Judging Freedom - Kyle Anzalone: Support for IDF in Gaza Slipping

Episode Date: March 11, 2024

Kyle Anzalone: Support for IDF in Gaza SlippingSee 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 Monday, March 11th, 2024. Kyle Anzalone from antiwar.com joins us now. Kyle, it's a pleasure. Before we start, I have to thank so many of you that have welcomed me back. I was in Italy last week. I was in the Vatican. Believe it or not, I did have dinner with the Pope. It wasn't just me. There were 25 of us. It was pretty much surreal living in the same guest house in which he lives. I'm not a fan of the Pope liturgically or theologically. I'm on the traditional side of things, but it was moving and profound and unforgettable to be in the same room with him, which was a small dining room, not a large public space like St. Peter's Square, where you'd expect to see tens and even hundreds of thousands of people.

I had nothing to do with this, Kyle, although Ray McGovern is trying to give me credit for it, which is the Pope calling for negotiations in Ukraine. Now, it's an odd way that he said it, because he said, use the white flag of courage. And then he explained what he meant. So we'll run this clip. I have to read the subtitles because it's in Italian. It's only 15 seconds long, and then I'll be happy to hear your comments on it. I think the stronger position to look at the situation is to think about the people and have the courage

to raise the white flag and negotiate. Of course he has been slammed for that. Your folks wrote a great piece this morning. Pope slammed it for calling for Ukraine talks. The Pope further went on to say that the leaders of Ukraine should have the courage, quote, I know you know this because you quoted it, not to lead their country into suicide. I'll let you take it from there. Yeah, absolutely, Judge. And the co-host of my podcast, actually, Conor Freeman, wrote that article for Antiwar.com. And what he explains and

what the Pope is trying to explain there, you know, what he explains and what the Pope is trying to explain there, I believe. And I think the raise the white flag either translated poorly or was a poor choice, poor choice in words. But, you know, once you're into a war and especially if you're on the losing side and you're on the side that's going to have to make some very tough choices and decisions and concessions to the other side. It does take a lot of courage. There's going to be a lot of Ukrainians who are unhappy with it. There's going to be a lot of Zelensky's backers who are unhappy with any decision to enter

into negotiations. But it is the best choice for the Ukrainian people. They are losing this war and fighting it longer is only going to make that loss worse. And they're only going to lose more along the way. And so it would be very courageous for Zelensky to come forward now and to say that I'm going to enter into negotiations with Putin and on terms where a deal could actually be met, not his, you know, fictitious idea of we're going to hold talks with Russia after we hold a tribunal to have Putin put in the head for war crimes. I mean, we all know that he should have done this and could have done this and actually had

most of it reduced to writing two years ago in March of 22 at the meetings in Turkey. We know that from President Putin. We know that from the chief Ukrainian negotiator. President Putin went like this. I'm holding my fingers up, indicating about an inch between them, when he was referring in his interview with Tucker Carlson to how many pages were involved in the agreement. That's the level of agreement that they had, nearly each of which pages had been initialed by both sides until Joe Biden dispatched Boris Johnson, then the Prime Minister of Great Britain, to dissuade Prime Minister or President Zelensky, excuse me, from entering into the agreement. Alistair Crook this morning says that Europe is in disarray, that Europe doesn't know what to do. After German generals were heard

mentioning Victoria Nuland's name, by the way, planning to send Taurus missiles to Ukraine over the objection of Chancellor Scholz, and then the Minister of Defense of Germany tried to backpedal that. The same weekend, President Macron, for the third time, says we're considering sending French troops. Let's go back to the beginning. What countries have troops in Ukraine? Do we know that? I'm sure it's got to be at least a dozen besides Ukraine, including the U.S. Right. Well, from the Tedixeira leads, the Discord leads from 2023, we do know that U.S., U.K., and Lithuania all have troops in Ukraine. And I guess those are special operators. I think their official capacity would be something like, you know,

helping train Ukrainian forces, or passing them intelligence, helping them to coordinate battle plans. But my guess is that at this point in the war, Ukraine probably needs help maintaining the equipment, particularly the more advanced systems, Patriot missile systems, Abrams tanks. In fact, about two weeks ago, the Pentagon Inspector General released a report saying the White House made a significant error by sending Ukraine all these advanced weapons systems with no way to maintain them over the long term. There's no spare parts plans or training for the Ukrainian soldiers. And so I would guess that number of Western soldiers has gone up. And we know from

