Judging Freedom - CPT. Matt Hoh : Will US Troops Fight for a Foreign Country?

Episode Date: March 26, 2026

CPT. Matt Hoh : Will US Troops Fight for a Foreign Country?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Undeclared wars are commonplace. Pragically, our government engages in preemptive war, otherwise known as aggression with no complaints from the American people. Sadly, we have become accustomed to living with the illegitimate use of force by government. To develop a truly free society, the issue of initiating force must be understood and rejected. What if sometimes to love your country you had to alter or abolish the government? Jefferson was right? What if that government is best, which governs least? What if it is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong? What if it is better to perish

fighting for freedom than to live as a slave? What if freedom's greatest hour of danger is now? Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for judging freedom. Today is Thursday, March 26th, 2026. Matt Ho joins us now. Matt, it's a pleasure. Thank you for joining us. Thanks for accommodating my schedule. My ultimate question to you today, I'm going to build up to it, is how do American troops feel about fighting for a foreign country? But before we get there, Isn't it rather obvious that the Iran war is not going as planned by Israeli and American planners? Well, thanks for having me on, Judge, and thanks for accommodating my schedule as I travel. It is. I mean, I just saw a story this morning that American planners and lotisticians are rushing around the world trying to find bunkers,

concrete bunkers that, you know, are transportable and you can place them where you need them. They're trying to get them into the Middle East now. I mean, this is a month after the war started. We know the primary weapons of Iran are missiles and drones. We have the experience of particularly Iraq, but off Afghanistan, where any fixed position we have is going to be hit by mortars and rockets and, you know, anything else. The enemy can throw at you, including suicide bombers. So you need these bunkers. You need this protection for your forces, for your troops. And, you know, according to today, the story I'm reading, the Pentagon didn't seem to think that was necessary. I mean, so it's just one example after the next of just how unprepared this Pentagon was for this war. And of course, a political leadership in the U.S. that didn't seem to care and certainly didn't have the awareness to ask the right questions of the Pentagon. And this defaults, of course, to hubris. This goes back. back to just the arrogance of our leadership, both civilian and military. This is amateur hour.

This is what you get from a Pentagon that can't pass an audit, let alone can't win a war. So the reality that Iran is winning this war, that they have the initiative, that they have displayed a much greater degree of strategic and political competence than the Americans have. And of course, I think the longer this war goes on, the more it's in favor of the Iranians. And that's- This super warrior who does push-ups and sit-ups in front of a camera and shows the tattoos on his chest, who's the secretary of defense and calls himself the secretary of war. Did not plan for this stage of the war and did not plan for the need to protect his troops?

Right, Judge. I mean, the basic things you learn as an officer early in your career, like in the first months of being an officer in the U.S. military, is how to plan a mission. And one of the first things you do in planning an mission is to put yourselves into the enemy's shoes. And then you're supposed to essentially have two courses of action to be concerned about. What's the enemy's most likely course of action and what's the enemy's most dangerous course of action? And you can see this over and over again, Whether it's the fact that we don't have the misdunkers to protect our troops from missiles and drones, which then being hit by that certainly was the most likely course of action, or this idea of what's the most dangerous course of action. And this is, you see it playing out through Iran's masterful horizontal expansion of this war, right? Spreading the war throughout the region, causing tensions among American allies, putting a lot of pressure on the U.S., as well as, the concept of using economic warfare, which is every day.

We read more stories about how it's growing. We read about subsidies now occurring in Spain because of the fuel crisis or in an emergency declaration in the Philippines because of the fuel crisis or the energy crisis. I mean, the amount of pressure that's going to grow and then, you know, I don't know if people saw the president's cabinet meeting just earlier today, but you have a man who's banging as just the whole, actually the whole entire cabinet, men and women, you know, beating their chest, saying how great this war is going. And meanwhile, you have all types of indicators in the American economy, including saying, you know, say the airlines that say, we're going to lose money

this quarter already, let alone what the rest of the years are going to look like. So we've got people, like you said, Judge, who are beating their chest, doing pushups in front of cameras, acting all tough as we are heading into a recession, as well as heading towards defeat in the largest war the United States has taken part in, you know, since the last defeats in Afghanistan and Iraq, you know, et cetera. Wow. This is a little tough to watch because it's, that is worst. But the essence of it is we negotiate, it's hard for me to say this, but I will, quoting him,

