Judging Freedom - INTEL Roundtable w/ Johnson & McGovern: The Week in Ukraine and Israel.

Episode Date: February 2, 2024

INTEL Roundtable w/ Johnson & McGovern: The Week in Ukraine and Israel.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, February 2nd, 2024, the happiest time of the week. It's our Intelligence Community Roundtable with Larry Johnson and Ray McGovern. It's the end of the week. We do a wrap on what we've learned this week. However, today we're going to start with breaking news, which is that as I speak, which is four o'clock in the afternoon Eastern time on Friday, February 2nd, the United States has begun its so-called military response in the Middle East to the deaths of three soldiers and the injury of 34 more at Tower 22, somewhere in the vicinity, the American injuries and deaths of the border between Jordan and Syria. And the Israeli military has begun to target sites around Damascus. So let's go to this first. Larry, can you tell us what you know? I know you have sources that are not public, but tell us what you know and what you can tell us of what you know about what's happening as we

speak. Now, if you own an empty shed in Syria or you just bought your kid a new drone, you should be terrified because the U.S. will probably bomb you. Look, this is all staged theater. We're not actually hitting strategic or tactical targets, they're going to make one bit of difference in terms of groups that are targeting U.S. bases or forces that want to fight against the United States. So, you know, and we've seen this repeatedly. I saw it first under Barack Obama back in 2013. Donald Trump did the same thing in 2017. They were, you know, in those cases in 13 and 17, they were talking about a sarin gas that the Syrian government had used. Well, it wasn't the Syrian government. It was U.S. intelligence with British intelligence using operatives that staged it, that they created this illusion.

And then there was pressure. We got to strike Syria. We got to bomb them. And we launched, Donald Trump launched 59 cruise missiles at one base. That's $2 million a piece. And all we did was blow up dirt around the base. And I know for a fact, you know, in Al Udeid, the Air Force Base in Qatar, there's the Combined Air Operations Center, the CAOC, C-A-O-C. And the general in charge of that CAOC was on the phone with his Russian counterpart

who was in charge of forces in Syria going, hey, stand by, we're going to be bombing in this location at this time, and we're going to use this many weapons, and we're going to come from this direction. Do you copy? And the Russians would go, da, da, you know. And then the Russians would tell the Syrians and the Russians and Syrians cleared everything out and the bombs came in, created a big cloud of dust

and we went, by God, we showed them. And that's exactly what's going on right now. All right, Ray, what is going on and why are they doing this? And what is the purpose and what is to be accomplished? Well, we need to be shown to be real strong, Judge. You know, when three of our service people have been killed, why they were where they were is not really important. They were killed. And there's a big segment of our ruling elite that wants to use this. Let's let's put it boldly to make war on Iran.

OK, for Israel and for our distaste of Iran. Now, this, as Larry says, is not going to make any difference, okay? But, you know, if you look, take a little background look at this. What has happened to the correlation of forces worldwide that applies here? Well, in 91, we went into Iraq and Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of Defense, said the main lesson we learned was we could do these things and the Russians can't stop us. 2003, again, into Iraq. Did the Russians stop us? No, they couldn't stop us. 2015, we went into Syria. Did the Russians stop us?

Yes, they stopped't stop us. 2015, we went to Syria. Did Russia stop us? Yes, they stopped us, okay? And now, are we tempted to go into Iran? There is a treaty signed very recently between Iran and Russia. It's probably not a mutual defense treaty, but has long, very, very teethy strategic ramifications. And the Russians are actually giving Iran the capability to build some of these very sophisticated weapons.

