Judging Freedom - Is Western Support for Ukraine Crumbling? w/Alastair Crooke

Episode Date: September 21, 2023

Is Western Support for Ukraine Crumbling? w/Alastair CrookeSee 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 Thursday, September 21st, 2023. Alistair Crook joins us now from the hills outside of Rome. Alistair, always a pleasure, my dear friend. We have a clip of President Biden at his best or at his worst, depending upon your perspective at the UN earlier this week. But before we run the clip, what is your perception about how his fierce anti-Russian, fierce hatred of Russia, monomaniacal blaming of the world's ills on Russia message came across to the international diplomatic community in New York earlier this week? I think it came across very badly. I think it came across

badly because people don't see Russia in that way. I mean, people asked, you know, why isn't Europe got its weapons, its armament, its NATO ready for Russia? The reason is because we weren't looking for and expecting a confrontation with Russia because we didn't see it. It was only a little while ago after all. I mean, I remember going and attending those meetings with President Putin at the time. And all of the big meetings were about greater Europe, Wadislawstok down to Lisbon. And he was a great enthusiast for that. And many Europeans were too. It now seems like a era, a different era. But, I mean, that was the case, I mean, even a few years ago

when I went to some of those meetings. Now it's very different. So I don't think there's really this sort of feeling that Russia, per se, it's part of Europe. It's always been part of Europe. It was a very Europeanized part of Europe. Look at St. Petersburg. Was there a time when Putin wanted Russia to join the EU or even to join NATO for whatever

reason? Yeah. No, he wanted, he thought that Russia should be part of a greater Europe and that it should play a central role in Europe as part of Europe. I mean, this was very clear. I mean, I was at those meetings when it took place. Wasn't the G7 once the G8 and Russia was an essential part of this? Of course. And it's always been nonsensical to believe, you know, that somehow Russia is not going away.

It's our neighbor. It's a big and powerful state. It has always been a great power. It's our neighbor. It's a big and powerful state. It has always been a great power. It will continue to be a great power. And to be at odds with Russia makes no sense. And so, I mean, Russia has changed from the days when it was extremely Europeanized during the, you know, from Peter the Great times onward with St. Petersburg. But it's not, it's never been until now anti-European. But the propaganda about Russians and about kicking out their sportsmen, their artists, their tennis players and everything

has turned Russia to being very hostile. They've been so surprised. They say that. You know, we just couldn't imagine that the Europeans hated us as much as it seems that they really did. And that's been a shock. And it's going to take some time to change it. I mean, it's going to be a matter of years.

You're not going to change that in a flash. It's a great shame. Gary Play, cut number four. Here's Joe Biden at his best or his worst. Tell me what you think of this. We strongly support Ukraine and its efforts to bring about a diplomatic resolution that delivers just and lasting peace. But Russia alone — Russia alone bears responsibility for this war. Russia alone has the power to end this war immediately. And it's Russia alone that stands in the way of peace, because Russia's price for peace is Ukraine's capitulation, Ukraine's territory, and Ukraine's children. Russia believes that the world will grow weary and allow it to brutalize Ukraine without

consequence. But I ask you this, if we abandon the core principles of the United States to appease an aggressor, can any member state in this body feel confident that they are protected? If we allow Ukraine to be carved up, is the independence of any nation secure? I'd respectfully suggest the answer is no. We have to stand up to this naked aggression today and deter other would-be aggressors tomorrow. That's why the United States, together with our allies and partners around the world, will continue to stand with the brave people of Ukraine as they defend their sovereignty and territorial integrity and their freedom. Do you think anybody in that room was persuaded by that? In that room, no. There weren't that many people

actually in the room either for listening to Zelensky's speech. It was really quite remarkably empty, but I don't think so. My sense is that that speech in a way was a sort of the justification for the domestic U.S. audience. It said nothing in geopolitical terms at all. I mean, it was good boilerplate stuff. I mean, saying, you know, oh, we stand, we can't allow, you know, this country to be put upon like this. But it was pretty meaningless. It had no substance. It had nothing in it in a geopolitical and geostrategic way at all. So I think it was probably intended to be, he's under a lot of pressure in the US itself at the moment.

