Judging Freedom - Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski : Asymmetrical Warfare vs Russia.

Episode Date: April 9, 2024

Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski : Asymmetrical Warfare vs Russia.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 Tuesday, April 9th, 2024. Lieutenant Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski joins us now. Colonel Kwiatkowski, it was a pleasure, my dear friend. Thank you for joining us. We just finished an interview with your friend and colleague, Matt Ho, who is on his way to join and be a spokesperson for an enormous flotilla of food and medical and personal supplies moving eastward in the Mediterranean and hoping to land at an Israeli port for delivery into Gaza. I was scandalized to learn that among the things the Israelis had embargoed were diapers and anesthesia. I'm just scandalized to learn that.

And apparently that's more widespread than I ever imagined. But my question to you, aside from the obvious cruelty, as Matt points out, of denying diapers and anesthesia, is something like this going to get through? Are the Israelis going to let this through? It's got 5,500 tons of food and supplies like diapers and anesthesia. Yeah, I think historically it's hit or miss, I think. Sometimes the stuff is able to be delivered, and other times there's an administrative, you know, the Israeli inspection process and issues like that.

So I don't know what the chances are. I hope, obviously, this stuff is sorely needed, but it's been sorely needed for five or six months. And the part of the war that the Israelis are conducting in Gaza is a war to it's a total war. So no diapers, no anesthesia, bomb all the apartment buildings, bomb all the hospitals, the schools. This is what they're doing. And I think obviously why the world is is judging Israel extremely harshly and rightfully so. Did you follow the reports that came out in the past two days from this Israeli journalist about the AI program called Lavender and the two other programs, terrible names for killing. One is called Gospel, as in the new Testament. And the other is called, this will break your heart. They call this program. Where's my daddy.

Wow. I hadn't, I hadn't heard about the mimic, the cries of a baby whose father is not yet home from work and may never be coming home. Oh my goodness. Yeah. is not yet home from work and may never be coming home. Oh, my goodness, yeah. The whole concept is to identify males who they believe are sympathetic or know somebody that's in Hamas, target them,

wait for them to get home or get in a crowd or go to a mosque or a hospital if there are any left, and then press a button and the machine, the computer, finds them and sends a bomb there that kills everybody in the area. Yeah. It's unimaginable to me that this could be justified. It's not justified, but it's what technology enables in a situation like this. You know, I mean, Hamas, Israel says, you know, I have the right,

the country has a right to defend itself. But what they're doing is they took a great opportunity. We've done the same in our country after 9-11, but they took an opportunity where people's fear level was high, their anger and rage level was high. And then they're pouring, in some cases, I think, experimental systems to basically destroy all the life and the potential for life in Gaza. Now, Israel, I think on some level, at least to the West, denies that they want that land. But within Israel, it's well known that they intend to clear the land and then take the land for Israel, rebuild everything for Israelis there. I think that's that's clearly the plan. And these technologies, the AI targeting, many of the other things that we're using and some of them aren't that high tech. You know, the mother of all bombs is just a big kinetic bomb. but using every technology and capability that they have towards that end game,

which is to massacre the people, to drive them away, destroy what they have built, whatever it was that they have built under decades of Israeli sanctions of concrete and building supplies, but they still built Gaza. They went to all that raised to the ground, which they've done. And then they'll move in. Colonel McGregor has a piece out at the American Conservative. Just came out a few hours

ago. It makes two points. One is that Netanyahu's goal is not the elimination of Gaza. It's the expansion of Israeli landmass, and that he's been looking forward to this, looking forward to an opportunity for this for years. His other goal is to attack Iran in such a way that the United States comes to Israel's

defense. Colonel McGregor is of the view that if that happens and it gets serious, Russia will come to Ukraine's defense. And then we do have World War III right there because of these hotheads in the Israeli government and their view that the Palestinians are subhuman and can be exterminated. Yeah, well, that's clearly the view. And I think to some extent that's shared by Israel supporters in the United States. If you look at the comments in mainstream media and articles, there is very little sympathy in many of mainstream media for the Gazans. And what Israel is doing is being justified here at home by armchair warriors. So this sense that they are expendable people, that they shouldn't exist, it's beyond Israel. Israel is taking the lead here. But there are many Americans that unfortunately

agree with it. I think around the rest of the world, most people disagree with it. But Americans, we are yoked with Israel and pro-Israel goes far beyond even, we like to think DC and Congress is owned by Israel. But beyond that, many people in our country have been propagandized or indoctrinated such that Israel can do no wrong. And that Israel is somehow, I think, like us, like Americans, and they're not. They're much closer to Europeans in their views than anything else, but certainly not like Americans. But we've been sold a bill of goods, so we are yoked with them, which is what makes it dangerous if there is something like an increase of hostilities. But I do want to point out, you know, they're worried that Iran will strike in retaliation for the embassy hit that they did in Syria. Israel is worried about that. And they actually withdrew some forces from the center part of Gaza and have delayed

the Rafah invasion, although they say it's scheduled and it's going to happen. So I think Israel does respect strength, and I don't think they're completely insane. I think they realize they're kind of in trouble and they're walking it back just a bit. But on the other hand, they've already erased Gaza. I mean, the people who went back into Khan Yunus and they were looking for their homes and they found rubble, nothing. There's nothing to go back to, which is precisely, that is precisely the plan. Right. I misspoke earlier when I said, I think you caught it, Russia would come to Ukraine's defense.

I was meant to say Russia would come to Iran's defense. Chris, let's play cut number 10. Let's play it in its entirety. This is a little bit more than a minute. This is the Israeli journalist describing what he learned about this Lavender program, the AI, one of the three AIs we were just talking about. And they implemented, again, minimal supervision on the machine. One source said that he spent 20 seconds per target before authorizing the bombing of the alleged low-ranking Hamas militant. Oftenen it would have been a civilian—killing those

people inside their houses. I think the reliance on artificial intelligence here to mark those targets and basically the deadly way in which the officers spoke about how they were using the machine could very well be part of the reason why in the first six weeks after October 7, one of the main characteristics of the policies that were in place were entire Palestinian families being wiped out inside their houses. If you look at UN statistics, more than 50 percent of the casualties, more than 6,000 people at that time, came from a smaller group of families. It's an expression of the family unit being destroyed. And I think that machine and the way it was used led to that. It's just reprehensible in its cruelty, in its collective punishment. It's the same mindset that wouldn't allow diapers or anesthesia through their embargo.

Is this some sort of new way of fighting war using AI? Is America going to catch up to Israel or has Israel caught up to the United States? And we just don't know what the U.S. Defense Department has, Karen. I think AI is increasingly valuable if you want to destroy things and if you want to do standoff operations, identifying targets, you know, it's data, it's data and databases. And the information that comes out just as good as the information that goes in. So garbage in, garbage out, the old computing phrase. It applies to AI. It also, I think, in Israel's case, they can use this. In fact, the reason we're hearing about lavender and where's your daddy now is because they're pointing the finger at a computing system, at a software

program. Oh, it wasn't us. It was the software program. We're going to improve that. We're going to make that better next time, which again is partly why you deploy systems like this. You see how they work and where they're weak and how to make them better. And I'm sure they're documenting all that. This is very much in Israel's wheelhouse as far as the technology that they produce in the defense systems that they make is very consistent with that. So and what better, you know, what better audience to test it on? And then the Palestinians who largely are unarmed. I mean, Hamas is armed and Hamas has some friends that can lob things in. But the people, the Palestinian people, we've seen them, you know, they're not armed. They're not running. I mean, Americans are far better armed than what we're seeing in Palestine. So they are a perfect, you know, recipient group, test group, test case for how this AI works.

And then when it doesn't work well, when they murder the kitchen, global kitchen company, Jose, the cook, you know, the chef. Right. the cook, you know, the chef, right. When they, when they do something that reaches soft media in the, in the West, because it's a celebrity or somebody that they know, and now they're waking up. Oh, how did that happen? They go, Oh, it was a software mistake. It was an error, data, data error, confused. And we fired the guys. It's all good. Well, it's not all good. It's unacceptable. But is it the what is it part of the future sure sure because software is cheap software is very inexpensive it travels around the world you can it's uh very much i think that the future of uh this kind of warfare will include ai and it will be just as deadly so so what we need is diplomacy to prevent wars. We need statesmen who can. You are channeling Jeff Sachs.

We spoke to Professor Sachs earlier today about this very topic, and he recounted a conference that he attended where the behavior of European generals repulsed him. Take a listen. If I may, before we turn to the last topic, just let me give you one little snippet more about AI and the military. And that was just a typical event. I was at a security conference in Bratislava, Slovakia recently. And this question of AI and militarization came up. And it was a discussion on stage of some NATO generals. And their point was not, this is a dangerous and runaway technology, or how can we get it under control, or what kind of diplomacy. The entire talk was, we'll beat the Chinese in this. We'll beat the

Chinese in this. We can stay ahead. This is how generals think. Maybe it's right for generals to think that way, but it's not right for governments and diplomats and the public to think this way. And the generals must not be in charge. But their view was, well, we're just in another arms race. So we're going to maximize, accelerate in every way the deployment of these extraordinarily dangerous tools without any consideration for diplomacy, for ethics, for safety, for what can go wrong. And so this phenomenon that we see in Israel now, this phenomenon of the so-called biodefense, whatever that is, but manipulation of dangerous pathogens, and the bravado and stupidity, I would say, of these generals thinking, ah, we'll be ahead of our adversaries, as if this is the only approach

to the dangers that we face, is really all around us. That's what I wanted to emphasize. What do you think, Karen? I saw you shaking your head in agreement. He's right. He's spot on. Yeah, it's a big problem. And for the United States to, now for European generals, he's speaking of European generals, but I know American generals, of course, feel the same way. But for the United States, you know, we have a great opinion of our capability. You know, we're number one. We're number one. Well, we're not number one in a lot of things. And we're declining in other things. You know, we're a country. Think about databases, you know, because what feeds AI is data and good data or bad data.

We have a country right now. It's tax time. So what do we hear the IRS telling us? Oh, there's a lot of tax fraud out there. We're sending out checks to people who shouldn't be getting them. That's what the IRS is telling us. So they can't manage 187 million data points, which are the taxpayers in this country. They don't know exactly how to do that. We have people, our voting system is filled with a lot of things that we don't understand in terms of who lives where and what and how are they, you know, where are they voting? Are they voting with us? This is pretty simple stuff and we're not doing it very well. Okay.

So this is how America does databases as a country, as a government. We're not very good at it. So to think that we're going to beat anybody in this process and fight a war with this is an illusion. It's an illusion and it's a little bit insane. But again, generals are well known for being out of touch with reality. I think this is what we're dealing with. They don't really understand. They think, oh, I just push a button and something happens. Well, it doesn't work that way. I want to transfer over to Ukraine, it appears as though the leader of the House Republican Speaker, Mike Johnson, has caved on non-Americans in the U.S. and the Americans with whom they communicate and the people with whom those Americans communicate. And two, he has apparently cut some sort of a deal, which involves a lot of domestic issues, issues to allow for the $61 billion to go to Ukraine. What would you say to him if he came

to you and said, before I sign these documents, before I authorize these votes, do you have any ideas for me, Colonel Kwiatkowski? Judge Napolitano tells me you're very eloquent on the side of this that I haven't considered. I mean, you're not going to get a conversation like that, but what would you tell him? Well, I would advise the speaker to pull out his pocket copy of the constitution. He needs to do that first. And he needs to tell me what he thinks is in there because I know what's in there. And so do you judge and a lot of other people do. And it is not, it is not, the FISA court is totally out of bounds of that. This, this monitoring of the United States, you know, that's a fourth amendment for sure. And it moves into the first amendment violations in other areas. It's, it's, it's a government out of control that has to have

a law like that, which is mostly illegal and needs congressional pushes periodically to keep it going. You know, we have to ask ourselves, how is this even remotely constitutional? And it's not. And I would tell him that. In terms of fomenting proxy wars and sending American taxpayer dollars to Ukraine, I'm not sure what pressures he's under, but I would imagine he is under some pressure to deal with the border issue and illegal immigration in our own country. And so I would say, you're telling me

that $61 billion doesn't have a better use to serve Americans in our own country. And I know that he cannot honestly tell me that it is not better used inside of our country to preserve our borders, to strengthen our, you know, our security. If you want to just treat it as security dollars, we could use that money here. You know, there was news, I think just today, but it might be old news, that confiscated Iranian weapon systems that were being, they were intercepted by the Americans before they made it into the Houthis' hands over the past year and a half. And we just sent a bunch of those weapons that we got from Iran up to Ukraine. Now, why did we do that?

