Judging Freedom - Col. Lawrence Wilkerson: When soldiers kill civilians.

Episode Date: December 8, 2023

Col. Lawrence Wilkerson: When soldiers kill civilians.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 Friday, December 8th, 2023. Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson joins us today. Colonel, it's a pleasure to have you back on the show, sir. Thank you very much for your time and for the thoughts that I know are coming, because I know how they'll be appreciated. What is your understanding, Colonel, of the current state of affairs militarily in Ukraine between the Russian military and the Ukraine military? I think in a word, the situation is over for Ukraine. Because of their courage and their dauntless youth, they can make it last a little bit longer. But in terms of decisive action, it's over. The Russians have a pyrrhic victory, to be sure, for them. But nonetheless, they've won.

My concern is over what we're doing about this. And Joe Biden saying that NATO is resolute and we might even, Lloyd Austin just said, we might even put US forces on the ground in Ukraine is frighteningly stupid and dangerous, just to put as hard a connotation on it as I can. Here's the president yesterday, Colonel Wilkerson, saying the very words that you just articulated. Please tell us after you watch this with us how reckless this is. Good afternoon, everyone. I'd like to speak to you today about an urgent responsibility that Congress has to uphold the national security needs of the United States, and quite frankly, of our partners as well. This cannot wait.

Congress needs to pass supplemental funding for Ukraine before they break for the holiday resources. It's as simple as that. Frankly, I think it's stunning that we've gotten to this point in the first place. While Congress, Republicans and Congressors are willing to give Putin the greatest gift he could hope for and abandon our global leadership, not just to Ukraine but beyond that.

If Putin takes Ukraine, he won't stop there. It's important to see the long run here. He's going to keep going. He's made that pretty clear. If Putin attacks a NATO ally, then we'll have something that we don't seek and that we don't have today. American troops fighting Russian troops. American troops fighting Russian troops if he moves into other parts of NATO. Extreme Republicans are playing chicken with our national security, holding Ukraine's funding hostage to their extreme partisan border policies. And now they're willing to literally kneecap Ukraine on the battlefield and damage our national security in the process. Look, I know we have our divisions at home. Let's get past them. This is critical. Petty, partisan, angry politics can't get in the way of our responsibility as a leading

nation in the world. We can't let Putin win. Say it again. We can't let Putin win. It's in our overwhelming national interest and international interest of all our friends. There's so much to unpack there. There's so much misrepresentation, but I'll just toss the ball to you because I know you're animated about this and they'll let you run with it, Carl. Those were some of, if not the most insane remarks about anything, but about national security in particular, I've ever heard a commander-in-chief slash president of the United States utter. Simply stunning. Everything there was a propagandistic, if you will, that's a kindness to him, lie. Putin has no desire to occupy the length and breadth of Ukraine. He's made that quite clear.

He said a number of times, I've even checked the translation, that it's about security, not territory. Security. We are in his sphere of influence. Ukraine is in his sphere of influence with us there. We threatened him. Therefore, he did what he did. I'm not justifying what he did, but I know damn well why he did it.

Biden is totally ignoring that. And he's talking about things that would put us and NATO in high jeopardy should he decide that he's going to manufacture perhaps. And I don't put anything past our intelligence people. Remember, I was there when Iraq had WMD. Something that looks like Russia is getting ready to go into a NATO country. For what possible reason would they do that?

And then we're in for penny and for pound. We're in for tons then. And we're looking at a war between NATO and Russia. And the president of the United States will have generated that war by himself, with the exception of, I think, Blinken and some of his other advisors are right there with him. They will have generated that war. The American people need to stand up and say, this is insanity. I'm not going into a world war over Ukraine, Mr. President. Colonel, did you recently observe or come to learn that Secretary Austin, the Secretary

of Defense, uttered words similar to what the president did, threatening, intimating, hinting in some way American troops on the ground in Ukraine? I'm assuming that his insinuation there, and it was more than an insinuation, he said we might have to put American troops in Ukraine if you don't pass this legislation, was to incentivize Congress to pass the legislation. But that's a little careless, Mr. Secretary. I'm sorry, that's a little careless. Let me contrast that with what I was listening to

at the same time I was listening to that out of another source. I'm listening to Gutierrez at the United Nations, and he is telling statistic after statistic about what's going on in Gaza. The most poignant story he told was about his own staff. His own staff in Gaza now are taking their children and their family with them to work in Gaza because they all want to die together if they're going to die.