I mean, political pressure, pressure to go. And I think this sounded to me like a very defensive speech, but aimed not at the practicalities, aimed more at saying his piece to the American public. Whether they believe it or not, it's for you to judge. But he is clearly a captive of the neocons. I mean, most American presidents would have some sort of, I don't want to use the word olive branch, but some sort of sense of diplomacy to them. I mean, this is not FDR during World War II talking about Hitler and

Japan. This is an American president who's supposed to be the leader of the Western world, and he sounds like a petty neighborhood thug. It stands in great contrast. I think it was JFK in one of his speeches, but this is diplomacy. And he said, and this was sufficient, he just said, you know, we do understand the great sacrifices that Russia made in the great patriotic war and the other War and the Second World War. Now, that was sufficient. It showed you had at least some sort of empathy and understanding. And diplomats should do something like this. Biden is doing the opposite. It's just demonization of Russia and saying it's an aggressor. I don't think it gels because, you know, I think people know enough about Russia not to see it in this way. And they recall, you know, this is very new suddenly to change it.

And Hitler, I mean, is nonsense. But this has been the narrative. It precludes, it forecloses on negotiation, which I think it's intended to do by him. He doesn't want negotiation. He doesn't want a settlement, a political settlement there, because he wants it to continue and to try and bring about some weakening of Russia. It won't do that. It will fail. Here's President Zelensky. And in light of what you just said, Alistair. I'm wondering if what we will soon hear him say, what he said at the UN, the cameras don't pan to show how empty. We heard reports as well about how empty the

General Assembly was, which is the way diplomats express an opinion of you. They don't stand up or turn their back. They just don't show up. I'm wondering if the statement we're now about to hear had only two ears as its goal, Joe Biden. But you let me know, you let us know what you think. This is President Zelensky at the UN. There's a lot of clips. This is the most incendiary one. Listen carefully, if you would, to the last two words that he uses, dirty bombs. Cut number five. Many times the world has witnessed Russia using energy as a weapon. Kremlin weaponized oil and gas to weaken the leaders of other countries when they came to the Red Square. And now, now the threat is even greater. Russia is weaponizing nuclear energy.

Not only it is spreading its unreliable nuclear power plant construction technologies, but it is also turning other countries power plants into real dirty bombs. Into real dirty bombs, which is basically the use of the remainder of a nuclear material on a regular bomb, which would, when the bomb explodes, it'll spread low-grade nuclear material in the area. There's no way that Russia's doing that. low-grade nuclear material in the area. It's like sort of a cluster bomb, only you use radioactive material in it and they spread that instead of little bombs. But in terms of the speech itself, Alasdair, the tone and the message. I think it's very clear because we've seen this a bit. I've been following some of the things that are coming out of Kiev and from his office, and they all acknowledge that he's got an uphill.

I mean, he's desperate, really desperate. He's not even certain that there's going to be attack arms. It's still up in the air whether they're going to authorize those. It seems now there's reports in Fox News, your old channel, saying that they're probably not going to. He's not even sure he's going to get the money. And the office was saying, look, his strategy, therefore, is to use emotion, to try and use emotion to provoke more money, more weapons to come to Ukraine. And this is part of it, the sort of emotional sort of shock. What? Oh, gosh, you know, dirty bombs.

I mean, whatever next? I mean, you know, you have the IEA actually at the Zaparishchia plant and they certify it's safe. They're there all the time monitoring it. So I don't think, you know, it's safe. They're there all the time monitoring it. So I don't think, you know, it's a strategy. He's always thought that he can use emotion to shift the United States. And I think probably he's come to the end of that course of being able to change the United States through emotion alone.

And this is why he's in such a desperate state. I don't think emotion is going to be enough to carry the Senate. I don't think emotion enough certainly is not going to carry Congress, which is much more skeptical. Even McCarthy is deeply skeptical, wants to see evidence, wants to see the receipts, wants to know what's happened to the money before. I think we're on the edge of a shift. I don't think it's shifted yet, but I think we're on the edge of the shift. But it looks as if Biden is going to dig his heels in and his wife to probably Jill, dig her heels in. He's going to not leave quickly and he's going to stick with the story for some time. But it seems increasingly, you know, the powers that be are turning against him, whether

it is, you know, the deep state or whatever you want to call it, but the powers are turning against him. Are the powers that be, that are, in Ukraine turning against President Zelensky stated differently? How precarious is his presidency and maybe even his life? Put it this way. back and, you know, strike the general's pose and say, we're going to go on and we're going to take more and we're going to drive through the Russian lines, he would turn around and find that no one is following him. It's empty. The field is empty behind him. The army is just not going to go on with an offensive that has achieved nothing at all and has lost, I mean, it's decimated the army. And I mean, they think, why are we doing this?

I mean, what's the purpose? Are you going to wait till next year? Are you going to wait till the winter? What are we going to gain then? I think these are some of the questions that he's going to be asked in Congress by the Republican Party, who will say, okay, why is it going to be different next year? What's going to change that will make it less so? And what are you going to do if there's a Russian offensive in the meantime? How are you going to defend yourself against that? Because all we see at the moment is

that during this period of this sort of positional defensive war Russia has been really turning out new drones new um if you like all sorts of weapons new aircraft new tanks I mean and it has been stockpiled as far as we can see stockpiling, as far as we can see, stockpiling against something. I mean, and it's got the troops on the borders that are ready, whether they plan something or whether they're just going to wait and see what happens in these weeks and whether Europe and the United States just lets him twist in the wind. That's Zelensky I'm talking about. Maybe they'll see. But realistically,

the army is spent. The Ukrainian army is exhausted. And so I don't think that if he tries to, he can actually push it on to another offensive. I mean, with what? And with which men? I mean, if you don't have men, you don't have an army. You can't just buy a new army at Amazon. Here's General Miley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, until the end of next week. You know his retirement is coming. Substantially misleading the American public on the depth or lack thereof of Ukraine penetration of Russian defenses. This is almost the opposite of what you've said and what you've said. All of our on-air folks who have their sources on the ground are saying the same thing. Gary, cut number

two. Generally speaking, the Ukrainians have penetrated several layers of this defense. It is not 100 percent penetrated yet, but they've penetrated several of the layers and they're going very slow, preserving their combat power and very deliberately through this defensive belt that stretches the entire length and breadth of Russian-occupied Ukraine. So for the critics that are out there, I would say that there's plenty of fighting weather left. There's plenty of combat power remaining. And the Ukrainians have absolutely no intent to stop. He's either playing word games, misleading, or actively lying? It's deliberate obfuscation.

He's sort of trying to fudge what is a defensive line. What we mean by the defensive line, and which nearly everyone means, is the Surovikin lines, the proper Russian defensive lines. None of those have been touched or breached in any way. Ahead of those is the sort of gray zone, which has some Russian trenches. This is the front line. They call it the kill zone, if you like, where they try and lure the Ukrainians into fire traps or into positions which are unfavorable and which they've been very successful in doing. They haven't taken anything significant.

I saw a photograph just the other day. The Western press was announcing a devka has been taken and that there were 3,000 Russian forces encircled in it. And look at a picture of a devka. It's a tiny, it had a population of 45 before the war. It's just a street with four or five houses, one side, four or five, the other side, but they're raised to the ground. There's nothing there. If you look at a Devka, it's just an empty field. And yet, you know, this has been a great success. This has been an achievement. And that's the sort of achievement that has been touted. But I think everyone is getting the message. Everyone is wised up that

this is just not true. This further reinforces your view that Zelensky is rapidly approaching the status of an empty suit, or in his case, an empty fatigue. Here's the Polish president yesterday in New York City. Now, it's in Polish, so I will read the subtitles. But his comparison of Ukraine to a drowning swimmer in danger of bringing down those who have been dispatched to save him is very, very telling, particularly from what was formerly Ukraine's staunchest supporter, threatening to bring troops on the ground. But let's listen to him, and then I'm very anxious to hear your thoughts. Okay. Okay, we got to do this again because I didn't have my microphone open.

Run cut number one again, Gary. Sorry about that. Okay, it is like we are dealing with a drowning person. Anyone who has experienced rescuing a drowning person knows that he is extremely dangerous because he can pull you to the depths. He has unimaginable strength due to fear and the influence of adrenaline and can simply drown the rescuer.

Okay. What kind of a greeting is that for President Zelensky as the two of them arrived in New York City earlier this week? I think it's very significant. The Polish prime minister also refused to meet Zelensky, and he's announced that he's not sending any weapons to Ukraine. This is, if you like, the beginning of a turning point, I believe. And also the whole of the atmospheric for Zelensky's visits have been extremely negative for him. From the New York Times article on the day he arrived about that it was a Ukrainian missile that caused that mayhem in a marketplace, killing many Ukrainians. To the fact that Biden, in his speech, I mean, barely mentioned really Ukraine. It was really more about the global south.

His speech was about it. It was a little reference. But as we've just discussed, it was mostly boilerplate stuff, nothing of substance, to the fact that he's not going to be granted an audience in Congress. He's going to meet with some people in the Senate to a very different atmosphere. I think he's got the message that everything has changed. There's a completely different atmosphere from a year ago. And all of these signs, I think, are really important. Something is shifting, that people are moving,

and that he is now in a desperate situation trying to keep those two things alive. He needs those billions from the United States and he wants the promise of these attack camps, even though the attack camps won't change anything on the ground. He wants those attack camps. So I think it's a completely different situation and the Polish statement is crucial because they were the strongest backers. They were completely on side and supporting.

They've even announced now that they're not going to provide any money or support to Ukrainian refugees inside Poland. They're on their own. No medical help, no education, no income as well. And there are a lot of them. I don't know how, but whatever, a million, I think. So, I mean, it's a big blow and that comes on the top of, you know, this very cold reception that he received at the General Assembly. No one's there desperate to shake his hand, to hug him or anything. And it's, I think, a turning point, beginning of a turning point.

So how much longer will this have to go on before the utter intellectual failure of the neocons who thought they could weaponize Ukrainian ultra nationalism to defeat a weak Russia, their words, weak Russia, in air quotes, has failed? I don't think very much longer. I mean, you know, there's no point guessing exactly days, but I'm talking, you know, by this end, by November, by the end of November, I think it's settled. I don't think there will be an army that will respond to his leadership if he tries to lead them into the, you know, the charge of the light brigade. Again, it's not going to be that.

And I think that then we will wait and see what is the Russian response. But, you know, this is only one element in this war. And the bigger war, that's the small war. And the bigger war is the war that Russia is engaged in with China to try and nudge and shift and shove the West into giving up its exceptionalism and agreeing to a new global order. And in that, they have the support of most of the global South, who are also asking for reform. They don't want to pull it down. They don't want to destroy it.

But they want to be on the voting panel. They want to want to pull it down, they don't want to destroy it, but they want to be on the voting panel, they want to be in the leadership, and they want to have a say in the policies of things like the IMF, the World Bank, WTO, all these things. And it's taking on a new energy. Somehow the Ukraine war has actually stimulated something that was, I think, very unexpected from the neocons. It's produced a new energy, a new sort of desire for change and for reform and to get away from the old paradigm that has been so, if you like, constraining and constricting to the world.

So I think it will come to this in the very near future, but the longer-term war will be longer, a diplomatic war, a political war, through the breaks and through economic measures as well, a squeeze on the dollar by the Russians and the Chinese to increase inflation, to increase, if you like, the interest rates so that they have leverage to bring about these changes. LEON KASSEN- Alistair Crook, always a pleasure, my dear friend. Brilliant and gifted analysis and we are deeply grateful for your time and all your thoughts. Thank you for joining us.

Thank you. There you have it, my dear friends. More as we get it. Matthew Ho, Karen Kwiatkowski, coming up in just a little bit. Tell your friends, ask them to like and subscribe. What do we do at Judging Freedom? We look out for your liberty. Thanks for watching!