talk and invite Russia to the talk. Here's President Zelensky making a pitch in Belgium earlier this week for Western weapons to strike inside Russia. Cut number two, Chris. Even from reconnaissance, you get maps, satellite images, but you cannot respond.

I think it's unfair. But we cannot, and this is a fact, risk the support of our partners. And that is why we do not use the weapons of our partners on the territory of the Russian Federation. Please give us the opportunity to retaliate against their military. Now, after he made that talk, and that was just 22 seconds of a much longer talk, NATO committed a billion dollars worth of equipment to him. Here we go. Belgium commits $1 billion to Ukraine amid Zelensky's whirlwind European tour. Colonel, what motivates NATO to do that? Do they not realize he's no longer the lawful leader of Ukraine? His government is unstable. His military is on its last legs. They're making money. Everyone's making money. This is European defense industries

now too, as well as American. So they're making money off of it. That's the first thing. The second thing is there's no leadership. And when I listened to this Luftwaffe general who as I said, been at NATO before, I think he's retired now. But when I listened to him, I understood that what I'm hearing as sort of under the current rumor, that there is real dissension amongst those officers in the hierarchy of NATO who are worth a damn. And I don't include a whole lot of them in there, but there are some Brits, they don't know what the strategy is other than to make money and to keep Joe Biden from being defeated in November, because they feel that the domestic political situation prohibits him from doing anything like the general recommended, that is

a ceasefire and negotiations that are meaningful. I think they're right. I think that's got Biden trapped. And that is an unconscionable situation as far as I'm concerned. All these boys and girls are dying because he wants to be president again. I wonder if your German generala has seen this. So, Chris, this is President Zelensky urging world leaders to join his peace summit. Does Russia want a dialogue? Ukraine has the world's largest experience of lies from Russian during negotiations. Lies that in particular was Russian cover-up for preparing this war.

And that's exactly why global efforts are needed. Global peace summit of the leaders whom Russia will not be able to deceive. Summit that will show who in the world really wants to end the war and not just claim the ceasefire, which will inevitably be broken by Russian rockets and artillery just like as it was dozens, dozens of times before. To President Biden, the leader of the United States, and to President Xi, the leader of China,

we do not want the UN Charter to be burned. Please show your leadership in advancing the peace, real peace, not just a pause between the strikes. The efforts of global majority are the best guarantee that all commitments will be fulfilled. Please support the Peace Summit with your personal leadership and participation. For all of us, it should be a pleasure to make peace. I've been ridiculed for his pronunciation of the word peace, but this is obviously a CIA slash Hollywood production with the jib camera and with the music in the background. And this is obviously written for him by CIA or MI6.

What do professional military people think of something like this? What does President Xi, at whom this is allegedly aimed, think about this? What do your Chinese friends think about this? Well, the first thing I think about it, and I think Xi has to think about this too, I think Erdogan and lots of others who've been commented on this are thinking about it also, whatever we may think of them. The UN that he appealed to there lies prostrate, prostrate on the ground in Gaza. So as far as anybody doing any damage to the United Nations or any of its outlying entities, it's already done. I'm not even sure it will recover

from Gaza. I'm not sure any apparatus of international humanitarian law, jurisprudence or whatever will recover from Gaza and the US's complicity in this. And second, my first impression of watching that is that he's been taking lessons from Netanyahu because that's who he looked at. And the lies are on both sides. You know that. And frankly, if you sat down with a list and totaled them up, you'd probably get more lies on the U.S., NATO, Ukrainian side than you would on the Putin, Xi, whomever side.

Lies on both sides, that's the nature of war. But I just, that was a strange appeal. And I don't think he's going to convince leaders like Lula in Brazil, others who said they're not coming, the president of South Africa. I don't think he's going to get anybody there that he wasn't going to get before, and they're coming because they fear the repercussions from the United States if they don't. Do you think that the war in Ukraine can end while he is still the de facto leader of Ukraine? Or do you think there has to be or will be regime change, whether he leaves voluntarily or by some other means?

That's an excellent question and one I've been asking myself. I did think that he had the wherewithal, knowing his past and his history, his multilingual capacity, the fact that he can think fairly clearly, at least he's indicated that, would rise to the fore. He would withstand Washington's pressure and he would save his country or what's left of it. And there's a pretty good bit left of it. I'd certainly want to save Odessa and my access to the Black Sea. And he's about to lose that. But I've changed my mind. And that video helped cement my change. He just isn't the man for the task now. Okay. Before we go, here's President Biden earlier today. Now, this is a long clip, but Chris has edited it down to a little over a minute,

setting forth the three phases of what he hopes to become a permanent ceasefire in Gaza that apparently the Israelis have agreed to. The president is a little bit more articulate than he usually is, but not precise enough for me. But you let me know what you think. Number 12, Chris. The first phase would last for six weeks. Here's what it would include. A full and complete ceasefire. A withdrawal of Israeli forces from all populated areas of Gaza, release of a number of hostages, including women, the elderly, the wounded, in exchange for the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. During the six weeks of Phase 1,

Israel and Hamas would negotiate the necessary arrangements to get to phase two. Then phase two would be an exchange for the release of all remaining living hostages, including male soldiers. Israeli forces would withdraw from Gaza. And as long as Hamas lives up to its commitments, a temporary ceasefire would become, in the words of the Israeli proposal, the cessation of hostilities permanently, end of quote. Finally, in phase three, a major reconstruction plan for Gaza would commence, and any final remains of hostages who've been killed would be returned to their families. That's the offer that's now on the table.

So if that is an Israeli offer, would Prime Minister Netanyahu not suffer the collapse of his government because the right wing would leave? They, of course, want to turn Gaza into a soccer field or a golf course or mansions on the beach. That's an interesting observation, as I have just heard within the last hour, that there are deliberations going on within the current government and in the Knesset on replacing Netanyahu, replacing the government. So I don't know if that is true. I suspect it is. And if it is, I don't know if it's motivated by this offer that

the President of the United States has made or a plan that he's put out there, the three-phase plan, or by what they expect might come from that in terms of their unwillingness to meet those phases, as he outlined, and therefore his then possible willingness to do something. Without time, I would say. So that's all going to be keyed on who's the government of Israel from the point we start implementing something, if we do, on. And I don't think it's going to be Netanyahu. And you don't think it's going to be Netanyahu. Colonel, if you

don't want to go here, I understand that. Tell me, but if it is right for the ICC to seek the indictments and arrest warrants of Netanyahu and Gallant and the three Hamas leaders, would it not be right for them to consider the same of Tony Blinken, Lloyd Austin, Jake Sullivan, and President Biden? It's a good question, too. In terms of jurisprudence, I think there's some balance there, yes. You know, I was surprised when my German friends told me that Germany has made a decision that if Netanyahu were to come to Germany, they'd turn him over to the court. Also, Macron, apparently, has made a decision. Both of those statements, you know, the warrants haven't been issued yet,

the indictments haven't been accepted yet, and Macron and Scholz made those comments, which must have terrified Netanyahu and maybe members of Likud. Yes, yes. I hope. Right. Right. Colonel, it's a pleasure, my dear friend. Thank you for joining us on these Fridays. I'll be away next week, but I hope you'll come back and make this a regular Friday gig

throughout the summer at your convenience. Sounds good to me. Thank you, Colonel. Maybe the world will be better off. Oh, God, I hope so. I hope so. All Sounds good to me. Thank you, Colonel. Maybe the world will be better off. Oh God. I hope so. I hope so. All the best to you.

Coming up at four o'clock, the round table today with Larry Johnson. I'm not sure where he is. He's traveling, but he promises he'll be with us. And Matt Ho filling in for Ray McGovern, who's also traveling. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. Thank you.