The relationship between Iran and Russia now is described on one of these talk shows, a really important talk show last night, Solovyov, okay? One of these participants says, you really important talk show last night, Solovyov, okay, one of these participants says, you know, we're allies. Iran and Russia are allies now. Well, they're not allies in the liberal sense, to my knowledge, but neither are the U.S. and Israel. There is no mutual defense treaty between the U.S. and the U.S., so it's not quite right to call Israel our ally, particularly since our ally has never done us much good. Larry, does Joe Biden want a war with Iran

in the hopes that this will cause the American public to view him differently as he seeks re-election? Well, let's be honest about this. The only thing that Joe Biden actually knows is whether he's hungry for mint chocolate chip ice cream. OK, as far as anything pertaining to world affairs, that's coming from Jake Sullivan and Anthony Blinken and all the other people that actually still have some measure of intelligence. And they finally realized that they were risking a war with Iran that they don't need. They can't fight and we wouldn't win. Because at this time, Iran's not Iraq. Iran's not sitting there with no air force. Iran's not sitting there with no air defense. Iran has air defense. It has missiles, surface to air, ballistic missiles, anti-ship missiles. It has missiles, surface-to-air, ballistic missiles, anti-ship missiles. It has a whole panoply of capabilities that, frankly, the United States is not prepared to fight.

I mean, look, we can't even stop the Houthis, okay? They're driving stuff around in donkey cars. We can't stop the Houthis. So we're going to take on Iran. But do you fear that Victoria Nuland, Jake Sullivan, Tony Blinken, with a little push from Lindsey Graham, might talk the president into attempting to take on Iran? Yeah, they're going to try. They're going to try. But the saner heads are prevailing at the Pentagon. They realize that they're in over their head. And it's not like we're sitting up with warehouses stuffed full of HIMARS and Tomahawk cruise missiles. They keep using them up.

We're not replacing them at a rapid enough pace, in part because we don't have the industrial base. And so they're trying to create this illusion that, okay, watch us here. We're going to blow up these dirt piles along the border of Syria and Iraq, and it's not going to make a difference. Ray, why would the U.S. do this for Netanyahu? All this for Netanyahu? I think Larry's put his finger on it. We have to appear tough in an election year. We have to appear tougher than William for God's sake. That scares the hell out of me. So we do these token strikes and make believe that that's going to make some difference. It's happened before. Larry has mentioned some of the previous instances. Now, if we listen or if Biden listens

to the real crazies and starts to hit targets in Iran or clearly identified with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, that's going to be different. Yeah. Well, there are saner voices. One suspects that there are some in the Pentagon. Well, maybe those saner voices were responsible for withdrawing the USS Gerald Ford carrier group back to Norfolk. That was always a very discordant kind of thing coming at a time of very high tension. So there are contraindications here that maybe there is a wise soul here.

And it seems to me that if what Larry says is they hit a shed in wherever, Iraq or Syria, then that's going to suffice. Maybe they are coming to their senses because Iran is a formidable power. You've got Hezbollah tightly allied with Iran, and you've got Israel at risk, let's say. Let's be cautious. Let's be clear about that. Israel is at risk. If this comes to open fighting between the U.S. and Iran, Israel will not escape unscathed. Chris, let's play the first part of cut number one, just the part with Chris Matthews. You guys will know who this is immediately. You said that if the President of the United States had launched an attack on Iran without congressional approval, that would have been an impeachable offense.

Do you want to review that comment you made? Well, how do you stand on that now? Yes, I do. I want to stand by that comment I made. The reason I made the comment was as a warning. The reason I made, I don't say those things lightly, Chris. You've known me for a long time. I was chairman of the Judiciary Committee for 17 years or its ranking member. The president has no constitutional authority to take this national war against a country of 70 million people unless we're attacked or unless

there is proof that we are about to be attacked. And if he does, if he does, I would move to impeach him. You think he feels that way now, Larry? He doesn't even remember he said that. I mean, the hypocrisy is staggering. And look, you know, there's another principle at work here. So we're laying out that because Iran supplied weapons or drones to these third-party groups, and those third-party groups use that, what Iran supplied, we can attack Iran. And if I'm Vladimir Putin and Sergei Shogun, the minister of defense in Russia, I'm going, you know, damn, that's a good idea.

You know what? Let's go attack the United States because the United States is supplying Ukraine with the weapons that are killing Russians. Same principle applies. This is why people are so sick of the United States and its hypocrisy with this rules-based international order garbage. We play only by one set of rules. Does it benefit us? So to take Larry's quite astute analogy one step farther, if Israel is engaged in genocide and an international court has found there is plausible evidence to believe it is, an international court found there is plausible evidence to believe it is, and an international court found there is plausible evidence to believe it intended to do genocide. Is not the United States, which supplied them the weapons for the genocide, liable, Joe Biden? Ray? The answer is yes, Judge. And not only that, I'm concerned mostly right now about famine. Okay.

Now, we could talk about all those good souls killed under the rubble in Gaza. How about the ones that escaped that? They have nothing to eat. All right. They have nothing to drink. They can't survive. What's the only hope? UNRWA, the United Nations Works and AIDS.

Refugee. Yeah, right. Now, what do we do? We have pulled the plug on UNRWA now. Why? Well, because the Israelis told us that 12, no, not 12, now six of the 30,000 UNRWA employees were involved with Hamas. Tony Blinken was asked, is that true? He said, well, it sounds very plausible, but we have no independent verification. Well, how the hell does that sound plausible? Even if it's true, six out of 30,000, I'd be amazed. It was only six out of 30,000. So we're going to put

famine? Famine? In Gaza now? I mean, I know what famine is. My great-great-grand people, well, some of them survived the famine in Ireland. Puccini knows what famine is, his big brother. His big brother died in Leningrad because of the famine. There's lots of other people know about famine. And I dare say that if we don't get off this stick and start acting sensibly, not only are we going to be pariahs in the whole world, but we'll be liable, our leaders so-called, we'll be li American military equipment with which to do it, and the Americans are attacking a pile of rubble in the desert, If the Israeli defense forces behavior in Gaza has not only not been abated, it's been exacerbated, if that is possible. Right. Since the decision by the International Criminal Court. If Bibi Netanyahu says he'll say no to his friends when he has to, but Joe Biden can't do that. Question, long question,

my apology. Will Joe Biden, who has bypassed Congress to send 250 million in equipment to Israel, bypass Congress to start a war with Iran? I don't think so, for this reason. The politics of it, we've got an interesting situation where what's going on internationally is dangerous. And even Blinken finally admitted the other day, the most dangerous thing he's seen since maybe the Cuban Missile Crisis. But it's going on against the context of what's domestic politics. And Biden is keen.

He is insistent on trying to get reelected. And every campaign stop he goes to, they're greeting him with genocide, Joe. Stop killing children. Cease fire now. And it's over and over and over. And he's getting tired of it. So the last thing they're going to want to do is then get into a war with Iran that even if they believe in their wildest dreams that they could win, which they will not.

In fact, I would predict right now the United States will lose that war. And then what do we do? So all of a sudden what you're faced with is Biden losing a war. He's losing in Ukraine, losing in Israel, and then had this bombing run today that in a week or two, you're going to realize it meant nothing. And then the attacks upon U.S. bases in Syria, in Iraq, and in Jordan are going to continue because the groups that are attacking them are going to continue to attack until there is a ceasefire in Gaza and Israeli troops have pulled out. What is the role of intel in this type of activity, Ray? Does intel target a shed? Are they told to look for a shed?

Yeah, the intel, insofar as it can pinpoint the proper shed to hit, yeah, that's the role they play. In terms of a national intelligence estimate about what happens the day after an attack on Iran, my God, I hope there's an estimate of that kind, and I hope it's honest, but I have no assurance that it is. Let me just say a word about bypassing Congress. I think it's important to remember that Biden has already bypassed Congress

on hitting the Houthis, okay? He started a war against the Houthis, okay, in Yemen. Well, so I think Larry is right. It's not so much Biden's sensitivity to constitutional prerogatives, like Congress having the sole approval, the sole responsibility to approve a war. It's more a matter of fear, appropriate fear, of what the Iranians can do in response. Now, I don't think that Nuland or some of the real extreme neocons agree with that. That's why I think that it was a good sign that one carrier group got pulled out. So I think there's a Donnybrook going on in the White House or in Washington.

I hope that the less extreme, I was going to say more moderates, I hope the less extreme people prevail, at least on Iran. Let me tell you what Colonel Wilkerson just told us about Marines in the eastern Mediterranean, that some of them have been sitting there for so long doing nothing that their enlistment has ended. And they want to go home. And they can't. They're being forced, re-enlisted, almost as if they were drafted. Colonel Wilkerson said Rumsfeld did this during either Iraq or Afghanistan. Have you ever heard of this? Yeah. No, I have not, but it doesn't surprise me. You know, the one thing about, there's one reason that Biden would want to get congressional approval for whatever he does. It gives you somebody else to blame when it goes

sour. I mean, that's sort of the beauty of the American system that just you don't want to have one guy get you into trouble. You want to have a bunch of guys and gals that can get you into trouble and then let them all be responsible, even though they'll try to suggest, oh my God, we were lied to or we didn't know, but at least there's that process. And here's Biden completely breaking with the constitution and conducting military operations outside his presidential authority. I want to play a clip for you now. The subject is a little different. This is Professor Jeffrey Sachs just about an hour ago, and I promise you that this statement was not written by Ray McGovern, even though it will sound like it was.

When the CIA was established in 1947, it was established with two different tasks. One was intelligence, in other words, analysis, understanding the world. And the second was covert operations. And basically, the CIA has been a lawless extension of the White House and the Pentagon and the security establishment generally to do what it wants, when it wants. And there have been dozens and dozens by a realist account, 80 or more covert regime change operations by the United States. Now, they generally end in disaster. These are coups or overthrows of government or destabilization of countries or other kinds of pressures on militaries of other countries and other means to bring down another government. Have they been trying to do this with Syria? And should we expect it with Iran? Or are they just too, they can't get close enough to do that, Ray?

Well, they've been trying really hard. I mean, a billion dollars invested by the likes of Austin, General Austin, who was head of CENTCOM, and they came up with two, I repeat, two moderate terrorists who stayed in the game. The larger picture, Judge, is that Arthur Schlesinger, the historian who worked for John Kennedy for a while, was tasked by Kennedy to find out why it is that this bifurcated agency can perform so stupidly, okay? And what he found out was that when the operations people decided they'd do the Bay of Pigs and assured President Kennedy that this would do in Castro, there'd be a popular uprising, he'd be gone, okay? They never checked with the analysis part, never even asked

them, never even told them what was going. So here was Kennedy told that, oh, it's going to be easy. We're going to land on the beach. And even Kennedy was smart enough to say, you know, that doesn't sound likely. But just remember, I'm not going to commit U.S. troops if you get caught on the beach. I got caught on the beach. and they said, now we need U.S. troops. And Kennedy said, no, no, no, okay. And they said, well, this is a treasonous Kennedy here. And besides, he's playing cozy with Khrushchev in Moscow. So we got to get rid of him.

And they did. Larry, you obviously agree with Professor Sachs' analysis of your former employers as well. Well, actually, I slightly disagree. I think he got one thing wrong. So when the CIA was set up, there was the intelligence analysis side, and then the operations side of the House was there to recruit spies to have them give us information. What Professor Satch was talking about was then this third function that evolved on the operations side, where they got to carry out all these covert activities to subvert governments. And in fact, that's the thing that Harry S. Truman was hollering about after the Bay of Pigs, that that operation side of going out to subvert other governments,

that's what has to be taken away. You still want to have people that can go out and encourage other folks to betray their country and give us information. That's the nature of the intel business. Right. Ray, that's what Truman wrote about in that famous or infamous Washington Post piece that the CIA had the Washington Post take down from their afternoon editions. Am I right? That's exactly right. It was exactly one month after Kennedy was assassinated. It was a very clear warning from the president who had seen all this and knew how rogue the CIA had become. All right, guys. It's just a coincidence that all this is happening over there while we're on air,

and I appreciate more than you know your ability to, as we say in this business, to turn on a dime. But I'm talking to two people with lifetimes of experience in the way the government works legally and illegally. Thank you very much for your time. I look forward to seeing you both at your usual times on Monday. God knows what the world will be like in three days, but have a great weekend, my friends. Thanks, Judge. There you have it. I'm happy that Larry and Ray were with us while this breaking news came down. It was not what I expected we'd talk about, but I feel an obligation to pick their brains on matters that are topical to all of you

as and when the need arises. Thank you. Have a great weekend. We'll see you on Monday, unless something happens over the weekend. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. Thanks for watching!