Judging Freedom - Larry Johnson- (fmr CIA) : What is Hezbollah planning?

Episode Date: November 13, 2023

Larry Johnson- (fmr CIA) : What is Hezbollah planning?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 13th, 2023. Larry Johnson joins us now. Larry, always a pleasure, my dear friend. Thank you, and welcome back to the show. Thanks, Judge. Before we get into the latest events in Gaza, I want to speak to you a little bit about this craziness over the weekend whereby the CIA leaked through its mouthpiece, the Washington Post, a bizarre story that a Ukrainian colonel, either military or intelligence, is claiming that he orchestrated the destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline. I mean, there doesn't seem to be any evidence for this at all. I don't know where this came from, why the CIA is leaking it, why the Washington Post went with it. Nobody else is going with it.

What's your take on this nonsense? Well, the CIA has been desperate to come up with a counter narrative ever since Cy Hersh broke the story that this was in fact an off the books intelligence operation. And so they initially came out, you remember last year that this was six people on a boat. And I coined the term that it was it reminded me of gilligan's island you know you had skipper and gilligan and marianne you know and and so this current guy that they ponied up is the new alan hell you remember alan hill was the skipper on gilligan right this guy's a skinny version he sort of looks like gilligan himself actually if himself, actually, if you compare them. So this all comes in the context of this battle between, I think there's actually a brewing battle between CIA and British intelligence.

A week ago, British intelligence was using The Economist magazine to put General Zeluzny front forward as sort of the guy, their guy. He was allowed to be interviewed. He was writing an op-ed and he had an extensive piece on their internet site. And it was clear that from my standpoint, those kinds of articles just don't happen. They're intelligence with a purpose. This was the Brits signaling they'd prefer to have Zeluzhny in there. Well, CIA didn't waste a minute. They punched right back. No, no, no. This Cherninsky, boy, he was Zeluzhny's guy.

So this entire effort to blow up the Nord Stream pipeline, that's on General Zeluzhny. That's not Zelensky's fault. So right now you see this rift that has developed within the Ukrainian government. I think it's growing wider and somebody's not going to come down for breakfast in a couple of weeks. So let me make sure I have your ideas straight. There is a rivalry. I mean, usually they work together, don't they? But you can talk about that in a minute. Between MI6 and CIA over Ukraine, MI6 is siding with Zelushny, CIA is siding with Zelensky. Zelushny makes a statement to The Economist magazine, we're at a stalemate. Zelensky explodes in anger. Zelushny's chief of staff

is assassinated. And now this character comes out of nowhere saying Zelushny's chief of staff is assassinated. And now this character comes out of nowhere saying, Zelushny had me orchestrate the destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline, for which there's zero evidence. Right, right. Yeah, because, you remember, this is Ukrainian sources and U.S. sources going forward to the Washington Post saying, yeah, yeah, it's this guy who's been in jail for the last 12 months. He did it.

And ultimately, he works for Zaluzny. So this is, you know, Zaluzny and Zelensky have had a longstanding rift. You know, going back earlier this year in January, February, Zalkyy reportedly wanted to pull out of Bakhmut, and Zelenskyy is insisting, no, we're going to stay and fight to the last Ukrainian, which is sort of what they did. They got beat and pushed out. which apparently is a much more strategic location in the Donetsk, and that when they lose that, it's going to really unhinge their defense. In other words, cause the collapse of their defense in the Donetsk. So there's a lot at stake here because Ukraine's ability to sustain itself in this war has been rapidly deteriorating, primarily because of the loss of men.

But now they've also had loss of focus from the United States. U.S. isn't providing the weapons and the money that it once was. Is Solution accurate when he says they're at a stalemate? No, he's inaccurate. A stalemate means you basically have equal strength on either side. They don't have that. The Russians have massive human strength in terms of recruits. They have plenty of fresh reserves that they can pour into the line, number one.

Number two, the Russians have a decisive firepower advantage in terms of artillery, airstrikes, mortars. And so they are continuing to press that forward, and Ukraine doesn't have an answer for it. It'd be one thing if Ukraine was shooting down Russian aircraft. They're not. It'd be another thing if Ukraine was downing Russian missiles that were inbound to hit strategic locations in Ukraine. They're not doing that either.

It'd be one thing if Ukraine had massive numbers of Ukrainian men lining up to join and fight for freedom. They're not doing that either. In fact, they're recruiting pregnant women. They're sending pregnant women to the front. There's already a video of one pregnant woman getting captured by the Russians saying, please don't hit me, I'm pregnant. Wow. There's not much that even the Republican Congress can do about this. What good is equipment if there's nobody to operate it? Yeah, the U.S. Congress is sort of like a bad pimp. You know, we keep putting Ukraine out on the street to prostitute itself,

but we never give them any of the money that they need to survive. And, in fact, we're putting them into a situation that they can't win. And it's all predicated upon this notion that Russia is weak, falling apart, and that all we need to do is apply a little bit of pressure. And it's just not the case. The number of casualties that the Ukrainians are suffering, it's like nothing we've seen since maybe the choco war in south america and uh more than a century ago and that almost wiped out

a generation of paraguayan men so we're watching the same thing taking place in ukraine the that that age range of 20 to 40 is so decimated that the ability of the Ukrainian population to grow, just to reproduce, to have babies, that's disappearing. And I don't hear anything, I wonder if you do, from your sources, public and private, from the neocons who got us into this mess. They're all talking about Israel. They're not even talking, even Lindsey Graham, I haven't heard that crowd say anything about Ukraine. Do they recognize that it is over? No, absolutely not. And Applebaum, who's one of the leading neocons, she just penned a piece, I think it was, and I mean, it's delusional. She's talking on the one hand about that Russia's suffered the most terrible defeat, that Putin's embarrassed, that he's been humiliated. But then she does sort of admit way down in the piece that, well, yeah, if the United States doesn't keep funding Ukraine, they're, what nobody's talking about right now is there is still this up in the air debate between the Republicans, Democrats and the Biden administration over continued funding for the U.S. government. You know, the Republicans are signaling, OK, well, we'll put money up for Israel, but we're not going to put any money up for Ukraine or we'll put money up for Israel as long as it's tied to providing more money to defend the border.

And the Biden administration is coming back and saying, you know, go pound sand. We're not going to do that. Has Joe Biden spent the full $113 billion in discretionary funds for Ukraine? Because if he has and the Republicans won't come up with more, how much longer can the Ukrainian government, can Ukrainian society even survive? Yeah, if the U.S. check, if there's no more money coming out of the United States, and there was a U.S. rep for the Agency for International Development saying they were tapped out, they had no more money to send, that was last week, then, you know, Ukraine would be in

serious straits. It'd be very difficult for them to survive until the end of the year, you know, Ukraine would be in serious straits. It'd be very difficult for them to survive until the end of the year. You know, so we're living on sort of that razor's edge. And it'd be one thing if Ukraine was the isolated phenomena, but it's not. The Israeli-Palestinian war is sucking all the oxygen out of the air right now. Well, I don't think the Israelis have to worry about the Republican Congress or the Republican House losing enthusiasm for them. I haven't heard anybody there argue that what's happening in Gaza is a war crime. And because they're knowingly using American equipment and ammo with which we continue to furnish them. America is implicit in the war crime as well. Have you heard that from anybody in the Congress?

Oh, no, no. They totally reject it. The meme in the United States is widely accepted is that Israel is the David, Hamas, the Arabs, the Muslims are the Goliaths. David is fighting an honorable fight to defend himself, and we must support him at all costs. What's not really reported, it's starting to trickle out today, is even though the head of Hezbollah, Nasrallah, in a speech on Saturday, or a sermon, did not come out and declare war and declare that they're going to escalate, what we have seen is increased attacks from Hezbollah

on Israeli military and civilian sites in northern Israel. And then the United States has responded by bombing sites that are believed to store Iranian weapons in Syria, weapons that Hezbollah has access to. And then in response to that, Hezbollah or Iraqi resistance groups that are tied to Iran are attacking U.S. military bases and have stepped up those attacks and reportedly have even killed some U.S. military personnel within the last 24 hours. So you've got all that going on, and that's not really,

everybody's focused on Gaza as opposed to what's taking place now in the border of Israel. We're going to take a break for just a minute for a commercial announcement when we come back. I want to talk to you, Larry, about American deaths in the Middle East and why we don't know about it. But first this. Judge Napolitano here. The world is falling apart and the government wants to spend money to try and save it. The Israelis are defending themselves from the greatest onslaught in their history. Ukraine is collapsing. We are trying to fund both on borrowed money and borrowed time. The Federal Reserve keeps raising interest rates so everything you own is worth less

and everything you earn can buy less. What can you do about it? You can buy gold and silver, the most stable commodities on the planet in the past 3,000 years. The government can't print more of it and can't interfere with it. Where should you buy your gold and silver?