Because we're running out. We don't have anything else to give them here. We'll give you that stuff we stole from the Iranians. That tells me we don't have $61 billion laying around to do stupid, idiotic things with. And he knows this. See, that's why I couldn't really tell him this because he knows all this. He also knows that about 40 of that 61 billion stays right here in the U.S. and goes to the military industrial complex to reward the constituents of the Republicans who voted for it so that the executives of those countries can take home bigger bonuses and make contributions to the Republicans' campaign. I disagree with John McCain on many, many issues, but I think he was right about the circular nature of money in politics, and this is a catastrophic example of it. The Israeli lobby controls Congress,

and the military-industrial lobby controls Congress and the military industrial lobby controls Congress and cash. Cash is at the heart of both controls. That's right. And cash is important, especially when Zelensky has pretty well fired every popular Ukrainian politician or leader in the country. He's gotten them. He's gotten rid of them because he can't handle the threat. He is on very shaky ground, quicksand perhaps, and he is looking, Zelensky is looking for a way out, not a way to peace because there'll be no peace. I mean, they're going to put him, his head will be on a pike if the Ukrainians ever get peace because he is the one that has cost them their country and their youth. He's looking, Zelensky's looking for a way out.

So yeah, sure. He'd love to have even 20 billion because of all the countries in Europe and of most of the countries in the world, Ukrainians at the top of how to take cash and put it in your pocket. This is called government corruption. They are professionals at this. So that's another reason not to send money now when it's very clear that Russia has this thing and it is not going to be impacted by 40 billion to the American defense industries and some cash flowing into Kiev. It's not happening. Last topic for you, Karen. Why do we have a few hundred Marines on a little island off the coast of Taiwan? I mean, is that to goad the Chinese?

Is that a tripwire in the hopes that some of them gets killed so that'll justify Biden sending an armada there? You know, from a tactical perspective, it's nothing, right? So it's obviously a political move to cause something to happen. Now, what could possibly be caused to happen? Well, you know, like you said, something, an accident, some sort of thing that justifies a massive mobilization or war effort on the part of the United States. You know, we're $34 trillion in debt, and there's something like $250 to $275 trillion of unfunded liabilities or unfunded, what do they call it, promises. Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, people have been promised this money. It's not funded. The money's not there.

It wasn't in a lockbox. Al Gore was mistaken about that. They've spent the money. They borrowed against whatever they had. And you can't pay down that debt. You cannot even go bankrupt. A country, if our government goes bankrupt, not a single politician will be left standing. It will be all completely new. So they don't want to do that. But there is a way. There's a way to cancel all your debt. And that's basically to go's enough wise people, maybe not at the top, but some levels below that that can put an end to it. But, yeah, it is absolutely pointless to put Marines out in a place like that for no reason. What are they going to do? You know, it is simple. It is. They're being used as a political tool. And then what the what the goal is, this has not been made clear. Has Biden said why they're there? Has he, does he have a story? Oh, I don't think he's even, I don't think he's even acknowledged them there,

Karen. You don't see this in mainstream media. The people that come on this show and the people that write to us and sources we have tell us about it. It's a terrible state of affairs. I had a little disagreement with the great professor, John Mearsheimer, who thinks they should be there, but he's the only one that comes on this show that thinks that. But he's still allowed on. He's so smart. Yeah, he's great. He's great. No, we have so many problems. I mean, if this country was running, humming along and doing great, I could maybe let it go. But our country is collapsing from the inside. We've got so many problems, some financial, moral, sociological, economic.

We have all kinds of problems. Why are we doing this? My friend Gerald Salenti says this all the time, character that he is. When all else fails, they take you to war. Yeah. God, I hope that's, well, I hope that doesn't happen. Yeah. Thank you, Karen.

Pleasure. Pleasure to chat with you. I love it when you were getting fired up and pounding your table. That's terrific. I got to get you to do that at least four or five times each appearance. We'll see you next week. Thank you, my friend. Okay. Bye-bye, Judge. Bye-bye. A great conversation. Coming up at 4.30 Eastern today, the inimitable Scott Ritter. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. Thank you.