Judging Freedom - COL. Lawrence Wilkerson: US on the Ground in Ukraine!

Episode Date: February 27, 2025

COL. Lawrence Wilkerson: US on the Ground in Ukraine!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 Thursday, February 27th, 2025. Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson joins us now. Colonel Wilkerson, it's a pleasure, my dear friend. Thank you very much for joining us. Can you foresee any circumstances under which the Russians would accept British and French, air quotes, peacekeepers on the ground in Ukraine as part of a negotiated agreement? None whatsoever. In fact, when I read Mark Thiessen's piece in the Washington Post yesterday, I guess, or this morning, Mark being a person we threw out of the State Department and sent over to Donald Rumsfeld to write speeches for him because he couldn't write them for Powell. He was too neoconservative. But he claimed that this

tremendous minerals deal is what it's all about because in order to reinforce that and back it up and make it viable, we'll have to put security post-agreement, if there is an agreement, is not going to be Russia. Russia will be happy with its war gains. The problem is going to be Ukraine and the Nazis who live in Ukraine and who will continue to inflict pain on Russians in the provinces that Putin has taken and on Russia itself. There's no question about it. Ukraine will be a problem. The president himself made a reference to, and we're going to be on the ground, and that's good because nobody will mess with us.

Now, I don't know if this George W. Bush's don't mess with Texas, or if you remember that, or if Donald Trump was envisioning the U.S. military on the ground in Ukraine to provide security for contractors who are extracting minerals from the earth. I mean, this is going to get more complicated and more dangerous. Absolutely. And unless Trump and Putin are closer than I think, like lips and teeth, as Mao used to say, they ain't going to happen, not with Putin on guard. Here's exactly what the President said. I want you to comment on it. I believe the part we're talking about is at the end, Chris, number 12. They spent $350 billion and Europe spent $100

billion. Now, does anybody really think that's fair? But then we find out a little while ago, not so long ago, a few months ago, I found out that the money they spent, they get back. But the money we spent, we don't get back. I said, well, we're going to get it back and we'll be able to make a deal. And again, President Zelensky is coming to sign the deal. And it's a great thing. It's a great deal for Ukraine, too, because they get us over there and we're going to be working over there. We'll be on the land. And, you know, in that way,

it's this sort of automatic security because nobody's going to be messing around with our people when we're there. And so we'll be there in that way. But Europe will be watching it very closely. I know that UK has said and France has said that they want to put, they volunteered to put so-called peacekeepers on the site.

And I think that's a good thing. So we will be on the ground providing security and it's a good thing for France and Britain to have peacekeepers. Does he not understand Vladimir Putin's mentality? Apparently not. Very, very unwise remarks, as a matter of fact, because he's compromising his own ability to negotiate a decent deal. It's just nonsense. And it's increasing nonsense if he keeps talking that way. That's my problem with Donald Trump. He solves a problem, at least preliminarily, and then he moves on and screws the problem he solved himself with his mouth. I don't know how you do diplomacy that way.

Well, American troops on the ground in Ukraine, no matter the reason they're there, should be unthinkable after what we've just been through. It's why we started, they started the whole thing. We really started it. It's Putin's concern. It's his deepest concern, especially American troops in the proximity that we were thinking about putting them right next to the Russian border. Here's the guy that started it, the former prime minister of Great Britain, Boris Johnson. Chris? Everybody knows there's a minerals deal on the table today, right? And I think it has every prospect of being signed. And frankly, I think it should be signed because it commits the United States in black and white to a free, sovereign and secure Ukraine. So what we need now is everybody to be serious and to get real

and to listen to what Trump is actually saying and doing and proposing. He said he doesn't mind UK troops on the ground in Ukraine. That's great. Well, then we need to make that real. The US is committed, black black and white to a free, secure, sovereign Ukraine. You can't have a sovereign country without the ability to decide which clubs you're going to belong to. Sovereign country can remain committed to joining NATO. That's sovereignty. Sovereign country can remain free to allow whatever troops it wants to come on its soil to support it. That's sovereignty. Now, Putin could never accept that.

The U.S. has already committed to that. I think Putin is ultimately going to fail and Ukraine is going to succeed. This guy has blood on his hands and now he comes across as if he's been asleep for the past three years. I think he has. Listen to what he's saying. Does that mean that we need to put troops on the ground in every country with which we do business? That's what he's saying. We need to protect ourselves everywhere we have a contract. That's incredible. This is the guy who back in, what, 22, April of 22, somewhere around there, screwed the pooch up completely. When we could have had a halt to this whole conflagration, we could have

cut ourselves out of almost a million Ukrainian casualties, somewhere between one and 300,000 Russian casualties and a lot of carnage across the face of Ukraine. We could have stopped it all if this guy hadn't interfered. Now, he was probably our tool, but nonetheless, he's an effective tool, T-O-O-L. That's what Boris Johnson is. He needs to go away, hide somewhere in the dark, and don't come out again. Our colleague, Ian Proud, says that Johnson is hoping to return to number 10 Downing Street, and that the statement like the one we just saw is actually popular among elites and among the public in Great Britain. That's almost inconceivable to me. Of course, look at the American public supporting the war

in Ukraine as recently as four or five months ago, now taking a more realistic approach under Donald Trump. Steve Whitcroft, who's the president. I'm sorry, go ahead, Colonel. Well, I was just going to say, and look at the American public, a disgrace as far as I'm concerned, with regard to their lackadaisical attitude about the slaughter and the genocide in Gaza. Yes. Yes, yes. I mean, are we so familiar with genocide that it seeks to shock, Colonel? I think we're so familiar with war in

general that it ceases to shock. And one of the reasons for that is because 98% of Americans do not have to fix bayonets and go to that war. As long as that condition exists, we're going to do more of it. LBJ driven from office because of the draft. That's your argument. Well, of course, there were also 52,000 Americans who came back in body bags. 52,000. And they were displayed, unlike Donald Rumsfeld, who wouldn't even let anybody go to Dover to

watch the bodies come off the plane. Right, right, right. Can you foresee French and British peacekeepers on the ground there? First of all, I can't judge because they don't have them. You put every soldier in NATO outside of Turkey and the United States on the ground, you might have two divisions. You put Britain's soldiers on the ground, you'd have a reinforced brigade.

You put France's on the ground, you might have a division minus. That's about it. Just educate us on the size of a brigade and the size of a division. How many human beings? We're roughly 3,000 in a brigade and in the division anywhere from 10 to 15 to 20,000 if it's a heavy division. Well, those numbers would be meaningless would they not britain cannot even this is a fact judge britain cannot sail its aircraft carrier not because it's broken but because they don't have enough sailors to sail it Wow. Steve Witkoff, who is the president's favorite negotiator, stated the other day that the agreement between Ukraine and Russia, that Boris Johnson talked Vladimir Zelensky out of signing, is a good starting point for the negotiations between Russia and the United States.

Well, this must have delighted the Kremlin and terrified Kiev. They could have had this a million human lives ago. Absolutely. But they have the same problem we do, Judge. Maybe it's not quite as chronic because it's in their face, but they have not asked their intelligentsia, their nomenklatura, their elite, nor their children to fight in this war. It's been disco time for them. It's been movie time for them. It's been travel time for them. Anyone from Mallorca for the summer? That's what it's been like in Ukraine. Only the poor have gone out to die on the battlefield.

What are Emmanuel Macron and Keir Starmer trying to get from Donald Trump this week? Starmer literally, as we speak, Macron two days ago. I think Starmer was trying to get him to back up his statement that he would put troops on the ground in Ukraine if the U.S. gave them a security agreement. Now, Macron is a dead man walking, as we all know. Germany just proved how dead he is. The French system just won't get to it as rapidly as Germany did. I don't know what Macron wanted except maybe to threaten a little bit, a French-type threat. You're really going to force us to push you out of NATO if you keep trying to push us out of NATO or break NATO down. That's what I'm hearing anyway. What is the basis for the

attitude of European leaders so negative to Russia? I mean, do they go to bed at night thinking and worrying that Russia is going to invade? You know, that's probably a good supposition. I've been asking myself the same question. I think it's probably different for the Finns than it is for the French than it is for the Germans and so forth. But basically, it's because they have been on the bottle, the bottle having United States written

on the side of it and the milk being really heady for so long, they can't think for themselves anymore. And anything that even looks like it will keep the United States in, and oh, a big bugabare like Russia should do it, is what they're for. What leverage do Stormer and Macron have? Probably none. With Trump, I'd say zero. Absolutely zero. With Trump, yes. Yes. Oh, wait a minute, wait a minute, Colonel. Wait a minute, Colonel. King Charles wants Donald and Melania to show up for dinner. I'm not making this up. One of the goodies that Sir Keir is carrying with him is a handwritten invitation from the king to come to dinner. And Trump's tactic will be to accept, to go, and to do absolutely nothing in response. All right, let's switch gears a little bit. This is actually terrible. Prime Minister Netanyahu was addressing AIPAC, I think remotely, I don't think it was physically in front of him. And he actually

thought he was joking about exploding beepers. You remember that act of genocide and war crime that killed civilians, including children. But I'm going to play this for you. First, he's boasting that the IDF will keep the Syrian military out of the parts of Syria on which the Israelis have designs. And then he's saying, don't worry about beepers. Cut number one. IDF forces will remain on the summit of Mount Hermon. You should really visit that place. It's a glorious sight. Cold, but a glorious sight. And in the adjacent buffer zone, we will remain for the foreseeable future.

We will not allow the presence of the HTS organization or a new Syrian army in the area south of Damascus. Southern Syria will be demilitarized. As for Iran, we crushed a large part of Iran's terror axis through a series of powerful blows which aroused the astonishment and admiration of the entire world. If you're holding beepers, don't worry about it. Don't worry. It's okay. How could a human being joke about something like that? Bibi could joke about Hades if he were standing in the middle of it in front of Satan. Bibi is a disgusting individual. Listen to what he said now. He's essentially claimed about 40% of Syria,

at least in terms of if you move there, I'll kill you. Now, I know from satellite photography, he's claimed about 11% to 15% of Syria that is inside even the Syrian side of the Golan Heights. And, oh, by the way, it has really juicy prospects. It's full of water and good agricultural land. And that's why he seized it. And there's absolutely no guarantee. In fact, yesterday I heard from a friend in Damascus that the government there is talking about this right now seriously, that he's not going to go further. They think he is. They're not

equipped right now to oppose him. But I would think that you would be able to talk to Erdogan in Ankara, for example, and perhaps even though he hasn't the might that Erdogan does in Lebanon, and began to get some people very, very concerned about what Israel is doing, because what they're doing is what Netanyahu has wanted to do his entire life, and that is increase the size of Israel to the extent that is humanly possible. I'd be, as I've said before, trembling in my boots if I were the king of Jordan, or even if I were Al-Sisi in Egypt. And incidentally, I think they are. In fact, I've been told their tanks are turned around and headed out and their basic loads are loaded up. They haven't done this really in this massive way since the 73 War.

You're speaking of the Egyptians? Yes. Yes. Colonel McGregor agrees with you. In fact, he thinks that's the flashpoint, Egypt versus Israel. That will start this conflagration, which will extend to Iran and probably to us. And it would probably roll the IDF up pretty rapidly because they are in a position right now that is untenable for the kind of warfare that Egypt would bring to them. And they've taken losses and they are in some ways demoralized because they have not, repeat, not defeated Hamas. Is there any doubt in your mind that Netanyahu wants to

sabotage the ceasefire agreement with Gaza? I think he does. I think positively he does. And just let me follow up just on the comment I just made. When you get into the position where you are extending yourself and you are claiming strategic success and you're saying the world is astonished at your formidable military. When you get into that position, you get into the position where when it comes, it is truly going to be a disaster because you, bloated, arrogant dude that you are, are completely unprepared for it. And it is going to come. Wow. McGregor is of the view that a major regional war will happen there and

will draw the United States in. Do you think if Israel attacks Iran that the U.S. will back Israel? And I'm talking about more than defensively, but offensively. That's the question of the hour, I think. I did an interview this morning with Press TV in Tehran. I had a really good interviewer. He spoke fluent English, and we had a good exchange. And they're obviously very concerned about it. I told him that I thought Trump's desire for a deal that would exceed the JCPOA and be trumped as a Trump deal and last forever would preempt that, that the Iranians were ready for that. His side was ready for that.

And Trump was ready for that. But the meeting in March, I think the 4th of March, the Arabs are going to have, is going to be crucial to figuring out just how the Arabs as a body, and particularly Riyadh, Mohammed bin Salman, are going to react to this. And if they're going to do anything to impede it or to assist it or just stand on the sidelines and watch it happen. But if Bibi gets into the middle of that negotiation or even pretty much preempts that negotiation by attacking Iran, I think all bets are off on that. And I don't see how the United States, as mercurial as it might be, could withstand helping Israel. I don't know if we'll help them offensively. We might watch them operate offensively and fail disastrously and then have a significant decision to make.

Because I have news for the American military. They don't already know it. And I know they do already know it. They're not going to be able to do what Israel wants to either. Not without an invasion. All right. On that note, we'll call it quits. It's always a wonderful 20 minutes with you, Colonel, no matter what we're talking about. I hope that Donald Trump is a man of peace. He

does say strange things. And maybe he's dumb like a fox. Maybe the private negotiating Donald Trump is different from the public blustering Donald Trump. Is that a question on my part, or is that likely? No, I keep hoping. I keep hoping. I watched that first term carefully. I keep hoping. The domestic things he's doing right now are hurting him. The people around him are doing them mostly, but they're hurting him. He's losing Republican votes even right now because of some of the pain and anguish that's going on. He's going to lose the House of Representatives if they don't do a U-turn on some of this stuff. He just might.

Yeah. All right, Colonel. Thank you very much, my dear friend. Always a pleasure. Your buddy is up with us, not the next interview, but the one after us, Chief Dennis Fritz. Ask him about C.Q. Brown. He'll give you that. That's the first question. I don't know how he's going to answer it, but that's the first question. I do.

All right, Colonel. Thank you. Have a great day, my dear friend. We'll see you next week. You too. Take care. All the best. Coming up at three o'clock, Professor John Mearsheimer and at four, the aforementioned Chief Dennis Fritz. John Stapolitano for Judging Freedom. Thank you.