Judging Freedom - How Long In Gaza? w/Larry Johnson fmr CIA

Episode Date: October 9, 2023

How Long In Gaza? w/Larry Johnson fmr CIASee 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 Monday, October 9th, 2023. Larry Johnson joins us now. Larry, thank you very much for your time and your thoughts on what we are about to discuss. What is happening in Israel as we speak? Think of Samson back in the day when he was in the process, destroy itself because of its reaction and how it handles it and then putting itself in a position where there will be some great danger. So right now, say they're going to flatten Gaza. Well, Gaza is a big area. It's 141 square miles. And if you flatten the surface of it, that doesn't guarantee that you've defeated Hamas.

Remember what happened to the Germans in World War II when they flattened Stalingrad? What it ended up helping was the defenders finding defensive positions that made it very difficult for the tanks to get in. So Israel, through its anger in this, and justifiable anger, I'm not suggesting in any way that it's unjustified, but really could create a defensive problem for itself. Because the Hamas still has access to Egypt. And the only way Israel can cut off access to Egypt is to go to war with Egypt, which means that they go to war with Egypt, then the war is expanding. And right now you've got anger throughout the Arab world.

I mean, it's really escalated to a point we have not seen for years. And the Saudis and Israelis who were talking about normalizing relations, Saudis have just blown it off and said, no, that's not going anywhere now. So it's really dangerous time. So you're concerned that the Israeli response will be too aggressive, too destructive, so aggressive, so destructive, it'll involve them in an intractable guerrilla-like land war, and it may draw in other countries. Yeah, unfortunately, Israel has a track record of underestimating its opponent. If you recall in the invasion of southern Lebanon in 2006, it was called the Second Lebanese War, Israeli-Lebanese War, Israel went in and really got its rear end handed to it by Hezbollah.

And Israeli soldiers at the time were commenting on the dramatic improvement in Hezbollah's operation as a military unit. They were ambushing tanks. They had fortified bunkers. They had underground tunnels, just a network interlacing that part of the southern part of Lebanon. And Israel was very unprepared for it, lost a lot of troops and a lot of tanks. So up to that point, and really, I think up until recently, they've always assumed that Hamas was a clown show, a malevolent clown show, but just not very competent. They could be murderous, but they would not be terribly competent in carrying out operations. Well, that's no longer the case. What they pulled

off the other day is remarkable because it's either one of the most massive intelligence failures ever, or it's one of the greatest acts of government incompetence ever? It's one or the other. Well, you read my mind. I mean, how could Mossad, MI6, and CIA not have foreseen this, or is this FDR at Pearl Harbor? Did they foresee it? And Bibi wanted them to look the other, Prime Minister Netanyahu wanted them to look the other way because they wanted a plausible basis for invading Gaza. A lot of people have different opinions about Bibi Netanyahu. So regardless of your opinion, I do not think Netanyahu is such a depraved individual that he, knowing that a massive Hamas offensive was going to be unleashed and unleashed against civilians, would allow it to happen in order to go, quote, crush Hamas. Because remember, he is not, he's in a mixed government. Not everybody in that government that's part of this coalition necessarily likes him or

supports him. You're not just talking Mossad. You're talking Shin Bet and Unit 8200. So you got at least two other intelligence units. What is Unit 8200? Another intelligence unit? Yeah, it's Israel's version of NSA, National Security Agency. So you've got all of these different intelligence agencies with different people.

You can't keep that many people quiet if they knew about this. And the shock and horror that has descended upon Israel, because it's not just the 260 kids that were killed dancing out in the desert. It's the soldiers that were killed dancing out in the desert. It's the soldiers who were killed. The men, women, children, elderly people who were taken hostage and hauled into Gaza. So here's...

I discount that. Okay, here's your sidekick. The great Ray McGovern about five hours ago. Well, you have Jake Sullivan standing up a week ago saying, you know, the Middle East has never been quieter. You know, I spent very little time on it,

and we don't have to worry about that anymore. That's what he said one week ago. So it kind of is a stretch for me to think, although it's a tenable argument, that this was allowed by Israel and by the United States in the hope that they could demolish Hamas definitively. so it would have required a level of depravity on the part of the prime minister netanyahu the slaughter of 200 kids teenagers dancing at some sort of a gathering until the sun came up that you believe he doesn't have yeah it's it's like you know that there's a robber outside your house and you decide well let's give him a gun so he can come in and make it look real. Okay. But the flip side of this, Larry, is that the three most sophisticated, tell me if I'm wrong, intelligence agencies on the planet, Mossad, MI6, and CIA, didn't foresee an invasion planned so well.

It came from air, sea, and land and involved thousands of people. Yeah. Well, I've seen it before in terms of, not on this scale, but in 1992, when Hezbollah was implicated in blowing up the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, I led an interagency team down to Argentina after that. And within the agency, every chief of station has a collection plan. It's a list of items, issues that they're supposed to collect intelligence on. Hezbollah was not on the list. So people imagine that the CIA chief of station wakes up every morning and goes, boy, I wonder what we should focus on today.

No, no, no, no. They go by that list because if they get sources that bring in reports that address those concerns, they get a nice check mark and that gets them promoted. That gets them more money. It doesn't matter what's actually going on in the real world. And at that time, I asked the chief of station, a guy named Bill, and I said, hey, Bill, where is Hezbollah on your collection list? He goes, it's not. And I said, so what are you doing about it? He goes, nothing. It's not on the list. Until it was on the list, he wasn't going to collect. So let me suggest that Hamas, in terms of this kind of capability or action, had not been put on anybody's list. And it was a complete bureaucratic screw up because people were

more interested in collecting on stuff that would get them promoted as opposed to actually paying attention. But surely Hamas and Hezbollah would be on promoted as opposed to actually paying attention to the people. But surely Hamas and Hezbollah would be on Mossad and Shin Bet and this other 82 group that would be on their list. 82. Okay. How militarily sophisticated are Hamas and Hezbollah? Well, Hezbollah established itself as being very sophisticated militarily

20 years ago. They're no longer some rowdy band of terrorists wearing a green or red headband. Hamas did have that reputation. What it looked like has happened is that Hamas has gotten much, much better. And I think that's the danger that Israel faces, because going into an area of 141 square miles where they can go below the streets, they can go into bunkers, fortified positions. And if they do happen to have anti-tank guided missiles that have come in that we sent to Ukraine and that have made their way down to Hamas. Israel's going to be in trouble. I mean mean they're going to have a bloody fight it's not to say that Israel can't defeat them but the defeat will come at a very very high cost and because of the size of the area that's why I wrote an article recently comparing it to Iwo Jima that Gaza Strip could be Israel's Iwo Jima Iwo Jima was just nine square miles, roughly. And it took the U.S. Marine Corps Division, Division Plus, more than a month to quell that island with these underground entrenched forces.

Will the United States Navy be shelling Gaza? It's not going to make any difference. If they do, it's stupid. I mean, they can either shell it or they can fly aircraft with a, launch some bombs. All that's going to do then is make the United States a bigger target throughout the Middle East. The last time we were doing that kind of thing,

we were off the coast of Lebanon, shelling into the Baka Valley and Hezbollah under the leadership of a guy named Immanuel Mugnea, blew up the Marine barracks and then blew up the U.S. embassy twice. So, you know, I don't think the United States is ready to go back to that. You know, if we want to go back to that, that's what we'd be looking at if we escalated like this. We're going to take a break.

When we come back, we'll move over to Ukraine. You can guess who President Zelensky blames the attack in Israel on. But first this. Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Lear Capital. You all know that I am a paid spokesperson for Lear Capital because it's know that I am a paid spokesperson for Lear Capital because it's the right thing to do because the government is regulating too much and printing too much money and reducing the value of everything you earn and everything you own. And the best hedge against this is gold and silver. That's what I've done. I know the folks at Lear. I trust the folks at Lear. I've worked with the folks at Lear,

and I use their advice when it comes to my investing in gold and silver. You should do the same. Call them at 800-511-4620 or go to learjudgenap.com. You'll have a very nice conversation with a very knowledgeable person who will send you literature to read, which you can review with your spouse and your financial to read, which you can review with your spouse and your financial advisor, and then you can call them back and decide what you want to do. Why Lear? Lear has 25 years experience and thousands of five-star reviews and a 24-hour risk-free guarantee. And when you have this conversation with a Lear representative, you'll find out if you can qualify for a $15,000 gold bonus. So call Lear now, 800-511-4620 or learjudgenap.com.

Do you think that the West, Larry, will have its attention diverted from Ukraine to Israel. I'm talking about the globalists and the neocons, the Lindsey Graham types. Yeah, you know how they put the pictures of missing children on a milk carton. It's going to be missing from the debate. We missed what you said about the milk carton say it again please larry yeah no i said if you've seen the milk cartons where they put the pictures of missing children or uh teenagers i said they're going to now put one of those out with ukraine's picture on it zielinski's uh they're going to be looking for them yeah

they're gonna they're gonna become a you become a second thought. Israel goes to the head of the line. Ukraine's at the back of the line. And already, Ukraine's virtually disappeared from the news flow. You know, hardly anybody is reporting or talking about what they're doing anymore. Here's what President Zelensky had to say. You can guess on whom he blames the attack on Israel. Today was a very eventful day. Various meetings, and among them those related to the latest international developments, are of particular importance. I held a meeting with the heads of our intelligence, main intelligence directorate, and foreign intelligence service, as well as with our diplomats on the situation in and around Israel

and on the overall situation in the Middle East. This is of fundamental importance for us, not only for Ukraine, but also for the entire Europe. According to the available information, a very clear one, Russia is interested in triggering a war in the Middle East so that a new source of pain and suffering could undermine world unity, increase discord and contradictions, and thus help Russia destroy freedom in Europe. We see Russian propagandists gloating. We see Moscow's Iranian friends openly supporting those who attacked Israel. And all of this is a much greater threat than the world currently perceives. The world wars of the past started with local aggressions.

We know how to counter this threat. We are preparing appropriate steps. And most importantly, we are defending the need for maximum unity in the world. Today, I addressed the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, first of all, on the issue of unity. Every state in the world must now choose how it will defend international law. We'll talk in a minute about the propriety or lack thereof, the wisdom or lack thereof of him addressing NATO. But is there any evidence whatsoever that Putin knew about, financed, promoted or encouraged the attack on Israel over the weekend? No, zero.

But you can tell how worried and nervous he is. Number one, he lost his Che Guevara Fidel Castro costume, so he's no longer showing up in khaki green. He's going for the Johnny Cash look now. He's all in black. So just the fact that he's changing wardrobe tells you he's worried because he recognizes what's coming down the pike, that Israel already had been depleted somewhat by the United States going to it, getting 155 millimeter shells out of its inventory and sending them to Ukraine.

Now, Israel's pleading for those back, pleading for resupplies, pleading for missiles that can be fired out of the Iron Dome that are basically Patriot battery missiles. So Israel's needs are going to come to the forefront. And frankly, the possibility of this war getting out of hand, if Hezbollah decides to intervene, you've already seen massive protests. I mean, unbelievable protests in places like Yemen. If Egypt now decides to weigh in on the side of Hamas and Syria, the organization of Islamic states or their countries is coming together,

and they're going to side with Hamas. Because, you know, as horrific as what Hamas did to those kids, the argument of Hamas and the Arabs is, Israel's been doing that to us for the last 50 years, so what's the big deal? They view that as Western hypocrisy. And I'm not saying that that's the case. I'm just saying that's how they view it, and we better understand how they see the world, or we're going to miss what they're going to do. You mentioned the Iron Dome. We have an Israeli-American journalist reporting for NBC News, and this furthers the Ray McGovern argument.

How could the most sophisticated intelligence agencies in the world have missed this? This Israeli-American journalist says the Iron Dome wasn't working. It wasn't turned on. Listen to this. There is just a state of shock in this country that they could have been caught so off guard.

Something else we've been seeing on the road, the truck has moved away now, but we just saw a truck carrying a battery of Israeli Iron Dome missile interceptors. This is this highly sophisticated Israeli air defense system developed with support from the United States. It is the backbone of Israel's defenses.

It is what Israel relies on to protect its civilians from this rocket fire from Gaza. But whatever happened in the early hours of this morning, the Iron Dome was not able to stop this barrage. The Israeli military says it was more than 2,000 rockets fired. How could the Iron Dome not have blocked it? Was it not turned on? Were the projectiles too small that they got through the Iron Dome? No, actually, I think what's going on is it looks like Hamas has upgraded the kinds of rockets it's firing. In the past, they were really sort of homemade rockets,

not quite the stuff you'd want to shoot off at 4th of July, but as you know, a step above, but you, I did see pictures of a multiple launch rocket system, you know, like what you normally see the Russian shooting, you know, where the rockets come out one after another, you know, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. That's how Moss was shooting. And, and that could very well overwhelm quickly the iron dome because in the, it wasn't going up against, you know, first-rate competition. The Hamas and Hezbollah were not firing hypersonic missiles at them. Is Israel going to ask the United States for artillery shells that we don't have because we gave them away to Ukraine.

