Judging Freedom - Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski : How Realism Might Return

Episode Date: May 14, 2024

Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski : How Realism Might ReturnSee 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 14th, 2024. Lieutenant Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski joins us now. Karen, thank you very much for being here. It's a pleasure. Missed you last week while I was traveling, but you were happily mentioned with the folks that I addressed at the University of Milan in Italy, as were all of our people. The show was popular there amongst a lot of individuals. You have an interesting piece out this morning at lewrockwell.com, and now it's posted on judsnap.com, about realism in foreign policy.

What is that, realism in foreign policy, Karen? Well, I think of it as, you know, reality-based, fact-based, power-based, fundamental power, not what you say you can do or what you're going to, you know, not your bluff, but just the way things are and how things need to work themselves out. That's not the academic definition of realism. But it seems like we haven't been paying much attention to reality in our foreign policy, certainly on the United States side. And really, to some extent, we have Zelensky and we have Netanyahu, and they also perhaps are not completely in touch with the reality of the situation. So I think it's time. And I think many people are looking for it. I

think we're seeing a lot of the pendulum kind of swing back towards fundamentals. At least I hope so. I guess this is at odds with ideology. I mean, if foreign policy is guided by ideology rather than that which is realistically achievable, you wouldn't call the foreign policy imbued with realism, would you? No, not at all. And we've had in our country, I mean, as an American, you know, you're looking at what your country does and how it behaves. And if you look at the history of the last 60 or 70 years since Vietnam, maybe even since the Korean War, you know,

it's an ideological driven policy and it's not even a widely shared, it's increasingly becoming narrower and narrower. I mean, Korean War stopping communism, right? So, and Vietnam to extent, you know, we wanted to stop the dominoes from falling, you know, for communism. And at least that was something that I think a lot of Americans could think about, wrap their heads around. But increasingly, the ideology has become something very disconnected from not just what the American people care about and know and think is normal, but also from reality, disconnected from reality. And of course, when we say disconnected from reality, we often think neocon. Let's get realistic. When will Zelensky fall? Well, I don't give him very much time. You know, Blinken is there now talking to him,

and he's saying, you're not alone. More help is coming. Meanwhile, everyone, even in Zelensky's office and Zelensky himself, realize that they are very close to a conclusion to their situation. And it's a conclusion that the question is, how much territory will Ukraine lose? And how poor will Ukraine be? And what will they do with Zelensky when peace comes? So it's pretty imminent. Here is Secretary Blinken earlier today. Now, before we run this, watch it carefully.

There are three cameras shooting him. This obviously is outsourced to some media company. This looks like Fox News producing. I'm not being critical of Fox. I'm being complimentary of Fox because of their technical proficiency. But you'll see a boom camera, which is on a boom, and you'll see two cameras moving. But of course, more importantly, is what Secretary Blinken is saying. And I want your thoughts on it. For me, before we even show it, it's hard for me to believe he

means what he says. But here he is just a few hours ago. The assistance is now on the way. Some of it's already arrived. More of it will be arriving. And that's going to make a real difference against the ongoing Russian aggression on the battlefield. And we're determined, along with many other partners for Ukraine, to make sure that you succeed on the battlefield. We're equally determined that over time, Ukraine stands strongly on its own feet – militarily, economically, democratically. A strong, successful, thriving, free Ukraine is the best possible rebuke to Putin and the best possible guarantor for your future. And for all of that, the United States

is and will remain a committed partner. Isn't this essentially hogwash? Isn't his government on its last legs and its military about to be defeated and he about to leave office a week from today? I mean, you can't make this up. Yeah it's it's uh it was it is interesting how well produced it is in the sense of um they're obviously trying to communicate to a larger audience but um if you the look on zielinski's face is actually it's um i think he knows what's really being said there and i think they're not speaking of ukraine i think they're speaking of Zelensky. You know, we've hung him out to dry. He was our guy. And he's losing. And as of the 20th, he won't even be the legal president anymore. That's going to be a problem. And, you know, when the settlement time comes,

Zelensky is not the guy that will be able to lead and unite what's left of Ukraine. In fact, he's not the guy that can settle anything because I think he made a law or an executive order that he will never speak to Putin. So that'll be solved for him. He won't have to. I think actually amongst these two guys, Zelensky and Blinken, I think Zelensky's got the more accurate sense of reality there. All right, here's President Zelensky's response. Same room, same table, same cameras. Earlier today, Ukraine time, right after Secretary Blinken spoke, number 13. Thank you so much. Thanks for coming to Ukraine, especially these days. Not simple period for Ukraine and a tough period for the east of our country, for our warriors. Thank you that you came, especially these days, to support Ukraine. We need, really, we need really, we need today two patrols for

Kharkiv, for Kharkiv region because the people are under attack, civilians and warriors, everybody there under Russian missiles. What is gained by all of this? He probably chatted with me afterwards

and said, where are you going next week? When your term of office is over and you chose not to seek re-election by canceling the elections. As Matt Ho just pointed out, even at the height of the Iraq wars, as immoral and wrong as the war was. They held elections. Yeah. Yeah. And also, I think we have, this issue came up with aid to Israel as they conduct, I like to call it a genocide. I think that's what the intention is, whether it meets that criteria or not. We are violating our own State Department and our own congressional rules onto aid. We don't give aid to countries that are conducting war crimes. We also don't give aid, or at least we didn't 20 years ago when I worked in OSD, we didn't give aid to non-democratically elected leaders

or dictators. Now, obviously, we're friends with a lot of dictators and we aided lots of people, but the wording of most of our aid agreements relates to the promotion of democracy and criticism of dictatorships and totalitarianism. So, you know, here's Blinken, who should be quite aware of all these things, but our U.S. pattern of late, and maybe it's been a while, but certainly in the past several years, is we really do whatever we want to make whatever war we want, and we lie about is this legal aid or not legal aid. So technically, with Zelensky declaring martial law, not stepping down and not holding elections, and we're continuing to aid him and promise more aid is coming. Obviously, democracy in Ukraine was irrelevant. That wasn't that had nothing to do with, you know, our efforts.

But the other aspect that bothers me is how Blinken can say, oh, more is on the way. And this war has been going on for two and a half years almost, just the part that we've been militarily aiding. Now, obviously, we egged them on in 2014 and supported Ukraine throughout the precursor to the Russian invasion. But, you know, we... Two and a half years. I mean, do they understand anything?

Has he been, has he gone around to Ukraine? Has he visited refugee centers in Europe? What is he thinking that, oh, it's coming, don't worry, you're going to prevail? That sounds so ignorant and so really callous. Does the U.S. have goals in Ukraine beside using it as a battering ram with which to drive Vladimir Putin from office? Are there venal, avaricious, selfish goals that the United States has there? Well, I think we want to use ukraine as a massive military testing ground we want to exploit the um the the uh that you know the the minerals and the uh the agricultural potential the hydroelectric potential the nuclear potential i think we want to exploit all of that um certainly uh we want a place to test military equipment and systems and biological warfare. I mean, why would we have that many bio labs already in? I mean, these are the ones that, you know, Vicki Newland was talking about to the Congress. Why would we even have that? Our intention was to grow what we had already started

in Ukraine and making it kind of like a huge Nevada with no rules, where you can fly and you have huge, vast areas of Army and Navy and Air Force target ranges and flight ranges, testing ranges. You know, where else are you going to get that? Because you cannot, Europe is built up and the Europeans don't want it there. The United States increasingly, you know, not in my backyard, we don't want it there. They need a place, the Washington and the Pentagon need a place like that. So Ukraine works out great and it's corrupt. It's very poor relative to the rest of Europe. And also the salaries paid there. You know, it's just like, yeah, you know, years ago, decades ago, people in the military wanted to go overseas where they could have a maid for five dollars a week or whatever. This is this is the modern Ukraine.

I mean, we see it to exploit it. And I don't mean exploitation the way Marx or Lenin might talk about it, but we saw an opportunity. And I think they thought Russia wouldn't do anything and this would come to pass. And it hasn't come to pass. So what will we settle for? Well, we'll do the same thing to whatever's left in Ukraine. I'm pretty sure about that. Unless Poland and Lithuania decide they would like to have a piece of that action. Does the U.S. and does NATO want to control the Black Sea? Oh, that's for sure. Yeah, I think they have for a long, long time. In fact, I honestly think that's why Turkey is in NATO. You know, we need that access. It's another great proving ground, but it's also a place for trade. There's a lot of undersea cables there. It's kind of out of the way, but close to Europe, close to Russia, of course. Yeah, we'd love to not have to worry about, we'd love to be able to control that completely. And because of the geography, it's kind of like what we think of as the Gulf of

Mexico, which is, it's not quite as enclosed. It's more enclosed than the Gulf of Mexico is. But, you know, we think of the Gulf of Mexico, the United States considers the Gulf of Mexico, our area. And just like Russia considers the Black Sea, most of the Black Sea, you know, at least their area of concern, we want to be, we want to be in there. And, you know, at least their area of concern. We want to be in there. And, you know, we actually have Coast Guard ships in the Black Sea that routinely go to the Black Sea, a Coast Guard ship. Coast Guard, not Navy Coast Guard? Who's Coast Guard regarding? Lord only knows, but they go there. And so they want to have that access. Oh, and I do think that they will say, oh, well, we're about smuggling.

You know, the Black Sea and that whole Eastern European and former Soviet Union, you know, everything that surrounds the Black Sea. Yeah, there's crime, there's human smuggling and there's drug smuggling and there's arms smuggling and there's all kinds of things that go on. And we want a piece of that action. You know, I think that's part of it. But when I say a piece of the action, I don't mean we want to stop it. I think we want to profit from it. Because certainly, if you look at our relationship to Ukraine's government and its businessmen for many years, I mean, Biden's whole family is an example that Ukraine is an opportunity for these people, precisely because it is corrupt. Does NATO still have the crazy belief that somehow Ukraine will be a member?

You know, I think they have backed away from that. The problem is it's not going to be, Ukraine is going to be maybe two-thirds of what it was, possibly half of what it was geographically. And it has to be completely rebuilt. That's going to be maybe two-thirds of what it was, possibly half of what it was geographically. And it has to be completely rebuilt. That's going to be costly. They can't expect the United States to do it, although we will pay for it. There'll be American money there for sure. not because they wanted to, but because they saw how our weapons did against and how our logistic supply system did against the Russian opposition. And it didn't do very well. So now it's probably not the time. I'm sure that they've all agreed to that. And I know there have been statements

saying it's not going to be a part of NATO. Before we transition over to Israel and Gaza, how much longer do you think the war will go on? Or stated differently, is this Tony Blinken's last visit to Vladimir Zelensky? I think he may squeak one more in before the Democratic convention, but yeah, it'll probably be close to his last visit. And also anything that these lame ducks say to another country like this. I mean, Zelensky's very, he's very savvy. You know, he's a guy that has dealt with crooked politicians his entire life, I'm sure. And he knows one when he sees one. So he's very savvy to what's going on. I hope it's over with by the end of this summer, But I have to say, I thought it would end sooner. And I thought it would end by the end of last year.

And it didn't. Switching over to Israel, how isolated will Israel soon be in the international community? Yeah, this is a big problem for them. And I think, you know, the thing of economic isolation and political isolation, right now what we're seeing is little outbursts of anger. Certain countries, Prasanna Nangrata, you know, the Israeli representatives, some of them are stopping trade like Turkey and, you know, different criticisms. World Court support for prosecuting the current leadership in Israel. We're seeing these things and they're kind of like odd things. And they're like little fires that Israel and the United States are doing the best they can to put out. The problem with little fires is they catch and they spread.

And there's nothing popular around the world with what Israel is doing to the Palestinians. And over half the world, well over half the world's populations identify far more closely with indigenous people, Palestinians, anybody that's getting bombed and can't really, you know, fight back in an equal way, that's who most of the world identifies with. In fact, you know, our students, our students in our universities, you know, I say maybe coddled a little bit, you know, maybe haven't seen the world, but they also identify. We've taught them. Our systems have taught them to identify with the abused. And so how does Israel overcome that? They can't say they're not abusing. That's obvious. We leave our eyes over the words. And can they rationalize what they're doing?

Are they making it better for anyone? Well, they possibly might gain some land for Israel, but there's no global benefit there. It just gets worse for Israel from here on out. So the Israeli government has done its best to keep journalists out of Gaza, but the whole world knows what's going on because the Gazans have mobile phones and you can watch this stuff in real time. That's right. That's right. And, you know, this thing with the UN saying, oh, well, actually there was a lot more fighters killed and fewer women and children killed.

