Judging Freedom - Matt Hoh: Can the US Fight Two Wars?

Episode Date: January 30, 2024

Matt Hoh: Can the US Fight Two Wars?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, January 30th, 2024. Matt Ho is our guest, as usual, at this time on a Tuesday. Matt, it's a pleasure, my friend. Welcome back to the show. I want to spend most of our time on Israel in light of recent events there and elsewhere. But before we do, what is your take on the state of Ukraine? I mean, as we speak, the Republicans are still trying to put together a deal in the Congress of some sort of an immigration crackdown between Texas and Mexico in return for $61 billion in material and ammunition and cash to Ukraine. Do you think it's more obvious now than it was even a week ago that the $61 billion, they might as well just throw it down the drain? Well, I think the danger of

that money not getting there to Ukraine really highlights the overall folly, the stupidity, the recklessness of the Biden administration pursuing this unwinnable war. This was always what was going to happen. Ukraine was never going to win this war. And you were going to get to this position like they're in now, where the country has been so destroyed, it's been so deflated, they are millions of people short to run their economy. I mean, the government of Ukraine says about 4 million refugees need to come back to Ukraine because that's how big their labor shortage is. I mean, and all types of measures and metrics of the country, aside from the horror of the front, Ukraine is in terrible position. So this is a house of cards, just like the U.S. built in Iraq, just like the U.S. built in Afghanistan. And so that that money not showing up means that the danger. I think they move up to the Dnieper River,

but that's it because I don't think the Russians want to occupy central and western Ukraine. They do not want to take the Ukrainian speaking parts of the country. They do not want to go into an occupation, you know, that would make, you know, it would be the European version of what the Americans did in Iraq and Afghanistan. They don't want to make that mistake and they don't have a desire for that because I don't think that was ever the strategic objectives of the Russians to take anything more than the Donbass and down towards Herzl and to allow a connection to Crimea. But, you know, I think that's where it's at. I mean, the stupidity of all this, Judge, is just so remarkable. And many of us, including yourself and guests you've had on this channel, have been saying this for a full two years now. Putin does not want to occupy a country where he's hated and where he's going to be facing a guerrilla war. He wants to protect the portions

of the country he believes are Russian speaking, Russian culturally, and historically a part of Russia. We've been saying that. You've been saying it for two years. President Biden says, I think I'm quoting him, if Putin takes Ukraine, a stupid thing to say, but if Putin takes Ukraine, what will stop him from going after a NATO country? And then you'll see what no one wants and no one expects. I think I have this down verbatim, American boys fighting Russian boys. This is a canard articulated by the president to talk the Republicans in the House, has the Senate, the Republicans in the House into giving him the $61 billion so he can

waste it. Right. I mean, for most of my adult life, I've heard this trope, this fantastical fear-mongering about how if we don't fight them over there, we'll have to fight them here. And that's been applied to, Judge, should we go through the litany? Do we need to go through all the different people we've been told that? It'll take us a long time to go through that litany, Matt. And I might remember a few that you don't because I'm older than you. All right. Transitioning to Israel, which seems to be getting hotter every day. Did the ICJ, the International Court of Justice, which didn't find as a matter of law that Israel was engaged in genocide, but asked it not to do so and demanded by a vote of 16 to 1, and the one was the judge from Congo, the Israeli judge voted with a 16 to report in 30 days that in fact that is not engaging in

genocide. Did this burst the bubble of Israeli moral, self-claimed moral rectitude? I unfortunately, I don't think so, because I think what you're going to see from the Israelis in a month's time is going to be a report to the ICJ saying we haven't been committing genocide, which is what they've been saying all along. And that's what you're going to hear from the Americans. That's what you hear from the British. The few benefactors, a few backers of Israel are going to continue to say that, which is primarily just the United States. But that's all the Israelis care about. The Israelis, you know, Ambassador Murray, when he was on your show, he brought up something that coincides with something I saw from Israeli television and Israeli discussion about the opportunity of theater. And Ambassador Murray,

and people should go back and listening to Ambassador Murray's conversation with the judge, because one, Ambassador Murray is a heck of a smart guy, but also two, he was the only journalist allowed into that courtroom from what I understand. So, but, you know, this idea that the Israelis saw opportunity in this, that this was their chance to perform theater, and that this was what it was about to them, just to continue their justifications for who they are, just to continue the narrative of their persecuted identity, that we are not the ones committing genocide. We are the ones who are genocide being committed against. This is not genocide. This is self-defense, right? And so that appeals to their backers, again, primarily just the United States, United States Congress,

United States media, a good portion of the American electorate. That's all they care about. And so I think this is why I was disappointed, many others I think were disappointed too, that the ICJ was not as explicit, as direct, as clear as it might have been. For example, the South Africans came in and they requested the court to order Israel to suspend its military operations. And the court did not do that. And the court has done that in the past. They directed Russia two years ago to suspend their military operations. So the vagueness that was in that ruling by the ICJ, it can be interpreted in different ways. And so I think that's going to be the Israeli and the American strategy is just to continue to go along to act, to do the theater, the outrage theater that they have been doing for the last several

months and hopefully accomplish their goals before anything happens that would force them to accomplish their goals. And unfortunately, the ICJ is not going to be able to force them because their order is unenforceable. It's subject to the Security Council in which the U.S. has a veto. Right. Exactly. That's the whole plan. We've seen this story before. Right. This is how they're going to play it out. And the pressure that the White House is under is not a moral pressure. It's not a strategic pressure. It's a political pressure. They're under the pressure to adhere to what Israel does because of the strength of the Israeli lobby. But they also have some real

concerns about the election in November. And so the pressure is, can the Israelis get done what they want to do by November 2024? So this is not something that is going to cause progressive voters not to vote for the president. And Israel has pressure too. Certainly there are fractures within the Israeli political system, as we all know, the pressure of the hostages, just the UN. That's a nuisance, something that they have to deal with, but they'll try to utilize that, turn that on its head and use that as an opportunity to conduct theater. I'm going to stop for just a moment because we have, I haven't seen this because it just happened 30 or 60 seconds ago. We have President Biden stopping to take questions about the Houthis and about Iran on his way to a helicopter on the White House ground. So we're going to run it.

You and I will hear it for the first time and then we'll talk about it. Yes. The Press I do hold them responsible in the sense that they're supplying the weapons to the people who did it. We'll have that discussion. The Press We'll see. have that discussion. How do you deter these attacks in the past? What will be different this time? We'll see.

All right. He didn't really tell us anything other than he's obviously talking about it to his advisors and is under pressure from congressional Republicans to bomb Tehran and under pressure from congressional Democrats

to be temperate. Just one last question about the ICJ before we move on. You think the United States is on notice that it may be next? There are all kinds of rumors that South Africa is now planning to charge the United States with genocide on the very rational theory that, as Joe Biden just said about the Iran and the Houthis, I don't know if it's true what he said, you supply them with the weapons, you're responsible for how they use them. I hope so. I mean, I really hope so. I don't know, Judge, I haven't seen anything different or more than what you've seen. But I certainly hope so. I hope the United States is charged with complicity and genocide. That certainly is allowable

underneath the Genocide Convention to which the South Africans went to the ICJ. But whether or not that will occur, I don't know. But again, hopefully it will. Have you ever heard of state actors dressing as physicians and patients and going into a hospital and assassinating patients in their hospital beds in a country with which the state actors are not at war? Only in the movies, I think, Judge. The closest I can recall is American intelligence, when they're trying to locate Osama bin Laden,

going through the city of Abbottabad, pretending to be healthcare professionals, asking about vaccines, I think it was, or some other type of healthcare, and utilizing that type of healthcare coverage know, is morally gross and also strategically unwise in the long term because it gets people not to trust health care. Right, right, right. You know, but in terms of what we saw with the Israelis, I've never seen anything like this. This is, you know, what is a shock.

Let me just stop you for a second, Matt. These are Israeli intelligence agents dressed as Arab physicians and healthcare workers in a hospital in the West Bank, not in Gaza, in order to assassinate three young men who were injured and injured by their Israeli colleagues and in hospital beds. Go ahead. Right. And that's what- that's murder in my view. It is murder. International law view, even under Israeli law, it's murder. It is murder. It's absolutely murder. You know, I mean, you could use the video as well as then the photos of where those men were murdered, shot dead in hospital beds. There are photos of those

beds with the bloodstains on them. I mean, this was going into a hospital and executing people. I mean, the violations just pile up so fast here. The violations of international law, the war crimes, the acts of genocide pile up so quickly that we can't keep up, Judge. Something else will occur by the time this show is over, by the end of this day, by tomorrow morning, by tomorrow afternoon, and we will have forgotten this. We'll move on. It will be another war crime.

I mean, the thing we were just recently talking about, the desecration of graves. But before that, it was the destruction of every mosque and church in northern Gaza. I mean, like I mean, like it just you can't keep up. And that's part of the strategy, I think. I don't know if it's a conscious part of the strategy or not, but you just do so much that those who are against you, your adversary just cannot articulate everything that you're

doing and you're able just to keep bulldozing forward with your genocide. In this case, it was in the West Bank, so not even in Gaza, in Jenin. And so you see just this blatant disregard for any respect of international law, any respect of conventions and treaties, the law of armed warfare, as well as to just the moral or natural law that we supposedly adhere to as civilized people. But I think what I also take, if I could be glib for a second, as you see in that video, that they have women with them, the Israelis. So as well as to, I bet, maybe some of those commandos are wearing vegan boots, vegan leather boots. I mean, this is one of the tropes that goes on about how the Israeli army

is the most moral army of the war. So again, getting back to what we were talking about before, the theater of it all, just continuing to push out the propaganda for your own side, we're not going to believe them. We're going to be horrified by them, but they don't care what we think. We're not going to believe them. We're going to be horrified by them, but they don't care what we think. We're not their audience. And they think as long as they can keep their audience intact, so they feed them the red meat, you feed them the propaganda, then you can continue to sustain this war, this genocide, these war crimes. Let's get back to President Biden. What is to be gained by repeatedly attacking

the Houthis and repeatedly missing them and repeatedly acknowledging that he's missing them? It's political, Judge. I mean, there is that clip, which I think should be shown in every high school and college class on international relations and political science and modern American history, because it demonstrates in the clip I'm referring to is Joe Biden being asked whether or not the attacks on the Yemenis are working. And Biden says, no, but we're not going to stop. It shows that this is all political. This is about Joe

Biden being concerned that if he doesn't act tough enough, one Lindsey Graham is going to say bad things about him. And that's important. I mean, we can mock that, but that's important because I've gotten to this point where I should start writing it down, but informally, I do like this Lindsey Graham diary, which just, you know, I need help, Judge. Somebody, you know, get me to a therapist. There's a lot of it. Right. But the idea of it, what I'm tracking, though, is how often and how quickly and high up Lindsey Graham is quoted. So I found this weekend in the coverage over what was occurring in the Middle East, particularly the killing of three are saying is that Joe Biden is weak. And of course, that's what Donald Trump said right away. If I was president, this would never have happened. So you do these things like attacking the amenities, knowing it's not going to work,

knowing it's only going to make the problem worse, only going to make the problem bigger, while ignoring that the simple answer, the simple solution is to stop conducting genocide alongside the Israelis in Gaza. That ends all of this. But the same thing, too, is what's terrifying, should be terrifying to all of us, is that this idea that the Pentagon is saying we have no evidence the Iranians were involved in these three soldiers being killed. Joe Biden is making some type of connection that if they provide the weapons, they're guilty. Well, he just admitted his own guilt then in the genocide in Gaza.

But this idea that regardless of whether it's effective, regardless of whether or not it's a smart thing to do, if this really represents and strengthens the interests of the United States, we're going to do it because it's good politics. And so now this idea of what are they going to do against Iran? What point are they going to try and make for our domestic political audience, not for the Iranians, but for American voters, basically to show that Joe Biden is tougher than Lindsey Graham or Donald Trump. And my fear is the delay we're seeing is about positioning assets. So are we seeing this delay because the US Air Force needs to get its B-52s, B-1s, and B-2s in position to conduct heavy bombing and heavy air attacks of Iran? Is it because we need to

get other resources, other assets, other pieces of equipment and munitions in place to launch a major campaign? And the catastrophe that could come from it, does this judge, a war with Iran would make the war in Iraq, that quagmire, it would make that quagmire look like a puddle, basically. Well, you just took the question out of my mouth. How reckless and dangerous will be the follow-up to the type of Lindsey Graham-suggested attack on Iran if Joe Biden does it? Well, one, the Iranians have been preparing for this for a very, very long time, for decades. Listen to you talk to Colonel McGregor, and Colonel McGregor rightfully brought up,

this has been basically more than 40 years, almost 45 years of the U.S. trying to overthrow the Iranian government, going back, of course, to the Iran-Iraq war, which the Carter administration gave the thumbs up to the Iraqis to begin, to launch, to conduct an invasion of Iran. I mean, it's been almost 45 years of this type of either hot or cold warfare of United States Congresses under Bill Clinton saying, you know, excuse me, but, you know, the preparation, though, for that Iran has been conducting, it should be reminiscent to us, though, of what the Russians did over the last decade or so preparing for a war in Ukraine. And that's lost on many American strategists, this idea that these nations are serious, that they are taking this seriously, and that their measures have been serious. What will they do? Will they attack Israel? What will Iran do?

I think... Will they attack Iran from the air? missiles, diesel submarines, attack the American air bases, not just in Iraq, but also attack the American air bases, the major American air bases in Qatar, in the United Arab Emirates, the naval base in Bahrain, the Prince Sultan air base in Saudi Arabia. These are major air bases that are vulnerable to the type of missile systems that Iran has. With that comes from that, Judge, then is the possibility if you knock out the one aircraft carrier that's there or make it so it can't conduct flight operations, you take out these air bases or at least limit them. You now have these isolated outposts of American soldiers

in Iraq and Syria that no longer have the air cover that protects them from ground attack. You have very well organized, very well trained, very well experienced, extremely competent militias, basically the popular militia fronts in Syria and Iraq. These are the men that won the war against the Islamic State in both Syria and Iraq. So very experienced, very competent, who are now no longer under the threat of American air power. I mean, that might be, you know, that I might be pulling at threads here, but that just shows you the danger, how this won't be that easy for the American forces. So, you know, you can get into all kinds of other things too about what will Hezbollah do? Certainly, what are the Yemenis,

Ansar Allah, the Houthis, how are they going to react to this? As well as there are other things too, just because we are 10,000 miles away or so, or 7,000 miles away, I guess, from the Persian Gulf, would Iran launch cyber attacks against us? Another thing they prepared for, because they have been victimized and attacked by Israeli and American cyber warfare for decades now. So they have prepared for this. So the seriousness of this, I think, has been lost in Washington, D.C., because we exist in our own fantasy world, right? And we have a military industrial complex that we throw trillions of dollars at. And when we need them to produce weapons or munitions like 155 rounds,

they can't. But when we go to war in a proxy war against the Russians, holy cow, they're actually prepared. They've been taking the time to build up their forces, build up their industrial base. They're able to conduct this war and fight this war and do it well. Same thing I think is going to happen with the Iranians. We're going to be surprised at how well prepared they are for a war with the U.S. Why is the conversation like you and I are having now not on mainstream media? Why is mainstream media filled with Mike Waltz's and Lindsey Graham's attack, attack, attack, kill, kill, kill. I had a misfortune yesterday, Judge, of watching Andrea Mitchell of NBC News and David Ignatius of the Washington Post interview the prime minister of Qatar. And I really want to go and seek out the prime minister of Qatar and apologize to him for having to have endured that. It was nothing more than just a collection of American government talking points that they put forward to him, not even prefacing them with the American government saying this, but just presenting

those American government talking points as the reality of the world. And I think that is because this is the bubble that they live in. These are their friends. Andrea Mitchell is married to Alan Greenspan, the Federal Reserve chairman. You know, David Ignatius is famous for being friends with everybody at the CIA. Right. He's the CIA mouthpiece. Exactly.

I think you get into this where you have the question of elites. And so the elites in the media and the elites in the defense industry, the elites in the fossil fuel industry and the banking industry, et cetera. And they understand that what's good for the elite to my left and what's good for the elite to my right is good for me. And they sit on each other's boards. They go to each other's Christmas parties. They go to the same colleges. I mean, this is what we're dealing here. We're dealing with the top tier, the elites of the empire. And that is what gets pushed forward in terms of what our media says, believes, enunciates. And then, of course,

there's watchdogs. So I think as we've seen with what's happening in Gaza, if a media source begins to get out of line or not hew to the established narrative, there is an Israeli lobby that puts them back into place. And there's, you know, I mean, you see that as well from the Pentagon, you see that from the State Department, keeping the media on track. And so you have a very pliant media, because again, they are in that top tier of elites of the empire. They don't want to lose their place. They don't want to not be invited to the Christmas parties.

They don't want to not have their opportunity to be on the board of directors. And so, I mean, I think you start to understand how they interact with each other and how and why they do each other's business for each other. Before we go, here's the clip to which you referred that you suggested should be shown in every college course on political science or American history. President Biden being asked if the attacks on the Houthis are working. Are the airstrikes in Yemen working? Well, when you say working, are they stopping the Houthis? No. Are they going to continue?

Yes. That might summarize the failure of his administration right there. Are they working? Are they stopping the Houthis? No. Are they going to continue? Yes. I don't know how this ends.

I guess we'll have to wait and see what he decides. He's probably already decided when he tells us what he's going to do or what he will have done by the time he tells us to satisfy the lust for blood from the Lindsey Graham crowd over the killing of the two or the three American soldiers. Larry Johnson doesn't believe the story that it was a drone and that the Americans confused an incoming drone aimed at them with a returning American drone. He says the damage was far too catastrophic to have been caused by a drone. He thinks it was a far more sophisticated missile aimed directly at that small American base. Do you have any thoughts on that? No, I don't see any reason why it wouldn't have been a drone. The Islamic resistance of Iraq, those groups have been launching drones at American forces for years now. They've gotten pretty good at it. They've launched, what, about 150 strikes against U.S. bases in Syria and Iraq and now in Jordan. And so they've been able to observe.

And they probably, maybe it was lucky. Maybe it's just as dumb luck that their drone was coming back the same time an American drone was. Or maybe they have been observing and they realize, look, the American air defense is shut down. When one of their drones return, we can sneak one in. These soldiers were asleep in their trailers, basically. Basically, when you're over there, you live in glorified Connex boxes, shipping containers. So there's nothing separating you from a drone's warhead than just a very thin piece of metal. And warheads on those drones are not 250, 500 pounds, but certainly Milanite, when you've got a congested group, a congested target of sleeping soldiers, one drone strike is

going to cause a lot of damage. And so I don't see any reason not to follow the story as it's been presented to us. Got it. All right, Matt, thank you very much for your time. Very insightful, very helpful as always. And that's not Chris. That's your dog. That's my dog. That's that's Lily. Uh, the, the male it's the mailman's here. Oh, she's protecting me from the mail. It's usually the squirrels, but that's a healthy bark. Now, Chris is all over me. You heard the bark. Thank you, Matt. All the best. We'll see you next week. All right. Thanks, Judge. Another great conversation with candor unsurpassed. Coming up at three o'clock today, Lieutenant Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski and at 430 today,

All Times Eastern, Scott Ritter on these same terrifying subjects. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom. I'm out.