Judging Freedom - LtCOL. Bill Astore : When Domestic Policy Looks Like War

Episode Date: February 4, 2026

LtCOL. Bill Astore : When Domestic Policy Looks Like WarSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Undeclared wars are commonplace. Pragically, our government engages in preemptive war, otherwise known as aggression with no complaints from the American people. Sadly, we have become accustomed to living with the illegitimate use of force by government. To develop a truly free society, the issue of initiating force must be understood and rejected. What if sometimes to love your country you had to alter or abolish the government? Jefferson was right? What if that government is best which governs least? What if it is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong? What if it is better to perish fighting for freedom than to

live as a slave? What if freedom's greatest hour of danger is now? Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for judging freedom. Today is Wednesday, February 4, 2006, Colonel Bill Astori joins us now. Colonel, always a pleasure, my dear friend. I was just reading a piece you wrote published by our friends at anti-war.com, and it reminded me of that one-liner with which I know you're familiar from Frederick Nietzsche. Everything the government has it has stolen and everything the government says is a lie. That is almost literally true. It is certainly literally true in Minneapolis these days. Yeah, yeah.

Thanks for having me on again, Judge. Yes, it's so terribly frustrating, more than frustrating, obviously. It's disappointing. And I think all of us are angry when we hear our government lie about the nature of what's going on there, about the death of innocent. protesters who are simply exercising their rights as citizens to protest when they're called domestic terrorists by our government by leading officials. I mean, this is, it's outrageous.

It's inflammatory. It's wrong on so many levels. And it's so deeply disappointed for all of us as American citizens to see this happening. Do you think we are acclimated to give the government the benefit of the doubt. So when Secretary Nome or Vice President Evans or even the president says this nurse, Alex Preti, was there to commit mass murder, he was a terrorist, he was there to kill ICE agents, that people believe it just because it came out of the mouths of government officials, or are we more skeptical and more sophisticated and want to see the evidence before we form a belief. Right.

Well, I think we should be more skeptical, that's for sure. It made me think, Judge, of your member Kent State, of course, where you had protesters shot by the National Guard, the four dead in Ohio, and President Nixon described them as bums. I think this is the tendency of authoritarian leaders, when crimes like this, when basically crimes committed by the state, sadly, the first reaction is not to come clean or even to investigate. You know, the first reaction is to denounce citizens.

And this is something obviously that should not happen in a democracy. And I think we need to be aware of as Americans that often we are being, misled. We are being lied to. And we should know this from history. When we look at the Vietnam War, for example, when we look at all the lies that were propagated in that war, all the times we were told that we were winning that war, that there was a light at the end of the tunnel. And of course, it was proved to be a charade. It was all fake and phony. We had the Afghan war. papers as well, the lies about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. I mean, we've been lied to so much that I fear that the American people have lost most of their faith in the government. And, you know,

how can you have an effective government when you can't trust it? When there's no trust, there's no bond between that government and the people, this is what I worry about. Do you, also worry about, I know you do because you used this word in your piece at anti-war.com, the government's fascination with surge. Right. So when something is going wrong, they just pour more people into it. We're losing in Afghanistan. Let's send another 15,000 troops.

There's a lot of people demonstrating against us in Minneapolis. So I'll send another 1,000 ICE agents. What is the consequence of these surges? Well, the usual consequence is it just ratchets up the violence. So, I mean, it's so disturbing to see that word surge that we associate, of course, with General Petraeus in the Iraq War in 2007. And then later on in Afghanistan, 2009, 2010, Well, now that same word surge is being applied to Minnesota, you know, that we have to have this surge of federal troops, basically, you know, ice agents, heavily armed with an attitude that they're going to be facing hostiles.

And naturally, what the result is is more death and more violence without any kind of favorable decision. I mean, after all, you know, the surge in Iraq failed, ultimately failed. I know, Petraeus. Petraeus was always funny because he was such a politician as a general. He talked about the gains as being fragile and reversible, which is exactly what they proved. And I remember writing at the time that, you know, when General Eisenhower and General Patton were making gains against the Nazis in World War II, They didn't call them fragile and reversible. So you know that this word, this word surge is being used dishonestly.

But the military concept of surge, what is that? Just to pour more human beings, more soldiers into a war, believing that somehow this will produce victory? We know this doesn't work, I mean, but why do they do it? Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's, I think it's one of those words that is, is in a way, you know, being used as a cover. It's being used dishonestly. They don't want to say that, well, we're, we're launching a decisive offensive or they don't really want to talk about reinforcements. So they came up. I don't know who came up with the word surge. But it's supposed to be, you know, a, you know, a, you know, a, a softer sounding word that people won't, you know, object to as much as they would,

you know, traditional military words. And I suppose it's, it's supposed to suggest that it's not going to be permanent, right? Right. That it's just a temporary thing. But nevertheless, when you think about these surges, for example, the one in Afghanistan, well, after that surge failed, we were in Afghanistan. another 12 years. So, once again, this idea, oh, it's just a temporary thing, you know, it didn't turn out that way, as we all know. You remember that Milton Friedman one line here. He's talking

about economics, but I guess it applies to the military as well. There's nothing in this world more permanent than a temporary government program. It just doesn't go away. How is it that domestic law enforcement now resembles war? I mean, look at these guys. Chris just put the images of them up there. I mean, that's not Ukraine. That's not Kiev. That's Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Yeah, yeah. It's been a long process. And a sad one, because we have witnessed over the last two decades, the military militarization of police forces. And partly that's, partly that's due to, you know, the Pentagon. Now, I can't remember exactly what the program number is, but the sharing of excess, but supposedly excess, you know, military equipment to police forces.

So now you have the police, you know, dressed up in flak vests and helmets. And this obviously distances the police from ordinary citizens. So we have an idea within police forces where there should be an idea of you protect and serve, that you are part of the people that you are not separate from or superior to the rest of us. And yet when you dress up anyone like an imperial, stormtrooper from Star Wars, you're going to have a change in attitude, which is exactly indicated by the photos that you're showing. Are these ICE agents trained by IDF, the Israeli defense forces? I've read that. I've read that some of them have received that kind of

of training. And I'm not necessarily sure they, you know, I think if not the IDF, I, I, I, I think some of our, you know, quite a few of our ice agents or our prior military. They gained experience in urban conflict in the streets of Baghdad or Fallujah. You know, I think the officer who shot, was it Karen Good? I think he was a machine gunner in Iraq, if I'm not mistaken. So, I mean, this kind of prior military experience where, When you're in the military, you know, you see foreigners as obviously as something different from yourself and also everyone being a potential enemy.

Now, when you bring that kind of an attitude to the streets of America, that is obviously a very dangerous attitude where you're putting, you know, somebody who's been through combat overseas all of a sudden looking at our citizens, potentially as, you know, somebody who's been through combat overseas all of a sudden looking at our citizens, potentially as domestic terrorists, and also to be put down by the kind of suppressive fire that was used in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. About 18 or 19 years ago, I wrote a book called Constitutional Chaos, what happens when the government breaks its own laws? and I characterized a lot of government excess and SWAT teams and government bribery as a famous case in which a federal judge was tried for bribery, and the prosecutors bribed a witness to testify against the federal judge.

He was convicted and it was overturned. That's the most extreme one that sticks in my head. But this militarism that we see in Minneapolis did not exist at the time that I did the research for the book, or if it existed, it was just a blip on the radar screen. Are we in danger becoming acclimated to this? Do the troops, do these guys want to do this? Why would anybody want to yank an American citizen out of a car and use four-letter words of the person, yank an old man out of his bed and his underwear

and sub-zero temperature? Why would they want to do this? Yeah, yeah. Sadly, I think too many, too many people are willing to do this as we're seeing in the videos that are haunting. You know, my, I'm from a family of first responders. So my brother, my father, firefighters, my niece is a, is a police officer in the city where I was born. and I can tell you that that that and and she's married to a police officer as well. And they,

they shake their heads at at this too. And, you know, there are a lot of police officers who see that that this is wrong. And, and I think we, on the one hand, I'm obviously against the, the militarization of the police. I'm against these ICE agents, many of whom just simply haven't been trained. in the in the in the in the in the proper use uh i mean force force should always be a last resort rather than a first resort uh and yet you know so many of these ice agents uh are more than ready and willing uh to use force uh and this is simply uh you know this is this is just contrary to everything we are supposed to be as a country.

As your book indicated, we're a country that's supposed to be based on the Constitution and laws. Right. Switching gears, do you understand the urge, the surge, the urge that neocons have, play on words here, to attack Iran? And before you answer that, with apologies, because this may turn your stomach a little bit. Chris, cut number five. If this regime falls, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Hooties, they all go. It would be the biggest change since the fall of the Berlin Wall. But here's one thing I know.

Donald Trump is Ronald Reagan plus in my mind, Venezuela, soon Cuba. The one thing you can't do as president. Talk like Reagan and act like Obama. There's no deal to be done here. These people are not trustworthy. The protesters in the street are not protesting for a better nuclear deal. They're protesting for a better life. And if they win the day, we have a chance to have friends with the people of Iran.

The Aettoa will never be our friend. He's a religious Nazi. President Trump, you said help is on the way. That has to be real. It has to be real soon. Do it, Mr. President. of Iran are begging you to be on their side. You have done it so good.

You are Reagan plus. This is the defining moment in your presidency. Stand by the people, the Italal Falls. The region changes bigger than the fall of the Berlin Wall. No more international terrorists. This regime has American blood on its ends since 1979. You got the Hooties.

You got Hezbollah, killing Americans. Americans bring this regime down because the people want it down. You don't have to invade the country. But help on the way means military strikes against the infrastructure that is killing the Iranian people. I mean, at one point I wanted to say, right, Chris, enough is enough. That's 90 seconds of a 10-minute interview. The only good part about this is, you know, he plays golf regularly with the president.

apparently hasn't caused the president to come around to his thinking yet, which is why it's got to go on national television and literally beg the president of the United States to kill people in a country, the public policy of which has zero danger to American national security. Right, right. And as I was watching that clip, well, of course, Lindsay Graham never met a war. He didn't like it. But when he spoke about, you know, that Iranians have American blood on their hands,

obviously Americans have Iranian blood on our hands. And when you look at our, and that's something that Lindsay Graham would never admit, right? I mean, we overthrew the Iranian government in the 1950s. The CIA was involved with that. we helped to install the Shah of Iran, who we were happy to support until he was overthrown by the Iranian people. Then the Ayatollah Khomeini came in. And then, of course, we supported Iraq during its war with Iran in the 1980s. I mean, if any country has been responsible for shedding blood in the region, it's been the United States.

me off and on, we have been at war with Iran for more than 70 years. And you have to ask yourself, well, why is that? And of course, a big hint there is there's an incredible amount of oil that Iran still has. That and the fact that Iran also remains an enemy of Israel. And for those two big reasons, you know, supporting Israel and also covening the oil, you know, we are still going after Iran as Lindsey Graham is obviously happy about or wants to advance that even more. I just don't get Senator Graham's logic. We've pounded on him at the show, and he and I actually know each other. I haven't heard from him in a while. Not surprised. I really don't get the neocon logic.

You talk about a surge that's all these people want. They just want to kill those who think and act differently. How about respecting the sovereignty of other nations to run their governments however they want? How well did George W. Bush succeed in exporting democracy to Afghanistan and Iraq? What a farce that turned out to be. Right, right. Well, you don't export democracy at the barrel of a gun. And, you know, overthrowing rulers, you know,

whether it be, you know, Saddam Hussein or Gaddafi, this is an, this is a recipe for regional chaos. It's not a recipe for democracy springing up spontaneously, you know, from the ruins. Yeah. Do you agree with the news reports that Netanyahu himself asked the president not to attack Iran because the Israelis fear a ferocious attack on them, which they won't be able effectively to resist? Well, I thought they had that impermeable iron dome that we provided with all those Patriot missiles and so on. You know, they should have no fear because the Iron Dome is so effective. Of course, I'm joking.

Right. But, but yes, you know, it makes sense to me that Netanyahu would say, look, we're not, we're not ready. And, and therefore, you know, let's, we need more time to prepare. So, I mean, let's, let's hope that some kind of diplomatic settlement is reached and that the Lindsay Graham and all his, is probe war rhetoric does not prevail. Yeah. Colonel Astorri, thank you very much. It's a great piece of anybody wants to read it at anti-war.com and also the colonel's site, which is called Bracing Views.

The piece which was published yesterday is called, No Surprise, of Lies and Surges. Great stuff, Colonel. Thank you very much. I hope you come back and visit with us again soon. Okay. Thanks so much, George. You're welcome. Coming up later today, on all of us, at one this afternoon, Professor Glenn Dyson, at two this afternoon, Colonel Douglas McGregor, at three this afternoon, the great Phil Giraldi, Justin the Palatano for judging freedom.