Judging Freedom - Larry Johnson (fmr CIA) | How the West Misjudged Russia.

Episode Date: November 27, 2023

Could one of history's most significant intelligence failures be playing out right before our eyes? Brace yourselves, as we dissect the unexpected and often unappreciated strength of Russian forces and the resilience of President Putin in Ukraine. We question the widely held narrative that the Russian army is subpar and poorly managed, and how this belief has influenced the intelligence briefings and career trajectories of those within command centers across the globe. This isn't just a Washington issue; we see it happening in London, Brussels, Paris, and Berlin too.In the second part of our dialogue, we draw eerie parallels between the current situation and the collapse of the Soviet Union. Both situations are a result of rigid ideological systems that disconnect leaders from reality. Moreover, we assess the state of diplomatic communications between the U.S. and Russia and ponder the critical question: Is there still a chance for open dialogue? The stakes are high; the consequences, are dire. Tune in to this episode as we explore this shifting international landscape, challenge long-held assumptions, and consider what the future might hold.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 Monday, November 27th, 2023. Larry Johnson joins us now, as is customary on Monday mornings here in the U.S. Larry, a pleasure. Thank you for joining us. I have a lot of questions for you, of course, about Ukraine and the Western underestimation of President Putin, his patience, as well as the strength of his military. And I have some questions to ask you about the IDF in Gaza. But before that, the Turkish flotilla of a thousand boats, commercial boats, about which you and I spoke last week, what has become of that? Do you know?

Yeah, well, what's being reported in the press is they're supposed to assemble this Wednesday and sell for Gaza. Last week, they were reporting that they were going to sell imminently last week. So I don't know what accounts for the delay. What is different about this flotilla compared to, I think, the last one was 2010, it's much larger and it has a much larger international presence of people from other countries So it will be an interesting Confrontation to say the least to see what Israel does in the past Israel has been able to board Sees the ship and then tow it and deport

but Israel does Israel does not have a navy large enough to tow a thousand ships. And in some of the previous confrontations, Israel did end up killing one American and several Turkish citizens. So that's not going to – if Israel gets into a similar confrontation this time, that clearly is not going to help its image. This is not the to help its image. This is not the Turkish Navy or the Turkish military. These are Turkish commercial boats, fishing boats, boats that transport goods, correct?

Yeah, and personal and private yachts. What is their goal? Is it to provoke the Israeli military? Yeah, in part. I think it's just to simply embarrass Israel, to force, to again, feed into the meme of Israel as a violator of human rights and denying people humanitarian assistance. So that, you know, it is very symbolic in that way. But it's also genuinely trying to help provide, get aid into the Gaza Strip right now. How is it that Israel can violate human rights on such a massive scale, whereby the IDF has killed more women and children in eight weeks than the Russian military has killed in Ukraine in 18 months.

And the outcry seems to be limited to, correct me if I'm wrong, Larry, the region around Israel. There's no outcry here. There's no outcry in Europe. There isn't even an outcry from the typical leftish and civil liberties groups that complain about this stuff. Well, not exactly, because we've actually seen, let's answer your first question. The reason they're able to do it is because the United States allows them to do it. The United States is in a position to stop Israel cold because Israel is utterly dependent on the United States for military support in order to stay in this kind of fight. And it is a lopsided fight, to be clear. But what we've seen is that in the past, a lot of the outrage would be confined to the surrounding countries, but it has spread. So there's a real break between governments and popular support. So you're seeing

the streets of London filled with massive protests in support of the Palestinians. You're seeing that in other countries in Europe and Spain. You're also having legislators in places like Spain and in Ireland speaking out condemning Israel. I think it was from a couple of ministers, one from the Netherlands and from Brussels. They went down to the border of Rafah and they made a very strong statement condemning what Israel was doing. Have any governments, as you suggested the U.S. government could do, if Joe Biden picked up the phone, have any governments in the West, Western Europe, North America, condemned the slaughter in Gaza. Yeah, no, yes.

