Judging Freedom - Matthew Hoh : Humanitarian Fallout - Aid Suspended, Gaza Under Fire

Episode Date: October 2, 2025

Matthew Hoh : Humanitarian Fallout - Aid Suspended, Gaza Under FireSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Today is Tuesday, October 2, 2025. Matt Ho, will be here with us in just a minute on the fallout over the effort. to bring food, water, and medicine to the suffering, starving, dying, Ghazan people. But first this. My friends, if you care about your liberty and your right to control your own future, you need to hear about this. From October 10th to 12th, Mikkel Thorpe, host of the Expat Money Show,

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Reserve your free ticket at expatmoneysummit.com. And if you want VIP access with special perks, including lifetime replay access and exclusive VIP panels, use promo code judge for 20% off your upgrade. That's expat money. Summit.com promo code judge. Matt, welcome here, my dear friend. Before we get to the tragic events of the flotilla and the so-called American and Israeli

humanitarian efforts in Gaza, a question or two about Ukraine, why do you think the President of the United States is so ostentatiously authorized American? intel, civilian, CIA, and military to guide the use of American weaponry in the hands of Ukrainian military to reach deep inside of Russia. And can you imagine if the reverse were the case coming from Mexico or Canada? Right. Thanks for having back on, Judge. I mean, I hate to say it, but I really feel that in this case, it's because his feelings are hurt. He made what he feels is a good faith effort in his role as the greatest commander-in-chief for peace, or however he wants to describe it, you know, whatever delusional thing he wants to say about himself.

But I really do believe that he feels he has been insulted. It doesn't help. And we discussed this, you know, his inauguration, the people around him have all been anti-Russia. They've all been hawks on this war. So as I think we, you know, as many people said, the danger here with Trump's outreach is that when he demands things from the Russians and tells him this is the way it's going to be, he's going to get upset when they say no, as everyone would expect them to,

because they have clear objectives they're trying to obtain, and they don't view his demands on them as being something worth their time or effort. So, you know, then he's going to turn to his advisors, all again, these men and women who are anti-Russia, and they're going to say, you know, Mr. President, that was a great try. you know, we told you, you can't talk to these people. The only things the Russians understand is force. And so he's going to try to do the same thing that the Biden administration did, the same thing that the Trump administration did more or less during his first term,

the thing that the bomb administration tried to, and it's not going to work. We know that. We've seen this movie before. But I think ultimately it comes down to his feelings being hurt for lack of a better or more sophisticated way of explaining it. Wow. I realize that of the two of us, I'm the lawyer, but you're the Marine Corps captain. Is the United States at war with Russia if our troops in Germany are guiding these missiles?

If our CIA on the ground are guiding this missiles, if the missiles were made in the United States and the projectiles that they hurl were made in the United States? Well, like the German president said a few days ago, Friedrich Mertz, said Germany is not war with Russia, but we're not at peace either. And that's certainly the case. As you mentioned before, Judge, if any other nation was doing this to us, doing all the things you just described, by God, there would be a military response from the United States. The reality is this is a proxy war. This is the way that the United States has learned to fight wars. It provides a number of benefits to the Americans. I mean, I feel like we haven't heard this mantra.

in a little bit of time, but go back a year or two, and you have both Republicans and Democrats and the Congress saying, this is the best money we've ever spent. We're killing scores of Russians and not having to sacrifice any of our own people, right? So that's Lindsay Graham's line. But that's also too. Richard Blumenthal said it. I mean, this is, this is a number of them have set it across the board. I'm pretty sure Adam Schiff has said it, you know, maybe even Adam Smith has said it, the ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee. You know, so, you know, It is. It's a proxy war that is the way or the modus operandi for the way the U.S. Empire carries out its wars now because wars are too costly for the American people to accept. And so we have seen through successive administrations, really beginning in the Obama administration, this desire to hide the American role in the war, to outsource the American role in the war while still receiving the benefits. So what better way than now? And we've seen this turnaround by J.D. Van, where he wants now to send Tomahawk missiles because, you know,

when he was asked to explain his turnaround on that, why are you now willing to give Tomahawk missiles to the Ukrainians, Mr. President, Mr. Vice President, Van said, because the Europeans are going to pay for him. So now it's even more, more grotesque in the sense that this is really just about some type of transaction, about some type of profit, without any type of strategy behind it, without any type of thinking behind it and certainly no understanding of the other side.

You know, I said to a friend of mine the other day, Judge, you'll like this because Notre Dame is where you went to law school, I believe. If this would be the way American policymakers go about trying to understand their opponents, their adversaries, it's roughly the same as if Notre Dame, right, to prepare for its game this weekend is not going to watch. of the opposing team, but it's going to watch the movie Rudy, right? I mean, so everything we do is based on our own mythology.

It's based upon our own vanglory. Right. That is a brilliant analogy. You know, you talk about the Tomahawks. Scott Horton was just on the show. It was a journalist, a brilliant, gifted journalist, but not a military guy.

It says, what happens if the following happens? you're a Russian lieutenant looking at the radar screen behind you is the colonel your boss hey colonel there are tomahawks coming toward Moscow we don't know if they have nuclear weapons on them or not what do we do colonel and that's the point that people may not be familiar with there is no way for an adversary for the people who have these missiles launched at them to know whether those weapons have a conventional warhead on them or a nuclear warhead on them. There's no way to tell. There's no sign on the side of the missile. There's no flashing light. There's no special radar that can detect the thing. No, that's simply it. The good thing is that the Tomahawks are

rather slow compared to especially some of the latest hypersonic missiles we're seeing coming out of Russia, China, and Iran. So in a lot of ways, they are outclassed. I don't think the Russians are too terribly concerned with the Tomahawks because they are an older midway. And what we would give them, I'm sure it would be the older variance because that's what we do. We do not provide any of our newer weapon systems to the Ukrainians because we're afraid that they're going to fall into the Russians' hands and that will give away some of our secrets. For example, the M1 Abrams tanks that we provided to Ukraine.

Everyone remembers that a year and a half, two years ago, the hysteria over getting them the Abrams tanks and how if we just get them Abrams tanks like all the other wonder weapons, they're going to win the war. Well, my understanding is that three quarters of those tanks have been destroyed by the Russians and the other quarter don't go near the front line anymore. But those tanks, what we did with those tanks was we made the armor on those tanks to give them a tank that doesn't have the top secret armor that our tanks have. I mean, so everything we've been given the Ukrainians, I mean, if you're a Ukrainian, you should really be upset about this because you've not received first, you know, the highest,

great of weaponry or frontline weaponry as we consider it. The Attackams missiles, for example, another wonder weapon that was supposed to win the war for the U.S. We only started giving them the attack him's missiles when we started receiving the replacement for the Attackams missile, the Prism. And just to complete the loop on all this, Judge, the attackums, I think, cost about a half million dollars a piece. The Prisms, which replaced them, cost $2 million a piece, right? So to give away, to clear out your inventory of attackers, to make room for who's benefiting that when those weapons cost one and a half two times, right? What they were placing, right?

So, I mean, the whole thing is just a grotesque cycle of profit and stupidity that reinforces itself. What would your superiors have done in Afghanistan if the Russians were backing the Taliban? Well, that was one of the great lies about the Afghan war. You know, the other day, Judge, because, you know, I've got that film we talked about last week, Bodyguard of Lies that's out on Paramount Plus, I feel good. I got that plug-in. I feel like I'm a professional. It's a great film.

It's a terrific film, and everybody should watch it. Thank you. So, but, you know, since the Afghan War, there's not one thing I can think of, sincerely, that wasn't dominated, controlled, manipulated by lies or falsehoods or some form of deceit. And one of the things that was done in the last several years of the war, in order to try and maintain American presence there, as well as making the Afghan war congruent and fit with the Russiagate scam that was going on, was to say that the Russians were paying the Taliban to kill American soldiers. I mean, it's just a complete falsehood, completely imaginary, completely fantastical. the American media went along with it for months. And then, of course, when I was known to be a total lie, a fabrication, the American media

never said a thing about it again. But, you know, that type of lying, you know, is what propels wars. And so we've seen that type of stunt or those allegations or similar ones being made now to try and induce the United States and NATO to become more aggressive to actually enter into the Ukraine war. We've seen it with these alleged drone incursions into Poland, the supposed overflight of Estonian airspace, this incredibly fantastical story about Ursula Vandalayan's plane, her GPS being jammed, and she had a circle, I mean, on and on and on. And so we've seen all this. And going back to Russia blew up the Nord Stream pipelines, you know, as, you know, mechanisms, maneuvers, false flags, however you want to describe them, as an effort to try and push the American.

Americans and NATO actively into the war because that's what the Ukrainians need to not win the war, but just to continue to survive it. I'll say this one other things. I just saw these numbers earlier today, Judge. In September, Russia launched 5,800 drones against Ukraine. Ukraine was able to launch 2,700 drones or something like that. So you see this great mismatch. in their industrial capacity.

And that's just not, and that's, that's just not Ukraine providing those drones. That's all of NATO providing their help. And so three and a half years into the war, just for this one example of the drones, which have become the dominant storyline in the war in many ways, Russia is by a factor of more than two building and able to operate and use drones, then Ukraine, three and a half years into the war. What does that tell you about western capacity, the Western industrial abilities, you know?

And so I used to say years ago, because that's how we can refer to the war now, right, years ago. I used to say that the only way that Ukraine can win this war is if a NATO army, and I mean NATO army, I mean like two to the three core of mechanized infantry and armor. Oh, we lost you, Matt. All right. you were, when you come back, you'll tell us what you meant by a NATO army on the ground. I guess your argument was that it would require a massive invasion on the ground.

Here he is. All right, Matt, you're back with us. We asked that you were describing the size of the army. But to be honest with you, I want to move on to the humanitarian issue. I was going to ask you about, I think, Seth, and Trump, but their behavior. before the general's was reprehensible. Well, I think, Judge, that the behavior of the generals was reprehensible, that they all sat there silently.

You know, and there's a lot of poopla. There's a lot of nonsense, particularly in liberal blogs and podcasts and television shows, about how the generals are going to save us. And that's complete nonsense. Those men and women have sat silently as Trump fired their peers for no reasons of them in politics, race, or sex. They've sat silently as Trump has extraditionally massacred and murdered people. right they've sat silently as the american military guardsmen active duty marines have taken part in the

detention the brutalization the humiliation of american citizens legal residents immigrants all throughout the u.s those men and women have sat silently for that and they sat silently through his speech when trump gave them the opportunity to get up and leave and not one of them did and so people think their silence was some kind of of f you to trump you just don't understand the military they're Their silence was obedience. What would Douglas MacArthur, Dwight Eisenhower, George Pat, and Curtis LeMay have done, taking the stars off their shoulders and left? I, you know, you grieve for this nation.

I mean, we were discussing it before. This is the government our founder, the founders warned us about. We have secret police throughout this country who are detaining, beating, humiliating, arresting, not just immigrants, and this shouldn't be doing that either. We have, we have laws, we have a constitution, but as well, American citizens and legal resonance. It's criminal what's occurring. Yeah.

The Trump, Whitkoff, Kushner plan for the permanent degradation of the Palestinian subjugation of the Palestinian people under a neo-colonial. Governor General by Tony Blair. I mean, you couldn't make this up. You couldn't put together a worse cast of people if you tried. Maybe if you throw in George W. Bush, you know, I mean, like just to be a little. Although our dear friend, Colonel McGregor says, the only person worse than Blair on Iraq and Afghanistan was Dick Cheney.

Blair was second only to him. Sure. You were there in those days. But anyway, I mean, where the hell is this going to go? Well, this is a, I haven't seen your other guests this week, Judge, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say I'm probably in agreement with them, right? You know, to sense that this is a not much of a limb. Yeah, this is such a transparent, parent farce, but it's an effective farce, right? And it's meant to provide grist for the narrative.

We've already seen its effectiveness. The Italians who had supposedly, the Italians who had sent naval ship to escort the global Samud Flotilla that Israel just illegally hijacked and kidnapped last evening. The Italians turned their warship around and left the flotilla because in the words of the Italian Prime Minister, this type of thing is no longer needed because we have a peace deal, right? I mean, you see in the headline in New York Times today about how Palestinians in Gaza demanding peace deal.

I didn't even bother to read the article because I know it will be just. just, just, you know, not journalistic. What happened on the high seas to this flotilla? Was an American captain, an American like you and I and many people watching us now, arrested by the IDF in international waters for trying to bring food to the starving? Absolutely. There are many Americans who were arrested, who were kidnapped, really. I mean, that's what happens.

If this was Somali pirates that did it, we'd be using that language. and it's no difference than what the Somali pirates have done. So in many Americans, there was a bolt full of American veterans, chief among them, Greg Stoker, who was an army ranger with combat deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan. You know, they have all been put into Israeli custody now, kidnapped, taken in illegally into Israeli custody. And, you know, the affront here, again, it, it, it, it, it, is. It expands through the media reporting on this, where if you read, again, I'll go back to the New York Times, because I did read their story today about this.

You have to read, get to like the bottom quarter of a long article. So you've got to get to like paragraph 15 or so, right, before you hear mention that Israel is blockading the Gaza Strip, that this is a, you know, I mean, don't use the terms of legal or against international law or anything. You certainly have to read between the lines to understand that Israel is full. forcibly starving people to death. The way the American media describes it is a humanitarian crisis as if it's wildfires or an earthquake or a tornado or something like that. You know, so the fact that you can have this effort, which is, you know, there are a few things you can point to and say, and point to the righteousness of as you can this effort.

I'll also include so the Yemenis in their defense of the Palestinians by fighting Israel. But, you know, this effort by hundreds of humanitarian in more than 50 ships, 52 ships, I think, to try and break a siege, to break a blockade, knowing full well what the Israelis can do and have done. In 2010, the Israelis murdered 11 humanitarian activists who are trying to do the same exact thing, bring relief into Gaza, try and break this illegal siege. One of those who were killed, that was killed by Israeli commandos in international waters, was an American citizen. And guess what Barack Obama did about that, right? Nothing. Yeah, nothing. So, and I think that's the state department on anything about this decorated veteran and the other Americans

that have been kidnapped by the Israelis? No, they won't do anything about it. They won't do anything about it. At best, they will send a low-ranking counselor officer to the Israeli prison to make sure that they've got the names correct of who the Israelis have. And that's about, that's about all we can expect. How do they get out of jail? In the past, they are either immediately taken to the airport and put on a flight and sent home, or they're run through a quick kangaroo court process that lasts a couple days and then deported. They are almost always banned from life, from entering Israel or Palestine. You know, many of these people, people like Kuwaita Aroth, who is one of leaders of this effort.

This is Hueta's, I don't know, eighth or ninth attempt at trying to break the siege. She's long-in-banded from trying to go there, so it's not really an effective deterrent. But now, from my understanding this time, Judge, according to Itmar Ben-Gavir, who is the national security minister for Israel, that these people will be treated as essentially adjacent to terrorists, that they're going to be handled more severely. But they're unarmed and they were nowhere near, there were nowhere near Israel. they were in international waters. Exactly, exactly.

Carrying, carrying food, medical supplies. Many of them are health care workers, others development specialists, people who have been doing humanitarian work, life-saving work for their entire life. Many journalists were on board this as well. We'll see what the Europeans do because we have, and I hope they pull through with this tomorrow, there are calls for a general strike throughout Europe in support of the flotilla.

And hopefully we'll see that. We saw that a week and a half. ago or so in Italy, where they had a successful wave of strikes, and hopefully we'll see that. We're not going to see that here. I'm not going to even try and I shouldn't even say anything about that. But in Europe, we may see that. And that can then put pressure on these incredibly unpopular and weak and pathetic governments throughout Europe. And that's what we need to see. Because you're not going to, to break away the Americans, the Americans will be the last to break away from Israel. But if you could start to really break away the Europeans, well, then you may start to put

some pressure within Israel, I believe, on some of the not as far right parties, because, you know, as Max Blumenthal will tell you, every party essentially matters at all in Israel is a right-wing party. But, you know, you may start to see some effort. But even with that, I'm skeptical because of that relationship between the U.S. and Israel and how supportive, how how meaning. that support is. Wow. Matt Ho, it's a pleasure, my dear friend. I almost forgot in the time that you were engaged in producing your documentary.

What a wealth of knowledge and personal courage you have. I hope you'll come back and visit with us again next week. Absolutely, Judge. Thank you. Real pleasure. All the best to you, my friend. And coming up one more podcast in this long day, our cleanup hitter at 3 o'clock, Professor John Mearsheimer, Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom.

Thank you.