Judging Freedom - Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski : Government and Hate.

Episode Date: May 21, 2024

Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski : Government and Hate.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, May 21st, 2024. Lieutenant Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski will be with us in just a moment on how and why the foreign policy establishment in the West is motivated by hatred for all things Russian. But first this. You all know that I am a paid spokesperson for Lear Capital, but I'm also a customer, a very satisfied customer. About a year ago, I bought gold and it's now increased in value 23%. So $100 invested in gold a year ago is now worth $123. If you have $100 in the bank, it still shows $100. But $100 in the bank is now worth 24% less.

Inflation has reduced all of your savings, all of your buying power and mine by 24%. And gold is largely immune from that. If you want to learn how gold will soon hit $3,200 an ounce, call Lear Capital. 800-511-4620 or go to learjudgenap.com. Get your free gold report. Same experts who predicted the 23% rise that I've enjoyed have predicted this $3,200 an ounce gold. Learn about how to transfer this to an IRA. Protect your savings. 800-511-4620. Learjudgenap.com. Tell them the judge sent you. Karen, Colonel Kwiatkowski, welcome to the show. Of course, your time and expertise is so much appreciated. I want to start with breaking news that came out over the weekend, and there's a fair amount of it. The decision on Julian Assange allowing an appeal, the death of the Iranian president and foreign minister. But I think the most

significant for our purposes is the decision by the lead prosecutor in the International Criminal Court to ask a panel of three judges to authorize the filing of an indictment and to issue arrest warrants for Prime Minister, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, Defense Minister Gallant, and three leading Hamas figures. Before I ask you about it, in fairness to you, here is Prosecutor Karim Khan on the charges against Netanyahu and Gallant, cut number nine. On the basis of evidence collected and examined by my office, that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant bear criminal responsibility for the following international crimes committed on the territory of the State of Palestine from at least 8 October 2023.

The crimes include starvation of civilians as a method of warfare, willfully causing great suffering, serious injury to body or health or cruel treatment, willful killing or murder, and intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population, as well as crimes against humanity of extermination and or murder, persecution, and allegations of crimes of committing other inhumane acts. What are your thoughts, Colonel, on the summary of the allegations against Foreign Minister Golan and Prime Minister Netanyahu? Yeah, well, they're backed up, it appears, with fact. And even the average person looking at the news can probably confirm a number of those

charges. But I think that the ICC itself has really done a lot of work because they knew this would be unwelcome, certainly by the United States and many European countries. So they backed up their argument. And I think they have the data to show every one of those things. And, you know, for me, I don't I almost don't need the data, because when you watch how governments go to war and how they treat people, almost every government is guilty of many of these charges. But specifically, Israel is, I believe, has done these things and they've done them in some ways very publicly. You know, they've backed it up with interviews of other politicians saying this is what we intended to do, which really makes it even worse for Israel. Does this have a geopolitical effect internationally?

I mean, Benjamin Netanyahu, if he is indicted and there is an arrest warrant issued, it's obviously not going to be executed in Israel or the United States. Does this further isolate Israel in the international community? I guess stated differently, is there credibility to this, notwithstanding the Americans trashing it? Oh, yeah. I mean, there's a whole many countries, certainly many of the BRICS countries, a lot of the in the global south countries. They take these charges seriously. They kind of identify in many ways with what's being done. The colonialism charge, they they're very sensitive to this and they they understand what it means. And those countries are not under the U.S. thumb anymore. So, yeah, he can't travel. These guys, the charged individuals here, Netanyahu and Gallant and others, will have to be very careful about their travel, as we saw with Putin in South Africa. You know, South Africa said, we're not going to

arrest you. But there was the chance of something happening because of these ICC charges against Putin for similar but less egregious charges. I think the list was shorter with Putin. The court also seeks the indictment of three Hamas leaders, one of whom is a friend of our colleague, Alistair Crook, and whom Alistair describes as a very serious negotiator. I mean, the original negotiator the Israelis assassinated, the original Palestinian negotiator. Pardon me. This is the person who took his place. This fellow hops back and forth between Cairo and Doha, which is where the negotiators are located. So why indict a negotiator heavy pressure from the very beginning with this by the U.S. and friends of Israel and Israel itself. So it's possible that they, you know, they even Stephen, you know, will get the Hamas guys. And but it is it is interesting that they would choose a negotiator.

But again, you know, it kind of makes sense. Israel and the U.S. are not members of the ICC, so they don't feel that it binds them. They use it when it helps them or it's something they want to do, like with Putin or others. And then they tend to ignore them, of course, and manipulate them. And part of the manipulation that was ongoing, because this has been talked about for some time, ever since South Africa put together a list of backed up charges against Israel, they knew this was coming and it's possible that that was the compromise to put in, you know, how many Hamas

people they could identify. But it's unfortunate if he's the lead negotiator, but he's also the leader, then they're going to, you know, they're going to see it more as a leader, not negotiator. But again, there's such contempt on the U.S. and Israel side for their counterparts here. Such absolute contempt for their ability to have a voice, their ability to really do anything except die. I think that's what the U.S. and certainly what Israel's government wants for pretty much all Gazans and most Palestinians. In another setback for the United States, when Julian Assange, who's not been charged by the ICC, but has been charged by the United States Department of Justice, last filed an appeal, he lost it, and his extradition was

ordered, subject to the court being satisfied that the United States would not seek death penalty, would allow him all the defenses available to an american citizen to forbid a first amendment defense first amendment defense in my view and in the view of the obama administration doj just not to think it's just a culture. Anthony wouldn't get the death penalty. The United States, in an insult to the court, instead of sending a senior DOJ official who would make formal representations in a courtroom, had a political appointee in the American Embassy in London send a letter to the court, and the court rejected the letter.

It said, you know, we agree with defense counsel. This doesn't guarantee anything. So Assange now gets another appeal based upon these four factors. Our friend and your former colleague, Matt Ho, is over there trying to visit Assange. He thought he might see him in the courtroom and didn't expect this good news. Matt will tell us next week when he's back with us what he saw and what he heard. But do you think there's a glimmer of hope for Assange? What's your take?

Well, clearly this is good news, and it is a reflection of, I think, global opinion, even possibly in the UK, because those judges that have dealt with him up to this point have been very harsh and very much aligned with the U.S. view. But, you know, the U.S. is just not the powerful entity around the world that it thinks it is. And I think the pushback is going to come from all kinds of places, including from the British court. You know, they stand for very little, but their idea of that he will be tortured and killed in America is very, it's simple, it's straightforward, and it allows them to look good in their own country. And it allows them to kind of assert their own type of power, you know, not complying with the United States. And I think we're seeing this trend everywhere around the world, even amongst our allies, that we don't have to do what the United States says. I think there's a small connection there.

But, yeah, it's good news for Assange and I hope these charges are dropped. I know if we change presidents, hopefully that will happen immediately. Well, Donald Trump at one point, actually more than one time, said he would pardon Assange. It was, of course, his DOJ that indicted him because his secretary of state, this will ring a bell, Mike Pompeo talked the president into it, the same Mike Pompeo who has not denied allegations that when he was the head of the CIA, planned and plotted to have Assange murdered. So the fear that he would be murdered by American officials is not only a realistic fear, there's evidence for it. Yep, absolutely.

The Iranian president is dead. Has there been any allegation or evidence that this was anything other than an accident due to mountains and terrible weather conditions? Well, amongst, you know, there's writers and observers that are asking some key questions, and the questions are going to have to be asked. They would be asked in any accident investigation as well, but one of them is, you know, why would you have all your key people in one helicopter? That's a problem. But it was an old helicopter. It's hard to say.

I think you have to... I don't have the facts or the evidence. What I do have the ability to do is look around the world, the enemies of the United States or those that the United States has chosen to call enemies and track their accidents. That's all we can really do right now. Okay. Why does the foreign policy establishment in the United States and even in Western Europe hate Russia and all things Russian? Yeah. We hate them because the Soviet Union went away. We needed an enemy. We didn't have one, so we have to create one. But I think that's just one of the small reasons. The main reason is that our policy is neoconservative and the neoconservatives are

very heavily anti-Russian Jews and anti-Russian Zionist Christians who, again, all of them as a whole are regretful that the Soviet Union fell and didn't reconstitute as a big enemy. And they have a personal agenda, a personal anti-Russian agenda. It relates to a lot of different things. But, you know, I think back to the time when Solzhenitsyn was a hero in the United States, even when he wrote from Russia, and then he came here. And, you know, we celebrated that in this country, but we don't listen to anything that Solzhenitsyn said, what he warned us about, because he would be writing about us right now in this country, because we're so similar to the old Soviet Union in the state that it was before it fell, before it collapsed under its own weight and debt and corruption.

But yeah, I think it's the people that make our foreign policy hate Russia. Why do they hate Russia? Well, some of them hate Russia because they're related to Jewish Russian emigres who wanted to get out and couldn't get out. Others hate Russia because they see them as, I think, inferior

and they have a lot of natural resources that they certainly can't manage. So we should be able to exploit those here in the West. There's some different reasons why they do it, but they need somebody to hate. They need somebody to hate. All right. Before we came on air, I told you I had a surprise for you. I'm not going to tell you who it is, but you'll know as soon as you see her face and hear her voice. Here's the Russian hater in chief. Cut number five. And then number six, Chris, she's back.

They need to be able to stop these Russian attacks that are coming from bases inside Russia. So I think there's also a question of whether we, the United States and our allies, ought to give them more help in hitting Russian bases, which heretofore we've not been willing to do. I think if the attacks are coming directly from over the line in Russia, that those bases ought to be fair game, whether they are where missiles are being launched from or where they are where troops are being supplied from. I think it's time for that because Russia has obviously escalated this war, including, as you said at the beginning, attacking Russia's second city, Kharkiv, which is not on the front lines and trying to decimate it

without ever having to put a boot on the ground. So I think it is time to give the Ukrainians more help hitting these bases inside Russia. For those of you that might be listening rather than watching and not recognizing the voice, that was, of course, one of our favorite punching bags, Victoria Nuland, who's been quiet at Columbia University for a couple of months, but now that the school is in summer recess, she's back. She really sounds like she wants to start World War III, doesn't she, Colonel? Yeah, she does. And I actually watched this a couple of times trying to figure out her angle, because commentators who see that and who have followed her career and her role in destroying Ukraine, they say, well,

you know, that's very hypocritical. She's hypocritical. She's behind the times. She's in denial. But in some ways, the things that she's talking about, you know, she's jealous. Putin is destroying Ukraine without ever setting boots on the ground. Well, no, no, that's what we're doing. Okay. That's what U.S. policy is doing, thanks to her and her influence in a large sense. So she seems, yeah, I mean, I think you didn't show the one where the interviewer asked the question about, well, you know, many Americans would like to spend the money here at home. We have a lot of problems in the United States. And she said, oh, yes, we should definitely spend money on domestic issues. But this international thing, we've got

to fund it. And she launched right back into basically World War III. So either she doesn't understand, well, clearly she doesn't understand Russia. clearly she doesn't understand russian clearly she doesn't listen to putin i mean they putin has from day one and the russian army from day one they have no desire for anything but what they said they needed they needed a neutral ukraine a non-nato ukraine and to protect the russian-speaking people in the Donbass, and to stop the firing from Kiev on the Donbass that had been going on since 2014. That's all they wanted. That's all they're prepared to do. She also talks about how we're, you know, we are, by continuing the fight, this is an old argument, by continuing the fight in Ukraine, we are depleting Russia's economic and military capability. Well, obviously,

she's out of touch on that one, because we're depleting our own capability. And Russia and its allies and its trade relationships and its finances are all doing better than they were at the beginning. So it's like she's living in a bubble very much. And I'm surprised they actually brought her on because Victoria Nuland, as a commentator, has jumped the shark. She is so old news and so inappropriate and so useless to what people need to understand and what they already do understand about Ukraine that it's almost like, why is she even on, you know, why is she being interviewed? I mean, this woman is so over the top. Colonel McGregor calls her a committed ideologue. So such a committed ideologue, she can't even see or understand the other side of the argument, that she's too much of an ideologue, even for this very ideological Department of State, in which she was the number three ranking officer for two and a half years. Do you think that she, and not necessarily she, but the mentality that she

