Judging Freedom - INTEL Roundtable : Weekly Wrap : 9-OCT

Episode Date: October 9, 2026

INTEL Roundtable : Weekly Wrap : 9-OCTSee 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 Friday, October 9th, 2026, the end of the week, the end of the day. Our favorite segment of all 20 this week, the Intelligence Community Roundtable, with my two

friends and colleagues, both of whom have done double duty, Larry Johnson, and Scott Ritter. Larry and Scott walking here. Thank you for accommodating my schedule. I want to get right for the very hot topic of today. I began my day

at Newsmax about 750. this morning, condemning the idea of a public issue in the live stream to anybody that wants it. It's a violation of federal law, and more than that, it promotes a culture of death. Watch the Secretary of Defense, who calls himself the Secretary of War, defend this. Chris, cut number 13. This news that came down regarding firing squad, can you tell us about how that came about, and what led to that decision process? No brainer.

Execution by firing squad. Army Major betrays his country. Radical Islamist kills a bunch of Americans at Fort Hood. Of course we're going to do it at Fort Hood. We're going to do it on a Thursday. We're going to do it at 1 o'clock, which is when he did it, and it's going to be soldiers with rifles executing the firing squad. It hadn't been since World War II since we've done that.

Well, I kind of like the mentality we had in World War II, which was win, which was understand when the enemy attacks you, you need to stand your ground. And so he's going to get to get a mental. a firing squad of soldiers as it should be. And we'll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it's public, because people need to understand that this is a, there's serious consequences for these types of things. Do you, has Major Hassan made any final request, reach out to the president, anything like that to your knowledge? Don't care. Don't care. Larry, to you first,

not on the legal, but on the moral implications and the message, such a sight of a man in a wheelchair being executed publicly by five Marines would send to the country and to the world. Higgseth reminds me of the failed Roman Emperor Cometus. River Phoenix played him. I mean, Joaquin Phoenix played him in the movie Gladiator. You know, the Roman Empire's decline started when they started indulging in these gladiator spectacles

of murdering people in public. What's so ironic about this is the right ostensibly is one that's pro-life against taking life. Now, there's no denying that I think, in my own view, that the major deserves to be executed, but you don't make a public spectacle of it. we got away from that actually I don't know if it was sometime after you know after 1860s you know because we did we did the public execution of the assassins of Abraham Lincoln but it says something about the nature of your society when you celebrate death this way take it so cavalierly and while they say oh these five Marines well you know what

one of those Marines is I guarantee you will carry a post-traumatic stress syndrome from executing a guy in a wheelchair. You know, it's one thing if you're up against a combatant, he's wielding a weapon and you take his life. That's war. This is, you know, a guy in a wheelchair. Yeah, he needs to be held accountable for what he did. But to do it on public and, you know, invariably social media and being what social media is, I'm sure some of these guys are going to be besieged on the executioners will be besieged on social media.

It's just, it's a shameful and, I mean, immature act on the part of Heggseth. But what do we expect? This guy is a clown. Scott, same question, same subject. Well, I mean, it's, I don't see how this goes forward. First of all, constitutionally, this thing should be tied up in courts. and rejected. This is Pekhead says fantasy.

I mean, did you see jumping? He was like a kid. Yes, yes. You go to, you know, Mommy and Daddy are taking me to a Disney World. And I'm so excited. I get to go to Disney World. You know, we had worse criminals than this major. And I'm not, again, I'm not here defending the man.

You know, I'm not a big proponent of the death penalty because oftentimes we get it wrong and we kill innocent people. But, you know, I'm not saying that. man doesn't deserve to die. You know, the Nazis at Nuremberg deserve to die, but we made a decision that you don't publicly execute them because that's not who we are. I mean, if we couldn't publicly execute Nazis, why are we public to execute? Because Pete Hagsath wants to twitch and, no, we don't do it because we're better than that. If this man deserves to die, then let him die. There are procedures for this. But we don't, you know, get off on an execution. soldiers with guns, Marines with guns, shooting them at 1 o'clock in the afternoon, because that's when he did his crime.

Hexon has no concept about what justice is. This is revenge that he's seeking. Revenge is never justice. It's the most un-American thing imaginable, and I'm disgusted that nobody else is talking about this. Where are the congressmen? Where are the senators? Where's the court? Where's anybody with a modicum of understanding about American sensibilities and American justice? the President of the United States openly condemned Iran for public executions. And now he's going to let his secretary of war talk about a public execution. Now, I'm hopeful that this man's lawyer jumps in, makes the appropriate appeals, and we take Pete Hacks S. wet through him away from him. It's hard for me to believe the federal courts would allow this,

because there is a statute directly on point that prohibits the transmission of images of, live killings. And I don't know, knowing Meg says he didn't bother checking with, he's got a law firm headed by the general counsel up the Defense Department. There's about a hundred lawyers there that worked for him.