These two European states, I think it was the Dutch. At least it was the Dutch. I forget the other one. And Belgium, Dutch and Belgium. They were down at the Rafa crossing, and they made a very strong condemnation of Israel. And then Bibi Netanyahu basically called in their their diplomats and he was outraged at it. And then one of the guys who made the statement responded to Bibi, I meant every word I said, basically like that. So they're not, Israel's

not winning the PR battle. And this whole hostage release that has taken place really has shifted the tone. How has it shifted the tone? Because it's portraying the Palestinians not as these violent, bloodthirsty murderers, but the hostages that were supposedly being tortured and raped, they're being released. They look happy. Some are even seem solicitous towards the previous captors. They're in good health. The crowds of the Palestinians that are coming out to welcome their folks who've been released are jubilant.

They're massive. And when you look at some of the people that are being released, they're not these hardened terrorists. There's one woman who had suffered terrible burns, and the Israelis refused to give her proper medical care. The plastic surgery needed to repair those burns while in prison, and she was in prison for six years, and she did not commit a criminal act. What's really important here is that so many of these Palestinians that were jailed were jailed without due process.

But, you know, it's the old excuse. Well, we're at war. And so when we're at war, you can do anything you want. Why are the Israelis who are being released by Hamas called hostages and the Palestinians who are being released by Israel called prisoners. They're not convicts. They haven't even been charged, much less tried. Yeah. That's the clear example of how language is used to structure the meme or how it's supposed to be perceived, that the hostages were unjustly taken, whereas these prisoners, they must have done something bad and they deserved it. Well, you know, this is, the situation's complicated because, you know, I'm not trying

to pretend that Hamas is some sort of humanitarian organization. But within the United States, we come out of a heritage of revolution. We come out of a heritage of people who took up arms against the established power. That Great Britain's relation to the United States is much the same as Israel's relationship is to Palestine. And we rose up to get rid of that. And we celebrate that in the United States, or at least once did. But for these Palestinians who are wanting to be free, where they have their own country, where they're not subject to Israeli military rule, the capricious arbitrary enforcement of rules where property is taken. I mean, we've seen just in recent days where Israeli settlers who are illegally occupying territory that belongs to Palestine are bulldozing olive trees, which are an essential element of their of their economy of their income so i mean this is this kind of thing

goes on the world there's growing revulsion i mean you you've heard scott ritter talk about it that he no longer stands with israel and he at one time was would stand with them and it is you know it's the kind of thing that you you don't wish ill for the Israelis, but they cannot continue to treat the Palestinians like they're chattel. Are they losing the PR war in the West? Oh, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. In the United States, not so much. There is, I think, a larger, let's call it an anti-Israel sentiment today than we've seen in the past. But around the rest of the world, Israel is on October 7th were killed by Hamas. And now you've had Israeli military personnel coming out and admitting that they killed their own people. But you won't hear Hannibal directive, and you can explain what that means.

You won't hear that phrase on American mainstream media. No, you get shouted down if you try to use it. The Hannibal Directive is simply put that if an Israeli is taken hostage, the possibility of being transported back into a territory like the Gaza Strip, that the Israelis will kill them rather than let them become a political pawn, a bargaining chip. And there is clear evidence that children and women and elderly who died on October 7th did not die at the hands of Hamas fighters. They died at the hands of Israeli defense forces, both pilots flying Apache helicopters, launching missiles at cars without having any idea who was in them,

as well as Israeli tanks shelling homes and buildings where Hamas fighters were holed up, but they had Israeli citizens within those walls and the citizens were killed. So the Hannibal Directive authorizes Israeli forces to kill Israeli civilians as well as their own comrades who have been captured or are about to become hostages. Do I have that right? That's it's the de facto sense. I don't know. I'm not sure that it's necessarily been enshrined as a specific policy written down and put into the military doctrine. But it's clearly something that has been done. They were not they were not exercising caution about carrying out military strikes where they knew that there were civilians. We're going to take a break. And when we come back, I'm going to ask you how the West so underestimated Vladimir Putin, both the strength of the Russian military and Putin's personal patience. But first this. Can you believe the chaos confronting Americans today? The government is out of control.

Debt is out of control. And have you heard? The dollar is under attack. This will soon be replaced by digital currency. No more paper cash. It's coming fast. So you need to get educated in other ways to protect and preserve the wealth you already have. What happens if the government destroys the United

States dollar? I don't know, but I do know they can't destroy gold or silver or the value of it. That's why it's so important that you learn now how to transfer your wealth into gold and silver. So educate yourself about investing in precious metals. Take charge of your retirement with gold-backed IRAs. And you can transfer a portion of your existing IRAs tax and penalty free. So don't procrastinate. Take control. Do the right thing for you and your family. Go to learjudgenap.com or call 800-511-4620. How do you assess the glaring failure of the U.S. and NATO to assess the strength of Russian forces, the determination and the patience of President Putin in managing those forces in the military operation in Ukraine?

I think future historians are going to look back at this period and really scratch their heads and just chalk it up to one of the most massive intelligence failures ever. Because the rhetoric that's come out about the Russian army, for example, being inept, incompetent, poorly led, low morale, is, I mean, it was kind of a mantra. It's been repeated by the likes of Mark Milley when he was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Lloyd Austin. And, you know, it's just, clearly it's not true. And yet with that kind of belief, it limits what briefers will come in and tell the boss. So if the boss has staked out the territory that, you know, the Russians are no good, the last thing you want to be is that intelligence officer that comes in and goes, General, actually the Russians are 10 feet tall.

And, you know, they say, get that guy out of here. We don't want to hear what he has to say. So it's one of those situations that once the folks at the top adopt a particular point of view and they repeat it, the underlings hear it and realize, you know, they're serious about it. They actually believe that nonsense. And the folks who are the underlings, they want to get promoted. They want to keep a job. All right, but this phenomenon of telling the boss what you think he wants to hear seems

to be happening regularly, consistently, and systematically, and not just in Washington. It must happen in London and Brussels and Paris and Berlin as well. Yeah, Well, this is what led in part to the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union became such a rigid ideological system towards the end, and that the lies that had been told repeatedly that were clearly out of touch with what was happening on the ground, it finally came to a boiling point and it collapsed in on itself. I really think that's where we're headed, ultimately. We can't keep lying to ourselves about what Russia is. During the height of the Cold War with the Soviet Union, when the Soviet Union actually genuinely represented a far

greater threat than anything that Russia poses today, the United States still found a way to have cordial civil discussions with the Soviets without painting them as the spawn of Satan. And today, can you think of a single prominent American politician, including Donald Trump, that could stand up and say, yeah, you know, I want to open up and sit down with Vladimir Putin and we want to negotiate. You're going to immediately be excoriated as some sort of tool of the Soviets, of the communists, as a surrender monkey, as under their control. And so without that, we have no foundation for dialogue and discussion in order

to try to get things back on a level playing field where we can avoid killing each other. Do Tony Blinken, the Secretary of State, and Lloyd Austin, the Secretary of Defense, speak with their opposite numbers in Moscow? I don't know. I hope so now, but I know that in the past, prior to the start of the special military operation a year ago, February, as the Russians call it, there was, particularly like in Syria, where you had Russian forces and U.S. forces, you know, operating in similar areas of operation, that there were daily, sometimes twice daily conference calls between the general there and the Russian generals. And they would coordinate and de-conflict and say, okay, this is what we're going to do.

And they, you know, so there was that level of communication. It looks like though that that has been significantly reduced. So it's, I mean, it's, it's really frustrating because the Russians, you know, I know I get painted for this, but the Russians are not our enemy. The Russians are not intent on conquering the world. And we need to recognize that we've got so much in common with Russia. And in fact, even still behind the scenes, we cooperate with the Russians on the space station. So, I mean, if we can cooperate on the space station and keep astronauts alive in outer space, maybe we could do a little bit more of that here on Earth.

How did Putin and his generals manage to keep the number of Ukrainian civilian deaths so low, and the number of Ukrainian military deaths so high. Well, that's why this is called a special military operation and it's not a war. Russia is not just playing word games. That was a very specific term and directive from Putin because Putin recognized you don't win wars by killing civilians. You create a bigger problem for yourself. In fact, even go back to World War II, the bombings of the US 8th Air Force with the British, killing all of those German civilians, did not advance the end of the war.

