Judging Freedom - Kyle Anzalone : Anti-War Wrap Up

Episode Date: June 12, 2024

Kyle Anzalone : Anti-War Wrap UpSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Resolve to earn your degree in the new year in the Bay with WGU. With courses available online 24-7 and monthly start dates, WGU offers maximum flexibility so you can focus on your future. Learn more at wgu.edu. so so Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Wednesday, June 12th, 2024. Kyle Ancelone from Antiwar.com joins us now. Kyle, a pleasure, my dear friend. Welcome back to the show. I have a lot to ask you about that's from the antiwar.com website, which viewers know I heartily recommend. But I want to talk about breaking news, which is that tourists on cruising ships have been taking pictures of a Russian fleet aiming for Cuba. Are the Russians sending warships to Cuba? And if so, thank you, Joe Biden. What is that all about? Well, first, Judge, thank you for having me back on the show today. But to get into it,

Russia is sending, I believe, three warships and a nuclear-powered submarine to Cuba, and they're expected to conduct some wartime drills. The Cuban government says those Russian ships do not have nuclear weapons on board, although those ships are capable of carrying nuclear weapons. And we see a very interesting response from the White House. National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby seemed to try to downplay this and say it wasn't a big deal to the Americans. And I think the reason that they're trying to do this is it's a real consequence of the U.S. policy in Ukraine. They have been so provocative for so long that Russia is now sending these ships to Cuba. And so this is something that might upset Americans, might concern Americans about our own safety. And so the White House is going to try to downplay it rather than use it to trump up the Russian threat.

One of our viewers is reporting that one or more Russian submarines have already arrived at whatever the naval base is there. It's obviously not Guantanamo, since that's ours by theft, but it's ours. There must be some facility that receives submarines. Do you think that this is probably Putin's way of saying, turn about as fair play, old Joe? You have authorized Zelensky and a bunch of Nazis, figuratively and literally, about which more in a moment, to fire American-made projectiles into Russia, we're going to place Russian-made projectiles within 90 miles of America and see how comfortable you are with it. Does that make sense to you? Absolutely, Judge. I think Russia has been warning for years and been trying to explain to the Americans for years just how provocative it is that the NATO and mostly the U.S. has moved their

military bases, their military hardware, including some missile launchers that are capable of firing nuclear Tomahawk missiles in Poland and Romania. But we have also treated the Black and Baltic Seas as a NATO lake. And so Russia says, look how provocative this is. We're going to show you by conducting these operations in Cuba and doing it in the Caribbean Sea, just not off the American coast, I think 60, 90 miles away or so. Chris, my producer watched the presser in the Pentagon until he couldn't stand it anymore because they kept asking Simone Singh, the Pentagon spokesperson, what about this? And she wouldn't answer.

She wouldn't answer. She wouldn't answer. She wouldn't answer. God only knows what Kirby, Admiral Kirby, will say about it. While we're talking about Ukraine, before we get over to Israel and Gaza, why in heaven's name do you think Biden and company authorized this group of Nazis, this Azov brigade that are figuratively and literally Nazis with swastikas tattooed on their chests and their arms, in the cases of some of them, their faces, to receive and utilize American weapons,

American weapons that they're entitled to fire into Russia and giving American weapons to Nazis. Where's AIPAC on this? Haven't heard a peep from them. Well, AIPAC is just in support of the war state judge. So, you know, the war state's mission in the Ukraine is to fight Russia. And the neo-Nazis are the most, you know, the people most driven, the most likely to be, you know, effective fighters because they really want to be out there on the battlefield. We see all the time in Ukraine right now, people fighting against the military recruiters to try to save maybe even a stranger, but oftentimes their family members from being drug off and forced onto the front lines. And so with a lack of willing recruits to send people in Ukraine who are just average citizens and not neo-Nazis ideologically driven to go fight

Russia, you know, they have to rely more and more on the Azov battalion and other neo-Nazi groups. And so the State Department's going to say, oh, they've reformed since they were formed by a neo-Nazi in 2014. But the current leader of the Azov battalion is himself a neo-Nazi. They still use neo-Nazi symbolism. And as you said, their soldiers are covered in neo-Nazi and Nazi tattoos, swastika and things like that. But this really isn't a new policy, Judge. We've seen throughout the war in Ukraine, the U.S. has allowed the Russian Volunteer Corps, which is a militia that's allied with Kiev, and they're made up of Russians who fight on the side of Ukraine. And there are a whole bunch of

neo-Nazis. Even if you look at reports on this group in the Russians who fight on the side of Ukraine. And there are a whole bunch of neo-Nazis. Even if you look at reports on this group in the New York Times or the Times of London, you'll see their soldiers there with blood suns or other kinds of Nazi symbols on their bodies and patches on their uniforms using American weapons to conduct raids inside of Russia. Here's Jake Sullivan not talking about the neo-Nazis, but talking about what he says is common sense. This is an absurd argument, but I'll let you address it wherever you see fit, of course. He's making an argument to justify the use of American weaponry landing into Russia, cut number four. From the president's perspective, this was common

sense. What was happening up around Kharkiv, which was new just in the last couple of months, was a Russian offensive where they were moving from one side of the border directly to the other side of the border. Ah, there you go. Well, Judge, at the start of the conflict, the Biden administration was saying it was common sense that they weren't going to ship long-range missiles to Ukraine. They weren't going to give Ukraine's F-16s or American Tains or allow Ukraine to attack inside of Russia because this would start World War III. And they dismissed all of us who were raising those concerns at the time, saying that, no, we wouldn't allow this because obviously this would start a bigger war. And now they say, oh, it's common sense that we have to allow Ukraine to do this, even though it's highly provocative. And I'm sure it's part of the reason why Russian ships are right now in the Caribbean and in Cuba. On your podcast, Conflicts of Interest, you talked about Ukraine to store its F-16 at NATO bases. Where are those NATO bases? And can we assume that there extremely provocative, and the American people might not realize

why. But F-16s require a specialized airfield, and so Russia could target those airfields in Ukraine. And so Ukraine is thinking of storing their F-16s at these air bases. I'm guessing they're going to be Poland, Romania, or other NATO countries that border Ukraine, just because that would be the most logistically sensible to then carry out the missions inside of Ukraine. But Russia has threatened that they will attack these bases if the NATO planes are taking off from there and then carrying out

operations inside of either Ukraine or Russia against Russian forces and then flying back to those NATO bases, which would absolutely make sense. If a country is attacking you from a certain point, then you're obviously going to attack those bases. And so this shows, I think that Ukraine is getting a little bit closer to getting the F-16s, although initially they're only going to receive SIDS of them. So who knows how effective that will be. Russia may just be able to shoot them down or destroy them before this even comes into play. Who's going to fly them? I think Ukrainian pilots. They've been spending well over a year now attempting to train Ukrainian pilots.

First, they had to teach them English. Then they had to teach them just basic pilot training on Soviet planes and then finally getting them on the modern F-16s. There's been a lot of problems with this program, including Ukraine is in a real shortage of pilots overall. And so they can't afford to send dozens or a hundred pilots or so to the US, the Netherlands and elsewhere in NATO to get training on the F-16s. They need all their pilots to carry out operations inside of Ukraine. And so they haven't been able to train very many pilots. That said, maybe Western contractors will be somewhat involved here, former U.S. pilots who

will help the Ukrainians maybe being in a two-seat F-16 or something like that. How dangerous do you think, you study this stuff every day, all day, let me restate it, how close do you think we are to a wider war involving NATO countries in Ukraine? Unfortunately, Judge, I think we are getting very close to that. Again, if you see these assets teams taking off from other NATO countries and then carrying out attacks inside of Russia, that could lead to a major escalation. Although I did listen to your interview with Gilbert Dottereau last week, which I thought was extremely informative. And Dottereau explained that he thought Russia would take asymmetrical actions elsewhere

around the globe rather than attacking NATO directly. So I hope he's right in that Russia does look at asymmetrical issues here. And once the November election passes, whether Biden wins re-election or Trump takes office in January, we do see a major de-escalation here because this cannot continue forever. Eventually, Russia will respond by attacking NATO bases somewhere. I mean, Dr. Rowe hypothesized that Russia could level Kiev. He also said they could do it in a very short period of time. I mean, that would irretrievably emasculate the Ukrainian military, I think, that wouldn't have any headquarters left. Certainly, Judge, the Ukrainians are really struggling to provide the air

defenses to defend their critical infrastructure, their frontline troops, and their cities. And so at this point, if Russia wanted to, it seems they really could carry out a major attack on any of Ukrainian cities and Kiev would be virtually powerless to stop it. The lead story on NAWAR.com is intriguing and it is Hamas responds to ceasefire proposal. With all of your studying of all of this, do you yet know whose proposal this is? Is Cy Hersh right? And Joe Biden and his political campaign managers made this up off the top of their head and claimed it was Netanyahu? Or was this truly Netanyahu who now is walking away from his own proposal?

You know, Judge, it's really hard to tell. It could have been an Israeli kind of plot all along to drag this out and to generate some propaganda against Hamas, because look what happens here. Biden comes out and gives a speech saying that the Israelis have accepted and put forward a ceasefire proposal and is just waiting on Hamas to accept it. And so for weeks now, we've just heard, oh, we're waiting on Hamas to accept the deal. Meanwhile, the Israeli officials are walking back from it and actually working to undermine it by saying things like, you know, we could accept this deal. We could get some of our hostages back and then we could go back to fighting after the initial since we pause and fighting is over. And so now Hamas is asking, and this is the article you're referring to, they responded to the proposal put forward by President Biden by saying, we're willing to do this. We just want some extra

guarantees that it's not just going to be a since, sweet, pause. We give up the hostages. And then Israel ruthlessly bombs us again. We need some extra assurances. And the Israelis threw up their arms and they say, oh, well, this is a rejection of the ceasefire proposal. And so now Hamas is rejecting it and game on. We could do whatever we want. And so this seems like a really cynical propaganda ploy. I'm not sure if it originated in the White House or in Tel Aviv, but whatever it is, it's absolutely a disgusting piece of propaganda that American officials are taking part in. Here's Admiral Kirby insisting in a very short interview three times that it's an Israeli proposal. Number nine.

That proposal, an Israeli proposal, has been given to Hamas. It was done on Thursday night, our time. We're waiting for an official response from Hamas. We would note that publicly, Hamas officials came out and welcomed this proposal. This was an Israeli proposal. We have every expectation that if Hamas agrees to the proposal, as was transmitted to them, an Israeli proposal, that Israel would say yes. I mean, this is Shakespeare. He protested too much. How many times does he have to say in 30 seconds that it was an Israeli

proposal to the point where you don't believe him? Absolutely. And again, that's just all this is, is propaganda. It's all meant to reinforce this narrative that the Israelis and their American backers always like to roll out, which is the Palestinians never miss a chance to miss a chance and saying that, you know, they had a deal on the table in front of them, great deal, and they chose to bypass it. And so now they deserve what's coming to them. Now they deserve this brutal Israeli bombardment. When everything the Israelis have done since the Biden administration rolled out this plan makes it very clear that they actually do not want Hamas to accept it. They want to keep this war going. Here's Admiral Kirby's boss, Secretary Blinken, yesterday recounting what he claims he heard

from Prime Minister Netanyahu the night before. I met with Prime Minister Netanyahu last night and he reaffirmed his commitment to the proposal. I also had an opportunity to speak to Defense Minister Gallant and other senior Israelis this morning. And I think there is a strong consensus again behind moving forward with the proposal, but it really is down to one person at this point. We'll see what comes from them and from him. You don't know what to believe, Kyle. You don't know if the Americans are trying to shove this down Netanyahu's throat because the Americans lack the courage to say to him, no more spare parts, no more ammunition, no more killing. You don't know if this is all a political stunt. So Biden can say in the debate in two weeks, we had a proposal. We did our best.

Hamas rejected it. It's hard to put your finger on where the truth is. I tend to go with Cy Hirsch because we all know him. He has three sources for everything he says. And Hirsch says the Americans made this up, claimed it was the Israelis, and now trying to embarrass the Israelis into going along with it. Don't you agree with me that if Netanyahu goes along with this, his government collapses because the hardliners in his government will walk out of the government. He won't have a majority in the Knesset. And the Israeli people, with all they're going through, are going to go through an election. Yeah, Judge, what you present there does seem to be the case that the Biden administration thought that if they rolled this out and proposed it, that this would force the Israelis into accepting it along with Hamas. And then they would be able

to claim that they ended this war and that they saved the Palestinian people and all this kind of nonsense. And yeah, that's the problem that Netanyahu faces is his coalition is built upon continuing this genocide, this massacre in Gaza. And the only thing I would say, judge and add to that, is I'm not so sure Netanyahu wants to stop it himself. I don't think it's as if these right-wingers are just really holding his feet to the fire and forcing him to keep this going. I think he's very happy to have that right-wing pressure in him keeping this thing going as long as he has. Is Israel in a war with Hezbollah? And what would justify the murder of a civilian, not military, Hezbollah leader? Yeah, I mean, Israel and Hezbollah have certainly been in, I mean, a far more low intensity warfare

than what we see in, say, Ukraine or in Gaza over the past eight months, but it's certainly been a war. Daily bombings, drone strikes, other kind of fire exchanged across the border. There's been hundreds killed, certainly in Lebanon at this point, and scores, if not over 100, killed in Israel as well. And yeah, Judge, Israel has targeted a lot of civilian targets in Lebanon, and not just members of Hezbollah and senior civilian members of Hezbollah, but even the paramedics who are going to the sites of the Israeli strikes. They're trying to hit those ambulances to prevent them from saving lives. And so what Israel has been doing in Lebanon has been absolutely brutal over

the last eight months, and they've killed a lot of innocent people. And they've also, I should mention here, have used white phosphorus in very widespread areas of Lebanon, and this is really starting to poison the landscape and cause a lot of problems. Isn't that chemical warfare theoretically prohibited by treaties that Israel has signed? We know it's prohibited by the UN charter. Yeah. They claim that there's some legitimate military uses of white phosphorus, I believe, like marking targets and also illuminating night so you could conduct operations. But at the same time, you're not supposed to be able to use it over civilian lands, densely populated areas, farm land, because it causes wildfires. And if

white phosphorus lands on you, it causes extremely intense burns, you know, burns all the way down to the bone. A lot of times the burns cause amputations and things like that. I forgot to mention one of the pieces on antiwar.com that also intrigued me about Ukraine, and that is the leaking of a plan of G7, which I think is meeting soon, to confiscate, to steal frozen Russian assets in Western banks, and to give that money to Ukraine. Don't they think that this will produce a response that they don't anticipate? Yeah, I do think they're actually very the $200 to $300 billion in frozen Russian assets held in G7, European Union, NATO countries, and use that money to fund the Ukrainian war effort.

Now, the U.S. has little skin in the game here. Only about $5 to $6 billion of that money is held in the U.S. And so it wouldn't be a huge deal to take that $5 to $6 billion, but it would be to take the $200 to $300 billion and but it would be to take the $200 to $300 billion and distribute that to Ukraine. So Washington's plan here is, I believe they're going to use the $300 billion, the collective pool of frozen Russian assets as collateral. And then from that, they will lend Ukraine $50 billion. And then they're supposed to use the $3.5 billion in interest generated off the frozen Russian funds to pay off the loans, which would take a couple decades, decades, probably 20 or 30 years. And of course, we know Ukraine's never going to be able to pay it back. And so ultimately,

they'll end up seizing those frozen Russian funds to pay off the loans. Does anybody consider the morality of just stealing property? I mean, is it not called stealing when the government does it? Or am I being naive? I certainly agree with you, Judge. Unfortunately, no, it doesn't seem anyone else in Washington does. And the mainstream media doesn't because it still refers to it as frozen Russian assets. It is stolen Russian assets. The last time I checked, there's a couple of million dollars worth of Russian vodka still sitting in Port Newark. Nobody knows what to

do with it. They can't sell it in the U.S. and they can't ship it back to the manufacturer. It arrived here just as the sanctions kicked in. I remember asking this Russian businessman, Alexander Syryanov, what the Russian business class thinks of Biden. And he said, we often say, thank you, Joe Biden. Thank you for the sanctions. You've made us more economically prosperous and certainly more economically independent. Are these assets, assets of Russian, are they deposits of the bank accounts of Russian businesses or deposits in bank accounts of the Russian government? Do we know? I know a lot of them are deposits of the Russian central bank. And so a lot of those is money owned

by the Russian government. The West has also seized a lot of other assets of Russian businessmen that they've sanctioned, yachts and things like that. And a lot of these assets that they've stolen are actually costing more to maintain than they're actually worth, even if they end up selling them off. And so it's causing a real economic burden for the U.S. I'm sure all that vodka sitting in the port of Newark is probably costing somebody money to have that ship sitting there. And it'll eventually cost money to take it off and dispose of it or whatever the U.S. government decides to do with it. And it'll be a loss for the taxpayers. And this is all a result of the hysteria that was generated by the mainstream media in the

wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. I live in Massachusetts, Judge, and I remember at the time, right after the invasion, there were Massachusetts state lawmakers that were proposing it. And this was gaining serious traction, Laws that would prevent the consumption of any products made by a Russian in the state of Massachusetts. Just absolutely wildly hysteric laws that made absolutely no sense. And that's why we have this real economic problem between the U.S. and Russia that we now have, which seems to have worked out better for the Russian people than the American people. So the legislators in Massachusetts, the most liberal state in the union,

apparently agree with the senior senator from South Carolina, arguably the most conservative state in the union. Here's a clip of Lindsey Graham, who never met a war, didn't want someone else to fight on stealing Russian assets because they were probably stolen anyway. Either we're going to help Ukraine or we're not. It's now time to give them the F-16s, let them fly the planes, long range artillery to hit targets inside of Russia, go after Putin's assets wherever they're at all over the world, go on the offensive. I think December, Ukraine will regain military momentum.

Everything we've done with Ukraine has been slow, it's been indecisive. But if we went after the assets that Putin has all over the world, take his money that's stolen from the Russian people and help the victims in Ukraine, I think it would do a lot to end this war. Does Senator Graham believe that taxation is theft? Because he's certainly in favor of the IRS. I mean, the Russian people pay taxes and their government has money and he says that's stolen. Maybe we finally found something that we agree with Lindsey Graham on.

I'm being a little sarcastic. He sees no good whatsoever in anything in Russia and has wanted to destroy it for his entire professional career. And you just saw not the most aggressive, but one of the more absurd rants from Senator Graham. Your thoughts? Yeah, Senator Graham is completely unhinged, Judge. And his analysis is in no way based in reality. He says, OK, we'll give Ukraine F-16s and that's going to change the battlefield. But the Ukrainian generals are saying that it's too late. They said, oh, if we had gotten them in 2023, it would have made a huge difference. But now we're into the summer of 2024. And so Russia is prepared for the absentees to enter the war. So that won't make a huge deal. And honestly, as much as the Ukrainians,

I'm sure they do need money and billions and billions of dollars will help the Ukrainians even buy soldiers to send to the front lines. I'm sure that could happen. But ultimately, Ukraine is going to lose this war. It is a war of attrition. And Ukraine is a far smaller opponent against a much larger opponent. And Russia has a massive weapons industrial base now. And the West simply can't keep up with it. And so the Ukrainians will lose this war. And all is what Senator Graham is prescribing is going to prolong the war and lead to more dead Ukrainians and more death and suffering for the

Ukrainian people. And it's so interesting, Judge, to contrast the statements of Senator Graham to those, Senator Tuberville, who you had on your show yesterday, who has a very good understanding of this. And yet Lindsey Graham has been in Washington for decades receiving all the most secret classified reports and has supposed to have this great knowledge of foreign policy and war and all these things. And what he prescribes is completely unrealistic. And a guy who was a head football coach and a very successful one a couple of years ago has a much better grasp on what's going on with our foreign policy. Really tells you all you need to know about if being in Washington makes you more intelligent or not. Not.

Thank you, Kyle. Always a pleasure, my dear friend. I hope you'll come back with us next week. Absolutely, Judge. Thank you. You have a breath of knowledge that is very illuminating for the viewers and for me. Coming up at 3 o'clock, Bill Giraldi. What did they do to Scott Ritter? What did they do to Scott Ritter that you don't know about? Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. you