He probably didn't pick up the phone and ask them. Larry, can you see images of this guy being blown open by five weapon by five bullets aimed at his heart, circulated all throughout the Middle East.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, well, as Scott noted, next time we want to raise an objection about public executions in Saudi Arabia as opposed to Iran, our moral standing for doing that has just gone out the window. And again, we get selective outrage. the to to my knowledge i don't think there has i i haven't see i don't think the iranians have engaged in public executions of late the Saudis sure do though you know they make a show of it so i mean this is just it's appalling uh it is you know it does sound contradictory that you're talking about the sanctity of life when you're talking about about taking someone's life, but to carry out a just prison sentence is one thing,

but to turn it into a version of the Coliseum Gladiator Games is a whole other matter. You know, for once I agree with the J.D. Vance who predicted earlier today that a federal judge would intercede and that it wouldn't happen. Larry, you have done some extensive research with pilot friends of yours on the fly Dubai incident. What's the latest that you found? Well, one, let's start with the pilot's name. He was basically named Mr. Bathroom. Okay, his name, Al Hamami translate into a bathroom attendant.

Okay, and he's taken out by a plumber. Oh, that's just a happy coincidence. I'm not making this up. And the Israelis knew about this. Under existing procedure, Israel is notified 48 hours in advance of the names of all the crewmen, including the pilots, and the names of all the passengers. So we're supposed to believe that Israel's security service is so damn incompetent that they miss. they miss Mr. bathroom, Mr.

Hamam al-Hammi, you know, the bathroom bathroom attendant. That's his first and last name. You know, and then they miss that. Again, this is a guy who was not allowed to fly in Oman

because of his radical views. He's allowed to fly in Dubai, which requires that you get a visa. And last time I checked, just doesn't pass out visas like flyers at a football game. You have to go in for questioning and background check and investigation. So somehow this guy magically slips through the whole thing.

And then they just happen to have two qualified pilots on board to take control of the plane once Al Hamami is subdued. Now, a pilot buddy of mine, he wrote his explanation, because he was involved in a sting with six undercover DEA agents where the DEA agents got his boss, the guy that had hired him to fly the airplane, got the boss to smuggle drugs into the United States. Guy was completely set up by DEA, but they wanted to have a scalp to hang on their belts. So he's looking at it from that standpoint that, you know, he thinks this was an elaborate setup designed to help. help b b nattin yahoo in his political campaign did nathan yahoo make some eerie comment a few days before suggesting that maybe the the state of israel would be a victim of some sort of an attack

oh yeah yeah no he did and and and saying they had they had intelligence to that effect and one of the first times, Mossad comes out and goes, no, we don't. He's not telling the truth. And then when this happened, he said, see, I told you. Scott, suppose this had failed. Netanyahu was ready to jeopardize 163 innocent lives to save his political campaign, or am I being naive by asking that question? Well, I mean, we know now that Benjamin Netanyahu sacrificed thousands of lives to to save his political career. In September of 2002, I guess it was now,

the, you know, 24, the hundreds of thousands of Israelis were in the street demanding Netanyahu's removal because of his attack on the rule of war. The Israeli president said that Israel is close to civil war. October 7 comes around and suddenly we have a nation united in the face of a horrific terrorist event. But he knew that this was going to happen. He had to tip off. He stood down. And then he ordered the Hannibal directive so that the death toll went from hundreds to thousands.

It was Israel that slaughtered the vast majority of the people who died that day, not Hamas. This was done deliberately by Benjamin Danieli to create a fiction of beheaded babies, raped women, etc. all the carefully concerns. We know that he's fully capable of manufacturing events. You know, I, maybe Larry has the answer to this, but, you know, I'd like to see the black box, you know, run through a simulator and then, you know, work the physics of the problem. And the reason why bring that up is that we know that the flight

that went down in Pennsylvania on 9-11 that was supposed to hit the Capitol. You know, the terrorists in charge were, you know, banging back and forth. It was difficult. They ran a cart through the door. They were trying to reach for the controls to take control the aircraft. But it was in a dive. They were unable to, you know, to operate to function because of the physics of, you know, of gravity, the G forces. I just like to see how when an airplane's in this dive, you make your way to the cockpit.

and then take control the air. I think it's physically impossible for this to have happened. I don't think this happened the way it was laid out. I don't think the plane did what it was supposed to what they say. I don't know, but none of this makes any sense. And, of course, it's not impossible to conceive that Benjamin Netanyahu and his political handlers set this whole thing up. Let me just say that my pilot, buddy, he did have an explanation.

He thinks what happened is as soon as the... attack on him started, he put it into the steep dive and when it and Scott, you're right, the G force at that point took the attacker and threw him up against the windshield. So actually he was up against the, on top of the, if you will,

the dashboard of the cockpit. And when the flight attendants saw it go down, you know, the pilot then did pull out of the dive. The flight attendants were able to get the door open because they've got to code to punch in. But

you know, this was, even if this was staged, it was incredibly risky. But, you know, Judge, I agree with Scott, would BB Netnell who sacrificed the lives of people for his political advantage? Well, is the Pope Catholic? Yeah. Larry, the other hot news of the week, how are your former colleagues at Langley sitting with the idea that the former chief spy in Germany was passing top secret data to an unnamed adversary of Germany. Yeah, I never, I didn't get a clear idea. Who was he working for?

Was he doing it for the U.S.? Yeah. I mean, I don't know. Was he doing it for the U.S.? For Russia? My guess is if he was doing it for Russia, they would have been out with that. in a heartbeat so this means he is doing it for someone else israel perhaps i'm just wondering how uh the american intelligence community is reacting uh scott has opined that this could uh expose people that

were undercover i mean we don't know exactly what the nature is of this and one would think that the western intelligence agencies cannot be resting comfortably as as we speak, Larry. Well, yeah. Of course, I've come to this sort of the cynical view that most of the classification is there to keep the American people uninformed because the foreign intelligence services usually know what's going on. Yes.

Scott, do you think that Trump is preparing another attack on Iran after the midterm elections or even before the midterm elections if he thinks somehow it would have an effect on the outcome? Well, first of all, we have to understand the President of the United States has publicly articulated that he's not going to attack Iran until the midterms, which means that he can do anything. We can't trust this man. He's untrustworthy. You know, he's a man who engaged in supposedly good faith negotiations with the Iranians on the eve of our surprise attack on February 28th. you know, he's also a man who is known for making social media pronouncements in order to manipulate markets. And I do believe that this is a market manipulating post designed to ease the pressure on a energy market that's, you know, in panic mode.

And so he's trying to say before the election that there won't be any military attack. So let's relax. Let's calm down. Let's get the price of oil lower. but at the same time things are happening to take the in the opposite direction iran is expanding its zone of action the strait oil moves to go outside the actual straight and now they're striking you know energy carrying vessels and in ports so they hit one in uh in dubb is is shut down saudi oil pipelines are down on soros attacking oil fields taking out oil production capacity not just storage capacity so the pressure on the market is is going up now we have hear this remark out of Russia about, you know, diesel, et cetera. But we, you know, when can the Russians

get it? When the relief, I think that if the president can't get control of the market, then he will have, you know, no other choice than to attack. And we see there is movement in the region. Supposedly he's preparing for a three-day intensive strike. I don't think he's going to get control of the market. I think that the market's out of control at this point in time, and that the president will be compelled to launch a three-day attack that will turn into a five-day attack, they'll return to a seven-day attack that will turn into a disaster, because there's nothing we can do to defeat Iran at this point in time using conventional weapons. Larry, the Houthis, Ansar al-La, have done a lot of damage in Saudi Arabia.

Is Pakistan going to come to Saudi Arabia's defense? No. new defense agreement between Pakistan, Turkey, and Saudi? No, Pepe and I were able to check with our cutout. We got it from one of the senior generals of Pakistan. The reports in Reuters and other Western news outlets about Pakistan getting involved in this fighter. Completely false. Now, look at what the Houthis are doing.

The Houthis have done more damage to Saudi Arabia in the last two weeks. than they did in nine years of war, the war that started in 2015. They've destroyed the ability right now, the Yanbu pipeline to transport oil. First, they knocked out four pumping stations. There are 13 pumping stations along that line. Four of them are history, which means nothing's moving through that pipeline. Yesterday, they hit the Apkik, which is a town on the eastern. coast of Saudi Arabia on the red on the Persian Gulf that is the well terminal that's sort of the well head for that Yambu pipeline that thing was on fire they've hit other refineries in Jazean and Jetta they have hit King Fod

Ginkalid air airfield knocked out three planes one was completely destroyed the other two had quote damage no telling what that means. And then when you look at the tactics of the Saudi-backed military in Yemen, you know, and I'll let Scott speak to this, but they launched an offensive on Monday.

So the attacking troops were not covered with artillery. Because normally you want that artillery firing at the people that you're going to attack, so that maybe you weaken them a little bit. And they didn't have close air support. Yeah, Saudis flew 100, so.

They were dropping bombs, but they didn't have forward air controllers that were directing the pilots where to drop their bomb and what precise coordinates. And sure enough, six hours into that attack, they got their ass kick. They got pushed back out. So the Houthis are inflicting major damage on the Saudis. The Saudis are in desperation mode. And this really could ultimately lead to the collapse of the Saudi Arabian government. Scott, your thoughts on this. Surely it's another aspect that the Pentagon didn't prepare for.

Not just the Pentagon, but the Saudis. I mean, I concur with Larry 100%. I just ask people to reflect on, you know, where the Carter administration was vis-fiz of the Shah of Iran, Razor Shah Pilevi, in 1977, 78. I mean, Raysa Shah was the man. We were selling an F-14. for some new the new destroyers we he was our our ally we were relied upon him for intelligence

operations targeting the soviet target everything and suddenly he's gone because we hadn't a clue about what was going on inside iran the reality of iran i think mohammed bin salman is in tremendous risk right now he he went to war in 2014 to earn his military spurs thought he'd get a quick victory in and yemen and it turned into a disaster but now we're talking about not just an an embarrassment for him, but we're talking about an next to the survival of Saudi Arabia. Larry, 100% correct. Saudi Arabia isn't going to survive this, in my opinion. And I think Muhammad bin Salman will either be compelled to flee

or he's going to die. On his way up, he, you know, arrested a lot of princes, put him in, you know, in prisons, tortured them, tormented them, took their money. There's a lot of resentment in Riyadh today. There's a lot of people sharpening swords, And I do think that his head will leave his shoulders if he stays on. He's lost this war. It can't be won. Pakistan is not coming to his rescue.

At the same time that this is happening, you know, the streets of Pakistan are filled with hundreds of thousands of protesters marching towards the capital, demanding that Imran Khan be free, the former prime minister, very popular. You think the Pakistani military is going to take 30,000 troops, send them off to die in Yemen, at a time when the military back government is under this kind of pressure. It just isn't going to happen. Turkey isn't coming to their. When was the last time Turkey and Saudi Arabia held joint military exercises?

Never. So the idea of Turkey suddenly coming in, seamlessly integrating in and doing this isn't going to happen. Turkey isn't going to bomb on Serala. France is diverted forces from the Djibouti that will accomplish nothing. They have no capacity. Saudi Arabia is toast. They're finished. on Sarala is thrashing them on the battlefield, thrashing them strategically, and Trump has no

clue about what's going on, neither of this head set. There is no solution to this problem. And, you know, once again, we're going to find, you know, many books were written about how did we get it wrong on Iran. I have a feeling that there's going to be a good book industry about how we got it wrong on Saudi Arabia, how, you know, how suddenly we lost, you know, our strategic ally in the region. And it's not just about losing, you know, our number one ally in the region in terms of force, you know, projection, etc. This is an energy partner. This is the, we built a ramp code on the notion that it was the gas pedal of oil production

to regulate prices globally. And we're going to lose that ability. And this is just going to be an unmitigated disaster for the United States, for the world, for Europe, but especially for Muhammad bin Salman, which nobody should shed any tears for. This is a man who directed the murder of a Washington Post journalist Khashoggi, not just his murder, but the dismemberment of his body and the erasure of his body. He's a horrible human being. And I don't think anybody should sit there and go, oh, poor MBS. No, the hell with MBS.

This is the happiest day of my life if Unzoralah takes him off the map. Of course, let me just let me just add. Let me judge. Just let me add in. If MBS did it live on television, then it probably would have been pretty popular with Hexeth. Wow. But good, good point. Good point.

But it sounds like MBS and Saudi Arabia toast, notwithstanding the financial investments that Jared Kushner has made with them, there's very little the U.S. can do, Larry, right? Well, I mean, this is the problem. And this is one of the reasons why Pakistan. It's not going to go all in militarily. Just think of you got a friend who's wealthy. The friend always takes you out the dinner at the finest restaurants, always pays the bill. You don't mind going.

Then one day he shows up and goes, yeah, we're going to the dinner here. I need you to pick up the tab. And you go, whoa, whoa, what? That's Pakistan now with Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia can't afford to pay its bills. Its cash flow is kaput. It is dependent.

It's got to start selling off U.S. treasuries. was taking loans because the cut off of the oil is hurting it. And note that the head of Aramco said yesterday that it's going to be a minimum of two years before the oil infrastructure is repaired and things would be back to quote normal, two years. Gentlemen, thank you very much. Thanks for a great conversation.

There's not many people out there condemning what Seth is doing and I hope we start a great conversation and I hope we start people being critical of this reprehensible culture of death that he wants to that he wants to promote but my hat is off to both of you will look forward to seeing you both next week thank you guys all the best thanks judge thank you thank you all of your usual on monday including uh larry johnson alster crook jeff sax and if i can get him again for the third time in three days, Scott Ritter. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom.