Judging Freedom - Matthew Hoh: Biden’s Fruitless Wars.

Episode Date: December 13, 2023

In the ever-evolving landscape of global conflicts, the decisions and strategies employed by nations in pursuit of their interests are subject to intense scrutiny. At the forefront of recent international affairs, President Joe Biden's administration finds itself entangled in various military endeavors, sparking a growing discourse on the efficacy and purpose of these engagements. To navigate the complexities of these endeavors, we are honored to engage in a conversation with Matthew Hoh, a distinguished voice with a wealth of experience in matters of foreign policy and military strategy.#Russia #ukraine #USMilitaryHistory #Israel #Gaza #ceasefire #hostages #Ukraine #zelenskyy #Biden #china #IsraelPalestine #MiddleEastConflict #PeaceInTheMiddleEast #GazaUnderAttack #Ceasefire #Jerusalem #prayforpeace #hostages #Israel #Gaza #ceasefire #hostages #Ukraine #zelenskyy #Biden #china #IsraelPalestine #MiddleEastConflict #PeaceInTheMiddleEast #GazaUnderAttack #Ceasefire #Jerusalem #prayforpeace #hostagesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, Judging Freedom fans, never miss an episode of Judge Napolitano's Judging Freedom. Grab the audio version on Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Amazon, or wherever you get your podcasts. Get the audio version of Judging Freedom. Subscribe today. We'll be right back. Thank you for coming back, my dear friend. Has the United States' unconditional support for Israel isolated the U.S. and the international community? Thanks for having me back on, Judge. Yeah, it absolutely has. I mean, things were moving this way. Nations were tired of the American empire, tired of the hegemony, tired of the demands of the American system, you know, system, tired of the double speak, the double standards, the hypocrisies adversarial position against the most, if not all, of the world. And we see this repeatedly being played out in the United Nations itself, whether in the Security Council or in the General Assembly,

where it is the United States supporting Israel against basically the will of the entire world. And this is accelerating, right? This trend that was already occurring of nations trying to get out from underneath the American empire to get away from American hegemony. So we are only going to see this accelerate. This event, this catastrophe, this ethnic cleansing in Gaza is really going to be a catalyst, I think, for further change into how the world works on the grand geopolitical stage. What is the national security or military or international benefit to the United States of being wedded at the hip to Israel. And the wedded at the hip is really political, cultural, and emotional. There's no treaty of which I'm aware. Right. There's no formal alliance, you know, as in the United States

has with, say, a Japan or a South Korea or with, say, within NATO. And you do, I think, when you take a step back and you look at the ties between Israel and the United States, which are, as you said, cultural, racial, social, but you see that what's the need for the military tie? And you see the fact that the United States has been put in a rather precarious position, a pretty dangerous position because of its unconditional support for Israel for decades. I mean, no one less than General David Petraeus has said this. And he was roundly criticized when, you know, about a dozen years or so ago, 10 years ago or so, he said this in a congressional briefing. He said the U.S. support, this unconditional support for U.S. is making for Israel by the U.S. is making the U.S. less safe. It's putting us in this position of always protecting Israel, of bending over backwards to make sure that they are not, you know, diplomatically, economically, you know, sanctioned for their actions.

Since you were with us, because these two events occurred, I think, over the weekend, Friday and Saturday. One of them we talked about in the roundtable with Ray McGovern on Friday. But two events have occurred that will affect international opinion of us, one below the radar, one above. The one above the radar is the veto by the United States and the Security Council of a very rational resolution calling for a ceasefire. We'll run some clips for you in just a moment. The other, below the radar, was a document signed under oath by Secretary Blinken, swearing that the United States was in a state of emergency and needed to protect national security and thereby bypass Congress and deliver $100 million worth of artillery shells to Israel. Now, I wish that I could examine him in my courtroom. Under oath, I would defy him to explain under oath how that affects the national security of the United States. It may affect domestic politics. How does it affect national security? Which is the linchpin, the required trigger under that statute for bypassing Congress and authorizing an expenditure that Congress hasn't approved or even seen yet. And it's even more to the point, right, that this Congress would have

approved it regardless. Yes. It wasn't as if you have a hostile Congress or an adversarial Congress and they weren't going to approve this. But the idea of what you're getting at, though, judge, is what is the national security concern here? And what is it? If anything, this makes us much less safe. This is engendering hostility towards the United States. Nations are seeing us take part in this deliberate, systematic, organized murder of civilians in a kill zone, in a kill box. I mean, these people in Gaza are unable to escape and they are just being bombed every day with bombs supplied by the United States. As I reported last week, Israel has used 22,000 bombs to kill Gazans that were provided to it by the US. So how is our position standing with Israel as so many on Capitol Hill and so many in

the media want to trumpet? How is that making us safe? The rest of the world is seeing us take part in this genocide and they see our lies, they see our hypocrisy, they see our double standards, so they're not going to trust us. And then you have the whole aspect of nations will say, look, it's either with them at we are being put into a spot where we are going to be faced with some really awful choices in the future, very limited choices as well, because every time we do something like this, like continue to support Israel by sending them 25,000 more tank rounds or 15,000 more bombs, we are cutting off other avenues of dialogue, cutting off future diplomatic opportunities because nations are realizing that we cannot trust the United States. They will never be on our side. And we have to basically link arms and find a way to either avoid the U.S.,

undermine the U.S., or outright oppose it. So I want to play for you a couple of clips. The first is a gentleman named Robert Wood, who's the deputy American U.S. ambassador to the U.N., purporting to defend the no vote that he cast. Obviously, he's doing what the administration he works for wants him to do. And then three very interesting comments from officials in the Middle East, two foreign ministers and one prime minister. Chris, you can play them back to back, starting with the American deputy ambassador. Although the United States strongly supports a durable peace in which both Israelis and

Palestinians can live in peace and security, we do not support this resolution's call for an unsustainable ceasefire that will only plant the seeds for the next war. We believe there is a moral obligation toward the international community to stop the killing of the Palestinian civilians. And it's the first time, at least in my lifetime that I have seen that calling for a ceasefire became a controversial issue. I'm not sure how deep is the understanding here of what's happening on the ground in Gaza. I mean this war has broken every record. Largest number of journalists killed.

Largest number of hospitals destroyed. Largest number of medics killed. Largest number of UN employees killed. Our message has been very clear. There needs to be an immediate ceasefire. There needs to be a cessation of hostilities. And we need to have immediate access for humanitarian aid. It is not acceptable. How deep is the universal understanding, or at least the understanding in the Arab world,

of what's going on in the ground in Gaza? Aren't the leaders of Iran, Egypt, Jordan, terrified that the lust on the part of their people to intercede will become overwhelming? I think they are. I think they are. I mean, as much as we can see what's happening in Gaza, the population throughout the Middle East because of their much broader Arabic and, you know, regional networks sees it in much greater detail. And they have a much greater context and much greater appreciation for the background because it has been occurring, you know, in front of them for generations. And so I think that understanding of what's occurring there and the moral horror of it is leading exactly to that point, Judge, where the leaders of these nations are saying, we either have to utilize this anger, this frustration, this rage for our purposes, or it will pull us down. I mean, weeks ago, we were talking about Erdogan,

right, of the president of Turkey, speaking in front of what a million people, maybe basically, you know, delivering a call for war, it sounded like, you know, declaring Israel, you know, a war criminal state, you know, saying he will defend the Palestinian people, he'll defend the Gazans. And so, you know, these various leaders see this, they recognize this in their population, they realize that they have to use that energy somehow for their purposes, or that energy will become like a mob, basically, right, and overtake them. And my great fear in all this is, as it goes forward, is that this is going to be the impetus for those nations to get nuclear weapons.

Here's the rather pithy and direct, like you, pithy and to say, we will give you a just peace. It's called the cemetery. We'll the second point I want to make, and I think this is very important, there is a concept or a word in Arabic called asadiya. This is a word you don't hear much anymore, but it's a word that refers to social cohesion, group solidarity, or unity of action. It is a word that was used by Ibn Khaldun, probably the most famous historian of the Middle Ages, who happened to have been an Arab from Tunis. His work had a profound impact on the West. Everyone from Toynbee to Oswald Spengler all studied and read his works. And in it, he says, those who have not seen the power of Islam

do not appreciate it. Today, we have historically viewed, and today we view Islam as weak, a loose grouping of states that are more interested in killing each other than they are doing any damage to anyone else. There have been a few exceptions, but that's essentially the analysis. Asadiyah, however, is emerging in the Arab world. It's emerging because of this war for Jewish supremacy in the region that we are supporting. And it is bringing states and peoples into coalition now that historically have not cooperated in any meaningful way for centuries. What do you think? I think it's certainly unifying people in the Middle East that haven't cooperated for centuries.

Well, I mean, if you look at, say, the Arab-Israeli wars of 48, 67, 73, you had Israel fighting multiple nations, right? So there was that cooperation there. But what you had occurring after that, largely through American diplomacy, was a cessation of that cooperation. You know, through American diplomacy, you had nations, Jordan, Syria, Egypt, you know, no longer unified in their stance against Israel in a way that you had seen in the 40s, 50s and 60s. many of us will describe as deliberate diplomatic malpractice, has done has been to restrengthen those bonds, has been to give them a unity of purpose, a reason for working together. So very much to what Colonel McGregor was saying there, there's a unity here that is based upon something that goes beyond, you know, I think even just simplistic nationalist or pan-Arabist desires. I mean, again, what we're witnessing here is a moral horror. What we are seeing unfold is this

organized murder of people who are trapped. I mean, this is a slaughter. And so, again, the people look up at their leaders and they say, why are you not doing something? Why are we, why do we have to sit and watch this occur? And as much, again, as much as we see this happening through our televisions, our phones, our computers, those who live in the region see it in a much more, which much more brighter detail than we do. Switching gears to Ukraine, President Zelensky, here he is. Chris just got this. This is just a couple of minutes old.

President Zelensky on Capitol Hill with Senator Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader of the Senate, and Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader of the Senate. Both parties wanting to give Joe Biden the $68 billion that President Zelensky is asking for and that President Biden is asking for. What are they going to do with $68 billion? The military is at a standstill. They lost 500,000

troops to death or injury. The government has virtually collapsed. Elections have been canceled. The borders have been canceled. The borders have been sealed. What are they going to do with $68 billion? Well, a large part will go to pay for salaries so people don't walk away from the front lines. People don't walk away from assembly plants. People continue doing their jobs so that the economy stays functioning and so that the great pyramid of corruption there doesn't start collapsing. Because once the money starts coming in, the corruption that's there, that keeps the system running. And remember, Ukraine before the war was one of the most

corrupt nations in the world. And war only exasperates such a thing like that. So it keeps everything moving. It keeps everything greased, if you will. But then a lot of that money, Judge, is going right to the American military industrial complex. So a lot of this money is going towards future purchases of weapons, future contracts, artillery shells that will be delivered in 2026 or 2027. So, I mean, there's a lot that can be done in terms of purchasing things that the Ukrainians can use right now, no doubt about that. But then you get into the other aspect of who's going to use this. As we've talked about for quite a while now, they've been running out of manpower. They're running out of men. So if you were able to somehow find the

vehicles, the munition, the weapons, which have run sparse across the world, who is going to man these things? Who's going to utilize these things? And so they're in a very desperate place. But again, this is something that I think people who've been watching your channel for, you know, quite a while now have, you know, understood, right? That this is, you know, as you continue to pursue these reckless and dangerous and so poorly thought out policies, the consequences become more severe and your choices become much less. You know, what other options do you have? And that's the point we're at now in Ukraine of what other options do we have? So even if they do get that $60 billion, there's no more Leopard tanks to deliver to Ukraine. It took us almost a year or nine months to get them 30 Abrams tanks.

How many more can we give them? We're producing artillery shows as fast as possible, and that's far below the rate that they need. The same with air defense missiles. So a lot of this money is going to be used to grease the system, keep things in motion. It's going to be used to make sure that Lockheed and Boeing and Raytheon get their cut. And then part of it's because we have no other choice, because the only other choice you have is to negotiate with the Russians. And that negotiation process, because of all the decisions that the West has made up to this point, has made it so that the Russians have total control over that negotiation process. We're going to play two

clips for you now. One is President Putin sort of off the cuff, it looks like he might even be at a cocktail party, but being rather eloquent about how stable and how strong Russia is compared to Ukraine. And then we're going to play President Biden not looking very presidential, but threatening if the aid to Ukraine is not authorized by quote, extreme Republicans in Congress, close quote, you're going to end up seeing American boys fighting Russian boys. First Putin, and I'll read the subtitles, and then Biden. Our industry is gaining momentum. We've started producing several times more. I know that we still don't have enough

of everything, but Ukraine is running out of weapons. They don't have their own foundations. When you don't have your own foundations, you don't have your own ideology. You don't have your own industry. You don't have your own money. You don't have anything that's your own. But when you don't have a future, we have a future.

SECRETARY BLINKEN Extreme Republicans are playing chicken with our national security, holding Ukraine's funding hostage to their extreme partisan border policies. If Putin takes Ukraine, he won't stop there. It's important to see the long run here. He's going to keep going. He's made that pretty clear. If Putin attacks a NATO ally, then we'll have something that we don't seek and that we don't have today, American troops

fighting Russian troops, American troops fighting Russian troops if he moves into other parts of NATO. PAUL JAY Does he know what he's talking about? Six months ago, he said, Putin has lost, Putin has already lost. Now he says if Putin wins, there'll be no stopping him. Putin hasn't given one hint or iota about wanting anything more than NATO out of Ukraine. He doesn't want to govern Ukraine. He doesn't want to govern Poland. Correct.

Correct. But, you know, what a terrible series of clips to watch there as an American, right? You see the Russian president who you look at the man and there's a confidence there. There's a determination and it's built upon his successes that have come because they prepared, they planned, they were smart about things. Let me see what he did there. He was in the West Bank and the cap of one of the honorary guards fell and the president of Russia stopped and put the cap right back on that fellow's head. You talk about confidence. Go ahead. Go ahead. Right. And then you watch the American president and you're anxious

that he's not going to have another moment. There's not going to be some type of episode. He's not going to misspeak or fall down. And then what he says is just this mashed up collection of the worst tropes and myths and rhetoric from the Cold War combined with the global war of terror and rolled all up and then thrown out here that if we don't fight them over there, we're going to have to fight them here. And they'll be speaking Russian in Paris. You know, I mean, all these, just the worst rhetorical aspects of both the Cold War and the global war on terror are coming out of Joe Biden's mouth. So if you're an American watching this, I mean, how do you, how do you have any confidence that our government is going to do anything that is going to result in anything other than catastrophe going forward? Because looking at what we have has brought us

here again, everything that, again, everything going forward is dependent upon what has brought us here. So the same thing as we talk about with Israel and Gaza, and then as well as the larger American role in the world, as we see that deteriorate, you know, when we look at Ukraine and we say, okay, the reason we are in this position is because of the decisions we have made, just as the Russians are in the position they are in because of the decisions they have made. And you compare those two and you say, my God, one side actually prepared, one side planned, one side came up with some strategic goals, and the other side just was concerned about what sounds best on an MSNBC nightly news clip. You know what I mean? So this is why we're dealing with the reality of it. And again, the options are extremely limited. And for the Americans, they're not good at all.

Matt Ho, thank you, my dear friend. Always a pleasure. Thank you for your analysis in these two hotspot areas. We'll see you again next week. All right. Thanks, Judge. You have a good one. Of course.

Of course. All the best to you. Great analysis. Coming up at 3 o'clock Eastern uh lieutenant colonel karen kwatkowski and i know you've been waiting for 4 30 eastern scott ritter while um matt and i were on uh judging freedom broke 248 000 subscribers my thanks to those of you that pushed us over that number about 2 000 to go before christmas we I don't want to boast because it's you that's doing this, not me. We may hit it by Friday.

Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. Thank you.