We negotiate with bombs, Chris number 14. Because we have a president of the United States that when he sends his warfighters out to fight, he unties their hands to actually go out and close with and destroy the enemy as viciously as possible from moment one. And that's why we see ourselves as part of this negotiation as well. We negotiate with bombs. You have a choice as we loiter over the top of Tehran, as the president talked about, about your future. The president has made it clear that you will not have a nuclear weapon.

not Iraq in Afghanistan. This is not a president who's interested in in vague end states. He's been very clear with us about what we need to accomplish, creating the conditions for them never to have a nuclear capability. And that's exactly what we're doing in historic fashion. Thank you, Mr. President. The troops view that. It's just, I think most of them recognize a fool when they see one. Most of them recognize someone who is posturing, who is posing as Pete Hegeseth does. I think the majority of American soldiers and sailors and airmen and Marines and Space Force people and Coast Guard folks and everyone else, you know, bright enough to know that the idea of negotiating with bombs is a ridiculous statement made by ridiculous people.

It reminds me very much, Judge, of George W. Bush in 2003 when he was asked about the the growing insurgency, the growing violent resistance to the U.S. presence in Iraq saying, bring them on, right? And then, of course, where did that come to? Where did that bravado? Where did that hubris? Where did that machismo lead us to? And so I think we're seeing that here. And I think most American service members are aware of the immature, pathetic, incompetent, childish leadership that is over them. at the risk of giving you heartburn, here is a piece that the Pentagon PR department put out about Pistol P. We see ourselves as part of this negotiation as well.

We negotiate with bombs. Your tax dollars at work. Right. And it would be one thing, Judge, if we were fighting an enemy that didn't have an ability to hurt us. And certainly we've all seen that gas gasoline prices have gone up a dollar, a dollar in 10 cents in four weeks time now. And then the long term consequences of that, as well as the much longer term consequences of what this is going to do to the American economic and financial and monetary role in the world, how that de-dollarization process is only going to be hastened by this war. So, I mean, it'd be one thing if they were making that video and we are fighting an enemy judge, say that video was made about the Afghan Taliban who really couldn't affect us, except, you know, killing our soldiers, of course, suffering for those families and driving our debt up by trillions of dollars.

But they couldn't have that effect of touching us here, you know. And Iran certainly does that with their economic warfare, as well as with, we've talked a couple of times. about this, the reality that attacks could occur here. You know, we have vulnerable infrastructure here, particularly our electrical grid is vulnerable, as well as the possibility of attacks in terms of, you know, lone wolf or small cell attacks. So, I mean, it'd be one thing if they could make this video and there's no repercussions, no consequences to the United States, as crass and disgusting, as idiotic as that video is. But it's another thing, When they're making these videos, they're arguing through every public relations, propaganda,

platform, machine, device that they have, that we are winning this war. And the American people, of course, can see it happening. And I think most Americans are also well informed enough to understand that these consequences aren't going to end just because Donald Trump sends out a truth social message or whatever it's called, that this war is going to have long-lasting consequences, particularly economically, you know, for years. And the idea that we may be going into recession is even more urgent because that recession could become a depression if just one or two other things occur that throw the world balance off even further. Can you imagine a military budget of one and a half trillion during a deprivation? And there will be those, of course, just like the Europeans now, Judge, are saying that this is the way we get out of our funk.

This is the way that we rebuild our society. Isn't this the lesson of World War II, how World War II saved the United States and the world from the Depression? This is military Keynesism. Come on, didn't you study this in college? You know, I mean, that's going to be the arguments being put forward to us. So just to say, last administration, the Biden administration, where they're telling everybody, if you think the economy is not doing well, it's because you just don't know enough. you're too stupid, you don't understand what's going on. That's what they're going to do here. They're going to try and gaslight us.

But the problem is going to be that the severity of these economic consequences are going to be very real. And they're going to cut into American structures. And they are going to cut away at an already declining American quality of life, way of life. We already have more than 60% of Americans living paycheck to paycheck. I mean, so if people don't understand what I'm talking about, look, Iran knocked off about one-fifth of Qatar's LNG or liquid national gas production. Qatar provides about one-fifth of the world's natural gas. The United States gets about 42% of our electricity from natural gas plants. I mean, couple that with the oil shock that is occurring. Everything in this kind of, country is going to be affected. And we are going to have a price inflation that will coincide

with an economic downturn. We will have stagflation. And, you know, and Judge, I've been asking people, how do I make these bets on these online prediction markets, these online gambling things? I'd like to place a bet that says the most Google word for 2026 is going to be stagflation. Because that's what we're looking at. We're looking at prices going up for everything because how do you attach, how do you have anything that goes to market that isn't in some way connected to petroleum or natural gas, whether it's because of internal combustion engines, machinery, power plants, etc. But then at the same time, too, you have this downturn in economic production that is going to cause businesses to go to close. It's going to cause mass layoffs.

I mean, so you're going to have these two things coinciding at the same time. Again, an economic downturn, a recession, and inflation. And, you know, the Pentagon and The White House can make all the videos they want, but Americans are going to feel that, as is everyone in the rest of the world. I'm going to play a clip of a fellow Marine veteran of yours. I don't know if you know him. His name is Jim Webb, and I don't know if he's related to the former Secretary of the Navy, who's also a former senator from Virginia. But he was interviewed by my friend Tucker Carlson. And it's very, very interesting what he says.

After we watch this clip, I'm going to ask you how American troops feel about fighting for a foreign country. But first this, Chris, number 22. As of right now, I hate to say this. I love this country. I am not as proud of anything as I am as my service in the Marine Corps. But I will not let my kids join. because of the way that we went to war with Iran. Because if you look at it philosophically,

we have gone to war on behalf of another country to further their interests. That is, those are not my words. The administration has said as much. Speaker of the House has said as much. And when that's the case, you know, you have reduced our military to effectively a mercenary force.

And there's no honor in that. You know, it's, this is an offensive war of choice. Your thoughts? I don't, I mean,

there's no honor in war whatsoever. I went to war three times. There's no honor in that. The only people who say that are people who have some form of agenda or they're psychotic. There's no honor in it. But also, too,

I'd urge the younger Webb to read his father's books about his time in a Vietnam War as well as, I don't know much about Webb the younger here. Is he the son of the former Navy Senate? He is the son of Jim Webb, the former senator, former U.S. Marine.

I actually had his job, the same job that he was in the Pentagon. I had, you know, decades later. But he makes a great point. We are mercenaries fighting for the Israeli government. Absolutely. But I would say that that is not new now. That's what I urge you, right? I mean, this is not new.

Yes. Is this extreme? Is this grotesque? Is this an exaggerated form of what we've come to understand the American Empire as? Yes. But this is what the empire does. And this is what happens when you put it in someone of power like Donald Trump. But how different is this in terms of being a mercenary force than providing support to the Israelis as they carried out genocide in Gaza or as they bombed Beirut?

I mean, those are all American service members who were the tail of that operation. Those were American service members who were putting the bombs on hundreds of ships and more than, I think more than 1,500 planes that provided the bombs, the missiles, the spare parts that allowed the Israelis to carry out their genocide and their ethnic cleansing of Lebanon. And of course, everything else, the Iraq War, the Afghan War, the Libyan War, I mean, we have all been mercenaries who have joined the American military since the draft was ended in the early 1970s. We are contract soldiers. That's the way it's described when the Western press speaks about Russia's military. We would call them here volunteers, but the Western press describes Russia's military as contract soldiers. There is no different.

So, I mean, he is correct in saying we are a mercenary army, but we have been a mercenary army for decades underneath the all-volunteer force. And of course, even prior to that, when we had conscription, you essentially had a U.S. military that was made up of the poorest in the country who were doing the dirty work for the wealthiest, if you will. I mean, so I don't know when Jim Webb, the younger, starts his history, but he shouldn't be starting it, you know, February 27th or whatever it was, 2006. his thesis is correct. It's just that he needs to, you know, dial back his starting date by a couple hundred years. Here's the president two days ago saying we've already won the war, Matt, number 13. Well, I think we're going to end it. I can't tell you for sure. You know, I don't like to

say this. We've won this war has been won. The only one that likes to keep it going is the fake news. I mean, the New York Times, you read the New York Times, it's like we're not winning a war where they have no Navy and they have no Air Force and they have no nothing. And we literally have planes flying over Tehran and other parts of their country. They can't do a thing about it. Now, isn't that statement absurd? And why is he bringing in thousands of ground troops, whether they're ill-prepared or well-prepared? What the hell are they going to do there? It is absurd, Judge.

I mean, if this was a TV show, I'd watch it every week because what's he going to do next, right? I mean, like, and, you know, this is funny stuff. This is some pretty good satire to Joseph Heller or Kurt Vonnegut write this or is Gore Vidal involved. You know, I mean, this is pretty good satire that's going on here. You know, I mean, what the reality is, it's not, though, Judge, right? And, like, we are straying, I think, into 25th Amendment territory here, just as we did with the last administration. but we have a president who doesn't seem to be able to understand. It's either he is lying intentionally or he's being giving information that is allowing

him to lie intentionally. So who knows what's coming in front of him. We also know that he's on his social media all the time. He can see our conversations. He counts Tucker Carlson as a friend. And Tucker Carlson goes and speaks to him. I mean, as well as other people in conservative spaces that have his ear at times, I mean, he's not a stupid man.

Yes, he is ignorant, but he is not a stupid man. You know, so the, the machinations here. And as well as, too, I think the arrogance, the just general disrespect towards the American people that he possesses, allows him to just speak this way. He doesn't care. This to him is all just something that is always beneath him. And how's it benefiting him? How's his wallet being filled as well as to, you know, watching his cabinet meeting earlier, his secretary of interior, Doug Bergam, said that the people of Venezuela were going to build a statute of him.

And that's what Trump focused on. He didn't want to hear about the oil infrastructure down there. He didn't want to hear about the governing process. He didn't want to hear about anything else. He wanted to hear more about this statue. Now, he was joking a bit about it. But he also didn't ask any other questions, too. So you have this reality.

We are led by someone that Gibbons would have written about the decline of the Roman Empire, right? I mean, this is, we have a mag. Our friend Pepe Escobar compares Trump to Caligula. Chris, can you put up the full screen again? He wrote this this morning, Matt, at 639 this morning. The Iranian negotiators are very different and strange. They are begging us to make a deal, which they should be doing,

since they have been militarily obliterated with zero chance of a comeback. And yet they publicly state that they are only looking at our proposal wrong. They better get serious soon before it's too late, because once this happens, there is no turning back, and it won't be pretty, President D.J.T. but this is really this is more more absurdity you know i think you're not even having a mature serious face-to-face negotiation they're not even in the same room they're not in the same hotel they're not in the same country right and the Iranians keep saying we're not talking to the

Americans we don't know what they're talking about they're lying and I think anyone who's objective in any of this has to believe that the Iranians are the ones who are telling the truth here. Here's the Speaker of their Parliament with whom Trump claims they're negotiating. Iranian people demand complete and remorseful punishment of the aggressors. All Iranian officials stand firmly behind their supreme leader and people until this goal is achieved. Now he underlines this. No negotiations have been held with the U.S. and fake news is used to manipulate the financial and oil markets and escape the quack. which the U.S. and Israel are trapped. That's true. Well, you're seeing Republican members of Congress

who are pushing back on this administration. We had the chairs of the House Armed Services Committee and the Senate Armed Services Committee, so Rogers and Wicker, you know, both basically say the administration is not giving us enough information. They need to give us more information. You have Nancy Mace from South Carolina saying after a closed-door briefing yesterday, One, her implication was that the administration was putting forward some type of plans for U.S. ground presence in Iran because she said she wouldn't support that. But also, too, as well, Mace is saying, you know, Representative Mace is coming out of these briefings saying, look, what they're saying on television and what they're saying in their press briefings is not what they're telling us in terms of what the objectives are or what the goals are. So, I mean, you're seeing pushback from Republicans already. you know, George Bush didn't receive pushback for years, even from the Democrats.

But when John Murther, the Democrat, turned against the war, that was two years into the war. I mean, and now you have, within 30 days, you have Republicans already turning on the president. I mean, this is all just fascinating if we are watching it from afar, but we're in the middle of this. And the decision making, their desire to try to distract. So this idea of maybe putting American forces there to take some Iranian island in order to raise the flag on some Iranian beach someplace. You know, and if it all goes to hell and hundreds of American soldiers or Marines are killed, then so what? At least we have a chance to take back the initiative or distract or at least lead the headlines with this operation. I mean, we've already seen that they're incapable of doing competent planning.

They're incapable of actually understanding who their enemy is. They're incapable of understanding what their own forces are capable of doing. And they are so craven. They are so immature. They are so, you know, their self-image is all. And their self-image is all that matters to them. That, yeah, the idea that they may do something like try and put Marines ashore or drop paratroopers in some place because it'll look good in the headlines the next day and damn, whatever comes up next.

I mean, I think that's something what we're looking at here. Wow. Matt Ho, thank you very much. I know you're traveling. I appreciate the time. I appreciate the insight. It's unique to have the insight of someone like you who has been through a lot of all of this. All the best to you, my friend.

We'll see you next week. All right. Thanks, Judge. Of course. And coming up this afternoon on all of this at 2 o'clock, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, and at 3 o'clock, he's just been emailing me. about how the United States is depleting its military ammunition, and much of it cannot be replaced in a timely manner. Colonel Douglas McGregor, Judge Napolitano for judging freedom.