Judging Freedom - Intel RoundTable: Sustainable Peace in Ukraine Possible? Larry Johnson/Ray McGovern

Episode Date: September 1, 2023

Intel RoundTable: Sustainable Peace in Ukraine Possible?  Larry Johnson/Ray McGovernSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Save $80 with code SPACE80 at Talkspace.com. Thanks for watching! Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Friday, September 1st, 2023. Where does the summer go? This is our roundtable with my dear friends and colleagues, Ray McGovern and Larry Johnson. And of course, we welcome all of you to the show. Gentlemen, thank you very much for joining us. You each have been on already this week and this double duty, double dipper, whatever you want to call it, particularly on a Friday and summertime of a holiday weekend is terrific. I want to start with an interview that my friend and former colleague, Tucker Carlson, did with Viktor Orban, the prime minister of Hungary. We have a couple of clips and we've shown them all, but one of them struck the intellect of the three of us. So I'm going to start with that and then we'll talk about it. This is Victor Orban

talking about the difference between the way Americans view America or the way the West views itself and the way Russians view Russia and Russian culture. To understand the Russians, it's a difficult thing. So when we speak about politics, I mean Westerners, what is the focus point of our conversation? The focus point is freedom. How to provide more and more freedom to the people. When you speak on politics in Russia, this is not the number one issue. The number one issue is how to keep together the country.

That generates a different kind of culture and understanding of politics. That creates a kind of military approach, always on security, safety, buffer zone, geopolitical approaches. But we have to understand that we cannot beat them as we do just now. It's impossible. They will not kill their leader, they will never give it up, they will keep together the country and they will defend it. We finance more, they will invest more. If we send more technical equipments, they will produce more. So don't misunderstand the Russians. So they're not going to get sick of Putin and throw him out? Come on, it's a joke.

To me, that crystallizes one of the best analyses in a brief way of the West versus Russia I have ever heard. Ray, what are your thoughts? Well, Orban also discussed a distinctive characteristic having to do with religion and how Russia was obsessed with its Christian religion and also its need to keep the country together, as Orban says. This may be a different distinction without a difference. But I think it all pretty much laid to Russian history. If you look at Russian history, they had barely gotten to themselves together in Kiev, okay, the Slavs, when they were invaded by the Mongols, Genghis Khan and crew, and occupied by, take note, two centuries and 40 years, okay? So now we're coming out of the, in the West, we're coming out

of the Dark Ages. The Russians are just finally throwing off the, what they of the, in the West, we're coming out of the Dark Ages. The Russians are just finally throwing off what they call the Tartary Oak, the Tartarskia Iga. And what happens? Well, they were invaded by Sweden, Lithuania, right? The Hanseatic League and Poland. They fight them off during the 1500s. Now, Ivan the Terrible finally consolidates, gets rid of his oligarchs, actually, they call them boyars, and then he gets more Mongols and he gets more Swedes. Finally, Peter the Great in the 17th century fights off the Swedes, beats them in 1721 and says, I'm turning west. Our future, Russia's future, we're going to beat a window

into the west. And they did. What happened? 1812, he's invaded by the west, Napoleon. 1941, he's invaded by Hitler. That's the experience they've had with the West. Now, just to finish up here, when the Soviet Union imploded, Putin, by some miracle, was given the chance to put things together if he could. And he said, finally, our chance to join the West. Let's join NATO. There's no more need for NATO. When we join them, then it'll disappear because the Warsaw Pact's gone. We're no threat to anybody. Don't build any 155-millimeter shells. They're not needed anymore.

And he was rebuffed. Long story short, came down to Ukraine, where the West moved its intermediate-range ballistic missile emplacements in Romania and Poland. You face the same kind of situation that John F. Kennedy faced in Cuba in 62. So this is what the Russians are preoccupied. They have this history, and every single Russian schoolboy or girl knows that by heart. And when you talk about Poland, you talk about Lithuania, you talk about the Baltic states, we dismiss them as no threat to Russia at all.