Do what I did and go to Lear Capital. Call 800-511-4620. Thank you. mutual funds, consider physical gold and silver. Ask about a gold-backed IRA. You can take this information and discuss it with your spouse. And when you call, find out if you can qualify for up to $15,000 in bonus gold or silver. Call today, 800-511-4620, learjudgenap.com. When you talk to them, tell them the judge sent you. Do your sources, Larry, tell you that Americans have been killed in the Middle East, American military personnel? At least one, at least one. But what's more, I think, alarming is the increase in the number of wounded U.S. military personnel coming out of Syria and Iraq because of these groups that are linked to Iran because of the rocket missile attacks, mortar attacks on those bases. The Walter Reed Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland,

I used to live five blocks from it, is filling up with U.S. military personnel. You know, over the last year, we'd gone through a period where, fortunately, the wards of those units of that hospital were not filled with wounded U.S. military personnel. That's turned around. It has increased, and it's increased dramatically. And why are we in Iraq and Syria? And how many bases do we have there? Good question. Well, it looks like we're the same. Defend themselves? One of the bases, the Arabs call it Al-Qaeda for Al-Qaeda. So we've got U.S. military personnel protecting oil sites for international oil corporations.

So this is, there is absolutely, as I asked one of my military buddies, you know, why are we there? And he goes, that's a good question. We don't know. Makes no sense. Because ultimately, what's going to happen is we do not, we're not in a position to reinforce and strengthen to protect those bases from these attacks. These attacks are going to continue. This may get to the point where one of them could even be overrun.

You could wind up with a lot of dead Americans and or killed or captured. And so then at that point, it's going to push the United States to make a decision. Well, are we going to, quote, go all in? Well, how the hell do you go all in? Where are you going to base your troops? Where's your logistic supply route going to be? We used to think we could do that in Iraq, but Iraq's turning quite hostile towards us as a result of what's taking place in Palestine, growing an anti-American sentiment. You've got diplomats from embassies in places like Baghdad warning Washington, D.C. that the failure to speak out and to condemn what's perceived in the Arab and Muslim world as war crimes against civilians is leading to a growth of anti-American sentiment that's alarming.

Is the Western world beginning to recognize the criminality of the Israeli defense forces in Gaza, where we have about 10,000 civilians killed. We have far more Israeli soldiers killed than Hamas fighters killed. We have, notwithstanding the U.S. protestations to the contrary, 1,700,000 Palestinians displaced. And we have Prime Minister Netanyahu saying, we're in charge of security. We'll stay there as long as we want. Yeah. Netanyahu keeps changing his position a little bit. I mean, he did say that the other day, and then it sounded like he backed off from that. I think Israel's really, they're thrashing about trying to figure out now what to do.

Because militarily, the campaign on the ground to, quote, destroy Hamas is not going that well. It's going very slowly. And they are proceeding cautiously in terms of inserting ground troops and launching attacks on specific locations from the ground. Their air campaign has been indiscriminate. They keep killing the civilians and the images of dead women and children, particularly babies, keep popping up on social media. They're spreading throughout the Arab and Muslim world. They're spreading actually throughout the rest of the world. In Europe, it's evoking tremendous protests. In France, in the UK.

So the momentum of it's growing, and Israel is finding itself increasingly isolated. Just the other day, you had over 50 foreign ministers and leaders of Arab and Muslim nations assemble for an emergency meeting of the Arab Islamic Council in Saudi Arabia. So just the fact that they're coming together that quickly to speak out about this means that Israel's not winning friends. They're losing friends. Let me show you how out of touch with reality is the American government. Jake Sullivan for Chris on who governs Gaza. Secretary Blinken has been clear that it's the West Bank and Gaza that need to be under unified control and the Palestinian Authority likely to govern that. It doesn't sound like the Netanyahu government is on the same page as the Biden administration because the prime minister said something very different just yesterday.