It may have actually helped prolong it from that side in terms of it didn't build support for the West. It actually solidified support for Hitler. And we've seen that in conflict after conflict after conflict, that you have to destroy the military components. And so the Russians have been very cautious and precise in that. It's not to say that there have not been civilians killed. There have been, but it has been a deliberate directive from Putin and from the general staff that they're not going to just wantonly attack civilian areas and blow it up. And the Ukrainians make that charge, but if it was true,

they would be able to trot out the pictures of all the dead civilians, and they're not doing that. We're seeing that in Palestine because Israel is killing that many civilians. Are the elites in D.C. and Brussels still convincing themselves that Ukraine can win the war? No. As the quote Star Wars, there's a disturbance in the force. So you're starting to see people like Richard Haass. He went on Joe Scarborough the other day, Morning Joe, and admitted that basically the war is lost

and we've got to figure out how to get Ukraine to the bargaining table. They are coming up with this strategy that, well, let's see if we can get a ceasefire and then have a long drawn out and try to bleed Russia over time. There's still this obsession with trying to hurt and destroy Russia. And the difference now compared to, say, 18, 19 months ago, is the Russians, I think, have finally awakened to the fact, these guys don't want to be our friends. They want to destroy us. So therefore, we need to treat them and act towards them accordingly. So you have political infighting, President Zelensky and his folks against General Zelensky and his.

You have the draft of people from age seven to age 70, and they may expand it to women. You have canceled elections in 2024, and you have blocked borders preventing draft age people from leaving. I guess we're seeing the beginning of the end or maybe midway into the end of the Ukraine regime as we have known it to be. Right. And we'll get a better indication this week. The reports have been, but not confirmed, that they are going to institute mass mobilization, so everybody between 17 and 70. And there's already ample video evidence of women, Ukrainian women, that are in uniform, fighting in the frontline trenches side by side with the men,

pregnant women included. This is a horror, because what they're doing is they're literally sacrificing their future. They're not just the future of those women, the future, the ability of the Ukrainian people to stay alive by having babies going forward. So it is the casualties among the Ukrainians are mounting. They keep putting out this.

They actually, one of their television stations posted two days ago, they put out a report noting that there were 1.2 million killed and wounded. And boy, Zelensky's office went crazy and they were forced to retract the report. Oh, that was just a typo. We didn't mean it. No, they absolutely, for once, a little bit of truth seeped out. That's what Ukraine is facing. So our colleague, Colonel McGregor says it's about 400,000, what he calls unrecoverable injuries, meaning either death or injury so severe, the person can never return to the battlefield on the part of a whole generation of Ukrainian young men. You don't know the Russian number. Do you know the Russian number?

It's got to be a fraction of that. Yeah, it is. It's under 100,000. There have been attempts to count it, and it appears it's between 60,000, 70,000 that have been killed in action over the course of this, which is still, that's a huge number. That's as many as we lost in Vietnam over 15 years. But, you know, Russia has still been exercising caution. And what's happening this week, though,

is they are making very significant progress in retaking some key locations that are just outside of the city of Donetsk. And then on top of it, general winter has shown back up. I mean, they were lashed with hurricane force winds yesterday, both Ukraine and into Russia, snow, blizzard conditions, well over a foot of snow in some areas, which makes vehicles, you know, aren't moving. So the whole winter has gotten off to a much colder start for Ukraine, which means the people are going to be suffering more because the electrical systems have been

attacked by Russia as a means to try to weaken support for the government. Has Russia attacked the city of Kyiv in the past two or three days? Oh, yeah. They had both on Friday they announced what was announced as the largest drone attack. And then the next day, no, no, no, today was the largest drone attack. So they're hitting them with drones. The Ukrainians continue to come out. Oh, yeah, we're shooting all those down. Yet the power goes out because the drones are actually hitting targets. And the drones are targeted at military facilities, warehouses storing military equipment, and at both communications and power stations. So again, they're not going after hotels, theaters.

I mean, just last week, the Ukrainians bombed a theater at which there was a performance going on, killing several people, including the lead performer. There's no reason in the world to target a facility like that. Larry Johnson, thank you, my dear friend. Always a pleasure. We look forward to the round table with Ray McGovern on Friday.

Thanks, Judge. Thank you. Thanks for your time. Three o'clock this afternoon, three o'clock Eastern, Colonel Douglas McGregor. We are oh so close to 240,000 subscribers, which I hope we would hit by Thursday, last Thursday. Thanksgiving, we'll probably hit it today,

and then onward to a quarter of a million by Christmas. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. I'm out.