Even that doesn't help. And I'm sure that them producing this data was under some pressure by people that wanted a better narrative that made it look like Israel's actually trying to preserve life. But with kids' buildings being smashed to nothing, this all implies targeted destruction of people, facilities, of life, of economy, of spirit. All of this is obvious to people. So it's really not even about the count. It's about the actions that are taken, and they are being videoed around the world. You know, I don't think people want violence. They don't like, you know, they're not cheering for Hamas, but there's better ways to handle things like this.

And I think the Israeli government, certainly Zionism as a philosophy, as an ideology, is locked into they must take land. And that the people that were there are worthless. They are not people. They are subhumans. They are less than animals, less than dogs. And this language abounds in Israel. We don't talk like that here as much in the United States. Our politicians are conscious that that's a very terrible way to talk about people. It's contrary to most American values. But in Israel, it's not seen that way. Their view of themselves is in such a way that

their choices are extremely limited. So to pull back, to not destroy Palestinian life and property, that is not an option. That's not rational to them in their ideological fishbowl. And it's a big problem because most of the people around the world do not share that. They do not share that ideology. They do not share that value system. It's upsetting for them to watch this. In your piece on realism, instead of calling the entity that has a chokehold on the American government the military-industrial complex, instead of calling it the military-industrial-congressional

complex, as Eisenhower's original notes said he was going to call it in his famous farewell speech, you called it the military-corporate-. Now, I agree with all that fully, as you are not surprised to hear. But you added in corporate pharmaceutical and surveillance. We'll start with the easy one, surveillance. Congress just approved surveillance of Americans without search warrants. Reprehensible, and if you don't know they're surveilling you and they don't use the evidence they obtained in the surveillance against you, you're not even in a position to challenge it in a courtroom. We understand that. But explain why you added corporate and pharmaceutical. Well, the corporate kind of touches on, you know, the defense corporations, but also, you know, energy corporations, pharmaceutical corporations also. But these are the entities, these are the places or functions that really drive congressional policy. You and I, little people, big people, voices,

people in academia, the people that work for a living, very few of them, if any, influence government policy because they cannot buy and sell congressmen like these corporations can and are interested in doing. Because even if I could buy a politician, I wouldn't want to. But for the pharmaceutical companies, for the defense companies, they can. And it's a very good payoff for the dollar. I mean, for very little money donated to congressmen, you can get the votes that you need. You can get them to accept the legislation

that you write. I mean, I've never written legislation for Congress to pass. I didn't think that was my job. But for a lot of people, a lot of corporations and lobbies, this is their job. And how do you get the congressman to push it? Well, first off, you have a connection with them. You spend a little time, but you also spend money. That's what they do. So we have a system. It looks like a democracy in some ways. Obviously, it's supposed to be a republic, which connotes representation of actual people. But what we got, what we have evolved into is nothing like that. So that and I think that's why our government does things that are so, we just think of them as, well, why would they do that? That's not in our interest. You know, we, they spend all this money on defense. We have no security. They, you can go down the list and

certainly the surveillance aspect gives you an idea that we are not considered, we the people are not really considered assets. We are vulnerabilities to the government and they need to watch us very closely because we may threaten it. To the military corporate industrial pharmaceutical surveillance complex, can you add AIPAC? Yeah, I mean, AIPAC's one of many very effective lobbies. And, you know, APEC is in the news now because Thomas Massey put forth legislation to have them registered as FARA under the FARA law of a foreign government that does not have to register. And nobody can tell you why. And Congressman Massey is extremely courageous to do this, but he shouldn't have to do it. Not only do they not register, they're bigger and wealthier than any of the other lobbying entities, all of which do register. Yeah. Yeah. It's really amazing. And actually he may have, he may have done something very interesting in making himself this target for them because as soon as he advocated for this and of course they're looking at the Senate elections that'll come down the pike, getting rid of McConnell.

They, they are targeting. AIPAC took out has spent hundreds of thousands already targeting Massey in this whole state of Kentucky, not just his district, but in the whole state and elsewhere. So in a sense, they've kind of proven his accusation and their response. It was their response that kind of proved his words. So I'm not sure that will work. It might work. It shouldn't, but it might work, but it also exposes them. And I think very much the way they're behaving in Gaza exposes,

their very actions expose them. People see Israel for, or at least the ideology of Zionism, as for what it really is. And it's not something that we aspire for, for them or for us. Is Israel an asset? Is the American government's relationship to Israel an asset for the United States or a deficit? Well, it's definitely not. I don't think it's an asset. And I don't even think, back in the early days of that relationship, that you could honestly say that the special relationship we have with Israel has been an asset. And it's very unique. It's hard to compare it to other relationships, maybe the one we have with the Brits. But, you know, we can criticize the Brits. You know, we can make fun of the Queen of England in this country. And we, many people

have and do, and we say down with the monarchy. We've always been able to do that. And nobody called you a bad name because you said that. But we have our hands tied a little bit, our relationship with Israel and the way it's promoted. And again, APEC is a big part of this and the way they control a lot of our government policy and media is a big way that this relationship is managed. But we really, the average person in America who says anything negative about the state of Israel or anything that Israel does, including things it does that we might like it to do, I mean, our cooperation with them, we could say, oh, I don't like how they're taking care of those F-35s or I don't like how they're using our weapons. You really can't even say any of those things. They kind of have a backstop against American criticism.

So that in its very, just that alone means that that relationship is unhealthy. So I don't know which one of the partners is the wife getting beaten or the spouse getting beaten, but one of them clearly is. Here's one of the biggest cheerleaders for Israel in the Congress. I'm not even going to tell you who it is, but you'll know and hear and be repulsed as soon as you hear him losing his temper on Meet the Press on Sunday. Cut number nine. Historians would say, why is it OK for Reagan to do it and not President Biden? But let me ask you about. Well, why I say this?

Why is it OK for America to not to to drop two nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end their existential threat war? Why was it OK for us to do that? I thought it was OK to Israel. Do whatever you have to do to survive as a Jewish state. Senator, again, military officials say technology has changed. But let me ask you about how all of this could impact. Yeah, these military officials that you're talking about are full of crap.

Well, he wasn't having a good day and didn't come off in a persuasive way at all. But his views are not untypical of most Republicans in the Congress. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And also his lack of his ignorance of history is also not atypical. It was not OK to drop bombs on those two cities. If we were intending to end an existential existential war in World War Two II in Japan, we would not have hit two really nondescript residential cities and not wipe out Tokyo. I mean, if you're talking about survival, Hiroshima and Nagasaki are not your targets. So we know what this was about. Anyone who studies history understands the input into that decision-making and the immorality of it and the justification for it. And it was not, the war was over. So this was about messaging. Okay. Now, if Graham wants to

talk about messaging, then we can probably have a conversation, but he knows nothing about history. In terms of messaging, that's what he's doing, you know, wipe out Gaza, but clearly ignorant, just so ignorant, and why would they want to do that? This war is about taking the land and eliminating the native population, taking the land and making part of greater Israel, and that's fine. They want to do that. Why would they drop a bomb on land they're trying to occupy? They're not going to do that. So he is insane. Okay. And I suspect that they have a great deal of pictures. I think they have pictures and video. And this is, this guy is under the spell. You cannot even, you cannot even, you know, to be religious or to have a religious faith that

teaches positivity about Israel. And even then, you know, let's say, let's give them credit. They can blur Zionism with the land of Israel. They can have this. But even that is not driving what Lindsey Graham is saying. He's not a particularly religious person. He's driven by, clearly, ignorance and money and possibly blackmail. And he can come call me up and we'll have a conversation about that. Because this guy is, he's almost like the icon of what's wrong with the United States. Karen, thank you very much, my dear friend.

We should have ended on a happier note. I'm sorry. No, no, no, no, no. You be the way you are. The fans love you when you're passionate, as do I. I hope we can see you again next week. Look for Karen's column about Israelism returning on JuddSnapp.com. It's a great, great think piece. We only got to go through about half of it today. Thank you, Karen. All the best, my dear friend.

Okay. Thank you, Judge. Of course. At 4.30 today, Scott Ritter, Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. Thank you.