the conversation from the German military officials that the UK seems to have a fairly substantial role in helping Ukraine to coordinate the war at this point, including firing the missiles. Here's President Biden. This is cut number five. Here's President Biden on Thursday evening in a State of the Union address. Listen to the phrase at the end. There are no American soldiers who are in Ukraine, and I'm determined to keep it that way. Ukraine can stop Putin if we stand with Ukraine and provide the weapons that needs to defend itself. That is all. That is all Ukraine is asking. They're not asking for American soldiers. In fact, there are no American soldiers in the war in Ukraine, and I'm determined to

keep it that way. You know, he sort of mumbled, and I'm determined to keep it that way. You know, he sort of mumbled, and I don't know if this is just the way he speaks. What is a soldier at war or a soldier of war? I don't know if this is his way of trying to feel intellectually honest that there were soldiers there, but they're out of uniform so he can say there's no boots on the ground. What do you think he's trying to say? Yeah, probably something along the lines of what you're explaining there, Judge, where, you know, they have one layer of change. And so they're not official soldiers. I mean, I remember when Obama pledged he won't put U.S. boots on the ground in Syria.

And then the U.S. sent special operators there and tried to pretend like those were two different things. And so, I mean, there could just be U.S. soldiers operating in Ukraine and in uniform as soldiers. And Biden could just be lying to the American people as well. It wouldn't have been the first or the only lie he told in that speech anyways. But I do think he is trying to obscure the truth with the way he is wording that. What happens if we don't, if Mike Johnson sticks to his guns, a big if, Kyle, and keeps the vote on the Senate bill from coming to the floor of the House. If it comes to the floor of the House, they're going to authorize it or the vast majority of it.

And $61 billion will go there. Not all at once. It goes in tranches. But what happens if that $61 billion doesn't go? Does Zelensky flee to Miami? Probably something like that. Miami, the UK, one of his Baltic partner states, but I can't imagine that he would stay in Ukraine for very long. The White House may be able to do a couple of trips here and there to send Ukraine some more weapons to try to keep this thing going. But at the end of the day, the $61 billion includes a

lot of financial support as well as the military aid. I think Zelensky is handing out a lot of bribes to keep a lot of people in line, to keep soldiers fighting, to keep generals out there. And so without that money, this could fall apart very, very quickly. And Ukraine could be looking to flee. Zelensky could be looking to flee the country at that point. Something similar like an Afghanistan situation. But, you know, I do think the White House may try to pull out a few more tricks to at least keep a few more billion dollars flowing to Ukraine, even if Congress doesn't pass the bill. I don't think they'll be able to get this war all the way to the election, but they seem intent on trying to do so. It is interesting that he said there are no American soldiers who are in Ukraine. He's certainly not going to say there are no

American intelligence agents in Ukraine. He's certainly not going to say there are no American contractors in Ukraine. He's certainly not going to say there are no Americans aiming American weapons, shooting American ammunition at Russians in Russia in Ukraine. But anything he can say to mislead the American people into thinking that he's not waging war, he'll do. I don't know what happens. He's going to have a choice between troops or nukes as the war deteriorates even more. I mean, Victoria Nuland was either pushed because she was part of this effort to have the Germans send weapons over the objection of their chancellor, or she jumped because she knows the war is a failure and this is her baby and it's time for her to disappear for a little bit before she rises from the ashes for the third or fourth time in her career. What do you think?

Yeah, I'm going with the latter. I think it's not necessarily maybe that she sees the war crashing soon, but this is probably the height of the Biden administration and more and more staffers in the administration are going to realize that they are not going to win reelection. Biden is hiding from his base right now. The campaign is taking what NBC News described as extraordinary steps to keep him away from his base. He's not going to college campuses. He's making the tickets to his events as high as possible so nobody could afford to go in protest and shout genocide Joe at him like somebody did at his Georgia event anyways, just this past weekend. So the president is in trouble and I think it's going to become more and more obvious. And so Victoria Nuland is an expert swamp creature.