The Russians know their history. Larry, do you accept the basic premise? I'm sure you accept the history. Ray's history is well known. It may be forgotten. It may not even be studied in the West, but nobody can really dispute the accuracy of the historical events in the timeline he just gave us. But how do you react to what Viktor Orban said? And if you agree with what Viktor Orban said, why don't we hear this from anybody else? Well, Orban is a rare voice within the European Union. I mean, he's basically isolated because he's conservative, because he's religious, and because he doesn't want to open his borders to the illegal flow of refugees into the country. So therefore, you've had the United States and other European countries working actively

to get rid of him. I mean, the United States, we got all outraged in 2006 over alleged Russian interference in our election, but by God, we were directly interfering in the Hungarian election that brought Orban to power two years ago, or re-elected him anyway. We were interfering in a way to block Orban? Oh, yeah, to defeat him. Yeah, absolutely. Funding his opponents, et cetera.

So, you know, we've got... Would I be naive to say that the CIA put its thumb on the scale of elections in foreign countries? Well, it wasn't even the CIA. I mean, it was the State Department. We didn't even go for the covert route. We were just open about the opposition. Hypocrisy means nothing. integrity of borders than with personal liberty. Is that a fair explanation of the Russian mentality? And is it a fundamental reason why the West doesn't understand Russia?

Yes and yes. You know, the West persists, and we've seen this among these retired generals, both in the United States and from Australia of all places they continue to believe that Putin exists at the head of Russia by virtue of the cult of personality and it's just it's just as pretty as a personal dictator and that if we can just kill enough of the people in the Donbass or other Russians that's going to create political, domestic unrest, and that'll get rid of Putin. And that Putin is, he's just this one isolated guy, and all we got to do is pressure and they'll dump him. They don't realize that Putin is actually a

manifestation of that deeper roots that are tied to history, Ray noted and that's what Orban is trying to get across there is there is a complete cultural misunderstanding between the on the part of the West regarding what Russia is we we are seized with a fantasy with a delusion that doesn't exist and our miscalculation on that's going to kill us. If President Biden asked his CIA briefers, Ray, a job you once had, obviously not for this president, what's the best off-ramp? What do you think those briefers in this war, or for the U.S. in this war, what do you think those briefers would advise him? The judge, if I were my own man, as I was during the 80s, I would tell him the truth.

I would tell him, for example, that Putin has given an offer that you should accept now. It was made last fall, but he talked about Odessa, Odessa, the beautiful Russian city in the bottom of Ukraine, the seaport right on the Black Sea. He said Odessa could be a яблоко, раздор. Яблоко is apple, раздор is conflict or apple of discord. Think about the Trojan Wars. Iris. I have a sister-in-law. We nicknamed her Iris because wherever she goes, there was discord. But anyway, that was the Greek god of the discord.

Well, it's also named after Victoria Nolan, but she doesn't get it just yet. Now I'm in trouble at the next family gathering. I won't say which sister-in which system it is, but go ahead. And I'm in trouble next time I have dinner with Victoria Nuland. Anyway, all kidding aside. I don't think that dinner's coming up pretty soon. I'm sorry for coming up.

Go ahead. He said, look, Odessa is where it's at. It could be an apple of discord, or it could be a way of solving seemingly intractable problems by a process of give and take. That's what Putin said. The date was October 27th, 2022. It was out there. Now, you had to read the q a after a speech all the way through to get that q a it was a planted question and this is the way we used to advise president so

i would say president biden look uh if someone told you russia has lost forget about it they they're lying or they just don't know which end is up. Now, what's happening is Russia is winning. Russia is going to go all the way to the river, the Dnieper River, because they can. And then they're going to say, look, are you ready now to disnegotiate? Yes, it is key, because if Ukraine is going to be a viable state in any real sense, it's got to have an access to the sea, right? It can't just become a farm for the rest of Europe. So we'll work a deal on Odessa. We'll operate it jointly, okay? But we'll let you have a say on Odessa. You're going to have the rest of Ukraine as long as you have a little buffer zone so that your artillery doesn't hit us on the other side of

the Dnieper, let's deal. I think Putin is ripe for that. I think he doesn't want to go into the rest of Ukraine, but he can. And God help us. He might. I don't think he'd do it this year. He might well do it next year. and that would mean war with NATO. Here's President Zelensky in Italy yesterday, Larry, arguing that there can be no peace until the Donbass and Crimea are evacuated. This is fanciful, but it's what he said. Evacuated of Russian troops. Is Crimea the keyword for a path to our peace without the Crimea without the Donbass without our occupied territories they won't be true