There's lots of many people. You're speaking of the secretary general of the United Nations. Right. Yes. I, his talk, every American should listen to that talk. He has no reason to lie. He has no reason to misquote statistics, deaths and destruction and such. He's saying he invoked article 99, which is somewhat unprecedented because he's trying to get something that will stop the killing.

This killing is horrific. And we've got that along with Ukraine and the president of the United States trying to use both of those situations, as he said on 20 July or 20 September in his speech from the Oval Office. To unify Americans, this is not going to unify Americans. This is going to divide them terribly. I want to drill down on Gaza in a minute, but I'd like to put a bow around Ukraine before we did that. In a letter that you recently signed, which I endorse 110% or as much as I possibly can credibly endorse it, you signed it with other friends of ours, mutual friends that

you and I have, military and foreign policy experts open letter on U.S. diplomatic malpractice. We'll post it on our website for you, and we encourage everybody to read it. One of the points you make in there is that as a result of American promises and American military might crushed by the Russians in Ukraine, that the Ukraine state is crushed. There's not much left of the government. What would happen to the $68 billion if, God forbid, the Congress decides to give it to Joe Biden? Would it just be stolen like so much of the $113 billion that we've already given them has been stolen? Probably. I've said before, I dealt with Ukraine in the early 2000s.

I was sort of Powell's man for problems of the moment. And I'll tell you, I told him it's a kleptocracy like Albania, like Montenegro. It's a kleptocracy. It's full of criminals, male, female, old, young. It's full of criminals. We're trying to paint it as a Jeffersonian democracy, or just about. It is not. So much of that money has probably disappeared. One wonders into whose coffers it has gone. As a matter of fact, we could be funding some of the people who are funding Vladimir Putin, for all that matter. This is insane to put this kind of money into a place that has a track record that anybody can read about.

Look at Joe Biden's dealings, or Joe Biden's son's dealings with Ukraine and China through Ukraine. That's just the tip of the iceberg. I looked at Yulia Tymoshenko, at Yanukovych, and others. They were all criminals, arch criminals. Didn't matter whether they were Russian, Ukrainian or whatever. They were criminals. They haven't left. That's still a major part of Ukraine's government. I feel in my heart for all those young men and women who went out there and bled and

died for their soil in Ukraine when they have such a corrupt government. I don't know about Zelensky. I know he was in Moscow as a comic on a Moscow stage speaking fluent Russian before he became president. So I have no idea what Zelensky's credentials are, but I know what the rest of them are. And I know what the credentials of Valery Zelushny, who is the head of their military, the four-star head of their military right now, and very much a possible political opponent of Zelensky. Is General Zelushny well respected in the minds of military men, of which you have been one, around the world? I think it's fair to say he is. He brought a lot of the extremely right-wing

Ukrainians into the military, but I understand that. You know, you got to do what you got to do when you're being overrun by the Russians or attacked by the Russians, at least. He seems to be a fairly straight shooter. But as I said, everyone I scratched the least bit, when I got under their skin, they were crooks. They were bandits of the first order. I don't know about him, so I won't badmouth him because I don't know about him. But I do know there's some tension, real tension now between him and Zelensky, especially people talking about him running because in the polls, he's ahead of Zelensky. And Zelensky has canceled the presidential elections in 2024. He's closed the borders so you can't escape the draft. Their draft is both genders and it's age 17 to age 70. So they're obviously scraping whatever they can, Colonel. You've spent much of your career as a military man and in the highest echelons of the State

Department policymaking. You worked side by side with Secretary of State Powell. Why do presidents want to kill? Why does Joe Biden want to extend this war? Why doesn't, talking about Ukraine, why doesn't he understand the futility of it? Why does he make statements that are so profoundly misleading and even threatening? If you don't give me this money, American troops are going to be fighting Russian troops. What goes through a president's head? Basically what goes through his head is what his staff and key people,

National Security Council members, tell him should be in his head. That's basically what happens. But I think in the case of Joe Biden, I've known, been around him for a long time. I think in the case of Joe Biden, he thinks that there's the desperate situation that if he's not reelected, that the country will fall into total ruin. And therefore, he's willing to do anything. And I think his staff has convinced him that doing anything includes not cutting and running from Ukraine, not in a visible way anyway. And so he feels like he's got to stick with it. Domestic politics is a powerful component of national security decision making in our polluted country.

Right, right. Is there any question in your mind that what's going on in Gaza now is a massacre, a slaughter of innocent civilians? It is Bibi Netanyahu's opportunistic strategy. He didn't have one when it started, but he's got one now. And that is to elongate his previous time-by-time strategy into a momentary moment, if you will, where he's going to eradicate as many Palestinians as he possibly can. From the West Bank to East Jerusalem to Gaza proper, he's going to eradicate them. He's going to either push them into Jordan, push them into the Sinai and into the desert, or kill them. Right now, he's doing the latter most dramatically. In fact, probably as dramatically as I have ever seen in my life. Why is there no reaction to this in the United States, in Great Britain, in Western Europe, even in the Arab

world. It is so patently obvious that this is an ethnic cleansing, a slaughter of monumental proportions, the likes of which we probably haven't seen since Cambodia. I'm sad, very sad to say this, but I think it is in the intrinsic national security, economic and other interests of a lot of people not to be concerned. I put a really, really sad patina on it for us by saying that we believe that if Israel doesn't eradicate them, we would have to. And that goes back to the global war on terror and all the things that that 9-11 attack created in our decision makers in terms of the way they think. If Israel weren't killing the Palestinians and, oh, by the way, killing anybody else that gets in the way that looks like a terrorist or looks like they might be, we'd have to be doing it. That is an absurd proposition, but you'd be surprised how many times I've heard that. Chris, play Secretary Blinken on intent. Now, in fairness to the Secretary, I don't think he had slept the night before. He's not happy with the question. He looks exhausted.

But the answer is very, very intriguing on the intent of the israeli policies you've talked about what you made clear to prime minister netanyahu and the war cabinet but what concrete and specific assurances have you gotten from them if any um based on what you heard from them today, are you confident Israel will follow the international laws of war in southern Gaza when it resumes its military operations? Thank you. SECRETARY BLINKEN Thanks, Mara. So as I said, we made clear the imperative that before any operations go forward in southern Gaza that there be a clear plan in place

that puts a premium on protecting civilians as well as sustaining and building on the humanitarian assistance that's getting into Gaza. And the Israeli Government agreed with that approach. Israel understands the imperative of protecting civilians, the imperative humanitarian assistance, and we'll continue to work to ensure that that carries forward in practice. And again, as I said to the prime minister, to the war cabinet, intent is obviously where you start and it's vitally important, And I'm very confident in the intent, but results, of course, are fundamentally what matters.

Can we expect anybody to believe him when he says Israel understands the imperative of protecting civilians? There is no imperative in the mind of the Netanyahu doctrine to protect civilians, unless it's a word game, unless they don't consider anybody in Palestine to be a civilian, unless, you know, as I said, they're playing games here. Those are dangerous games. general just blew everything Tony Blinken said totally away because he reported on what he is seeing and what his people on the ground in Gaza are telling him as far as I'm concerned accurately as accurately as one can with that distance interposing itself and it just clearly indicates that Israel when Blinken left Israel extended him the middle finger. I want to prevail upon your thoughts in all the years you worked in diplomacy. Can Netanyahu stop and declare victory short of the annihilation of the Palestinian people,

short of the total cleansing, I hate the word, evacuation of Palestinians from Gaza? Of course he can. But if he does, he has to have an alternative thought. And the alternative thought has to be a piece of territory on which the Palestinians can live in peace. Call it a two-state solution, call it whatever you want. There has to be a reasonably acceptable solution to the Palestinian situation. Bibi Netanyahu feels that is anathema. So he is the right person to be there for the total extermination of the Palestinians or their

expurgation from any soil that'll impact Israel. There has to be a moral component here, and there have to be teeth to international law. Otherwise, I'm just thinking out loud, Colonel, I have so much respect for you. Otherwise, what Bibi Netanyahu is doing, others will do, and there will be no consequence for it. True. Others have done it before, of course, ourselves included, with regard to the Native Americans and to a certain extent with Blacks for a long time. That was a century and a half ago or better.

Haven't we learned anything since then? We have labored since World War II and the incarnation of Adolf Hitler, the Fuhrer. We have labored to make international law, the Geneva Conventions, the law of lamb warfare and other aspects of this sort of activity illegal and to condemn it and to build a structure that would condemn it formally.

And now we are the biggest implementers of the obstructions and we are the biggest implementers and advocates and payers of those doing the destruction. Joe Biden could stop what's happening in Gaza with a phone call. We all know that. You don't see that in the cards at all. He could say to baby, you're not going to get parts for the planes that you need. You're not going to get 57,000 rounds of artillery shells. You're not going to get 15,000, 200 or 2,000 pound bombs, whatever we've been sending.

Plane load after plane load after plane load. He could stop that like that. He could, but I don't think he has the moral courage that would take some that would be jfk uh profiles of courage times 10. that he'd go down in the history books for that that's not what joe biden's looking for joe biden's looking for another position as president for four years. The so-called Hannibal doctrine, whereby the Israelis kill their own soldiers and civilians who have been or are about to be captured because of the difficulty of getting hostages back. Isn't that repellent? And do the Israeli people accept that type of behavior? I'm told they've revoked that, but here's my appreciation of it, having worked in this field for a long time and sometimes with the Israelis.

They revoked it for propagandistic purposes. They didn't revoke it on the ground. And they laughed at the people who told them they should revoke it as they left, just as they laughed at Lincoln when he left after instructing them to follow the rules of war and humanitarian relations. That's the Israelis. That's the Israelis. We were right. You were wrong. Get out of here. But since it's the United States, you say, oh, of course, of course, we revoked that. We did this. We did that. And then you go right about doing your business the same way you did before. This has been Israel policy since Netanyahu took over. indeed, probably since Ronald Reagan had to really bash the Israelis when they went

into Lebanon in 1982. But it's certainly been their policy since Netanyahu took over. He is the most draconian leader Israel has had in its short history since 1948. He is the Fuhrer. He is the Fuhrer. He is the Fuhrer. Well, how do you see this ending in Gaza? Do you see other international players coming in to save the Palestinian people? Do you see the Israelis taking over Gaza, making it part of greater Israel, doing the same with the West Bank? Do you see Turkey, Egypt, Jordan animated to do something? Do you see Western Europe doing anything? Or is Bibi unleashed to kill whoever he wants and steal whatever he wants?

I wish I could say, I think what you're saying will eventually come about, but I go back to Hannah Arendt and her phrase, the banality of evil. What we're seeing is the banality of evil work every 24 hours in this situation. We're seeing people getting to the point where they just want to ignore it. They want to go somewhere else. They want to get away from the bloodshed. They want to get away from the killing and the murder and the slaughter. And they'll figure out a way to do that, whether it's Mohammed bin Salman or it's el-Sisi in Cairo or whomever. They'll figure out a way to do that. Now, if it should impact their interests directly, like, for example, the King of Jordan,

if they push too many into Jordan or el-Sisi, if they push too many into Jordan, or El-Sisi, if they push too many into Egypt, then it could change, but I don't think it'll change dramatically. I think it might be a word or two in the ear of the Israelis, but it won't be much more than that. They're going to continue until they've done what they want to do. Colonel, you're a man of great understanding and vision and courage, and thank you very much for joining us. I hope you'll come back again next week as well. Thanks for having me. Of course. Wow. Bibi Netanyahu is the Führer of today. That's the phrase for this week from the great Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson. Four o'clock today, Intelligence Roundtable, right here. Judge Napolitano, judging freedom. Altyazı M.K.