And I think she smells the raft that the Biden administration on is sinking and stinking. And so she's trying to swim for better waters at this point. And, you know, the first out gets a better deal usually. Right. Right. You're right about that. Right. She got a nice gig at Columbia University, thanks to her friend, Mrs. Clinton, about whom students have been complaining that Hillary is telling war stories rather than teaching them. You're talking about grad students here, there who are working on their PhD. I don't want to dump on Hillary. It's another story for another time. But here's one of the last talks

Victoria Nuland gave. I think she knew she was leaving at this point, but it hadn't been announced, in which she threatens nasty surprises for President Putin on the battlefield. With the $60 billion supplemental that the administration has requested of Congress, we can ensure that Ukraine not only survives, but she thrives. With this support in 2024, we can help ensure Ukraine can continue to fight,

to build, to recover, and to reform. With this money, Ukraine will be able to fight back in the east, but it will also be able to accelerate the asymmetric warfare that has been most effective on the battlefield. And as I said in Kiev three weeks ago, this supplemental funding will ensure Putin faces some nasty surprises on the battlefield this year. Well, the asymmetric war of which you spoke has been a catastrophic disaster for Ukraine. Their last defense was Avadika, and they lost it. And after that, they have no defenses. They have no defensive lines. They have no trenches. They have no cement walls. There's

nothing to stop Russian tanks and Russian infantry. And I don't know, maybe you do. What she was talking about when she says nasty surprises for President Putin on the battlefield, what are they going to do? Aim something at his house in Moscow? They want to start World War III sooner rather than later? Yeah, I mean, I don't know exactly what she was talking about. And we shouldn't assume at all she was bluffing. If you remember before the Nord Stream pipelines were destroyed, she said that those could be destroyed and then they ended up happening. So my guess is she knows something. Maybe she's referring to the Taurus missiles. That would be a pretty significant increase in the support for Ukraine from the West. But you notice in that clip there, when she starts talking about asymmetric warfare, she gets this little smirk on her face and she just can't help but be a little bit giddy, right, when they're talking about asymmetric warfare. And it reminds me a lot of what Hillary Clinton said at the very start of the war in Ukraine, when she's, I think she's on with Maddow, and she's almost cackling at the Russians making the same mistakes that the Soviets did by going into Afghanistan.

And of course, as she's laughing about this and talking about how we have to help Ukraine, you know, one, other than the repercussion being Osama bin Laden and the consequences for America, 2 million Afghans died in that war. You know, when they're talking about asymmetric warfare, they're talking about counter, you know, insurgency tactics. I mean, you know, Russia is going to do some pretty brutal things to crack down on that. This is going to be a really awful war for Ukraine. And they are absolutely happy about it to get to inflict any blow they can on Russia. Switching gears, you wrote a piece at antiwar.com, which you sent us over the weekend, which I read on the flight back from Rome yesterday, detailing that young people in America are not only calling the president Genocide Joe,

but are not in favor at all of supporting the IDF. What did your research find? Yeah, so this was a Reuters annual poll that they put out, and it surveys the support of Americans for the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority. And for young Americans, that's 18 to 34. The support for Tel Aviv, the Israeli government, dropped from 64 to 36 percent. I mean, that is a massive plummet. And of course, it's because of the war that Israel is conducting in Gaza. And of course, you know, the Palestinian Authority rating went down, but that may just be because young Americans view that as ineffective. Additionally, throughout all Americans, even older

Americans, they all view the Israeli government less favorably. And overall, Americans are now about split at 36% each, whether they want the Americans to pressure the Israelis or the Palestinians to try to make peace. I would say, you know, put pressure on both, but particularly the Israelis, where we have a lot of leverage. And those trends are all moving towards Americans being less favorable of Israel. Now, that doesn't seem to have affected our government positions yet, but maybe in time it will. I mean, Joe Biden really has a bizarre public policy here of funding this war and saying he'll never stop funding it, but being harshly critical of the slaughter that the war is

producing. I mean, if they've killed more than 30,000 Palestinians, how many of those 30,000 are even arguably Hamas fighters? 2,000, 3,000 at the most? Yeah, I mean, the numbers are so hard to say. And the 30,000 killed is absolutely an undercount. Those are only the bodies that are showing up at the Palestinian health ministry sites. Israel has killed a lot of Palestinians indiscriminately. We just saw a video that got leaked over this weekend, but it was from November, where Israeli soldiers are conducting a raid

in northern Gaza, and they walk into a bedroom with an elderly man who is first cowering beneath his bed, and then stands up and puts his hands in the air and is waving them, I guess asking the soldiers not to shoot. And one of the soldiers puts four bullets in them. And then afterward is talking about this with his colleagues and is explaining to them what they did and all of them congratulate him and say, you know, respect and all this. So there's a lot of Palestinians that are dying that are not being counted. And so Joe Biden says Israel can't kill another 30,000 Palestinians. Well, Netanyahu is certainly well on his way to 60,000 Palestinians killed at this point when we look at the total number of Palestinians killed in this.

And it's just absolutely horrific and unacceptable. But Biden won't change his policy no matter how unacceptable it is with his base. And how helpful will their floating dock be? And how long is that going to take? And how many Palestinians will be dead before the floating dock arrives and the food arrives on it and they get it off the dock and into the city streets? Yeah, this is going to be awful. They say at least 45 to 60 days to assemble this pier that they say is going to be 1,800

feet long, stretch out into the Mediterranean Sea. It's going to have a two-lane road. This is all going to be constructed, by the way, by Americans at sea. No American is apparently going to touch land in Gaza. This is going to be somehow secured, I guess, by the IDF, but it seems to me, Judge, it's more likely the IDF would attack it rather than secure it, given how they treat the aid shipments at this point. And logistically, this just seems like a nightmare. And of course, Palestinians are already starving to death. And so if we wait two months to have a significant influx of aid in Gaza, which I don't

think this is going to provide a significant influx of aid anyways, but even if it did, it would already be well too late and famine would have already majorly set in in the Strip. Is there such a thing anymore of a mainstream Democrat? And if there is, what do they think of this policy of slaughter, but at the same time asking the Israelis, don't slaughter so much and let the aid through? Let us try and cure the famine that you have caused. Are there mainstream Democrats who weigh in on this? I mean, there certainly are. We see a lot of this, or even ones who try to ignore the situation in Gaza by saying, well, it's either Biden or Trump. And if you vote for Trump, you're voting against

my right to have an abortion, or you're voting against immigrants coming into this country or you're voting for racism or something like that. So there's some mental gymnastics people play, but I think there's a few thousand people that still watch MSNBC and CNN. It's not many people. I think most of your episodes probably do just as well or better than a lot of the MSNBC programming. We've been fortunate enough, thanks in part to people like you and the great guests we have, to do a lot better. Tell me about this rabbi in Israel who claims that Jewish law permits the killing of women, children, and the elderly. It permits the killing.

I don't believe this, but this is what he says. I'm hardly an expert in Jewish law, but he says it permits the killing of all Palestinians. Yeah. Well, Judge, I don't probably think this represents most people of the Jewish faith and what they believe. But this is what a particular rabbi said. And, of course, we need to look at all these statements from high-ranking Israeli officials, either cultural or government officials officials who have called for the genocide in Gaza. And we are seeing that take place, you know, at the beginning of this war, Netanyahu called for the slaughtering of Palestinians in Gaza, like they're the people of Amalek. And I just saw a video yesterday where not only did the

Israelis come in and destroy all the homes and things in this particular village, but they also did slaughter the livestock. And so this is the level of cruelty that we're talking about that the Israelis are inflicting on the Palestinians. What happens if the IDF invades Rafah, the last city standing in southern Gaza? It's going to be a humanitarian catastrophe, Judge. There's 1.5 million people. And unlike the people in Gaza that were living in other places when this war started, all of these people essentially are living in tents on the streets, 80% or so.

200,000 people lived in the city before. 1.5 million are there now. And so when these bombs start raining down on Rafah, it's just, it's going to rip through the tents and kill so many people. This is going to be absolutely horrific. And the little trickle of aid that's still making it into Gaza is coming through the Rafah crossing, and that will probably get shut off as well. And so this is just going to add to the humanitarian nightmare. And Netanyahu says it's coming. He says it's going to take Fortesed Suites, but he's going to ignore Biden, who's saying don't attack Rafa, and he's going to attack the city anyways.

Here's the president again in his State of the Union. No, excuse me. Here he is. You mentioned MSNBC. He gave them a nice interview over the weekend. I mean, nice from their perspective. He's asked, the interview asks him, what is your red line with Prime Minister Netanyahu? It's a typical Joe Biden answer because he says there is a red line and there's not a red line. But here is his answer. I'd like your thoughts on it. Cut number six. What is your red line with Prime Minister Netanyahu? Do you have a red line? For instance, would invasion of Rafah, which you have urged him not to do, would that be a red line? It is a red line, but I'm never going to leave Israel.

The defense of Israel is still critical. So there's no red line, I'm going to cut off all weapons so they don't have the Iron Dome to protect them. They don't have the iron dome to protect them. They don't have, but there's red lines that if he crosses and they cannot have 30,000 more Palestinians dead. Okay. So that's the red line. Netanyahu's forces can kill another 30,000, but if you, I don't want to sound sarcastic, but that's a fair inference from what the president said, isn't it? Well, it's kind of hard to tell because what I took of that was, you know, he's going to say there are red lines. He's going to say, don't attack Rafi. He's going to say, don't kill another

30,000 Palestinians. But what if Israel does? He says that he's not going to stop providing the arms Israel needs to defend itself. And while that, you while that sounds like, oh, he's going to just keep sending them things like missile interceptors to shoot down the Hamas rockets, that's not what Israel means when they say the weapons we need to defend themselves. They mean the bombs and the taint shells going to rip Gaza apart and to destroy the entire enclave. Netanyahu made that very clear afterwards. And everything that

Joe Biden has done so far suggests that when he says the weapons Israel needs to defend themselves, he doesn't mean just interceptors. He means the bombs to what he says kill Hamas, but are really just being used to indiscriminately slaughter Palestinian civilians, which he did admit at a campaign event a few months ago that the Israeli bombing campaign is indiscriminate, and then signed scores of more arms deals for the Israelis. But he's using a military term, red line, which implies if you cross that line, a force will result. He's not going to do anything if they cross the line, other than tell the people, the Democrats in Michigan, don't worry, I'm going to send more packages, we'll drop from the sky. They dropped packages from the sky over the people, the Democrats in Michigan, don't worry, I'm going to send more packages

will drop from the sky. They dropped packages from the sky over the weekend and it killed five people because the parachutes didn't work. Yeah. And that was an absolute tragedy and just shows how haphazard the airdrops are. You know, the U.S. has really touted this. I see the U.S. government posting all the time on ads and the officials talking about how, oh, we're airdropping aid to Gaza.

Well, just dropping aid into an area of starving civilians randomly, that's also a war zone. It's extremely dangerous. It causes a lot of chaos. A lot of the aid has floated well into the Mediterranean Sea where it's hard to retrieve. A lot of the aid has flowed into territory held by the Israeli soldiers. And a lot of the aid has drifted so far that the Palestinians don't feel comfortable going to get it because they're worried they're going to get shot by the Israelis. And so, you know, it's just an absolute nightmare, Judge. This isn't an effective way to deliver aid. There are seven border crossings between Israel and Gaza and then the one with Egypt as well.

And aid could be pouring into the Strip if Joe Biden demanded it. But he's going to say Israel has to allow more aid into Gaza. And then when Israel doesn't allow more aid into Gaza, he's still going to send Netanyahu all the thousands of bombs he needs to destroy the enclave. Wow. Carl Anzalone, thank you, my friend. You have such a grasp of the details of what's going on there from the small government, maximum individual liberty, peace perspective. I'm deeply grateful for it,

and I know our viewers are as well. All right. Thank you for having me on again, Judge. I appreciate it. Of course. Tomorrow, Tuesday at noon, Colonel Douglas McGregor himself at one o'clock, Zachary Yost, a new guest journalist and academic. You're going to love his writing and his words.

That's at one o'clock. At two o'clock, Matthew Ho. And at three o'clock, Karen Kwiatkowski. We're back delivering just like before my little trip to the Vatican. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom. We're back delivering, just like before my little trip to the Vatican. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom. Thank you.