Judging Freedom - INTEL Roundtable: Johnson & McGovern - Weekly Intel WrapUp

Episode Date: July 12, 2024

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Thank you. Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Friday, July 12, 2024, time for the Intelligence Community Roundtable with my dear friends and longtime colleagues, Larry Johnson and Ray McGovern. Larry, Ray, welcome to the show. We have a lot to talk about, both in the realm of Israel and Ukraine. Let's start with Ukraine because of all the events in Washington, D.C. this week. Larry, to you first, what is to be gained or how dangerous is it for NATO to be saber rattling all week in Washington, D.C.? It's insane. There's no rational justification for it. This, it'd be one thing if NATO could back it up, but they can't. They do not have the industrial capability.

They don't have the manpower. And yet they, it's like they went out of the way to say, okay, we're going to show you, you know, everything from the announcement that they're going to start placing, you know, the U.S. is going to place intermediate range of ballistic missiles in Germany. Hello, Cuban missile crisis the U.S. is going to place intermediate range ballistic missiles in Germany. Hello, Cuban Missile Crisis number two coming up. So this is just the height of irresponsibility. But, you know, at the same time, the Russians got to be laughing a little bit because it was a veritable clown show,

particularly now that, you know, with Biden introducing President Putin yesterday at the NATO summit. You know, it was, oh, I meant Zelensky, Putin. So, you know, you two look alike. And then announcing. That you can't make up. I mean, at first I thought it was a joke. And then I thought, no, no, no.

Joe is not that witty enough to have said this as a joke. And it would be a tasteless joke. Yeah. And then, you know, on top of it, recognizing his new vice president, Trump, Donald Trump is his vice president. I mean, he couldn't. It was there's one segment where Biden is saying. I'm not going to talk to Putin. I won't talk to him at all.

And he goes, then literally within two minutes, he says, yes, I'll talk to anybody in the world. Okay. It was rather disjointed. But some of the things, Ray, that they leaked, like Ukraine's march toward NATO is irreversible and inevitable, I thought was highly ill-advised. want you to explain what is it that the Germans and the Americans agreed the Germans would produce and make available? Well, the inevitability of Ukraine's membership in NATO is really just words. Those are the words that are agreed beforehand. And Biden is said to have reluctantly acquiesced in them in return for assurances that corruption would be wiped out of Ukraine. The more interesting thing is this highly unusual

separate statement between the United States and Germany about intermediate-range ballistic missiles. This was all prepared before the NATO summit, and it said so in this one-paragraph statement. Before you get to that, this is not a NATO statement. This is U.S. and Germany separately and on their own. Do I have this correct? That's correct. And I just don't know what they have on the Schultz that he would acquiesce in this. After all, his predecessors in the 80s were delighted when the Pershing II missiles were withdrawn from Germany in return for the SS-20s being withdrawn from Russia. So it's really puzzling to know how they got the Germans to agree to this, but the message is simply this, that look, we're going to do permanent stationing of worse than we've got in Romania and Poland right now. These things will

fly faster. They're just about developmental right now, but we're going to do a really fast and hypersonic and all this kind of stuff. And we're going to put it in in an episodic way for two years, but then in 2026, we're going to put it in, not permanent. They don't use permanent. They use sustained or things short of permanent. So what are they saying? They're saying that we know that President Putin, just 12 days before, had said, look, this is real trouble. And specifically, if you use these Typhon transporters, because that makes these missiles mobile, okay?

And when they're mobile, they're hard to find. And when they're equipped with the most sophisticated hypersonic missiles, they're going to be hard to deal with. Now, Putin said that. He said that on the 28th of June, and this is Sullivan Blinken's response to it. Here's a poker to the eye. We agree with the Germans that we're going to reintroduce what we used to have in Germany, the SS-20s. And Putin was very, very big on this. This was a well-advertised National Security Council meeting on the 28th of June. He said, look, in 2019, when Trump got out of the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty, we said that we wouldn't produce this and we wouldn't deploy them unless the U.S. did. Now the U.S. is doing it. And so guess what? They already exercised them in Denmark and in the Philippines. We're going to have to deal with that. How does he say it? Well,

it appears we need to begin producing these attack weapons and based on the actual situation, decide on where to deploy them to ensure our security so this is a completely unnecessary escalation it reduces warning time to about 10 minutes out of war used to be about 20 or 30 and it's very very very challenging for the russians to think that they're going to have to deal with this in two years. A conclusion by the Russians? Whoa, we better finish this thing off sooner than we had intended. Let's do it before the election in November.

Let's do this, boss. Here's a cut of President Putin saying exactly what Ray just described and characterized and from which in part he read. Cut number one. In 2019, we announced that we would neither produce these missiles nor deploy them as long as the United States does not deploy such systems anywhere around the globe. We now know that the United States is not only producing these missile systems, but has brought them to Europe, Denmark, to use in exercises. Not long ago, it was reported that they are in the Philippines. It is unclear whether they have taken these missiles out from the Philippines or not. In any case, we need to respond to this and decide on our further steps in this regard.

It appears that we need to begin producing these attack systems and then, based on the actual situation, decide on where to deploy them to ensure our security, if necessary. Doesn't Tony Blinken understand that, Larry? No, no. In fact, the statement was so, it was bizarre because they talked about deploying hypersonic missiles to Germany. We don't have any, okay? I know one of the project managers of the hypersonic program.

In September of 2022, he was telling us, six more months, man, six months, we're going to have it. That was September 2022. Just two weeks ago, he said, you know what, another six months, we should have that baby nailed down. So we can't even produce a hypersonic missile. We can't bring two astronauts back from the space station, and yet we're out there talking this kind of nonsense. And yet, and at the same time, we are deploying the other intermediate range ballistic missile. And without having any sense of what the Russians would do or how they would react. It's like, they're irrelevant. It's like they're irrelevant.

It doesn't matter what they do. This is the most ignorant, reckless administration that has ever inhabited the White House. Former Ambassador Freeman, perhaps being just a skosh more diplomatic than Larry, referred to the Biden State Department as the least credible in the post-World War II era. That's pretty significant. Ray, I saw some language. I mean, this is just mind-boggling. People forget what NATO stands for, North Atlantic. Do they want to expand into Asia? Do they want to provoke China, Ray McGovern? Are these people no longer a defensive organization, but an offensive organization designed to bring war

rather than peace? All right, I'm off my high horse. What do you think? Well, they don't seem to know what they're doing, or maybe they do. Now, put yourself in Putin or Xi Jinping's position. They have to regard these reckless people as bereft of any conscience or any real appreciation of the risks that they run into in terms of open hostilities with either or both Russia and China. It's almost as though they set out to ruin U.S. equality, much less superiority, in taking on them both. Now, that was quite really notable about the final statement from the summit that it's China's fault that Russia's winning in Ukraine. China's given

them the wherewithal, not the weapons, but the little parts of it. And you know what, you Europeans, you can't have decent economic relationship with China if they're doing this. Just be advised, we don't think that's a good idea. Shun China. Give me a break. These people really think, as Biden has elucidated every time he gets up to the microphone, that Madeleine Albright was right, that we are not only the indispensable country in the world, but we guys are so well educated, so much in control, that we too are indispensable, and we don't have to worry about what the Russians do, or if they do risky things, we'll face them down. Totally idiotic.

Hey, let me just, Judge, let me jump in there. What about CETO? What happened to CETO? The Southeast Asia Treaty Organization, set up in 1954. That was NATO with an Asian slant. And yet it's disappeared. Now they said, okay, well, we're going to have NATO and Asia. It's just like, are these people ignorant of history? They're uneducated. It's shocking. In a tweet he posted just a few minutes before we came on air, Larry, Professor Ted Postol, whom we know and respect, reports that Ukraine has attacked another Russian nuclear warning system, this one an ORSK, O-R-S-K.

Now, when they do something this reckless, do they run it past Lloyd Austin and Tony Blinken first, or do they just do it no matter what the likely and probable response will be? Well, again, they're not thinking through the consequences. And I always have confidence in Ted. I just want to know if this was coming from Ukrainian sources or Russian sources. Because we had the previous report that, oh, they attacked Orsk as well. And what it was was a drone that didn't actually hit the facility. To my understanding right now, the Ukrainians do not have a weapon system that could actually hit one of the radars with enough force to destroy it because they're relying upon drones.

They just don't have a drone that big. The storm shadows, the Patriots, the other missiles, they won't reach that far. So, but still, it's a provocation. And it's an act of desperation on the part of Ukraine. What do they think they'll accomplish? Let's assume, Ray, that Professor Postol's sources, he's not there, Professor Postol's sources, he's not there, Professor Postol's sources are accurate. What could the Ukrainians possibly hope to accomplish by provoking President Putin? You

indicated earlier, just a few minutes ago, that this may result in the demolition of the Ukrainian military or the Ukrainian state before election day? They want it to happen faster? Well, some people want more hostilities sooner. It seems that Sullivan and Blinken, I don't think Austin is much of a figure here. He does what he's told. They're in charge. They want to appear really strong, not only before the NATO summit, but after the NATO summit. And the whole name of the game is to appear really strong before November. Now, they think that will sell. They're counting on Putin having continued patience with them. And I dare say they're probably right on that. He will not be provoked into doing anything he doesn't want to do. He has the capability, as I said before,

to go all the way and take Kiev as well as Kharkov and Odessa. He's not doing that right now, but he can. And what Biden needs to know is that he could do that before the election. So is there an alternative? Well, sure there is. Orban has had discussions with Zelensky, Putin, Xi Jinping, Erdogan. He comes to Washington. Does Biden talk to him? No, I don't want to talk to him. So what does Orban do?

He goes to Mar-a-Lago and he talks with Trump, a big fan of his and vice versa. So, you know, Biden is not being advised very well. I don't know if he's in control or not, but Blinken and Sullivan are playing brinksmanship. But I don't think the Russians are going to rise to the bait. They're going to just swindle away at the Ukrainian forces at their pace. And we'll see what happens before the election. Larry, before we transition over to Israel and Gaza, Professor Doctorow reports that the Chinese military is engaged in war games in Belarus. Now, what is that all about? Well, they're sending a signal to NATO because NATO has been massing forces on the border of Belarus. So this is one of those, let's call it the horizontal escalation that has been discussed in the past,

that it's not just going to be Russia and Belarus. The Chinese now are acknowledging that the West represents a threat. And so they're putting some actual boots on the ground. They claimed it was described by the Chinese and the Belarus folks as counterterrorism operations. But this was clearly showing that China, who has historically not sent troops overseas on these kinds of missions, it's been very rare, is starting to show and flex some muscles. That's why what the West is doing right now is so reckless,

that we are deliberately trying to provoke a fight with the Russians and the Chinese, and we're not equipped for that fight. or couch potato and, you know, has never exercised, never been in an actual physical fight, and is dreaming about getting into the ring with a mixed martial artist. It's just crazy. But here we are. One of the communiques, Ray, maybe there's only one, and I just read a portion of it, was saber rattling about Taiwan. Is NATO threatening China over Taiwan? I don't get it.

So there are American troops on this little island, Kinmen Island. They're a tripwire. Those troops are fired upon or engaged in some hostilities with the Chinese. I don't know how it starts. It's all hypothetical. Are Germany and France and Great Britain and the other 28 countries in NATO going to send troops to Taiwan? Is that what this nonsense is about?

That's not believable. No, they're not going to send troops, of course, but they just bow to whatever Sullivan and Blinken want them to say. They are literally detached from reality. And the sad thing, of course, is these Europeans still salute and say, okay, if you say so. With Belarus, you know, they just joined the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, okay? So that gives even more of a Eurasian

flavor to that organization. And so the first thing you see is the Chinese troops. Unprecedented, in my view, as Larry has just said. A good many of them going to Belarus. What's the message? You mess around, you get in a fight

with our Russian allies in Europe, you could expect some of, more than just saber rattling out in the South China Sea or in the Taiwan Straits, where China has the high cards. If you look at a map, you have to look at a map, the US forces are stretched so thin that it is sheer idiocy to spread them so thin and take on the other two major powers who are array, two friends of mine who are on this show every week, reported a long time ago, back in October, on the employment by the Israelis of the Hannibal option. Basically killing your own people, shooting them in the back. They were mocked. At first they were ignored, then they were mocked and derided

in the mainstream press. Now that has been demonstrated conclusively by interviewing IDF officers and publishing IDF and Israeli government documents, to deny that more than half the 1,200 Israeli persons who died on October 7th were killed by the IDF. Does any of this surprise you, Larry? Oh, no, no. In fact, we saw the vehicles early on in the aftermath of that October 7th attacks and counterattacks. All those cars that came from the music festival, they were piled up in this graveyard, and they'd all been hit with missiles that were fired from helicopters because Hamas didn't have any missiles to fire. What is really fascinating what's going on in Israel right now, they're falling apart. And what I mean by that is the military is openly rebelling against the civilian leadership. And the willingness of the military to talk to Haaretz and to basically say, yeah, well,

you know, this was done, even though it was the military that did it, it looks like they're working to pin the blame on the civilians, on Netanyahu. So you've got that kind of strife going on at the same time that the Israeli military has failed to defeat Hamas. And they've admitted that they can't defeat Hamas. And they've got all this pressure to do something about Hezbollah, but they've got limits on both troops and weapons systems. So, I mean, it's a mess.

And so you have to look at the reports like what Haaretz came out with, which validates what Max and Aaron were saying back in October and November, that this is not just because these reporters decided to work on it. I always look at these kinds of things as information operations that are showing a shift in policy and a shift in the politics. Wow. Judge? Ray, while I'm away, Prime Minister Netanyahu will be speaking to a joint session of Congress,

and he'll be treated like a conquering hero rather than a war criminal. Are you and Medea Benjamin going to be there? She's been asked to introduce him, Judge. Max said, expect 100,000 demonstrators in the streets. Now, you know, the streets, they're going to keep them away from the Capitol, so Bibi won't see them. But 100,000 demonstrators in D.C. is a lot. It is, yeah. You know, a comment on Haaretz. They have admitted that the government of Israel has lied to their teeth. Worse still, that the government of Israel has shot its own citizens under this so-called Hannibal

Directive so that Israeli citizens or troops don't get picked up and held as hostages. Now, one waits in vain for the New York Times, which has slandered, which has just really excoriated Max and Aaron to repeat that. So, you know, you have more freedom of the press in Israel than you do here. And that speaks volumes, doesn't it? Freedom of the press. What happened to that? It does.

And Max and Aaron will wait in vain for an apology. Yeah. I think the world that is interested in the truth knows that these guys are truth tellers, Larry. But don't expect mainstream media. Look at that. Right. Right. Don't expect mainstream media to to apologize. Last subject, The Lancet reports. We all know what The Lancet is, the most highly respected medical journal in the world, that by the time this is all over, 186,000 Gazans will be dead. Professor Mearsheimer says the closer number is a quarter of a million, which is 11% of the population. And is there any doubt, Larry Johnson, that these are war crimes and that this is genocide? Any doubt?

No, because it'd be one thing if they're just rounding up the men and killing them. You know, I'm not advocating that, but at least that would be targeted. This is indiscriminate. This is killing women, children, elderly, young, middle-aged. You know, everybody's a legitimate target as far as Israel is concerned. And coupled with the use, you know, of 2,000-pound bombs, 500-pound bombs, those are not, you know, it's not like firing a rifle with a piece of ammunition and one bullet comes out and you can hit one person. So, and the fact that they've got so many people

buried under buildings, you know, the devastation, and we have a benchmark, something we can compare what's going on in Ukraine, where the Russians are going into these cities and they are having to attack apartment buildings and other massive structures, but they're not killing tens of thousands of civilians. Here, the Israelis are, and it just stands as a clear example that they're about exterminating the Palestinians. Ray, what do you think Netanyahu will ask for when he appears before the Congress? Will he try and talk them into declaring war on Iran? Well, they probably show that bomb again that he shows. Oh, God. Chris, I don't know if you can come up with it. That infamous, ridiculous picture that we know is profoundly inaccurate that he showed at the UN. This is a long, long time ago.

This might have even been before 9-11. I'm not sure when he showed it, but it was a long time ago. Well, they're already saying that Iran is producing more and more highly enriched uranium, okay, and that they might go to a nuclear weapon. Apparently, they haven't yet developed a nuclear weapon to put on, you know, put on top of those missiles. So Iran is always the bugger bear. But Netanyahu can be expected to ask for the moon, and Congress will give them the moon if it gets through Congress, which it will, especially in an election year. There he is. There he is. See how close they were then? That's 23 years ago.

Hey, he stole that bomb from Wile E. Coyote. You know, Judge, let me just point out that after the intelligence fiasco on Iraq, they got an honest manager of intelligence estimates in from the State Department. His name was Tom Finger. And they said, how close is Iran to getting a nuclear weapon? We've been saying five years for the last 20 years. Is it still five years? And he pointed out unanimously with high confidence in this estimate that Iran stopped working on a nuclear weapon in 2003 and did not resume, has not resumed. And they've reiterated that judgment every year since. So they haven't resumed yet, and yet they're still the bugger bear. They're still worth going after,

and of course Netanyahu will play lots of variations on that theme. I don't know, you know, what's going to happen when it becomes very clear that Netanyahu is not winning, whether those people who are ruling with him will jump the ship or not. I suspect over a period of a month or two more, they probably will. Right. Gentlemen, thank you very much. Thanks for all you do for the show. Look forward to revving everything up again at the end of July and in early August. All my best. Safe travels. Thank you. Thank you. A great conversation with two of my dearest, most respected friends and colleagues. Coming up at 10 o'clock this morning, Eastern, Colonel Douglas McGregor.

Judge Napolitano for judging freedom. Thank you.