Yeah, we'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a missile today. That's the problem. And it's not like there's a factory out there where we can throw a switch and all of a sudden they start cranking it out. We don't have that. And the Department of Defense has been very clear. It's going to take us, candidly, two years to get up to a place where we could produce enough artillery rounds to supply Ukraine's daily needs. So that'd be two years at the current rate of use. So, you know, Israel now is going to go to the front of the line. That means Ukraine's going to have less weaponry. And if it is proven that the weapons that are in the hands of Hamas have come out of Ukraine, I think that is going to ratchet up dramatically in Congress demands for effective audit and control so that they'll stop arming.

The reality here, there's one interesting fact, Judge. Regardless, the United States armed Hamas because the rifles that are in Hamas's hand came from one of three sources. It came from what we sent to Ukraine. It came from what we gave to the Palestinian Authority. Or it came from what we left in Afghanistan. So the irony here is, and I've talked to an Israeli source of mine, he said it came out of the Palestinian Authority

from what the U.S. gave the Palestinian Authority. So the United States can at least take comfort that we've armed Hamas in part. So the efforts to at least legally restrict the use of weaponry that we give to Ukraine were not even voted on on the floor of the House or the Senate. It was the same efforts made by Congressman Massey in the House, Senator Paul in the Senate, A, to restrict the movement of the weapons, and B, to impose inspector generals. Both those things were defeated. They weren't defeated. They weren't voted on. Chuck Schumer wouldn't allow the vote in the Senate. Kevin McCarthy, when he was the speaker, wouldn't allow the vote in the House.

You think maybe there'll be a different attitude about that. Ukraine is so corrupt. Would you put it past corrupt Ukrainian officials to sell, not resell because they didn't pay for it, sell the equipment that the Americans gave them to the Hamas and Hezbollah? Oh, yeah. No, they do it in a heartbeat. And remember, you've had a couple of developments out of State Department over the last three weeks. They did appoint somebody who is being labeled as the new inspector general to go

over there and look at, you know, try to put in place a system to keep track of this. But then they also leaked a report identifying the depth of the corruption in Ukraine. So, you know, we're at a turning point with respect to U.S. policy towards Ukraine. We were already approaching that turn, but this war now in the Gaza Strip has completely accelerated the process. And in Ukraine, Ukraine is going to become an afterthought. It's no longer the priority at all, because there are many more Jewish Americans concerned about the fate of Israel who vote than there are Ukrainian Americans who care about the fate of Ukraine who vote. Just a couple numbers. This must have been taped about 10 days ago, but it's the final interview General Milley gave.

I think it's to CBS. There's two clips. We'll play them both because they're both absurd, but these are his last statements on it. One says that the counteroffensive is still going on. We know that's not true. The other says if Putin wins the Ukraine war, you can expect, this is crazy, the American defense budget to double.

It's already at $860 billion. Gary, play them back to back. The defense budget doubling second. The other one about the counteroffensive going well first. The counteroffensive that the Ukrainians are running is still ongoing. The progress, as many, many people have noted, is slow, but it is steady, and they are making progress on a day-to-day basis. But expelling 200,000 Russian soldiers, no easy task. Very hard, very hard. How long is this going to look like this? A year, five years? Well, you can't put a time on it, but it'll be a considerable length of time, and it's going to be long and hard and very bloody.

If Ukraine loses and Putin wins, I think you would be certainly increasing, if not doubling, your defense budget in the years ahead, and you will increase the probability of a great power war in the next 10 to 15 years. I think it'd be a very dangerous situation if Putin's allowed to win. Your thoughts on that, Larry, as absurd as it is. I mean, you may disagree with me. I doubt it, but you may. Thank God he retired. Then you're no longer in office.

You know, he's done enough damage. It's like, you know, taking the keys away from your 90-year-old father. He can no longer drive the car. Don't let him anywhere near it. Yeah, we're taking the keys away from Millie. I mean, the man is, you know, he's got four stars. He served, he made a lot of money as a senior officer and learned nothing in the process. I mean, those two statements that he just made are so absurd and so ludicrous that it'll be embarrassing for him in years to come because he can't point back with that with pride and say,

see, no, this war is going to go on a long time. No, it's not. It can't go on a long time because Ukraine doesn't have the golden credit card and they don't have the factories and they don't have the manpower. So where has all this come? A leprechaun with a pot of gold or some unicorn rides in? Magical thinking is for children. Fairy tales are great for children. Miley, he's too old to be indulging in these kinds of fairy tales. Larry Johnson, always a pleasure, my dear friend. Thank you very much for joining us.

I know from the comments that the audience thanks you as well. Thank you, Judge. Always a pleasure. Of course. Coming up at 4.30 this afternoon, Eastern Colonel Douglas McGregor. At 5 o'clock this afternoon, Eastern Professor Jeffrey Sachs, Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. Thank you.