Judging Freedom - Larry Johnson: Russia Warns of War’s Escalation

Episode Date: March 11, 2024

Larry Johnson: Russia Warns of War’s EscalationSee 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. Larry Johnson joins us now. Larry, it's a pleasure to see you. I had a very fine time in the Vatican. I had nothing to do with the Pope's comments, contrary to McGovern, but the Pope's comments on Ukraine, but was happy to hear part of them. I wish he hadn't said this thing about white flag, but of course, I'm happy he mentioned negotiating. I don't know if the Pope's comments will mean anything to the people in Ukraine. They're fanatics. They can't see what's happening to them. Yeah, they've already pushed, at least Zelensky and others have already objected to the Pope's comments as interference. Yeah. While I was away, or I think shortly before I left,

Victoria Nuland announced that she's no longer number three, I think, in the State Department. Do you think she jumped or she was pushed? I think she jumped. I know there's a good argument to be made that she is pushed. I know that Ray goes with the push, you know, hit the ejection button. You know, let's start with a lot of the confusion surrounding Nuland. So she was acting deputy secretary of state.

That's the number two position. But her real job was undersecretary for political affairs. That is, you know, a lot of people said, oh, that's the third most important job at state. No, it's not. It's the second. The reason is because that person, they go by the initials, P. There's M for management, S, secretary, P, political affairs. They sit atop all of the embassies, basically. All of the communications from the field flow through political affairs before they get to the secretary. So for any career foreign service officer, which Victoria Nuland was one, getting that job is the pinnacle of your career except for being named ambassador. The only better job would be secretary of state.

And I think she realized she was never going to get that. The reason I think she jumped is she can read the tea leaves. She recognizes that this is a car going off a cliff with respect to Ukraine policy. And she understands that if she's still in that position, she becomes a scapegoat. She got out before they can scapegoat her. She's not going to be the one. As an example, when her replacement was announced, what was the one thing people said?

Oh, that's the guy who was in charge when Afghanistan fell apart. They don't talk about the person who was actually before him. You don't hear the name of the ambassador to Afghanistan. So I think what we're looking at here is she recognizes what a disaster is starting to unfold, and she got out while she could. Do the neocons ever acknowledge that they were wrong in a war they started? Ever? Wrong?

You know, I forget which movie character it was. It couldn't even form the word wrong. You know, they had trouble even saying the word. No, heavens no. There's no sense of shame. They admit no failure. They admit no wrong. That, you know, going into Iraq was not a disaster. Oh, heavens no.

It was, you know was a great accomplishment. So I think she's getting out. She's not done. I think she's going to be back in some form or fashion if she can. But she's also not dumb. She's not without intelligence. She can read tea leaves. And what she says is that the Republicans basically

are stepping away. They're going to be in a position to blame this on the Republicans. That's what I think you're going to see her doing. She'll become part of some Democrat campaign effort to pin all of the failure in Ukraine on Republicans. All right. Give me two scenarios here, Larry, with respect to Ukraine. One, Mike Johnson caves, allows a vote on the floor of the House, enough Republicans and Democrats vote in favor of the $61 billion, and Biden signs it into law. We know it goes in tranches and we know some of it is strategically timed to force the hand of whoever will be inaugurated president in January of 25, but that's one scenario. The other scenario is that Mike Johnson does not cave. Europe panics, but they don't send anything meaningful. Take it from there. So if Johnson caves, it's going to be good news for Raytheon, Lockheed Martin,

U.S. defense contractors. As far as Ukraine, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter whether they can give them $200 billion. Let's give them $400 billion. It's not going to change the situation on the ground. And the situation is this. They can't find 700,000 soldiers, okay? They're missing. Where'd they go? They were here a minute ago. They don't have trained soldiers.

They don't have an air defense system. That's being picked apart. So there's nothing they can do militarily now to change this. This is like what happened to, if you will, the Germans after the Battle of Kursk in World War II, and then Operation Migration. They were on their hills. They were headed back. Yeah, they could still kill some Russians. They could still throw some bombs at civilians, but it wasn't going to change the outcome. That's where we're at. So whatever Johnson does at this point, it's going to be done entirely for political calculation. I personally believe that he will finally approve

some of the money, if for no other reason reason so that those defense contractors can kick some money back to the Republicans. Terrible state of affairs. Has the Russian military succeeded in destroying U.S. HIMARS and Patriot missile systems on the ground in Ukraine? Yes, they've done it previously, but it has accelerated over the last two weeks. systems on the ground in Ukraine? Yes. They've done it previously, but it has accelerated over the last two weeks. How so?

You've got three, I believe. There's one video out there I've seen where two of the Patriot systems are taken out with a Skander missile. It is... The hypersonic gun came in, and I mean, it was an incredible fireball

that erupted out of that. So, you know, remember when the Air Force enlisted person, a guy that leaked all the information on his social media account last February. um, um, enlisted person, a guy that, uh, leaked all the information, uh, on his social media account last February. The kid from Cape May, uh, Massachusetts.

He just pleaded guilty last week. Right. Right. So you remember in, in the documents that he released there, they were already concerned. Wes was already concerned that the air defense systems in, uh,

Ukraine were failing. Well, since then there's been steady attrition by the Russians, but it's now accelerated this week. They're blowing up Abrams, they're blowing up HIMARS, they're blowing up Patriot missile batteries. And it would be one thing if the United States had factories up and running that were cranking that stuff out,

popping out a Patriot missile battery every week, but that's not happening. And then apart from the launcher that is provided, you actually have to come up with the missiles that you feed into it, the rockets that are fired from it. They're not producing those at any significant pace either. So that's why I'm saying that it doesn't matter how much money is magically

appropriated or not appropriated, because it's not going to start producing equipment and material that the Ukrainians could use. And when I say could use, that presupposes you got somebody trained to use it. When those missile batteries are being destroyed, it's killing the trained personnel. And I strongly suspect that those were NATO forces, troops connected with NATO countries that were killed two days ago. Or any of the killed Americans. Isn't it not likely that whether they're military out of uniform or intelligence or contractors, whatever you want to call them, human beings that are Americans killed in Ukraine by Russian military? Oh, it's pretty clear that there are as described as sheep-dipped soldiers. Soldiers that have allegedly resigned their

relationship with the military and gone off to do this. But they're there in an unofficial, official capacity. What is sheep-dipped? Well, to be sheep-, it was actually an expression that goes back to the intelligence community. But you're disguising their true responsibility or true relationship with the government. You're trying to create uh if you will like a chinese wall so they can say in there may be a side agreement where they say okay look you're going to resign uh on paper but in reality you're going to still be part of the military you're going to still get these benefits but as far as the world's concerned they're going to see you as a private citizen that has decided to fight.

Okay. Cut number five, Sonia. This is part of the president's State of the Union on Thursday evening. Larry, listen at the end where he says, quote, there are no American soldiers who are in Ukraine. Yeah. 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. Not true, right? Yeah, it's not true. As the New York Times article that came out two weeks ago with respect to CIA, you know, a lot of those, you've got a fairly

close relationship between CIA through their ground, their special activities division, ground branch. They're the ones that handle the paramilitary activities and the Pentagon. There has been sort of one of the consequences of the last 20 years of the global war on terror is that you got more of a revolving door going back and forth between U.S. military, particularly in the special operations field, and then going into the agency and working on the ground in areas like Afghanistan, Iraq, and now Ukraine. Before we segue over to Israel and Gaza, you mentioned this in one of your posts that I saw

while I was in Europe last week. What are glide bombs, Larry? So glide bombs, these are conventional bombs. They're 500 kilograms, which that's like 1,000 pounds, up to 1,500 kilograms, which is a monster, over a three, almost a 4,000 pound bomb. And they've been modified so that you can attach fins to it, essentially wings, that it can be launched from an aircraft. But unlike a conventional iron bomb or even a smart bomb, where the aircraft has to be fairly close to the site that you're trying to hit,

this can be launched from a distance up to 60, say 60, 70 miles away, and it glides into the target and hits. So it means that even if there was a threat from air defense on the ground, this is a way to evade the air defense and still deliver a really powerful uh explosion on site and then that's really what uh accelerated the fall of difka because these bombs were hitting Ukrainian positions and entire buildings would disappear so these things literally blow a hole in the defensive uh, the defensive positions of the Ukrainian army. When you say they evade defenses, is that because they're too low? No, no. Like I said, the air defense systems are not designed to hit this kind of incoming bomb.

Okay, got it. And the Russians are using this in Ukraine. We don't know well actually we have we have a version of it it's called the jdam uh but the what the russians have done is they've got this enormous stockpile of these old conventional iron bombs and they've been able to modify them so that now they're used as glide bombs. So they, it really is, it has, you know, we've thrown that term around a game changer, but this has been a game changer with respect to Russian offensive operations. What is your view of the overheard conversation

among the German generals talking uh defying the chancellor and sending uh Taurus uh missiles to Ukraine uh it was I think this was an intelligence operation by the Russians uh I I don't think uh you know there's been a lot of speculator speculation that it always the Chinese was the Singaporeans. Again, I just look at the timing of when that information was released. It came literally within 24 hours after Vladimir Putin had issued his warnings to the West about their meddling and support and facilitation of the killing of Russian civilians. And then that came out as further proof.

Basically, it put the exclamation point on what Putin had said the previous day. Now, it's really fun to watch because this has created a real battle between Germany and England and the exchange of war words with France. And it created some real internal problems for Olaf Scholz. So he's now become even more reluctant to intervene and allow German troops and German equipment to be used in Ukraine.

So this is really from an intelligence operation. This has helped stir the disarray within NATO. Alistair Crook, who agrees with your analysis, actually went a step further and described it as panic amongst the heads of state in Western Europe. They don't know what to do. Yeah. I think that's clear. And is Macron an outlier or does he just want to sound tough? I mean, three times in the past 10 days, he's talked about sending troops. You could say that he's lost his mind.

I mean, it's irrational what he's doing uh because i could understand it if it was going to engender political support among um the french population but it's not it's doing just the opposite in in fact he he has become the unity candidate in france because he's united, united both the opposition and some members who used to support him. And they're, they're all going, you know, there's growing opposition to what he's saying. And the,

the, the French military as well as saying, Oh, wait a second. No, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, we haven't, we haven't signed up for that. So it's really, it's odd behavior. And it's really, it's odd behavior.

And it's just, you know, it's further confirming what Putin has been saying all along, that this is, that the West is, this isn't about Ukraine. This is about NATO wanting to attack Russia. And these kinds of comments by Macron simply highlight that. Well, NATO is attacking Russia. And these kinds of comments by Macron simply highlight that. Well, NATO is attacking Russia, and we know that. I wonder how many countries' troops are involved, whether they're actually pulling triggers or just involved in technical advice, which may be a euphemism for pulling triggers, since some, as you know, triggers are pulled by pressing a computer key. How many countries actually have people there?

Probably the Poles, certainly the Americans. Are there French there? There's certainly British there. There might be more Brits there than Americans. Well, you know, there were French. We know for certain there were French there about four weeks ago when that hotel was hit, and it killed upwards of 60 maybe more uh you've got spaniards you've got italians you've got brits you've got dutch you've got people from sweden

from finland from poland no and but but understand a lot of the people that are showing up are are are neo-nazis they they share these uh the these national socialist beliefs and ideology. And they're coming from as far away as Colombia and Brazil as well. But the point is, they are, you know,

they're not insufficient numbers or capability to actually change the situation on the battlefield. They're just, they're simply more cannon fodder. They're just simply more cannon fodder. So it's called international cannon fodder. Let's switch gears or let's transition to Israel and Gaza. How disastrous was it for the administration to invite Benny Gantz to come here over the vociferous objections of the Prime Minister Netanyahu.

What did they think General Gantz would say? And were they truly surprised when he basically said the same thing Netanyahu would say, but just in a little bit more of a pleasant way? Yeah, I think they were hoping that doing this would bring greater pressure on Netanyahu to get out of his, you know, to resign, to cease being prime minister. But you correctly note, even if you put Gantz in, it's not going to change the Israeli policy. They are hell-bent on destroying the Palestinian people, push and eliminating them from Gaza and taking control of Gaza. So this was really sort of a ham-handed meddling by the Biden administration and trying to

interfere in Israel's domestic political affairs, because I think they realized that even if they put Gantz in, it's not going to lead to a change in policy. It'll just mean that you have somebody who's perhaps more reasonable to talk to, but you can talk to them, but that's not going to change the policy. That's what I think is critical for Americans and people around the world to understand. What is Joe Biden talking about? Now, Larry, you'd be a superstar psychiatrist if you could answer whatever follows. What's Joe Biden talking about? What do you think he's talking about when he says red line? We're going to run a clip in a minute where he says there is a red line, there isn't a red line. What is a red line and what do you think he's talking about when he uses that phrase? Well, usually the concept of a red line when a president uses it is that if you take a particular course of action, then we're going to have no other response than to do something militarily. That we will respond. We will get into the fight. We will use combat forces.

That's what a red line means. So listen to this. This is him on MSNBC over the weekend. Listen to him say it is a red line, but there's no red line. Cut number six, Sonia. 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? 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. But there's

red lines that if it crosses and they cannot have 30,000 more Palestinians dead. So I guess he's trying to have it both ways. I'm never going to leave Israel, but I wish they wouldn't kill another 30,000 Palestinians. There is a red line, but we're not going to do anything about it. There is no red line. It's tough to figure out what he's talking about. But what is the U.S. going to do if he invades Rafah? Nothing.

We'll still send him spare parts on all the bombs and killing machinery he wants. So we first heard about the red line with respect to Syria. Barack Obama said if those Syrians use chemical weapons, that's a red line, and we will retaliate. We will insert military troops. So lo and behold, there was a, quote, fake chemical attack. It was ginned up

actually by British and American intelligence in order to try to get the United States militarily involved. Well, he didn't cross that red line. He backed away. In this case, Joe Biden's got an imaginary red line. He might as well have an imaginary friend because he's saying the red line would be this. If you invade Rafah, we're going to cut off your military and financial aid, period. That would be the red line. There's always a consequence attached. In this case, there's no consequence attached to what the Israelis do to the Palestinians. So what if they kill another 30,000.

What are we going to do about it? Nothing. How does the slaughter of the Palestinians end? What restrains what short of total ethnic cleansing and turning Gaza into a beach for mansions. Short of that, how does it end? Well, it's going to create a new generation of people who are going to continue to attack Israel. It won't be just from among the people that are the victims suffering this right now. They've got friends and relatives around the world. This is going to make Israelis and potentially Americans less safe traveling

and more vulnerable because there will be revenge killings. There will be efforts to try to seek justice for those who have been murdered. So I think the way this is going to ultimately play out is Israel's going to overstep, go into Lebanon, and they're going to face a military defeat there. That will stop the killing in Gaza. And it's going to force Israel to figure out what it needs to do to save itself at that point, because, you know, they have grossly miscalculated their ability to handle Hezbollah. And I think in sort of an ironic fashion, Hezbollah will become the savior of the Palestinian people.

Will there be pressure on Joe Biden to send uh or in some form more aid than we've already sent to help the israelis invade uh lebanon oh i'm sure there'll be there'll be some pressure in some sectors but uh the american people by and large are not going to endorse or support such a thing excuse me and And it's especially in this election year, the calculation is all about trying to minimize the risk of the United States suffering a loss or a big black eye. And once you're confronted with having to intervene directly militarily in Israel or Lebanon or any of those countries over there. It's going to feed into the meme that Joe Biden is a war president and he's not protecting Americans.

What can the United States do, short of the type of phone call you mentioned to keep the Israeli military within the confines of its ability to defend Israel under international law, stated differently to stop the slaughter. Yeah, no, unless we cut off the aid, or unless we start a green at the UN Security Council, there needs to be a permanent ceasefire unless we reverse our position. This is going to continue. This is not going to stop. Israel is not going to stop. They have, you know, the images we keep seeing of them, you know, they shot and killed an elderly deaf guy the other day. You know, he was waving his hands because he couldn't communicate.

I mean, he couldn't talk. And they shot him. He was unarmed. And they were laughing about it later. The soldiers were laughing about it. So the images of the children who've seen their parents shot and murdered, unarmed people all the time being shot.

The bomb's going off i mean it's sickening it's horrifying but this reminds me of some of the revelations of julian assange of american drone operators laughing when their drones killed civilians in in afghanistan yeah the israelis didn't learn a they didn't learn a damn thing from Abu Ghraib. You know, you think after Abu Ghraib that people would learn, hey, you got social media, you got these camera phones, don't take pictures, don't take videos, don't record it. Not only do they record it, they then post it.

It gets posted on social media because they're proud of it. And this is taking place on a scale that surpasses anything that the United States did in Iraq to civilians. It's on just an entirely new scale. So the world sits back and watches in horror, and we're still faced with there's only one country actually doing something trying to stop it and that's Yemen with the Houthis right and Mike Pompeo we now know why

he was dancing with the IDF he said over the weekend he'd love to go back to being um secretary of state under a a second uh uh Trump presidency and probably whoever controls the Senate. It's the war party, so it doesn't matter if Chuck Schumer's the leader of the Senate or whoever's going to replace Mitch McConnell. They'll confirm a person with that mentality and that attitude. Yeah, yeah, no doubt. But at some point, the United States is going to have a cold wake-up call. You know, reality is going to intrude.

I think that will come first via Ukraine. And, you know, the likely scenario is that as Ukraine is starting to collapse, the United States will try to intervene militarily. And in the process, you know, we're going to suffer some grievous losses. And it's when you finally, when you start losing, and when you have people being killed and you're losing, you know, key military equipment, all of a sudden you wake up and go, well, wait a second, I thought we had the best military in the world. Instead, it turns out, as you know, we've said many times, we've got the most expensive, not necessarily the best.

Ray in McGovern says that Biden's going to be confronted with a choice of troops or nukes because he's got to keep the war going with the illusion of victory coming before election day. Well, we certainly hope it's not the latter because the United States would wind up on the, you know, we would lose that confrontation for this reason. Russia has developed ballistic missile defense systems. It's not to say that 100%, it's not to say that one or two U.S. nukes would get through

and would kill hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Russians. But Russia as a country, both by virtue of its vast, vast size and its dispersal of population, would survive such an encounter. The United States would not. And, you know, the need for cooler heads, for some adults to step up and say, look, wait a second, we don't need to be into this life and death struggle with the Russians, or for that matter, the Chinese. We need to find out a way that we can actually live together, work together on common issues of common interest

without killing each other. But if you step back and objectively look at the behavior of the United States, you know, most of my adult life, going back to, it's been war, war, war, war, war. And we celebrate everything from small, like going into Grenada or invading Panama, or bigger, Iraq twice, Syria, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Somalia, Serbia, the list goes on. And at some point, Americans need to step back and say, wait a second, what is it that we're about? We're not spreading democracy, we're spreading death and destruction. And we need to

reevaluate what does it mean to be America in the modern world? How can we be constructive? If nothing else, let's fix our own problems at home. Let's secure our borders. Let's make our cities safe. Let's make sure children are educated. Let's see if the drug use could go down instead of killing over 100,000 a year and climbing. But instead, we're like this extremely obese, chain-smoking, drinks two bottles of scotch a day, worrying about telling everybody else that they need to get healthy, they need to exercise. And we refuse to take care of our own selves. These are horrible images you're painting, but it's a message that needs to get out there,

Larry. Very articulate. Thank you very much, my friend. So we'll see you at the end of the week with that youngster, Ray McGovern. Yep. Folks missed you on Friday. I was getting all sorts of messages. I'm deeply flattered. I'm getting a lot of welcome back, welcome back. Even one said, who do you think you are?

How dare you leave us like that? But, you know, we had a very busy day last Monday, and the numbers were enormous from just that one day. So it's deeply gratifying. Back to work with all of our regulars on this week. Thank you, Larry. We'll see you Friday. All right.

Bye-bye. Okay. Kyle Anzalone at 2 o'clock this afternoon Eastern. I just said all of your regulars throughout the week, Scott Ritter, Colonel McGregor, Professor Sachs, Professor Mearsheimer, Max Blumenthal, Aaron Matei, Colonel Kwiatkowski, Matt Ho, and as much as we can bring you. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. I'm