sustainable peace in Ukraine which means there will not be peace in this European area so yeah it can be sold diplomatically or it can be resolved in the military way we are for the Russian troops to leave the peninsula without our pressure because it will mean less victims, less casualties. We care after our own people and we are caring after our own people. Let Putin care after his own citizens. Larry, can anybody in the international community, political, military, diplomatic, intelligence, whatever community they're in, take that seriously? Or do they just assume this is nothing but nonsense for domestic Ukrainian political consumption? No, no, he's serious, as is most of the West.

Most of the Biden, I think all of the Biden team and many members of Congress, they still believe that nonsense. You still got military, retired military personnel like David Petraeus and Ben Hodges and this clown out of Australia named Mick Ryan, who genuinely believe that Ukraine has a snowball's chance in hell of forcing Russia to give up the Donbass, to give up Mariupol, to give up Crimea, and go scurrying back into Russia's ancient boundaries with its tail between its legs. It's not going to happen. It is not. And so as long as they persist

with this kind of delusion, the number of Ukrainians that are dying on the field of battle is going to continue to mount. Ukraine's ability to persist and continue the fight is going to continue to deteriorate. And the risk of a direct conflict between the United States and Russia is going to increase. And if it comes to that, the United States will lose. The United States will suffer a military defeat at the hands of Russia that is not that's not my hope that's not my guess it is the reality in terms of the how unprepared the United States is for this kind of conflict and yet we are belligerent and insistent just as just as the Volodymyr Zelenskyy has in this crazy comment to this Italian.

Here's Prime Minister Orban again on if the United States wants to end this war, it'll be over in 24 hours. If the United States would like to have a peace, next morning there is a peace. Because it's obvious that the Ukrainians, the poor Ukrainians on their own, they are not competitive in this war. So if there is no money and there is no equipment from the West, and especially from the United States, the war is over. The solution is in your hand. It's in the hand of your president.

The present one or the future one. But you will solve it. The United States can do it. Nobody else. It's not the solution of the of your president the present one or the future one but you will solve it the united states can do it nobody else it's not the solution for the ukrainians of course it's about ukrainians they cannot be neglected they must be involved but the real factor is not ukraine the real factor is intention of united states i think he's right right well he's right. The real problem here is that the Ukrainian war should not be looked at exclusively as a Ukrainian thing. The West is in there. The U.S. is in there to weaken Russia, to give Russia a strategic defeat. Those are the words of the President of the United States. Hello? So the next morning it would be over. Orban is completely right. Now the problem is, and Larry is quite right about conventional warfare. Russia's going to win hands down. What will these crazy people, not so much crazy, but Blinken, Sullivan, Hunter, and his daddy, what are they going to do when it looks

like they're really going to lose this thing, and it's an election year, and my God, if their competitor comes into office, they're going to go to jail. What I'm saying here is there's a person. Joe needs an off-ramp, whether they freeze the conflict and he just declares victory. We stop them from going to Kiev or some nonsense like that. The American public might buy or whether we just continue to use Ukraine as a battering ramp. Joe needs some kind of handle on this to sell, I think, to sell to the American people if he's going to run for reelection, Ray. Well, what I'm going to say here is pretty frightening. It does have an off ramp, okay? When he ran out of shells for the 155 millimeter howitzers and other things,

they looked around, they found, oh, cluster munitions. They're going to run out of them. And then what are these guys going to do? They're going to look on the top shelf there. Oh, they're under lock and key. Those are the mini nukes. Now, there is a realistic possibility because they're going to lose badly. They're going to lose badly before the election. There is a possibility that because of this extra personal incentive to get out, to stay out of jail if Trump comes in,

they would be sorely tempted to use just these little, you know, half the size of Hiroshima, for God's sake. And that's what Putin and his generals have to be afraid of. It doesn't matter what I'm afraid of. It matters what they're afraid of. They have to count that in now. The evidence is mounting against all these guys. They could end up in jail and they know it. Larry, how dangerous is this scenario? Well, how realistic and then how dangerous is this scenario that our friend Ray has just painted well the united states has very few uh very few options when it comes to a military response in ukraine well you know we don't have a lot of troops deployed so to in order to assemble a force that might represent a significant threat to russia it's going to take

you know six months at least to rally, you know, round them up, put them on ships and send them overseas. But once that starts, Russia could then start sinking those vessels. The thing the United States has failed to calculate is that because of George W. Bush and his decision to walk away from the anti-ballistic missile treaty, Russia has developed robust, effective ballistic missile defenses. What that means is that they have a realistic chance of defeating any nuclear weapon launched by the United States. Not 100%, but they have a far greater than 80% chance of surviving that. The United States has zero capability to defeat such ballistic missiles. So in the event that comes to this escalation,

Russia could be damaged and would suffer, you know, maybe millions of casualties casualties but would survive. The United States would not survive. The United States would be erased. And you both believe that this catastrophe, this Holocaust, could come about because we aided Ukraine in this war and enabled them to slaughter Russian boys. Wow. Here's Viktor Orban. It's the last one we'll run, but it's profound.

Saying essentially what the two of you have said, not with respect to this being escalated to nuclear war, but with it being obvious who's winning and who's losing, no matter what the Western media or how the Western media wants to portray this. In the United States, the view is that Ukraine is winning this war. It doesn't sound like that's true. No, it's a lie. It's not just a misunderstanding. It's a lie it's not just a misunderstanding it's a lie it's impossible everybody who's in politics and understand the logic the figures the data no way why is it

impossible because that way the ukrainian the poor ukrainians die every day yes hundreds and thousands you know so my heart is with them it's tragedy for Ukraine. But they will run out earlier from the soldiers, number of soldiers, than the Russians. What finally will count is boots on the ground. And the Russians are far stronger, far numerous, more numerous than the Ukrainians. Many more. So this strategy, what we are just supporting, is a bad engineering of the strategy. Where is anybody else in NATO? Hungary's in NATO. Wait, is anybody else in NATO? Hungary's in NATO. Larry, does anybody else in NATO, head of the government in NATO, stay anything like that?

No, no. I mean, I applaud Orban for, again, he's got a grasp on reality. What is truly shocking is how many of the European leaders and here in the United States are completely out of touch. They have embraced lies that are verifiable lies. Insist that Russia is poorly trained, poorly led, has poor morale, that it's dragoon conscripts, whereas Ukraine is great, terrific leadership, great morale, and not suffering many casualties at all. You reach a point where words cannot capture this kind of delusion. Larry, I mean, Ray, are there agents in the CIA who largely agree with what Victor Orban just said? And can their message make it to the White House?

Or are we beating a dead horse here? Well, we're beating a dead horse, Judge. What we have in the CIA is a residue of the malleable managers that were appointed by Bill Casey and Bobby Gates. They, in turn, appointed malleable managers in their image. And what you have is the head of the CIA telling the president a month ago, Mr. President, not only has Russia already lost, but the incompetence of the Russian military has been laid bare for the whole world to see. I mean, what la-la land does Bill Burns now inhabit? He's become a cog in the propaganda wheel of our government, and I hate to see that happen to the CIA, particularly its director. Well, gentlemen, thank you very much. Always a pleasure. We have a nice

long three-day weekend coming up. We'll see you both next week. Thank you. Happy Labor Day. Bye-bye. Of course. Well, of course, my dear friends, more as we get it. This is some of the best stuff we do when we have minds with a level of experience and hearts with the level of courage that you see in Larry Johnson and Ray McGovern and our other guests as well. And I beam with pride and sometimes get goosebumps on my arms when I'm privileged to moderate a discussion like this. You don't get this anywhere else. We are determined to give you a truthful analysis of what's going on in Ukraine, which you're not going to hear at the mainstream media, including

the mainstream media that employed me for 24 years. This is what judging freedom does. So we're up to 193,000 subscribers. Our goal is 200,000 by Monday. We can still make it. Tell your friends, tell your relatives, tell your co-workers, if you have nothing to do on Labor Day afternoon, get somebody to subscribe and tell them, these guys are looking out for your liberty. We'll be right back.