represents in the State Department and in the foreign ministries in Western Europe understand President Putin? Stated differently, do you think they know that he doesn't bluff? Well, Europeans, despite what their leaders say, all understand very well that he doesn't bluff. So that is a good thing, regardless of their relative public statements and whatnot. They get it because they pay attention to what their neighbors say. And we don't. The United States government, we don't know history. We certainly don't know European history. We know very little. Our leaders, our political leaders are poorly educated. You know, even people like her, you know, many of the people in the State Department who have advanced degrees, they're still very poorly educated. Their understanding of economics, their understanding of world history, it's all very superficial.

And sometimes, in some cases, it's dead wrong. And I think in Nuland's case, anything she says about Ukraine at this point is completely irrelevant. She's been wrong so many times that it just, it doesn't make any sense. Does NATO, do NATO leaders hate Putin the way the American foreign policy establishment does? Or are they a little bit more rational about their neighbor? I think a lot of them do hate Putin. Clearly, we saw this even at the beginning of the Ukraine thing, and the willingness to stop trade with Russia. Even though that trade warmed their people's homes and was very critical to European industry, they were willing to throw that away in some blind hope that the United States would fill the gap. And of course, we, the United States,

our policymakers encouraged them to do that and pressured them to do that. But the fact that they were willing to tells you that they don't really trust, you know, Russia. They don't trust Putin. But I think they hear his words and they watch his actions. I don't think they're particularly stupid. Like in America, some of our leaders are really, they're not bright. Okay. They are not, they're poorly educated and they're not bright. In Europe, there is a little bit of a kind of a meritocracy more so than I think we see here in our own politics. And so these folks understand, they study, they live next to Russia, they lived through World War II. I think they're bright in terms of assessing these things. And really,

Europe is caught between American pressure and American electoral politics, much more so than they should be. Of course, we wanted it that way, but it's not the right way to be, and it's really costing Europe. So I think there are wiser minds in Europe, not necessarily in NATO. I think NATO has seen its capability put on display and found wanting, so they are not ready to fight World War III, and they know it. Before we go, over the weekend, General Christopher Cavoli, four-star Supreme Allied Commander in Europe. So he commands all Western troops in Europe, not just Americans. He's a direct successor to Dwight David Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander in Europe. Said in a speech that sounded like this. Where do you stand on comparing the Russian military with the American military, the general that has produced this four-star general with the nice Italian last name. Yeah, yeah, this is, and I think, I didn't see his word,

I didn't hear what he said, or what audience he was speaking to, but for him to say that publicly really illustrates what we all used to talk about when we promoted anyone to flag officer rank, and it was, have they had the lobotomy yet? And clearly this guy had the lobotomy. And he's a political tool and he's saying what is politically correct to say. And so probably don't want to compare him to Eisenhower, even though he holds that, holds that a similar position. So, you know, I think if you listen to what or watch what the Russian commanders and top generals say, they're very cautious. They don't insult the other side. The very fact that we behave in such a way really is disturbing.

But it's also a sign of incredible weakness in our military. You know, we're running our mouths. We're writing checks. We can't cash. And, you know, it's not just me and your guests that are so much smarter than me saying this. American people feel this. They sense it, they feel it, they understand it. And I think it's a cause for a general malaise in our population. We're very concerned about our leadership. It's very terrible.

Karen, thank you. Colonel, thank you very much for your time. Thanks for your analysis. Thanks for switching your normal time schedule to accommodate my crazy schedule. We'll see you again soon. All the best. Okay. Thanks, Judge.

You're welcome. Coming up later this week, Patrick Lancaster, live from the eastern part of Ukraine or the western part of Russia, as well as the remainder of the heavy hitters that we haven't had yet, John Mearsheimer, Max Blumenthal, Judge Napolitano for judging freedom. Thank you.