Well, from our perspective, the way forward, the basic principles of the way forward are straightforward. And this is something that Secretary Blinken laid out publicly this past week. No reoccupation of Gaza. No forcible displacement of the Palestinian people. Gaza can never be used as a base for terrorism in the future. And Gaza's territory should not be reduced. Secretary Blinken also said that ultimately we do want to see the reconnection, the reunification of control between the West Bank and Gaza under Palestinian leadership. The Palestinian Authority is the current leadership on the West Bank.

But ultimately it's going to be up to the Palestinian people to decide their future, who governs them. There haven't been elections held in ages. The United States will support a process. Well, that's right, Margaret. There haven't been elections held since the early 2000s. But post-October 7th, we can't go back to the way things were on October 6th. So no displacement. What are you talking about? A million seven hundred thousand people have been displaced. The Palestinians can choose their own leadership. Netanyahu would never allow any kind of vote. Could you imagine the Palestinian Authority and Hamas joining hands by a free electoral vote and the Netanyahu government allowing it?

All of this causes me to ask, what is the policy of the American government? Joe Biden says he's wedded at the hip to the Israelis and always has been his entire political career. I get it. I get the domestic politics. But he can't have it both ways. They're war criminals. What they're doing is worse than what Hamas did to them. Yeah. Well, and the problem here is that there is no coherence in U.S. policy. And Netanyahu is not going to listen to the Biden administration as long as

he knows that the members of Congress are going to support it, because it is untenable for Biden to veto a congressional bill that authorizes sending billions of dollars to Israel. That's just not going to happen. And yet what we're seeing in the newspaper today is that the Biden administration reportedly is telling Israel, do not strike up in Lebanon, do not strike Hezbollah, and saying that the United States is not going to up and hit Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, even though some in the Pentagon are pressing Biden to do that. If that's true, that's one of the first sane things I've heard Biden say or do, because he is correct that if the United States starts intervening again in

Lebanon, just like we did back in 1983, when we start attacking Hezbollah positions, Hezbollah and Iran will come back after us, and I don't think we're ready for that counterattack. Over the weekend, Nasrallah, I think you wrote about this, Larry, the head of Hezbollah, I don't know his first name, maybe that's his only name, Nasrallah, said that Hezbollah has Hamas's back. Hezbollah will never allow Hamas to be defeated by the idea. Correct, correct. No, that's right. And the difference between the Hezbollah of, say, 30 years ago and the Hezbollah of today, it is probably the second or third best-equipped,

trained army in the Middle East. It has a sizable force, sizable capability, and it doesn't go out and flaunt it and march around in victory parades. But Israel is not going up against a bunch of junior varsity players. These guys are full-on varsity, and they have beaten Israel before. That's what people forget. In the 2006 Lebanese war in southern Lebanon,

Hezbollah fought Israel to a standstill and compelled Israel ultimately to retreat. How much patience do you think Turkey, Lebanon, Iran, Jordan will have with the people in those countries seeing the pictures on the news every night of the slaughter in Gaza? Well, it's like putting on an additional piece of weight, you know, weightlifting, holding a barbell over his head, and you keep adding weight, and it comes to a point where the weight gets so great, he collapses. And I think you've got this growing anger, because the images keep coming every day, and the situations grow more desperate. And then Israel tops it off by attacking directly the hospitals, even though they said that they weren't attacking the hospitals. Now they say they're attacking the hospitals, claiming that they're Hamas headquarters bases.

And the first one that they capture, I'm sure they're going to try to show the Hamas tunnels. I think that's going to fall flat. So they're really, Israel militarily cannot win this. If winning means gain control of the terror to pacify it, they can't do it. They don't have a large enough army, and they're not willing to take the casualties that would be required to do so. Larry Johnson, always a pleasure, my dear friend. Thank you very much for joining us. Thanks, Judge.

We'll see you again at the end of the week with that youngster McGovern. Okay. Bye-bye. Bye. Coming up at 3 o'clock this afternoon, Eastern, Tom DiLorenzo, professor of economics, economic historian, expert on Abraham Lincoln, new president of the Mises Institute, succeeded my dear friend Jeff Deist. Professor DiLorenzo will be talking about the death of American exceptionalism. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom..