Judging Freedom - Kyle Anzalone: Antiwar Weekly Wrap Up

Episode Date: February 1, 2024

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

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Save $80 with code SPACE80 at Talkspace.com. Thanks for watching! Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Thursday, February 1st, 2024. Kyle Anzalone from antiwar.com joins us today. Kyle, always a pleasure, my dear friend. Thank you for joining us. Thank you. The latest news, of course, in the anti-war world, around which this podcast, of course, is heavily focused, is the president's vague threats to hold Iran accountable for what happened in either Syria or Jordan. It's not clear which,

wherever this Tower 22 was. Before we get there, this is the place where two American or three American soldiers were killed and 34 were injured. The government wants us to believe that the Americans defending the place confused an incoming drone for what they thought was a returning American drone. Some of the people on my show say a drone couldn't have done that kind of damage. It was a heavy-duty missile, whatever. When President Biden was asked, this is cut number eight, Chris, when President Biden was asked if he holds the Iranians responsible for this, here's his response. I'm going to speak over him because he's right next to a helicopter

when they're asking him this question and it's tough to hear the question. You can hear his answer. But I want you to comment on this, please. Have you made a decision on how you respond to the attack? Do you hold Iran responsible?

I do hold them responsible in the sense that they're supplying the weapons to the people who did it. What will happen next? We'll have that discussion. How do you... What will be different this time? What will be different this time? All right. So obviously I play that because here's the president of the United States saying, I hold another country responsible for funding the attacks. Has he forgotten what he's doing in Ukraine? Has he forgotten the genocide he's committing in Gaza? He's funding them. Right. And, you know, dozens of other despots around the world, you could look at Saudi Arabia and what they did in

Yemen for years where the U.S. provided them with arms and funding. And so, yeah, it's a completely hypocritical standard. And the U.S. kind of just does this right where we adopt a propaganda line towards a certain country and anything they do, that's a remote violation of that. We're going to take them with an offense and punish them somehow. Biden says that we're going to punish Iran seemingly by attacking Iranian assets outside the country in the Middle East. But this risks a major wider war. And, you know, he seems to be ready to stumble right into it. You know, the hint was from the answer he gave there and from leaks that the administration has been dropping with its favored reporters, that this will be some sort of a sustained attack. It won't happen in a day. It may take a week. And originally it appeared as though it was going to follow the Lindsey Graham model and attack Iran.

Not Tehran, as he wanted, but Iran, somewhere in the country. But this morning, the administration leaked that it believes the actual attack on this Tower 22 came from somewhere inside Iraq. So here we are in the country we supposedly liberated from Saddam Hussein, a country that our forces supposedly left with huge bases there, which they want us to leave. So we're now there illegally. And now we're going to be attacking from inside Iraq somewhere else inside Iraq. How much more absurd and counterproductive and destructive can this possibly get? Yeah, well, I guess we can mention, too, that the Shia militias that are attacking the U.S. forces in Iraq are only there because the U.S. overthrew Saddam Hussein, and this led

to the Sunni insurgency in Iraq, which ended up in Syria as well, creating the Islamic State. And these Shia militias formed in response to the Islamic State, and in fact, in Iraq, worked with the United States at times to liberate cities like Mosul and Fallujah and Raqqa from the Islamic State. So, you know, this is just completely a blow up of US.S. policy right in our faces over the past 20 years of what we tried to do in the Middle East. Tragic, tragic for us to be there the way they are. What do you think will happen if he attacks Iran? I mean, they wouldn't they wouldn't just sit down and take this. They're

going to claim whether true or not. They have no control over the militias. They probably don't. But what do you think they'll do? I mean, how does Biden benefit from this other than maybe silencing, well, he'd never silenced Graham, maybe silencing some of his Republican critics? Is he doing this to help Netanyahu in some perverse way? Well, I certainly think it will end up helping Netanyahu in the long run. But I think in the short term, what Biden thinks he's going to do is carry out a week or two of limited strides against Iranian targets and mainly Shia militias in Iraq and Syria. I don't think it's going to remain limited. And I'm concerned that they're taking so long to carry out these strikes

because they understand they need to put a lot more military resources in the Middle East for the inevitable escalation that comes from this, because they know that Iran is going to hit back against some U.S. targets in the Middle East. And the U.S. has thousands, tens of thousands of troops in the Middle East, warships, bases all over the place, scattering the landscape for Iran to attack. And look, you know, these Shia militias in Iraq, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, they don't act at the behest of Iran. Tehran doesn't give them orders to attack a warship or to even start attacking ships in the Red Sea at all in the first place. However, all these countries are tired of the U.S. presence

in the Middle East. The Shia militias are tired of the U.S. occupation of Iraq and Syria, and they want the U.S. to go. And so, yeah, they have some aligning objectives here, but that doesn't mean that Iran necessarily has to give the orders for them to act on what all these groups are doing in their own individual interest. You know, this is the same group, the Houthis, that the president acknowledged in that very same spot where we just ran the clip. It's right outside the door that he uses when he leaves the White House to get into a helicopter, that are the attacks on the Houthis working? And he responds by saying, if by working, you mean, are we stopping them? Answer, no, but we're going to continue the attacks, like banging your head against the wall, expecting a change, but continuing to bang your head. Here's a famous former U.S. senator in a now famous

interview on MSNBC with my old friend Chris Matthews on the president's war powers. Take a listen to this. 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. You want to review that comment you made? Absolutely. 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 nation to 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. The House obviously has to do that, but I would lead an effort to impeach him.

I don't use words lightly. Some of you may have seen me on Stephanopoulos or Meet the Press, the shows I've been on on a weekly basis. I want to make it clear to you. I've drafted with the help of 17 years I was the chairman of the judiciary or the ranking member. And ladies and gentlemen, I drafted an outline of what I think the constitutional limitations have on the president or the war clause. I went to five leading scholars, constitutional scholars, and they drafted a treatise for me. It's being distributed to every senator. And I want to make it clear, and I made it clear to the president that if he takes the nation to war in Iran

without congressional approval I will make it my business to impeach him those words come back to haunt them I mean anti-war.com has a piece this morning about congressman Thomas Massey playing one or both of these two clips. Does Congressman Massey represent a view of Republicans that if

Joe Biden goes to war without going to the Congress, they're going to file articles of impeachment? Yeah, unfortunately, too few Republicans. My colleague at Antiwar.com, Dave DeCamp, does a great job of using Biden's career against him because he's been in politics so long. Not only has he been on every side of every issue, but he also used to actually at one point in time, and I know this is hard to believe, was able to articulate U.S. foreign policy. And so in his old days as president, he said things like Iran has no right to enrich uranium, the U.S. would go to war to defend Taiwan against the Chinese invasion, and a whole bunch of other absurd statements like he's going to take

the U.S. into war with Yemen and Iran without a congressional authorization. But in the past, he wrote articles saying that the president's words matter and we have, you know, a policy of not saying that we're going to defend Taiwan. And of course, here you see him saying that you have to have a declaration of war to go to war with Iran. So at one point, Biden, you know, at least kind of understood the constitution and claimed to believe in it. Although as president, he either forgot it or, you know or just wants the power for himself. Yeah, it's a sad state of affairs. The ICJ, the International Court of

Justice, did not rule as a matter of law that Israel was engaged in genocide and did not order Israel to stop its invasion. But it did rule that there was plausible evidence of genocidal intent and genocidal behavior. And it ordered Israel to stop the genocidal behavior by a vote of 15 to 2. The dissenters were the justices from Uganda and Israel. And then it ordered Israel to report to the court in 30 days on its progress in stopping the genocidal behavior. That vote was 16 to 1 with the Israeli justice appointed by Prime Minister Netanyahu himself in the majority. The only consistent dissenter was the justice from Uganda. I don't know if there's some relationship between Uganda and the United States, whatever. It's not the point of my question. The point of my question is, have these events in The Hague altered the behavior at all of the IDF, or is it just as violent, just as murderous,

just as genocidal as it was before the court ruled? Yeah, well, it certainly seems that it hasn't altered the IDF behavior yet. And I really didn't expect it to. Just out today, there's a new report in Haaretz saying that the Israeli military is systematically burning down houses in Palestine. And we already know from a Guardian analysis of satellite data from Gaza that 50 to 70 percent of homes have been destroyed in structures in total. About half have been destroyed in all of Gaza. So, you know, the genocide goes on. But I think that what we were hoping for with the idea, with the ICJ ruling, was that we're going to have additional political pressure in the U.S. These, you know, chants of Genocide Joe at every single campaign event the president tries to hold, that eventually that kind of pressure is going to mount in the U.S. and force the U.S. to pull support from Israel because Israel has no incentive whatsoever, particularly not within the government structure, to end the war in Gaza. You know, for them, I think the best case scenario is the ethnic cleansing of Gaza and the elimination of the

Palestinian people from the Strip. And so, you know, it's going to have to be the United States that chats Israel and prevents that from happening. And unless Joe Biden has a lot of political motivation to do so, he's not going to. Just today, or yesterday, the head of USAID, that's Samantha Power, who has made her entire career and actually written books on how the U.S. has a positive obligation to stop genocide around the world, was actually confronted by one of her own staffers for not calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. And so the temperature is going up in the U.S. on the Biden administration. It's not very much. It's not enough. It's inadequate. But, you know, maybe

eventually this will start to put some chuts on what the IDF is doing in Gaza. There's a little bit of other pressure on the Biden administration. He's in Michigan today campaigning, which of course has the largest Arab population or Palestinian population, I should say, forgive me, in the United States on his way there. Or before he left, he signed an executive order that purports to impose sanctions on the Israeli settlers in the West Bank. Now, all those settlements are illegal under international law and under Israeli agreements, but Prime Minister Netanyahu's government has encouraged them, permitted them, protected them,

and even in some cases paid for them. The other event is a ruling by a federal judge in Oakland, California, where some individuals whose relatives were victims of the genocide in Gaza asked a federal judge to find as a matter of law that the United States was engaged in genocide. The federal judge went through a long dissertation with his opinions on the U.S. involved in Gaza and basically said the U.S. is complicit in the genocide. And then he said, I'm dismissing the case because I don't have jurisdiction. Now, when a judge does that, the judge's opinions are meaningless. But he did take testimony and he did hear testimony. And the defendant was Joseph R. Biden and the Department of Justice was there defending him and the judge was persuaded that the United States was complicit

in genocide. All right, long-winded question, my apologies. What are the likely, what is the likelihood, I don't think you're a lawyer, but what is the likelihood of the U.S. becoming a separate defendant or a co-defendant in this case in The Hague, perhaps based in part on the clip we just ran, that he who pays for the equipment, his military gear, is responsible for the way it's used. So, you know, they certainly deserve to be tried at The Hague. You know, numerous American officials, Joe Biden, Annie Blinken would be on the very top of my list, but I'm sure they won't be. And I think a good part of the reason for that is any decision made by the Hague would have to be enforced by the U.N. Security Council where the U.S. is a permanent member and can veto it. And so some country would occur the wrath of the United States by bringing a genocide case against them, only to know for sure that the U.S. would be able

to veto any meaningful resolution from it. But I think the power of like the ICJ ruling on Israel and even what this judge did in Oakland is it gives more legitimacy to the people who are out there protesting and saying what Israel is doing is a genocide. You know, we have the former Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, running around calling everybody who's protesting on behalf, you know, in support of the Palestinian people, agents of Russia or China. And so when you have a judge in Oakland essentially legitimizing what was being said by the protesters, it really invalidates Pelosi's claim that we need an FBI investigation because the Russians are behind the pro-Palestinian

protests. Hard to remember, and it wasn't that long ago when Mrs. Pelosi was two heartbeats away from the presidency because she sounds like a lunatic now. Chris, this response from Prime Minister Netanyahu, is it a tape or is it written? Okay, I see it's written. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded to President Biden's decision to impose sanctions on violent settlers. Quote, Israel acts against all those who break the law everywhere, and therefore there is no room for exceptional measures in this regard. A statement published by the Prime Minister's office added that the absolute majority of the settlers in Judea and Samaria are law-abiding citizens, many of whom are currently fighting in the regular and reserve army for the defense of Israel. Who the hell would believe Netanyahu when he talks about Israel restraining itself in order to conform to legal standards.

Well, nobody should believe him, but this is, you know, the whole thing is U.S. propaganda. A couple of things the White House has tried to do since October 7th is say they're leaning on Israel to allow more aid into Gaza. Before October 7th, 500 aid trucks entered Gaza every day. And at that time, you know, there was a functioning economy in Gaza, not a thriving one, but there was an economy that was functioning. There were farmers, there were fishermen, there were teachers, all kinds of things were happening in Gaza. 90% of the population is displaced. And the most aid trucks that enter Gaza on a single day since October 7th is 266. So that's just over half of that 500 number. So, you know, even things the U.S. is mildly asking Israel to do, like a lot more aid into Gaza, or here when the U.S. is putting sanctions on Israel, Netanyahu is saying it's not necessary and that Israel holds the settlers accountable, which absolutely isn't true. But, you know, even the

mild criticism of Israel from its strongest partner, they can't take and say, oh, we're going to make reforms. They just denounce what the U.S. does and say they're doing everything correctly. The only reason the settlers are there is because of Netanyahu's government, which is anchored by those two right-wing fanatics. In fact, I don't know if you've seen this. Chris, let's play the tape of Smotrich and Ben-Gavir riling up the crowd. So this is the two hard-right members of the Israeli cabinet and the Israeli war cabinet and the coalition that allows Prime Minister Netanyahu to have a majority in the Knesset. They are addressing him, the Prime Minister, even though he's not there. They're in front of a huge crowd. Take a listen.

Mr. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, I'm addressing you from this stage. It's a shame to wait another 19 years to understand that Gush Katith and northern Samaria must be returned. The responsibility of brave leadership is to make courageous decisions. We are settling our land from width to length, controlling it and fighting terror always and bringing with God's help security to all of Israel. You know what the answer is. Without settlement, there is no security. Without settlement, he's talking about these very settlements, there's no security. Chris, can you put up the map? There it is. It's a couple of steps ahead of me as always. That is Prime Minister Netanyahu. Can you see the map of Israel in dark blue? And do you see the Gaza Strip or the West Bank? No, you don't. That is Prime Minister

Netanyahu's map of Israel two weeks before October 7th in New York at the UN. Well, it certainly looks like that map of Israel stretches from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, which I know is a phrase that gets people in trouble if you want to put Palestine next to that picture. But if you put Israel, I guess that's allowed. And this is just another example. Again, the U.S. asked the Israelis to tamp down on the genocidal rhetoric. And here you have several members of the government, I think 15 members of the Israeli Knesset, and there's 120 in total, so just over 10% of them, including

members of Netanyahu's own Likud party, attended this conference where they were talking about how they're going to resettle Gaza. And they're talking about resettling Gaza because the Palestinians are no longer going to be there. So they're planning their ethnic cleansing in the aftermath of it. And I think the International Court of Justice, for what it's worth, is aware of that. I see one of your columns this morning is by our good buddy and regular contributor, Matt Ho, about what the first week of war with Iran would look like. What does he say and what does he fear about the first week of war with Iran if Joe Biden is crazy enough to listen to Lindsey Graham's advice? Well, in his column, he kind of presents two different scenarios. The first is if Biden takes a limited approach. And this is something

that I've pointed out on my show, and I'm glad Matt points out here, is there is a path where this could end up de-escalating. You know, the U.S. carries out some strike, but they telegraphed to the Iranians beforehand, and, you know, minor damage is done. They could exchange some threats afterwards, but the rhetoric is really just a means of not using military and allowing the situation to de-escalate. And we saw something like this after Trump assassinated Qasem Soleimani. And so we could go down that road. But Ho warns, you know, Biden's going to end up in this situation where we slowly escalate.

And it seems like it's going to start with strikes in Iraq and Syria. But then Iran is going to strike back at at least some of the U.S. assets in the region. And this is going to be a very serious and very fast escalation where we can end up at war with Iran very quickly. Matt's analysis is right on, and it is consistent with what Colonel McGregor said earlier today, not on this show, but to me privately, that his sources are telling him the attacks will come on Iraq, but it will be in such a manner as to irritate and tweak Iran in the hopes that Iran will respond. Kyle, it's always a pleasure, my dear friend. Thank you for going through so many different topics.

We didn't even get to Ukraine, but we'll see if it's still around next week. I guess it will be, and we can get to it just briefly now because the EU is giving about the equivalent of $54 billion to a military, the head of which will be fired this weekend, and the base of which 500,000 men are dead or so injured they can't come back to the military. So what is President Zelensky going to do with the $50 billion in equipment if he doesn't have people to operate it? Well, that's a big question. A big part of this $50 billion story is that the European Union actually had to blackmail the Hungarians to get them to sign off on it. The Hungarian president,

President Viktor Orban, was refusing to sign off on this. And the EU actually drafted a document on how they could wreck the Hungarian economy, cost them jobs, investment, and everything else if Hungary didn't go along with it. And they finally did. Who knows where the money is going to go once it enters Ukraine? Zalushny, the head of the Ukrainian military that Zelensky is threatening to fire, has a somewhat reasonable view on what the Ukrainians should do in the short term, which is go on the defensive. Zelensky seems to, you know, want to fight a war to try to retake all of Ukrainian territory. So if he gets that $50 billion, I guess he's just going to launder it until it runs out and Ukraine runs out of young men to throw at the Russians on the front lines. Kyle, thanks very

much. We look forward to seeing you next week, my friend. Thank you. Of course. Very, very interesting and astute analysis. Speaking of which, at three o'clock today, the great Professor John Mearsheimer, three o'clock Eastern, right here. And at 4.15 Eastern, the intrepid Iron Fist inside the Velvet Glove of the Greystones, Velvet Glove and Iron iron fist. If you follow me, Max Blumenthal, Judge Napolitano for judging freedom. Thank you.