Judging Freedom - Karen Kwiatkowski: More Government Lies.

Episode Date: December 10, 2024

Karen Kwiatkowski: More Government Lies.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 Tuesday, December 10th, 2024. Lieutenant Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski joins us now. Colonel Karen, a pleasure, my dear friend. Thank you very much for joining us. What is the neocon line on this guy that led the rebel group that deposed President Assad in Syria? He has a $10 million bounty on his head, much of that promised by the United States Department of State. And yet the neocons are celebrating his triumph. Can you get a handle on this for us? Well, I think Jake Sullivan, and I'm going to classify him as pretty aligned with the neocon view. You know, he said in his speech, he said the U.S. won't get involved militarily here unless ISIS comes to power. So I'm like, you know, OK, really? I thought it did. You know, this guy has roots in al-Qaeda, ISIS. You know, his organization stems from that.

And we haven't lifted that $10 million bounty, which tells me we're pretty concerned about his connections. You know, he said, I guess what it is, the story they have, the story they tell is this guy separated from Al-Qaeda and Al-Qaeda linked organizations. He diverged from them a couple of years ago, maybe, well, maybe a little more, maybe four years ago. So 2019 or so. And so that was OK. But we still didn't lift the 10 million dollar bounty on his head, which tells me he probably didn't make the make the clean cut from Al-Qaeda. But, you know, this this government and the neocons in particular are elated by what has happened. They see it as part of the securing the realm, you know, a clean break, which documents 25 years old now, explaining how greater Israel will be accomplished by breaking down and destroying

key neighbors of Israel. And Syria was, I think, pretty much the last one. I mean, Libya went, Iraq, Afghanistan, you know, they've broken everything up as best they can, weaken it, divide it, put it into economic and political turmoil. And this is all a good thing because now Israel is in a position to, I don't know, invade Syria and run 200 sorties overnight and destroy the Syrian military supplies. So yeah, this fits in perfectly. They are delighted, but they're insane also. I'm going to ask you in a few minutes about providing material assistance to terrorist organizations, a federal crime for which a lot of people are in jail, nobody from the CIA. But you mentioned, you ticked off all these countries that the United States decided to

depose. Here's a fascinating clip from General Wesley Clark. The clip is only a year and a half old, March of 2023, but he's talking about earlier in his career. I think you'll appreciate this, Colonel. Watch this. Cut number five, Chris. He said, I just got this down from upstairs meeting the Secretary of Defense's office today. And he said, this is a memo that describes how we're going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and finishing off Iran. I said, is it classified? He said, yes, sir. I said, well, don't show it to me. If you were Iran, you'd probably believe that you were mostly already at war with the United States

anyway, since we've asserted that their government needs regime change. So, and we've asked Congress to appropriate $75 million to do it, and we are supporting terrorist groups, apparently, who are infiltrating and blowing up things inside Iraq, Iran. And if we're not doing it, let's put it this way, we're probably cognizant of it and encouraging it. So it's not surprising that we're moving to a point of confrontation crisis with Iran. I'm going to guess that you're not startled by this. Maybe you're startled by the candor with which Colonel or General Clark mentions it. And to his credit, I'm not a big fan of his, but to his credit, this condemnation of it.

Yeah, he actually had said something like that even before a few years ago, talking about the seven countries. And I link to it in my latest article. There's a link to that, the plan for toppling these governments and of course ending with with iran um he has he has come a long way i think in some ways um you know he's he's not i'm not a fan of his either uh he was big i remember in uh when they blew up all those uh branch davidians i guess they were uh, the siege that went on in Texas. That was many, many years ago. He was in charge of a big army division or something in Texas.

And Clinton, President Clinton, I guess, asked him, or the Attorney General asked him, can we bring the military in to do this? And Clark said, no, that's not constitutional. But he wrote this in his autobiography after he retired. And he said, it's not possible to do that. But he said, there is a way. He said, if there's drugs in there, if there's drugs in the facility, then we as the military are authorized to do anti-drug operations. And suddenly the news reported that they were making meth or something in the Branch Davidian thing. Of course, they never were very inconsistent with their philosophy, I think, but they,

there was a drug issue that came up and said, and the army was able, and Clark was the guy, he's an idea guy. He knows how to make, he, you know, he knows how to solve problems. But I think he's on the right side now. I mean, he's observing how our government works, the government he was part of for over 30 years. It's funny you mentioned drugs. I mean, the so-called war on drugs has done more harm to the Constitution of the United States of America, and particularly the Fourth Amendment, than any war we've ever, any real hot war we've ever fought. The weakening of the protections for privacy, and in this case, the weakening of federal statutes that keep the military out of law

enforcement. Maybe that's coming under Trump, I don't know. But the statutes prohibit it. And looking the other way, just because people were dealing drugs and then making up that they were dealing with drugs so as to justify the military is a reprehensible and unconstitutional destruction of basic liberties intended to be protected by the Bill of Rights. Yeah. And, you know, just one more thing about drugs. You know, the drug war touches so many people in this country who have, you know, drugs in general, drug abuse, drug crime, people in jail for drugs. This touches more people than probably any other government policy. We all are touched by that, I think. If we have friends, neighbors, cousins, nephews and

nieces, our neighborhoods. So this is a way they're destroying the Constitution in a way that impacts all of our lives, every citizen. And I think people sense it, but it's not talked about enough. It is not talked about enough. Let's talk a little bit about Syria. How can this guy Jelani possibly have a bounty on his head and yet have received training and cash from the CIA? Well, we have to ask the CIA that question. They really need to explain themselves. Also, not just the CIA, but, you know, the DOD, they're helping other terrorist groups. They could be cooperating with this one. It's not clear what they're doing. Yeah, it's almost, you know, for Syria and for the region and certainly for Syrians themselves, you know, it's a tough time. You know, change is

happening. It's been coming for a long time. And know, it's a tough time. You know, change is happening. It's been coming for a long time, and it happened in a seemingly rapid way. But really, the preparation for this has gone on for a long time. But U.S. policy is equally confusing. You know, it's not just, you know, we can look at that and say, oh, we don't understand what happened. Well, actually, we don't have to, as Americans, understand what happened in Syria necessarily or any other country for that matter. But we do, as Americans, need to understand what our CIA is doing, what our military is doing, what our politicians, you know, how, I mean, has anyone asked in a press briefing,

has anyone asked how we can be positive and enthusiastic about the new government in Syria, and yet we still have the $10 million bounty on his head? That's inconsistent with any type of logic. Is this question being asked? Is it being answered? I don't know. But that is something Americans need to pay attention to. We will not understand the nuances of the Middle East. We don't understand

its history. So let's not bother with that. Why don't we understand what our own government is doing? So what is the neocon line in this Al Jalani, that he's a different human being, even though he is alleged either personally or under his supervision to have engaged in acts of barbarism, cutting off heads, cutting off hands. There was a time when you couldn't even articulate those words on television or on a podcast, but it's such a part of the history of the Middle East. Nevertheless, do the neocons claim he's a new man and he's worthy of American support? The neocons are happy with the results. And they don't really care.

Because, in fact, I would imagine most neocons in this country see this as nothing, well, as they see most things, through the lens of is it good for Israel? And this is how they view all policy. Even helping Ukraine too much is not good for Israel so that they, you know, they have their priority, very clear one. So they're cheering because they think disarray, even if it is al-Qaeda in a suit, you know, running Syria, if there's refugees moving to other countries, Christians in particular, Alawites, others who may be at risk from the new leadership. They like that. That's all good for Israel. That all helps sow confusion. It helps a strong unified leadership. Nationalistic impulses are limited.

They like all that. So this is good from their perspective. It only matters how does it impact Israel? They are probably, they probably don't care that this guy came from Al-Qaeda and his history of violence and barbarism is, he was a leader. He wasn't just like, I'm Al-Qaeda guy. You know, they said show up. And I went out with all the guys. We did what we were told. It's not like that. He was a leader within the Al-Qaeda organization and then the al-Nusra organization and on up. And so only in the latter part of his political career has he seen it wise to separate himself, at least in terms of Western opinion, from the al-Qaeda, from ISIS. And it's not clear that he's done that. And I don't think the neocons care. They would actually probably prefer heads rolling and limbs being chopped off and people being thrown in jail and massive numbers of Christian refugees

going to the neighboring countries. I think the neocons would like that. That is, in the perspective of Israeli politicians, that's a good thing for Israel. Is this as much of a victory for Israel as Netanyahu claims, or is he and his regime now exposed to the barbarism that al-Jalani has manifested and the hatred of the state of Israel that he has stood for? Oh, maybe this is before he became a new man. Yeah, I don't see, I mean, maybe I'm too cautious. I see this as very difficult for Israel in the future. The people who, first off, Israel is despised more today by more people

in the region and on the world than they've ever been despised before, okay? So that level of fundamental disgust for the state of Israel is very powerful. The various factions in Syria, I don't think any of them are going to emerge in popularity by being pro-Israel. They're not going to be. So how will they deal with an expanding Israel? How will they deal with continuing acts of genocide and a genocidal policy, in particular in Gaza? You know, how will these people react? Well, we don't know how they'll react. But what we do know is they uniformly, uniformly despise Israel. So as Israel expands, I would be a little concerned. Of course, Netanyahu doesn't have particularly good judgment.

He's very nervous about when he's no longer the prime minister. But I would be very nervous if I was a military leader in Israel. I would be nervous about being overconfident. I would be nervous about overextending. I would be nervous about displaying this kind of rash aggression, which they do, and they have been, I think, by design since last October, certainly. I would be very cautious about that because there's something that seems a little off here. It's not something for Israel to celebrate. And if you think about it, you know, Syria has about 23 million people, I think is the latest count, 23 million in Syria. And of course, they live in the urban areas for the most part.

Israel has 9 million on the books, but they're not all living in Israel and they're not all serving in the IDF. And they have internal difficulties in raising the kind of military that it might take to defend this greater Israel. So they're launching on to greater Israel because it's an opportunistic move. You know, why not? It's good for Netanyahu. But can they maintain that? Is that going to be something they can maintain? Because the enemies of Israel are more and more unified as every day, as every week and month go on. They are, you know, it used to be Israel could play one off against the other. And I don't think that's happening in the coming decade. I think Israel has kind of, in all of their aggression and defense, they've also lost

one of their tools, one of their key tools that maintained their security. And that was the fact that they could play everybody off everybody else. They had not just intelligence, but they had deals that they would cut, you know, things like that. And that's part of what a state does. They can't do that as well as they could. So they may be overextended. Okay. Let me switch gears a little bit. What does the neocon read on Tulsi Gabbard? Why are people complaining that she watches RT today, which you and, she thinks for herself, and I'm sure that, I hate to generalize on all the neoconservatives, obviously they don't like, there's a number of Trump's nominations that they don't like, but I think in Tulsi's case, she's extremely credible,

she's extremely tough, she served in the Middle East, and she's quite aware and smart. And she is, you know, she's brave. Okay. She has fundamental physical and intellectual courage. And the neocons who don't have this, I hate to tell you, I hate to break it to America, but the neoconservatives are everything but courageous. They don't own their mistakes. In fact, you ask them, they've made no mistakes. You know, all the disasters of Iraq, Afghanistan, you name it, we can blame much of that on neocon philosophy and the efforts they made to twist our government into these directions. And when they turned out bad, the neocons floated off and, you know, did fine, did fine. And they defend their position. They have no courage and they have no ability to self-reflect.

And Gabbard has those ability to do. She has great courage. She's extremely smart and she can reflect and process information objectively. We don't want that in a DNI. They don't want that in a DNI. None of the deep state wants that kind of person in a position to advise the president. They would like to advise the president. And Tulsi will negate much of their influence if that influence is bad for America. And I think she knows what that, she knows what's good for America and they know what's good for Israel. That's the battle. Yeah, unfortunately, she is an ardent Zionist. But when it comes to spying on Americans, when it comes to spying without search warrants, she's like Ron Paul. I mean, she's absolutely terrific. I was ecstatic that Trump would give her a position like this. He also said nobody from the CIA or the NSA is going to darken my doorway. It's all going to come through Ms. Gabbard.

That has got to infuriate the neocons in the intelligence community. But the lights, those of us who believe that the Bill of Rights means what it says, Karen. That's right. And this is how we, if we can't, I don't know if we can fix our country in so many ways, but if we're going to, this is the kind of, this is the way you do it. You go back to fundamentals and you follow your most basic principles and apply them and you try to get better. You're not going to win everything. You know, some of Trump's appointments are going to be lousy. We can kind of already predict that. But yeah, Tulsi knows

the Constitution and she shares constitutional values with really, I have to say, most of the country, just not the deep state. And truly, and I think you've said this, Judge, the enemy of the deep state is the Constitution, because none of what they do is remotely related to it. Yes, the Constitution is an obstacle to them. If we could resurrect James Madison, he would say, yes, it's intentionally an obstacle to them, because without an obstacle, they become even more totalitarian than they are now. Now, they've found ingenious ways around it, not the least of which is bribing and threatening and coercing members of Congress to write legislation that authorizes them to do what they do. But if the Constitution meant what it said, there would be no spying on Americans. There would be surveillance, but it would only be based upon probable cause of crime issued by a federal judge. It wouldn't be spying everybody all the time. I mean, right now,

they capture every keystroke on every mobile device and every laptop and every desktop in the country. They don't read it all because they don't have the assets to read it in real time, but they have it if they need it. And they've made this argument that the Fourth Amendment only applies to law enforcement. It doesn't apply to the intelligence community. There's nothing in the history of the Fourth Amendment to support that argument. In fact, most of the offenses by the British were done by British intelligence agents and British soldiers. It had nothing whatsoever to do with law enforcement. The Fourth Amendment was written to keep the governor off our backs.

Anyway, you've heard me go on and on about this, and hopefully she will be confirmed, and hopefully we'll see a radical change in what the intelligence community has done to the American public. Last question before we go. Were you surprised that Russia did nothing to save Assad in the waning days of his presidency? Initially, I was surprised because I did not put a lot of credence into the military ability of HTS and the others that were fighting with it. So I thought it would be an easy pushback for the Syrian army. And then when they started to fade away so rapidly, melt away, I thought, well, you know, typically, and this is what happened a few years ago, several years ago, you know, Russia came in and protected them. But since then, I've read a little bit of the history, and it looks like Russia had been trying to help Syria's government,

help Assad, you know, do better with the people, you know, make some concessions, have maybe an approved constitution, work with some of the rebels. And they didn't take his advice. And again, this actually, the fact that Russia, you know, of course, gave him a place to stay. He's in Moscow, I guess now. But Russia didn't really save his government. A smart person is going to think very carefully about why. Is it in Russia's interest also? Because Russia's interest and Israel's interest are not the same, I don't think, and are Russia's and America's interest. And so you've got Israel

and America cheering, but this was, it almost was facilitated, the withdrawal or the melting away of the Syrian army and the vacation of, you know, Assad leaving. Very much because Russia allowed that to happen. Very smooth, very fewer deaths than what there were. Right, right, right. Almost. Until Israel bombed everything. Almost a peaceful transfer. Yeah, it was very, very peaceful.

Thank you very much. Much appreciate your time, my dear friend. We'll see you next week. Okay, thank you, Judge. I appreciate it. Of course, of course. Coming up later today, two additions that were not in our original calendar.

Patrick Lancaster, live from Tbilisi, Georgia. You're going to see him being verbally attacked and threatened by a mob that doesn't believe in the freedom of speech at 4.30. And at 5 o'clock, our old buddy, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. I'm out.